Sunday I went out for the beach loop: up Route 1 into Westerly, then through Watch Hill and Misquamicut.

Most of this ride was unremarkable. I was fighting a moderate headwind for most of the first half (up to the far end of Misquamicut). At the end of Atlantic, I turned around to enjoy the tailwind... and I actually stayed over 25 miles per hour for most of the return trip on Misquamicut. There's one stretch where the road swings around the gigantic beach parking lot and becomes four lanes: I managed 30 mph for that whole stretch, and caught up with the cars that had passed me earlier on the road!

I love the surprised looks on their faces, when I pull along side them. :-)

The tail wind helped with that, no doubt, but that wasn't all of it because I was almost completely toasted when I reached the far end of the road. My average speed was up to 21.6 for the trip (about 35 miles to that point), but I had almost no gas left for the remaining 17 miles. I recovered a little, but the average dropped most of the way back down to 20. (It was worth it.)

Stats: 51.29 miles (82.57 km) in 2h 32' 21" for an average speed of 20.19 mph (32.52 kph).

Yesterday, after helping to deal with the usual chaos that ensues when one of our cats give birth (but this time to our LAST LITTER!!!), I went out for only a very short ride. The plan was for twenty miles.

I stopped at Mystic Cycle to ask about my wheel. Graham had called on Friday to say that the hub was in and they were about to build it, so I thought they'd be ready to install it (three days later). No such luck.

The story of this wheel is so convoluted! Here's the basic storyline, as far as I understand it:

• The hub broke two weeks ago when the spoke ripped right out of it.
• Rob forgot to order the new hub on Monday.
• He tried to order the new hub a couple days later, but the company he was ordering from didn't have any.
• They finally figured out that the Shimano Ultegra 9-speed hub has been end-of-lifed (discontinued), and replaced with a combination hub that works with both 9 and 10 speed drivetrains.
• The new style of hub was ordered and finally came in on Friday.
• They tried to build the wheel and found the cracks in the rim.
• They tried to order a new rim for me, and found that the rim I've been riding has also been discontinued! NO!!!
• They called the company that makes most of the wheels for Seven's bikes, to find out if they had the rim in stock and could build it. They had the rim but not the hub.
• Mystic Cycle shipped the hub to that other company so they could build the wheel.

Now we're waiting for the fully assembled wheel to come show at Mystic Cycle. Good grief. (I don't blame anybody for this, and it's not a big deal since I'm riding a perfectly good loaner wheel.)

(If I got any of that wrong, maybe Graham will correct me...)

Don't know what's going to happen the next time I have a wheel problem. They'll probably have to replace both front and back, since the rims aren't available anymore. :-(

Anyway, it took them so long to explain this mess that I didn't even have time for a full twenty, I had to go straight home again.

Stats: 17.47 miles (28.12 km) in 52' 18" for an average speed of 20.04 mph (32.26 kph).