Bike Rides and My Life List

If you have read my blog for awhile, you might be aware that I have a list of 100 Things that I would like to do in my life. On that list is the goal to ride a century (#19). If you don't know what a century is, it is a 100 mile ride (64 miles if you do a metric century).

In order to ride that far, I really need to start adding miles. After all, you don't just go out and bike that kind of distance without some kind of training.

Daniel and I (with Jack in tow) have been consistently taking 9 mile bike rides over the last few weeks, so today I asked if we could go farther. My initial goal was to up the ante to 12 miles.

We went to Hays Nature Preserve (one of our favorite places to ride) and set out. This is the first time that I have been able to maintain Daniel's pace for the majority of our ride. We even raced at a couple of points and I was able to hang with him. The last 1.5 miles I slowed down, but I still kept a decent speed.

I think the hardest part of increasing our mileage will be Jack's tolerance of being on the back of a bike. Today we rode for just over an hour and he was starting to get fussy at the end.

When we stopped, I was pleasantly surprised to discover we actually did 13.28 miles. We also managed to do 1,519 feet of elevation gain by riding up the waterfall hill at Hampton Cove. Daniel's fastest speed was 17.8 mph while mine was 16.8 mph.

I don't know if I will be able to ride a century any time soon but it has been nice to be out on our bikes on a semi-regular basis as a family.

Biking at Hays Nature Preserve and Playing at the Terrame Natural Playground

Back in May we experienced our return to biking at the Hays Nature Preserve. 

Since then, Jack and Daniel have been taking weekly bike rides at Goose Pond Colony (while I did my weekly kickboxing class). On occasion, I have been able to join them.

Today we went back to Hays Nature Preserve and explored some new dirt trails in addition to the paved greenways we rode on last time.

One of our trails took us to a Giant Tupelo Swamp. We didn't stay stopped for very long since the mosquitoes were thirsty.

Halfway through our ride, we stopped at the Terrame Natural Playground where we checked out features like teepees, a fort with a climbing wall, a music center and digging pits. 

The playground is made of all natural materials and in 2012, it became the first Arbor Day Foundation certified Nature Explore Classroom in Alabama. 

The temps during today's ride were perfect, and since we were moving most of the time, the humidity didn't really bother us (except for that stop at the playground).

After our time on the trail, we went to Chickfila for lunch. While we ate, we realized that the bottom had fallen out of the sky! I am so glad we weren't still on our bikes. I'm not sure what Jack would have thought about being caught in a rainstorm.

I am really grateful that we were able to spend some time together doing something that we all love. Especially since Daniel will be traveling for work for part of this week.

If you enjoy biking and live in the Hunstville area, we would definitely recommend checking out Hays Nature Preserve for biking (dirt or paved) and running. They also have trails for horseback riding if you happen to have horses. 

Today's ride was just under 9 miles, about a third of which was on dirt. 

Our First Bike Ride in Two Years

Two years ago Daniel and I took our last bike ride. I was 3 months pregnant and we did 10 miles on the roads close to our home. It was the last time I was on a bicycle.

Two months ago I found a baby carrier for a bicycle at a consignment sale that had all of the parts with it. For $15, I snapped it up. It had barely been used. Unfortunately we have had a lot of other things going on and Daniel needed to fix one of the shifters on his bike before we could hit the trails again.

Today he finally had the time to fix his bike and mount the baby carrier. So we took the opportunity of the gorgeous day to head to the Hays Nature Preserver in Jones Valley – about 45 minutes from our house on this side of Huntsville.

Before leaving the house, we did a practice run to make sure that Jack would tolerate being on the back of a bicycle. We stuck him in the carrier and he cried. I took a quick picture before Daniel took off down the driveway. Within moments, the tears turned to giggles. He loved it. 

They rode down the road and when they came back and dismounted, Jack cried because he was no longer sitting on the back of the bike.

Feeling confidant about a longer ride, we loaded the bikes and our gear while Jack anxiously tried to climb into the car.

We made it to the Hays Nature Preserve about 4:30pm and spent an hour and fifteen minutes exploring all of the connecting greenways (Big Cove, Hays Nature Preserve and the Flint River Greenways) as well as part of the horse/mountain biking trails that were throughout the preserve. 

We weren't planning on going off road, but the trails were too well maintained to not test the waters. 

We made it through some good mud pits and no one wrecked, so that is good :)

Jack had a blast. I think his favorite part of the experience was when Daniel went really fast. Daniel was impressed that he barely felt the bike carrier on the back of the bike. 

We were both thankful that Jack didn't balk at wearing his helmet for the entire trip and I'm pretty sure he was bummed when the ride was over.

We managed to bike a total of ~10 miles. It was a great way to end our long weekend and we can't wait to go back.