weekendcycling

While I didn’t get to go biking this past weekend, I was looking through some photos from this past summer and found this photo. It reminded me of another “variety” of cycling: riding at the beach.

Above: my brother and I riding on the beach

Dustin tells me that every time he heads down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina he brings his mountain bike and rides around in the sand. I guess this would work, provided that you ride down on the harder sand near the water. You can’t get too close to the water with a mountain bike, because the salt water would get in the bike and it would be a mess. So, that’s one approach to biking at the beach.

Another approach is the one pictured above. We rented these bikes, which were designed specifically for riding on the beach. They are really low to the ground and are pretty durable. These ones had two wheels, but I have seen bikes with three wheels. On the bikes we rode, you hold handles on the sides of your seat and you steer by leaning to the left or to the right. I guess you vaguely see it in the photo above. We had a good time on the bikes, and I thought they were pretty interesting.

Next time you go to the beach, this is something you can do.

The weather this past weekend was so nice that Dustin, Al and I decided to go on a bike trip around town. We left around 1pm, and ended up visiting Duke Gardens and riding one of the trails in Duke Forest.

Above: Dustin and I riding through Duke’s campus

We took Hope Valley Road north until it intersected W. Cornwallis Road, where we turned left. We took this for a short distance and then turned right on Chapel Hill Road. This road was a little congested, but after a few blocks we turned left onto Anderson Street. Anderson took us to the front of Duke Gardens. We rode around Duke Gardens, took some photos, and relaxed.

When we were ready to leave, we looked at the time and decided to ride one of the trails at Duke Forest. I don’t exactly remember which trail we went on, I just know we entered near the back of Duke Gardens and went around the golf course for a while, and then got off into the woods for a while, before we ended up at the grass parking lots across the street from the football field on Duke University Road. We returned by taking Anderson back, and then going through Hope Valley, before eventually returning to the southern end of Hope Valley Road.

We had a nice time at Duke Gardens. Lot of people were there enjoying the weather on this nice Saturday afternoon. Biking in Duke Forest was also fun. I had only been biking there a few times before, so we explored and took some new trails. There are lots of trails that you can take there; you can find any gate on the side of the road and then follow the trail in the forest. We started on a popular trail, and then took another side trail to make things more interesting. I would definitely like to go there in the future and try out some other trails.

Above: we set our bikes down to look at the map

When we got back, I looked at a map and tried to figure out where we had ridden. We didn’t have a route planned out ahead of time; Dustin brought a Durham street map with him in his backpack that we stopped and looked at a few times. You can view the route at http://routebuilder.org/qf. It came out to about 14 miles.

I think we arrived back home around 5:30pm. It was a good trip, and I enjoyed riding in Duke Forest. I’m going to keep this in mind for a weekend in the future when I’m not too busy.