Wednesday, September 12, 2007
photo slideshow
Today was one of those gorgeous fall afternoons - warm and sunny, with white fluffy clouds in a brilliant blue sky. The breeze was a bit chilly... but it was still a great day for a ride!
I rode the Niskayuna hills, in part because I haven't been there in a while and in part because the Mendon course is fairly hilly and I wanted to get in some practice well ahead of time. I was pleased to find that the hills didn't feel too bad... hopefully that will be the case in 2 1/2 weeks too!
click for larger image
a helicopter that zoomed by as I was taking pictures of the river...
After riding the hills west of the Niskayuna Lions Park, I headed east, planning to get in a total of about 20 miles... unfortunately, a mile or so beyond the park something clattered through my front spokes and a while later when I hit the brakes to stop and take a picture... no brakes. Fortunately the trail is flat through there and I wasn't going too fast. When I stopped, I discovered that one of my front brake shoes had come loose and fallen off... and caliper brakes really don't work well with only one shoe.
After snapping some photos of the sunset over the river, I headed back to the car, taking it fairly easy. It didn't hurt that the bike path was fairly quiet by then...
To further add to my annoyance, I found a sizeable slash in my front tire when I got home... looks like I'll be ordering brake shoes and tires at the end of the week. Sigh. At least it didn't happen during the duathlon...
JMH
