March 31st rides

[Fredwina]

I had to lead the short club ride, It was a fairly small turnout. I had none lady was a bit slower, but we hung together and had 22 miles before we knew it. Hung around the coffee shop for bit, then took off. I wen two block, and head a loud "bang" My rear tube went and blew the tire off the rim:eek: I took me a while to get the tire soon on my way. I climbed part of th way up Mt. Baldy, and then went and visited a pretty park in La Verne (I didn't see Shirley, though :rolleyes:) we talking on the train about some trees that are bloom right now. I thought from a a distance that they were pink dogwoods, Well, it turn out they weren't:o Sorry, I didn't have my camera. I then headed home with 63 more miles than when I left

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I did a 20 mile ride after breakfast, sunny and forty degrees, very nice!

This afternoon DH and i did some major bike fixing/cleaning. Actually took off our chains and degreased them, scrubbed the gears, etc. All sparkling clean now. :p
I retaped and hemp-twined my handlebar and then shellacked the cork tape with 3 coats. (I had removed the tape from 1/2 the bar in order to replace the stem a couple weeks ago) Looks great now.
Helped DH with his tape end twining as well...he's now shellacking too.

[makbike]

BF and I took part in the long club ride this morning. It started in Ramsey, Indiana and wandered about the beautiful countryside. The day started off chilly and damp and I questioned my sanity. As the day progressed the sun poked through the gray clouds and temperatures began to climb into the 70's and I finally warmed up some. Unfortunately with the sun came the wind and I felt like I spent a lot of time fighting it. That said, it was a great day to be on the bike. The redbuds are starting to bloom so the rural roads we traveled were painted in purple. We also took in some other neat sights: turkey buzzards, red tail hawks, kittens, lots of dogs (my favorite being the three legged coon hound who bayed as we passed), wild turkey and lots of cows and horses. I also spied some beautiful wildflowers along the road. We took in some spring beauties, Virginia bluebells and anemones. Traffic was light which only added to the great day. We (BF and I) had initially said we would only ride the 66 mile course but as the day progressed we both decided to go for the 82 miles offered. The hills were minimal (a blessing as far as I'm concerned) and there was lots of flat roads (which I also see as a blessing). The pace was great and I seemed to settle in quickly to nice cadence. I tried to keep it somewhere around 95 today. My average speed for the 84 miles ended up at 15.6 mph which was the icing on the cake. A great day no matter how you looked at it - nice weather, great company, super roads/route, a wonderful pace, and a great wildlife show put on by mother nature.

[mimitabby]

Met KnottedYet and my DS's GF and we rode 24 miles. Knot rode her first 12 before she met us, and rode back with us on our outbound, and went home.

It was really cold 42 degrees and rainy when we started but slowly but surely it warmed up and dried up, and on the last 1/3 of the ride, there were (gasp) sunbreaks!

[Triskeliongirl]

Wow, its amazing to read that where some of you are riding it is still in the 40s. We had a georgeous day high 70s to low 80s. We had flash floods last night, so we bagged the club ride on 'river road', worried about the river flooding, and instead met a smaller group of riders from our club to ride from leon springs to boerne (tx hill country). However, as we were nearly back in the road was blocked as the cibolo creek had risen to cover the road, so we had to back track to boerne, and come in on boerne stage rd. So, I got in a bit more mileage than I planned, but it was such a beautiful day I didn't mind at all.

[mimitabby]

Trisk, we could have weather in the 40's in June!
A common lament is that we never get to show off our cool jerseys that we are wearing because we never take off our raincoats!
:D

[SouthernBelle]

Took a nice ride today and saw lots of pretty flowers, some goats, horses, cows and hills. Lotsa hills.

Went to Watertown, TN where they were hosting the tourist train which happens several times a year. This one was apparently in honor of Easter.

Got in 45.02 Miles, average wasn't so good thanks to the hills, but got some good speeds on the descents anyway. I could go faster if I didn't look at the speedometer and get freaked. :o

[Wahine]

DH and I headed out east again today to a drier area. We met up with another couple who finally made it out for a ride with us. Yipppppeeeee, I'm finally making new cycling friends here.

We rode a lovely 33 mi on rural roads with some moderate climbing. We saw a heron, pheasants, ducks, redtailed hawks, swallows, blackbirds...

and 2 squished baby rattle snakes on the road!!:eek: :eek:

The locals just said, "Yup, those ain't garter snakes."

We had a great time and now DH is napping on the couch. He's sleepy.:)

[Veronica]

We rode up Mt. Tam, which is just north of San Francisco. I love this ride. The views are amazing. I was not having a good day - my legs were strangely fatigued. But it was a gorgeous day and I was with my honey.

V.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Gorgeous photos!!
Is that your Legolas or your Rambouillet? Hard to tell whether it's orange or red from a distance...

[Veronica]

It's the Rambouillet. I swear I could feel that extra five pounds all day! But I'm signed up for a double century 5/12 so I need to get myself ready for it, which means riding the heavier bike.

V.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

It's the Rambouillet. I swear I could feel that extra five pounds all day! But I'm signed up for a double century 5/12 so I need to get myself ready for it, which means riding the heavier bike.

V.
Double century?! HOLY COW!!!! :eek:

[Aggie_Ama]

Isn't it sad that I am describing the ride today like that? After realizing we were having gorgeous day (70ish, little wind) I told DH I was up for 50 miles. BIG MISTAKE. I have been fighting a UTI (I know TMI and yes I am seeing a doctor Monday), but I honestly thought until I rode it had taken care of itself. About 20 miles into the ride I started to feel like "I MUST GO NOW." The best part is it was pretty much too late to turn back, we were about halfway in and about 1.5 hours from the nearest person who could come get us. To top it off we were in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't wait for a friend to come get me, so I rode in agony. We rode 4 miles to a gas station hoping it was normal potty needs, nope. Back on the bike and still feeling like I had to go. Great, then my knees started swelling. Then we finally get to what felt like the home stretch and got stuck waiting for them to Star Flight someone out who ran their motorcyle into the back of a truck pulling a boat. That was a 30 minute delay, hopefully they recover it was awful to see their motorcycle buddies so distraught. We finally got home to a warm bath and ice cream.

[Wahine]

Ooooooooo. AA, that sounds terrible. As I was reading your post, I started to get sympathy "I gotta go now!!" sensations. I used to get UTI very frequently, but thank goodness, I seem to have grown out of them.

Veronica, you are a climbing goddess.

[mimitabby]

Aggie, you take the grand prize on excruciating rides... get thee some cranberry juice and drink it all the way to your doctor's office!!

[DrBadger]

So, was supposed to be working on my presentation today... but my roommate asked if I wanted to go for a ride, and it was a beautiful day. My roommate just got a road bike a couple of weeks ago, but has been spinning for almost a year and is good shape, so she has taken to road riding really quickly.

Well, I had an idea of a good route to do, but she suggested that we do Old La Honda Rd. This is considered one of the premiere climbs in the Bay Area, and most road riders know their times to the top. It is 3.37miles long with an average grade of 7.3%... all up climbing 1290 ft. Very quiet road through the redwoods, lots of bikes, not a lot of cars, really narrow, and lots of switchbacks. I had attempted this climb once before (last year), but took it WAY to fast at the beginning and hit that hurl wall about a third of the way up... I ended up walking over half of it, so really wasn't too excitied about doing it again.

So, we get to the bottom of the climb, take a breather to get something to drink and I eat some sport beans and then start off. We get into our grannie gears (I love my tripple!) and I tell Amie that we need to keep the speed below 6 MPH. We ended up keeping it around 5 MPH for the entire climb.

But we made it!!! and with out stopping at all! I was even able to talk most of the way up. I really can't believe how much stronger I am this year, I think a lot of that is from spin class and BodyPump (a group weight lifting class)

After we got to the top, we of course had to go down at some point.. so rode a bit along Skyline, the road at the top on the Santa Cruz Mountains and took 84 down. That is a kind of crazy decent because there is a lot of traffic, and no shoulder so you have be willing to take the lane pretty frequently. It was a fun decent, but I found that my middle back was really tightening up during it. Do you think that is a core issue?

So, the final distance was 19.3 miles, but with lots of climbing. I have to say, I had a really good time doing Old La Honda today... I guess it is better when it doesn't beat you! I think that I will be doing it again soon :)

Guess I am really going to be working tomorrow :o

[Veronica]

Double century?! HOLY COW!!!! :eek:

Yeah, I'm targeting 5 this year. And since I also volunteer, I can get the gold thousand mile club jersey. 'Cause you know, I really need another jersey.

Thanks Wahine! My quads felt awful the whole second half of the climb.

V.

[Aggie_Ama]

PAB- Your ride sounds fabulous. What a great feeling of conquering the climb!


Aggie, you take the grand prize on excruciating rides... get thee some cranberry juice and drink it all the way to your doctor's office!!

Or the grand prize of stupidity. 50.24 miles of pure hell, ugh. I have been drinking cranberry juice like crazy all week, which I why I had the false healed feeling. Still I bought a big old bottle last night to keep drinking. Today is another gorgeous day, I wish I had gone the doctor during the week. :(

[Triskeliongirl]

Amanda, can you phone your doctor. If this happens to me on the weekend I just phone my doctor and he calls in a prescription for me. It is important to get on an antibiotic ASAP so you don't end up with a kidney infection. For pain relieve, try pyridium, which is now available over the counter (its a bladder anesthtic, makes you feel better but doesn't kill the bacteria so don't assume you are cured).

[7rider]

Or the grand prize of stupidity. 50.24 miles of pure hell, ugh. I have been drinking cranberry juice like crazy all week, which I why I had the false healed feeling. Still I bought a big old bottle last night to keep drinking. Today is another gorgeous day, I wish I had gone the doctor during the week. :(

I had an ex- who swore by the healing properties of blue cheese! He said it was the precursor to penicillin, and when I was in your situation once, he had me down an entire block of the stuff. Darned if I didn't feel better the next day. I don't necessarily advocate it, tho. Just passin' on the info.

DH and I did our "French Countryside" route yesterday (the 31st) - a 26 mile loop. Was a pretty nice day - high thin clouds and low-60's. Saw an interesting site - a couple on a tandem recumbent trike! Was pretty cool and it was definitely a smile-maker. We passed them easily on an uphill - they really throw out the anchor on the ups. But they smoked us on the downhill. At one point, we were doing 30 mph and watching them pull away!!! :eek:

Of course, that got us thinking about taking a trip to the LBS. The shop is consigning a Trek tandem. Hmmmmm......That would be one way for me to keep up with DH on the hills!

[Crankin]

We lead our second "Spring warm Up" ride. It was mostly the same people as last week, with a couple of additions. The day was beautiful; it started at about 50 and was about 55 and extremely bright and sunny at the end. But it was a hellish ride for me, as sweep. There was one woman who was so far below the ability of the others that I ended up riding most of the way alone with her. Why do people lie about their ability when I screen them? I swear, some people do not know what average speed means. This woman could barely climb at all and i clearly described the ride as a 25 mile ride, with 2 challenging climbs, with grades of 10%. We were not going fast, but I mean this person was dying on little rollers. So, with her permission, I went ahead a bit and waited for her at intersections. I did not get to interact with the rest of the group at all and Steve basically had them by himself. I have noticed that it is a certain type of person that comes on our rides when they are not really qualified; it's usually a woman (not always) who lives in the city and really has no experience riding the type of terrain that is clearly described. I know that if it was me, I would have turned around and gone back, or done the ride on my own. It had to have been miserable for her, but she made it , and so did I. My only other catastrophe is that i packed a pair or regular gloves to change into after wearing full fingered ones for the first 5 miles. i ended up packing 2 right hand gloves! My hands were hot, needless to say.
Hoping to do a nice ride later on today.