Happy New Year!

Kara's Bianchi Bike...notice her new shoe covers that zip up



My flag that I constantly get made fun of for...



Kara's homemade Kyle-like sock cover

January 1, 2011

Happy New Year! I'm thrilled to create and publish our first post for this bicycling blog. We live in Eastern Arkansas and are road and mountain bikers as well as swimmers, runners and p90x-rs. The founders of the club are me, self appointed president, and Kara, my fabulous sister-in-law (most of you will know her from my culinary blog) is vice-president. I've been dying to get the road bike back out so Kara and I hired a babysitter and went on a quick 20 mile, brisk bike ride this first morning of the new year. I was thrilled a few days ago when the weather forecast was for clear skies and 48 degrees. Well, on the ride, the dang wind came up and made me re-examine my body wear. Yes, a road biker for nearly 2 years, I have never worn socks ever in my clip in shoes. Well, I sure wasn't worried about the 49 degree projected high even though it was still cloudy. When we finally go the show on the road at 10:20 (our babysitter on the clock) and were heading up one of two of the steepest hills in all of Cross County, I am not kidding, it was probably only 30 degrees. I was wearing NO SOCKS, yes, as Jackie proclaims me to be a dumb-duck which really means....fill in the blank!  I told Kara as we topped the final hill into Cherry Valley that I was warm except for my toes she said, maybe the Dollar General has some socks, it was New Year's Day after all and I was hoping they would be open. Luckily they were. And I had cash on me because you never know when you might need cash. We've been on a number of bike rides and needed money for a snack or drink if some in our group didn't fuel or pack right.

I found a pair of socks for $1 and saw those purple ones ( picture #3) and Kara suggested to wear those over my shoe to help with the wind. Picture #1 is Kara, whose mother got her those zip over shoe covers for Christmas. Kara's always had cold feet on the bike and she loved her new covers. So in the lobby of the Dollar General Kara performed a Kyle Killough act and cut the bottoms out of the purple socks so I could wear them over the shoe. It was PERFECT! We were sad Kyle wasn't there to witness Kara's idea go down but we know he'll be proud of Kara when we tell him.

When we were fitting those socks, my camera was missing from my pack on my bike...at first I was thinking why didn't "they" take my phone and just the camera? Martin said he'd lost a ton of stuff over railroad tracks in the past, so he and Jackie backtracked and said it looked like a train wreck. I lost my one of my water bottles and my camera. Luckily the camera was right in the middle of the tracks so traffic didn't hit it, thankfully!

A few months ago coming home from working a Saturday morning, I came up on two older men biking down Hwy 193. I was rounding a curve and was literally on top of them before I knew it. It totally scared me and hence, my flag (picture #2). I went to my favorite bike shop in all the land, Gearhead in Jonesboro (see my blog October 5 post http://keelisculinarytour.blogpsot.com/) and Ted hooked me up with a flag. Unfortunately, they didn't have the piece to attach it to my bike. Of course, when anyone has a bike question or needs something fixed, Kyle Killough is our man. Kyle's an avid bike rider, way more than most of us with the exception of Martin and Chuck. Kyle did the St. Jude 100 mile bike ride the same day we did the Big Dam Bridge 50 in Little Rock back in September. He also had his wife Cecilia, one of our newer riders, drove him and his bike to Little Rock recently so he and a few others could ride from Little Rock to Wynne! WOW! He and Martin camped out over the summer and averaged about 60 miles a day.  You'll hear more of Kyle soon I just know it!

I love the flag, it provides an extra challenge on windy days. And I love Kara's, new Kyle-inspired, wind socks for my feet. We made the 20 mile distance with a good 15 mph head wind to Cherry Valley and Vanndale in 1-1/2 hours. I'll post details soon of our next scheduled group bike ride, more history on us and Kara and I's group of riders as grown! Happy New Year!