Bike Adventure
We have continued to have some amount of rain every day. I got out a couple of times with Zen earlier in the day and then did some programming work. So, later in the afternoon when we had what seemed to be a break from the rain I decided to get out for an easy bike ride just to get my legs under me again.
My aim was to find the path that I have seen when driving on Highway 93. I don't know what connects to it and had planned to see if I could take the Bear Creek Trail west. But, I thought that might be flooded with all the rain we have had. So, I just started heading north and west. I ended up riding through different neighborhoods on streets that didn't continue through.
At one point I found myself pulling out to Highway 40 and I decided to just cross it and see where the road that I was on took me. I ended up on NREL's property. It turns out I reached a locked gate there; that's also where I encountered one of their security people who took my information and my picture and informed me that I might face prosecution for trespassing. I had to turn around and follow my way back the way I had come.
Once I reached South Golden road I decided to turn on that instead of continuing to retrace the path I had taken to that point. I ended up coming to Colfax at which point the road turned into Indiana. I continued on Indiana under 6th Avenue and hoped I could find a way to wind my way back home. As it turns out, I think I ended up winding about in some development. On my way back out of that development I happened to pass by a park and I took that path in the hopes I could connect with another road to get me back on track. I had to walk across a muddy patch of grass to get myself onto a road. I wound around that road some until I realized that my back tire was flat. So, I changed the tube only to find out that my pump wasn't filling the replaceent tube at all.
By now it was much later than I had planned to be out and I was drenched from being poured on for most of the time. My phone wasn't working in the rain on account of the touch screen not working when wet. So, I started to walk my way back home. I walked down a road and discovered that I was by Foothills Animal Shelter; I had actually ridden further away from home winding around in that neighborhood. As I continued I came upon a fire station. I walked into the station to ask if I could borrow a towel to dry my phone. I called Lana to let her know I was okay and gave her the directions to come pick me up at the station.
I have no idea how many miles I rode; the battery has long been dead on my bike computer. I can say that I did quite a lot of climbing on the ride. According to the way it maps out on mapmyride.com it measures about 15 miles and I did go from about 5600 feet up to a max of about 6100 feet.