Aug 11 rides

[Duck on Wheels]

Didn't have much time this morning and won't have any tomorrow, so just a short ride. Decided to try some repeats on a hill I need to conquer. It's about 1km at 5%, then a little level shelf, then another 5% for a couple hundred meters. Last time I tried that hill I had to break it up into 4 stretches for hr recovery. The time before that I cross-trained about 2/3 of the first hill. This time I only needed one break halfway up the long stretch, then did the rest and spun along the shelf for recovery before the last little climb. Did that twice, then headed home. I'm thinking I should add this as a detour on my way home from work a couple times a week. That should help. The route home is otherwise all downhill.

[Trek420]

Go Duck Go!

August 10th didn't ride ..... but swam after work. Not sure how far, lost track of the laps. Swimming's enjoyable yet dull. How do people keep track of the laps?

[Duck on Wheels]

Go Duck Go!

August 10th didn't ride ..... but swam after work. Not sure how far, lost track of the laps. Swimming's enjoyable yet dull. How do people keep track of the laps?

I keep track by swimming different strokes -- 1 crawl to warm up, then 2 breast stroke, then sidestroke, overarm side, inverted side, overarm inverted side, backstroke, back crawl, inverted breaststroke -- that's 10 lengths. Then start over again for another 10 and so on.

[SouthernBelle]

I had planned to set out at 5:30 this morning, but it being Saturday morning I was lazy so it was more like 6:40. I planned on trying to get some serious mileage if the heat would let me. But I built in a couple of bailout points in my planned route.

Although It was not a new route, I changed a section to some never ridden roads which included one particularly wicked hill. Sometimes when you keep going up and up it seems like the Twilight Zone.

Although the temp wasn't too bad at first, it started climbing and I started drinking, which is good. But as I approached a bailout point, I realized that if I turned right and went long, there is no place for many miles to refill my bottles, which were about empty. So I went left. Bought some Gatorade at the Norene General Store and about 15 more miles to home. Probably a good choice as I really wasn't sweating a lot.

Total: 48.06 miles.

[makbike]

I joined the club this morning for a 60 mile route (actually was 57 but who is counting?). This route took in many of the roads traveled on the Old Kentucky Home Tour but in a reverse manner. The first 30 miles or so were actually the tail end of the Sunday portion of the tour. As we traveled these roads I noticed I was not having to work very hard for most of it was downhill - only proving my statement that the Sunday portion of the tour is much harder than the Saturday routes. Oh well, I enjoyed the free ride.

The second portion of the ride was part of Saturday's route and it was hilly for no matter which way you travel on Routt Road you have hills to climb! The journey up Seatonville Road was as always long and hard - what a miserable climb but I made it to the top and continued on my merry way.

The temperatures today are down, only in the low 90's as we rode. We traveled a lot of beautiful roads and as always I enjoyed all the animals I spied along the way.

It was a good ride, lots of good company, a Little Debbie Swiss Roll snack at the store stop and great weather. One really can't ask for much more in a day.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I rode on my own today 32 miles over lovely rolling hills and countryside.

This was my 3rd ride testing my new shorter reach handlebars, and the longest one so far.
So far I am very pleased.
The totally unexpected bonus of these bars showed up dramatically today in that my usual quite painful left elbow did not hurt!
Usually for the past 8 months, I get elbow soreness after 10 miles and it gets steadily worse with each 10 miles thereafter, til it hurts- a LOT -just to bend it. :( It's the only real pain I experience in my biking, and it happens on EVERY ride over 10 miles.
But today for the first time in many months, I felt some mild sore twinges after a few miles, then they went away, then came back a tiny bit, then just went away, kept doing this...by the end of my 32 miles my elbow wasn't really hurting much at all!
This huge sudden change can't be anything but the new bars. YAY!!!!!!! :D

[RolliePollie]

It is quite smoky here this morning (not sure where this fire is...I think the whole state of CA is going to burn up this year) so I didn't push it. 21.2 miles and I did my easier route to avoid a few long hill climbs. My eyes were watering so bad that I had tears dripping off my chin for much of the ride. Other than that, the smoke didn't seem to bother me much.

[Crankin]

It was really nice out, but we have to leave in about 10 min. to see an exhibit at the MFA and I was lazy this morning. We did aabout the most flattish loop you can do from my house, 16.44 miles. My husband decided to do intervals and was really far ahead of me. Don't ever eat a chicken salad wrap before riding. What was I thinking? Well, my aveage was 16.4 before I climbed the hill to my house, and 15.8 at the end. But I did not feel good!
Off to the city.

[solobiker]

Well, this morning a friend and I headed out for some hill climbing. We started out at the base of one of the local favorites which is a 5 mile climb with about 1700 of elevation. After that we continued on for more hill training for about another 10 miles or so. It was a beautiful ride and we explored some areas that we had not ridden in yet. It was a short ride day, about 13 miles of hill climb and of course 13 miles down:D . We were going to continue on but decided against it as it was starting to get hot, we are supposed to be near 99 today:eek: Hope everyone is well.

[Fredwina]

I did 65 today.
One of my favorites - the club , plus another climb to make a metric out of it.

[mudmucker]

Today I did an unsupported solo metric. Well, almost - I went 59 miles. I decided I needed a break and some flatter terrain and kinder pavement and actually drove :eek: 35 minutes east to the flatter terrain. I rarely drive to ride, maybe 2-3 times a year, and now I remember why. It used to be I despised going points east of 495 because the residential population density as well as the traffic increases by orders of magnitude. Now I have this feeling going east of 190.

Anyhow, it was a gorgeous day. Last weekend I got whupped by the heat, did not have electrolytes with me, food that didn't agree with me, and subsequently faded quickly. I think I had a bit of a stomach bug through the week as well. I woke up this morning feeling crappy and with pretty low energy but wanted to put in some miles and did not want to let this gorgeous, precious, entirely free day for riding go by the wayside. I wanted kinder terrain as I didn't know how I'd feel and my stomach was still bothering me. Well, I had a great ride. You know, no land records set but happy and comfortable and worked out the stomach bug I think. I brought plenty of electrolytes and better digestable food. My route started in Lancaster, then went up to Lunenburg, over to Shirley, Townsend, Groton, Ayer, into Harvard and threw in the Fruitlands for old times sake. I used to go birding at the Oxbow Wildlife Refuge and Bolton Flats almost every weekend when I lived out that way so it was fun to ride by those places. Continued from Harvard to Bolton, Clinton and back to Lancaster. A very good day.

[KnottedYet]

Rode about 10-12 miles. To and from a class I'm taking.

Because of the class, I had to miss "Tour de Fat" (Fat Tire beer brewery guys and bikes). Very sad.

[HoosierGiant]

102.4 miles -- the century portion of Gary's Ride in Plainfield, Indiana, to support the Gary Dudley Foundation.

(Background: Indiana State Police Lieutenant Gary Dudley and Lake County Sheriff's Department Special Deputy Gary Martin were killed on August 22, 2006 while participating in a charity bicycle ride to raise funds and awareness for the Indiana chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors. The Gary Dudley Memorial Foundation was subsequently established to award college scholarships to children of police officers killed in the line of duty in Indiana.)

92 degrees; 3200 feet of climb with one hill at 19% grade and numerous others over 10%; and a snarly wind that couldn't make up its mind which direction it wanted to blow. But talk about exceptional roads!!

[lauraelmore1033]

After hearing me gush all week about how much I love the gearing of my new bike and how miraculously it has changed my attitude about hills, hubby took me out for a very hilly tour de Everett--possibly just to shut me up about it. I learned I'm still the same weenie I've always been. He took me all sorts of places I've been too chicken to ride, from the Boeing freeway to Goat Trail road (which I'm even too chicken to drive on in the car), Forest park and on to the bluffs overlooking the bluffs which overlook the Marina. I spent a lot of time whining about the fact that my *** was waaay higher than my head and I felt like I was doing push-ups in the drops, or that the climb was steep enough to make me feel like I was either going to slide off the back, or that the front of the bike was going to tumble backwards. After 25 miles of that I was seriously pooped. But I didn't have to walk a single step of it--which is a huge improvement for me!

[KnottedYet]

But I didn't have to walk a single step of it--which is a huge improvement for me!

Congratulations!!! Excellent! :D

[Righteousbabe]

I did 62 miles at the Rockwall Hot Rocks Bike Race/Rally in Rockwall, TX. The ride lived up to its name! At 8 am when we started, I was soaked with sweat just standing at the start line waiting to take off. At 9 am it was already 90...and when I finished at 12:15 pm, it was close to 100. I was really feeling the heat, too (nausea at mile 40, chills towards the end)...not a good sign since Hotter 'n Hell is only a couple weeks away. I have to get out there and do some more heat training...our summer has been pretty mild up until a couple weeks ago. And it does look like I will get my chance to ride in the heat...the forecast for the next week has our highs at 100-102.

[ibcycling]

Yea, my first ride post! I did 15 miles yesterday evening after dh got home. Nothing fab, just working on faster speed. If I bike from home I'm pretty much stuck with this route since we at the end of a road but it's a nice quiet route with a couple small hills.

[emily_in_nc]

DH and I did 40 miles on our Fridays including a trip to the post office and farmer's market. We went in the opposite direction on a lot of the roads that Bikefest Rural Heritage Tour (in NC) was going that day, so got to wave and say hi to a LOT of cyclists, who probably wondered why we were going the "wrong" way!

It was our longest ride this year and a good one!

Emily

[7rider]

On Saturday, I did a Ride Like a Girl (http://ridelikeagirl.org/)mountainbike ride with the kind folks of MORE (http://www.more-mtb.org/)at Little Bennett Regional Park (http://www.mc-mncppc.org/parks/enterprise/park_facilities/little_bennett/bennett_trails.shtm)in Clarksburg, Maryland.
This place was a bit more technical than Rosaryville, with more sustained climbing, and looser gravel and rocks on the trails. There were few hills I had to walk up - :o - and a few bridges I got off to lift the bike up onto, but otherwise, it was mostly rideable and a really nice change of pace vs. the roadbike.

[Kalidurga]

I hit the Western Md Rail-Trail yesterday with the intention of finally riding the whole thing (22.5 miles each way). For a lot of you ladies, 45 miles is nothing. For me, it was the goal that inspired me to trade in my old Schwinn all-terrain heavyweight for a lighter, more "serious" 'cross bike. It took almost two years, but on Saturday I finally had the right blend of time, motivation, strength and endurance to do it. In addition, I did it at my highest average speed yet, 15.8mph.

Despite a couple of very difficult rides this year, I've definitely shown noticeable improvement in my speed and endurance. Yes, those improvements are taking place on flat trails like the C&O and the WMRT, but they really make me feel that I'm getting stronger on the bike. With the distance goal achieved, I feel like I can shift focus now and take some more serious steps towards getting comfortable on hills.

Statistics aside, it was a great ride for other reasons. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous, with a beautiful blue sky and lots of fluffy white clouds. I started riding at about 3:30pm, so by the time I got back to the car I was able to catch the sunset in my rear view mirror on the drive home. And, while on the trail, I had some interesting animal encounters: At one point, I had to stop for a doe and fawn that were grazing on opposite sides of the trail. I whistled at them a few times until the fawn wandered over to mama's side, then very slowly pedaled past while they just stood there and watched me. Later on, a trio of wild turkeys crossed the trail in front of me. And even later, a raccoon waddled across the trail. And just for a bit of fun, I practiced riding hands-free for a bit and managed a whole 1/3 mile ;)

This ride felt like of those days as a kid when I used to head out with my bike in the morning and my folks wouldn't see me 'til dinner time, and that's a feeling that I love :D

[GLC1968]

Saturday was 102 miles for me. I had signed up to ride at Bikefest in Hillsboro, NC and since it was our first century last year, DH and I had planned to ride the century again and try and beat our time. Unfortunately, I've had some back/neck issues lately and haven't been on the bike much. I went to the ride planning on only riding the metric (while DH still did the century). I even took a book to read during my wait!

Luckily, it dawned sunny and hot, and then clouded over. Temps never topped 90 degrees. When the 62/100 mile split came in the routes (at about mile 26) I made the decision to go for the full 100. I wasn't as fast as I could have been had I trained, but it went surprisingly well anyway. Thank goodness for clouds!!

The route was essentially the same as last year, and we beat our time by 30 minutes (without consciously trying). My only issue was some sit bone soreness because I'd only ridden my saddle one other time (my mistake...but oh well). It was a fun ride and I'm super glad that I went ahead and pushed it to do the full century!

[Zen]

I did 20 rural miles with the woman who owns the Mariposa.
I've decided I want it but it will be a slow project.

She told me about being attacked by a vicious dog and actually laying on the ground with her bike between her and the dog. When the dogs owners came out she gave them a piece of her mind and they had the nerve to chastise her for using bad language in front of their kid.

Right.

She also told me of riding past a Mennonite church on a spring Sunday.They had all the windows open and were singing. It was just a beautiful moment. I can see it.

She was using clips and having a really hard time on the hills. She was in front of me on some hills and I had to laugh when I told her I'd never had to coast going uphill before.
I think she could improve her climbing a lot by going clipless.
Next time I'm gonna have her just try on my shoes and see how easy it is to clip in and out. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

It was a good ride and i got to ride in some traffic. I don't often get to practice that and it's a good skill to have.

[cyclingmom01]

43 miles of rolling countryside in hawt Georgia. Got started at 0630 to try to beat the heat.

[crazybikinchic]

60. It was HOT!!! I tried to sing "let it snow", but it didn't help much. I should be ready for the HHH in 2 weeks.