Lunch excursion

I've been trying to get at least one ride in during the week so today I headed out for a 20 mile ride. It seems that 20 miles is a good ride to do by myself. It is enough of a distance to feel like i've actually done something, but yet short enough that I don't really have to worry about a water/food stop. I checked out some new roads today; some of them were not too bad, some were not too great. Its kind of a toss up around here; lots of farm/back country roads, which equals bumpy/pot-holes/no bike lanes. 

Here are some of the things that I saw on my ride today. The first is a cool old stone arch off of Pepper Road. I believe it said that it was from 1920 or 1923. The last number was hard to read. I love that a lot of the old buildings and structures around town have the dates on them. I really enjoy the architecture in Petaluma. 

I turned off of Pepper Road onto King Road. After a half of a mile I came across this road sign. It made me thing of the TV show King of Queens. The next photo is the same intersection, but you can see what I mean by back country roads. I do like the farm/country scenery that Petaluma has to offer, but I do miss those nicely paved Los Altos roads I'm used to riding on with the SBB.

As I was heading back into town on Bodega Ave I saw this Humpty Dumpty sculpture. This was outside of a furniture store (which makes no sense) but there was a middle school right across the street. Either way, it was weird. One of the eyes is a clock.

Once I got into town I stopped at Bici Sport, which is most likely going to be my choice for my local bike shop. The guys here seem to be very helpful. Hopefully they have some good mechanics in case I ever need it. I purchased some chain de-greaser for a project I have going on (i'll post more about that later). 

Here are some things that I learned from today's training ride:

1) Petaluma is a great place to train for riding with wind resistance. Man is it windy here! 

2) An unexpected dog bark from a moving vehicle is startling.

3) Being startled on a bike is not much fun.

4) Generally, drivers are nice and give you some space on the road. However, the UPS truck that zoomed past me today felt very close. Not cool, UPS! 

5) Watching for parked cars that may expectantly move is a good practice. Had to swerve around a truck that was backing up and didn't see me (either he just couldn't see me coming or he didn't even look).