Two Wheeled Tales: Start of Year Mileage!

I realize that at first thought, this post's title may seem erroneous. Shouldn't my starting mileage be the same as last year's ending mileage? The answer is...yes! So you are correct; my title is wrong. But I'm not going to change it because I'm sure you know what I mean. Let's just move on, shall we?

The weather on New Year's day was clear...and COLD! Mid-20's, but dammit, this is tradition! So after a nice warm shower to bring up my core temperature, I rolled the bike out and off I went.

Yes, the Santa hat is still on the helmet. It, too, is tradition on this day!

I wasn't sure where to head to. I kicked around a couple of ideas, but none of them really "hit" me, so I puttered around locally for a little bit. But then I said screw this, I want to get some miles on, let's go somewhere!

I decided to head to the Cape for no other reason other than to dip my toes into the ocean. [Shrug] It seemed like as good a plan as any. Making my way to the highway, I eased up the on-ramp, checked for lane clearance, and buried the throttle.

Wa-Hoo!! Yeah man! This is more like it! Clicking through the gears, I sailed easily past cars and found a nice open stretch of highway with nothing close in front or behind me, and settled into the middle lane for some high-speed highway cruisin'.

The down side of blasting along the highway is the chill seems to work its way in all the faster. I'd tucked a couple of those air-activated charcoal hand warmer things into my socks, but I'd forgotten to put them into my gauntlets. Still, my hands seemed to be doing ok for the most part, so I kept on keepin' on.

Once I crossed over the Bourne bridge, I was next faced with the dilemma of finding a beach. Rounding the rotary, I opted to pick up Sandwich Rd and then the Mid-Cape Connector onto Rte 6. I figured I'd ride a bit and just see where the road took me.

As the exits rolled by, I figured hell, maybe I'll just ride all the way to the end (Provincetown). I've never been there, and this would give me a chance to check it out off-season, without all the traffic.

Another down side to hammering the highway is the bike becomes a very thirsty girl when the throttle is cranked. As such, it became apparent to me that I did not have enough fuel left in the tank to make it to P-town without having to refill along the way.

I peeled off the highway at the next exit and picked up Rte 6A. I assumed there would be gas stations along this road and fortunately, I didn't have to ride too far before finding one.

After filling up, I turned back to take pictures of something I'd just passed on the way to the gas station. Something amazing...

Look deep into the eye...

...of a "breaching" stainless steel humpback whale!

I loved the tail...

This whole sculpture was awesome!

The other eye...

I spent quite a bit of time walking around this thing and taking it all in. It was so cool! The other things that were very cool were my hands. I'd taken the gauntlets off to work the camera and had left them on my bike. When I finally saddled back up, they were quite cooled off from having been sitting in the wind. That was bad, as they did nothing to warm up my cold hands.

So, despite only being ~20 miles from P-town, I opted to head back home. I wasn't really worried about having not made it, or about not having dipped my (now very cold) toes into the ocean. I figured the best course of action was to point the front tire towards home.

Back out on the highway, I of course opened things up again, and was home in about an hour. I didn't realize just how cold my fingers were until I tried to gas up just before home, and had quite a hard time working the pump. Not good. Also not good was how cold my toes were - when I finally jumped into the shower at the house, the hot water felt white-hot on them (but they were soon warmed up, along with the rest of my body, and were happy again).

So there you go; New Year's Day 2015 ride. I had wanted to get some miles on, and miles-on, I got.