I didn’t go to church today because FedEx schedule the delivery of my new bike between 10 and 2. Shortly after noon the FedEx driver brought the bike to my front door and after getting inside and opening the box I got ready for today’s bike ride. I had been thinking of a possible route while waiting for the delivery and decided to ride the Forest Cove – Oakhurst – Valley Ranch route but added some extra streets to increase the mileage. One of those added streets put me in a dog sprint. I wore my Angry Dave’s Bike Shop shorts for the first time. I bought the shorts in N. Little Rock after I realized I left my bike shorts at home. I wasn’t sure how these would wear but after the ride I was please with the comfort.

Looking at the recent ride history for this route the average distance is around 28 – 29 miles. I wanted to ride more than that to chip away at my month’s goal deficit. Rolling out at 12:38 PM on my Lynskey Helix bike I rode the usual streets for this route until I exited Bear Branch Village on Sandy Forks Drive. In Kings Forest I added a loop for a few tenths of a mile. From there to Briar Berry Lane I stuck to the usual route streets. I turned left onto Old Sorters Road. In retrospect that wasn’t a good choice. Near the sorters road intersection a large black dog spotted and started running full speed on the other side of a fence. I thought he would come to the fence end and not be a problem. But the fence had a nice big hole (maybe more than one) not slowing the dog down at all. He run onto the road barking loudly getting closer to my right leg. I pedaled faster but he matched my speed the closer I got to Sorters Road I began to worry about the stop sign and traffic. What if the dog sprinted with me all the way there. Fortunately about 100 yard from the stop sign he gave up. Later I thought maybe I should’ve gave him a squirt from my water bottle. I have never done that and wasn’t sure the Polar nozzle would do that so I tested and it worked. Now for the next dog sprint I may give that a shot.

I rode north on Sorters Road to the Sorters Mill Elementary School entrance riding through that to FM 1314. FM 1314 to Porter took me to Valley Ranch Parkway. During the ride I thought the gear shifting wasn’t smooth. Stopping at the 7 Eleven I opened the SRAM AXS app on my phone, saw “enhanced” gearing was turned on and turned it off. After that the gear shifting was smooth and in the gears I wanted. The enhanced mode shifted to the next ratio which included the 48 chain ring which I don’t normally use. The rest of the ride was normal and I finished at 3:26 PM.

Checking the added 35.21 miles from today’s ride I am 3.0 days of the 26.7 miles per day average I need to reach my June goal of 800 miles with 80.13 miles so far. Only 1 day behind is good with only 2 rides for the month. Hopefully tomorrow’s ride will narrow the difference.