this was a tough ride for me. we had fun in a 'wow, is this craptacular, but at least we're doing it together' sort of way. but, as mentioned earlier in this section - the weather was craptacular. cold drizzle, cold rain, and more cold drizzle (sort of weather that my body adores for long distance runs, actually, but it was NOT liking it for a mini tour today). i was pulling ella on the trail-a-bike. bill was pulling fi in the burley. malte was on his fast road bike and i don't think he had to pedal at all to keep up with our cold molasses pace. anyway, in some ways, pulling the trail-a-bike is easier, since ella can help pedal. the big problem with it is that, unlike the burley, it does not pivot around. when you ride with it, it often feels like you are riding in a strong wind. the rigid connection causes my bike to wiggle every time ella wiggles. this is fine most of the time, but riding with a lot of other people, in the rain, when i was tired (aka a tad hung over from a late night hanging out with some of my girlfriends drinking wine, and then hot cocoa with b & b), i ended up getting REALLY tense. PLUS (have a complained enough yet?), i tend to have ulnar nerve stuff. when i pull the trail-a-bike, and have wiggle issues, i don't take my hands off the grips as often, so my hands go numb. biking with crowds of people who are not used to biking with crowds of people, cold weather, rain, etc. - my hands went totally numb today. i couldn't even shift for a while. big surprise, but this also caused me to be a bit tense. really, in the craptacular wet and cold weather, all my muscles were tense and tight and cold. we were stopping a lot. ella got too cold on the trail-a-bike, so she got in the burley for a while to warm up. this was added work for bill, but malte and i had to slow down a bit to stay together at the burley hauling pace and then we got cold. after a while, e wanted to ride again (she's so awesome!), and then i was working harder and warmed up a bit, but the slowing and stopping and riding and stopping and more stopping caused my legs to turn to rock. at the last stop, i switched to warmer gloves, and put on bill's extra wool jersey. so, i had on a fleece hat, wool gloves and fleece gloves, two wool jerseys, arm warmers, and a biking jacket that is pretty good at keeping me dry. i also had on bike capri tights that are usually great in cooler weather, but i'd never riden with them in the rain before. once they were wet, they did nada to keep my stone legs warm. now i know. i'm complaining too much. the cookies were awesome, as usual. the volunteers were awesome. the kids did great. it was a smaller group than normal, but almost everyone who was there seemed to be happy to be toughing it out ('cept maybe me! haa haa).

+ switch off with bill for pulling trail-a-bike, as we had planned. pulling the burley is more work, but it doesn't cause any upper body tension like the trail-a-bike does.

+ wear warmer tights.

+ not drink as much the night before.

+ go to bed at a reasonable hour the night before.

warm down? hell, i was trying to warm the h*** up! we rode home, and by then i was actually shaking and shivering. so was malte. we got home and all put on warm clothes. i turned on the furnace since the house was almost as cold as we were! bill make some hot cocoa (added some more b&b to mine! woo hoo!) and i made a big bowl of popcorn.


cold, rain, crowds, overall tension and cold muscles, hang over, lack of sleep, pulling a trail-a-bike that wiggles (although the rider of the trail-a-bike was fantastic!).


this isn't a race. just a very fun event. it was less fun because of the weather, but we still had a good time. this is our third year. the last two years i pulled both girls in the burley. this year was ella's first year riding her trail-a-bike in the event. she did so great and got lots of cheerleading as we cruised past people (and yes, even with our very slow average speed, we were still faster than most the folks riding). i highly recommend this event - not a race, just a good time, good cookies, good music, a good route, and a good cause. and hey, free aveda stuff at the end!