11/15/06

18 Miles with a Seven Year old.

Hmm,  I don’t normally write up short rides like this,  but to my daughter,  it was the longest ride of her life and I thought it one worth remembering.  We started out on a lovely November afternoon in Mesa Arizona just after 5 PM.   With the sun getting low we put the lights on our bikes and headed off with the intention of climbing Ellsworth road as far up to Usery Pass as Becky could go on her 14 speed Marin Hidden canyon (great bike for kids if you are wondering).  I decided we would take the direct route with traffic as opposed to the bike route that winds in and out of every back neighborhood.  Becky did just fine with the rush hour traffic and before we got too far we turned on our taillights.  The first obstacle was figuring out how to get past the freeway construction without having Becky riding in the middle of rush hour traffic (I know, I know we are traffic but she is only 7 and 10 mph is fast for her so we found a way around).

            Heading up Ellsworth she asked me to hold up on the pace a bit and I shifted my 3 speed (right hand shifter was not working for some weird reason, fixed it today though).  I also had a sticky link on my chain.  So we pulled off at the next gas station 5 miles into our trip.  Becky had been drinking from her new Camelback Skeeter really well and we bought some food to go with the water and I set to work on the chain.  A moment with the chaintool later and the link was once again flexible as it should be.  The cashier at the gas station was amused by us and told my daughter to be safe and ride on the sidewalk.  If only she knew what we had just ridden over and what we would soon be riding through!

            Of course the bike lane squeezes out just before you get up to McKellips on Ellsworth and this section is where the bonafide hill gets going.  Becky had a bit of a stomache ache so we decided to descend down McKellips rather than going up to McDowell or the Pass (she will be over that pass by the Tour de Phoenix mark my words!  She is an awesome little cyclist and much stronger than I was at that age).  So,  we had a ball descending as there was almost no traffic due to the construction at the bottom which we eventually came to.  Becky wanted to take the detour as opposed to chancing it through the construction zone so we headed up the detour.  After climbing for another mile we had the option of going downhill to the left (back into the construction zone)  or follow the detour to the right.  Seeing a car head left Becky decided we should go left too and we ended up going down the hill into the construction zone which we discovered, after much nervous tramping through the dark, was blocked by a fence that blocked passage so back to the detour we went (which Becky was very glad of,).   Eventually we ended up at McDowell anyway and went down to power where we elected to have a meal at McDonalds (which was quite tasty). 

            After that it was a cold ride home through red mountain park.  When we finally got home I looked at the mileage and Becky had a distance PR 5 miles further than her last PR.  We had ridden 18 pretty hilly miles (nothing too steep mind you).  Of course we stayed around 10 mph most of the time but for a 7 year old I find that to be quite respectful.  The night was a lovely night with my daughter and I enjoyed riding with her a lot.  I don’t ride with people a whole lot and it was fun to ride alongside her and just chat.  18 miles today, maybe in a few more years a brevet!