Monday morning the tide was too low to launch.  I would have had to carry my boat across 500 meters of sand to get it in the water.  It was also windy (15-20mph with gusts t0 30 from the SW).  So I needed another plan.  I decided to give biking a try.

I have my old mountain bike down on the Cape.  I decided that navigating the sand and gravel roads on the island on a road bike with skinny tires and clip-in pedals was a bit much.  I might give it a try sometime, but for now, the old mountain bike is the pick.

This bike handled the sand and gravel without any trouble.  It’s 3.6km from my house to the major road.  1.3km is sand road.  The other 2.6 is paved.  The transition from sand to paved is right at the boundary between the island and a long causeway across the salt marsh.  There is a little bridge across a tidal channel, right where between the “e” and the “u” are in the word Lieutenant on the map below.  The approaches to this bridge actually are covered by the highest of high tides and cut off the island for a couple of hours.  When I went out biking it was much closed to low tide.

Right across Route six is the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  A lovely, straight, flat bike trail along the path of railroad right of way.  It stretches for about 23 miles.  I got on at about mile 22, and I rode south 15 km.  I decided to just ride out 50 minutes and then turn around to go home for a total workout length of 100 minutes.

When I turned around, I realized that I had a work phone call to do at 11am, so I pushed the pace and cut off a few minutes.  It also actually got my heart rate up into some reasonable zone for training.

Very nice.  I think biking is a great alternative if the tides of wind are not favorable.