The longest ride to date…

Last weekend I completed a 73 mile bike ride. This is the longest ride I’d ever done, and honestly at the end of it I felt great. This made me feel even more great about my training regimen and my capacity to do the 100 mile ride in a week and a half. Here are some highlights from the ride:

1. The Waterloo Farm Museum is on the route. It appears to be run by the Waterloo Area Historical Society, and is pretty cool even from the road. When we biked past, there were signs for “Blacksmith, Soldier, and Log Cabin Day” at the museum. While that struck me as a rather odd combination of things to feature all in one day, who am I to really judge. We saw an assortment of interesting folks dressed up in interesting ways, but thought it might be rude to snap photos from the road.

2. Zou Zou’s was our planned lunch stop after the first 50 miles. I had a delicious sandwich with mozzarella, roasted peppers, and pesto. Alicia also enjoyed her sandwich, and their convenient bike rack makes it the ideal place for a stop.

3. Alicia mentioned an entertaining, but wildly functional new product they have at the store: DZ Nuts Bliss. I’ve known about the company for a long time, as they have a rather hilarious take on advertising their anti-chafing products (i.e., their slogan is “Protect your junk,” and the name of the company is derived from the founder's initials and their main focus). They’ve started making a women-specific chamois cream that, apparently, does not tingle like the men’s version. I have not ever tried the men's version, but I do not understand why anyone would want a tingly chamois cream. Their products also don’t have any petroleum derivatives in them, which is nice. The instructions for use start with “Slowly…methodically…shimmy riding shorts down to ankles (background music optional).” Looking forward to trying this out (but probably not to reviewing it in any depth here…)!