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Short ride day

I took a long bike ride today, leaving around 10 and getting home around 2pm. I wasn't riding all the time -- I rode to the bridge along the bike trail and then explored the new extension into Northampton. I rode along King Street into the middle of Northampton and past to Northampton Bicycle. Then I rode back and turned right at the middle, went under the tracks and along past Joe's Spaghetti. I had a hankering for fried rice, but the Chinese places weren't open yet. So I rode back along the bike trail to Whole Foods and stopped there. I couldn't find fried rice, but I did see a weird "forbidden black rice salad" that looked cool, so I got some of that and some clam chowder. The last 5 miles were the toughest: its the endless hill part of the bike trail and then there are two small climbs at the end of the bikeway connector and by Computer Science. It looks like I rode around 25 miles, all in all. It was about the right amount for the day.

The bike trail is one of the best things about the Amherst area -- it gets a lot of use. There is work going on near the bridge to smooth out the places where roots have created rough patches along the trail. Some places are so rough that you can barely ride, but there are only a few places like that. It's a very restful way to ride a bike, without having cars zipping by just waiting to clip you.

Afterwards, I had planned on going to my office to finish off grades, but the weather is just too nice. It's sunny and cool with a very light breeze -- simply perfect weather. Maybe it will rain tomorrow and make it easy for me to sneak into the office for a couple of hours. But not today.