Shine on you crazy riders

A busy few days of gardening and cycling.  I had Friday off so I joined Dave and Paddy at 1.00pm for a burn-up  along Terry Hershey.  Beautiful cycling weather, so predictably the park was heaving with walkers, but also predictably we had the trail to ourselves more or less once we reached the dam.  Into the wind on the way back, which slowed the pace a bit.  Just to add to the fun, I got a flat and had to do a roadside repair.

Paddy and Dave went out to Zube Park on Saturday morning and had a good time, terrorizing innocent pace-lines (see Paddy's blog) but I elected to sleep in and then get going in the garden.  The replacement tomatoes are now in (half the previous crop got blasted in a hail storm), as are some basil plants and a very nice mandevilla plant that Susan picked up at Buchanan's.  We finished the day in the garden off with a dinner of tandoori chicken and naan bread on the patio.

Sunday morning found me heading out to Zube (rapidly becoming our favourite cycling area) in some pretty dense fog.  Paddy showed up late and we were joined a bit later still by Sean, a friend of a co-worker who will be riding with us this year.  The fog had cleared by the time we hit the road but it stayed cloudy for most of the ride.  It was nice to be out without leggings, heavy socks, windcheater etc.  We made good time out to Hempstead, where I saw a few black and white cows in a field and immediately thought of this Pink Floyd album cover.  Paddy couldn't name it - can you?  

A good break at a gas station near the twenty-mile mark and then back home, with a stiff cross-wind most of the way and lots of low-relief hills.  We dug deep and made it back to Zube in good order.  Paddy decided he needed to ride a few laps of the car park to get his mileage up, so Sean and I watched him from the relative comfort of our cars.

Next weekend is the Bluebonnet Express, a very popular ride which starts near Hempstead and follows some of the roads on today's route.  I'll be there and so will Sean, but poor old Paddy will be on his travels again, this time in the Northern Territory of Australia.  Apparently a friend in Perth will lend him a bike so he can get some miles in.