Lunch ride to Alice’s

Blue skies, 70ish weather, no meetings until 3pm: perfect for a lunchtime ride up to Alice’s.

For no reason at all, I noted some figures: I left Danger at 11:49am and pulled back into the garage at 1:27pm. Round-trip was 30.2 miles.

It was a pretty nice ride. Lots of strange drivers though. On my through Woodside on Hwy 84, I was behind a red pickup truck that absolutely would not budge over the speed limit (25mph). When the road started getting curvy, he gestured for me to pass him. I waved my thanks and took off at about 40mph. A couple of turns later, I noticed that he was gaining on me. By the time we were halfway up the hill, I was averaging about 45mph and that same pickup was right on my ass. I found this utterly befuddling.

I had a plain cheeseburger and a Coke for lunch. I adore Alice’s garlic fries, but that’s way too much food for just me. I sat outside, and the people at the table next to me were both smoking really disgusting cigars. They were completely oblivious to my hint hint cough cough hint hint coughs, so I had to suck it up (literally) until they left. Blecccch. Why would you sit at the easternmost table if you have a nastyass cigar and the wind is blowing from the east?

When not suffocating on cigar smoke, I spent some time writing up a checklist of Alaska stuff, mostly for tools and other mechanical stuff that I don’t want to forget. Duct tape, wire, that sort of random junk — the stuff you’ll never need if you bring it along, but will need desperately if you don’t. 😉

The ride back down Hwy 84 was pretty nice. I took a more conservative speed on the way down, and concentrated on my lines and posture. I need to revisit my wrist posture again. My hands angle inwards at the wrists so that I can reach the levers. Sadly, this makes it nearly impossible to smoothly push out on the handlebar; I end up pushing with the webbing between my thumb and index finger. I know I have an extra (broken-off) clutch lever at home; maybe I’ll see if Peter wants to help me experiment with bending the metal over the weekend. I think that I could get my hands perpendicular to the grips if the levers were closer to the grips.

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