October 28 rides

[enzed]

Since today's weather was so nice, I thought I'd explore Sydney.

Cycled 18Km from Dee Why to North Sydney (via my fav Seaforth bakery for a cafeine stop & the Mosman festival)

Walked the "seven bridges walk" from North Sydney to Prymont Park (approx 1 hour walking time). Got the free bus back to North Sydney

Rode 19Km back home to Dee Why. Along a quiet side street I drank a freshly squeesed orange juice, sold to me from some kids in their front yard. I thought 80cents was a bargain, since I was getting low on energy. One of the girls was dressed up as a witch - how cute!

How was your ride?

[cyclingmom01]

It's still way too early across the pond. I am heading out to start my 105 mile ride. I'll post the outcome tonight.

[mimitabby]

Such an enticing autumn day. All the trees in their splendor, a slightly weak sun (a haze is starting to cover the sky) casting actual shadows which makes everything else even more beautiful.
I decided to ride to the Puget Consumer Co op, 4 miles from my house to buy my favorite bread. When I ride by myself I am the fastest, and I never have to try and catch up to anyone. So I powered up a hill, feeling splendid, because no one was going to pass me. Added an extra 2 miles of hills to my ride, to add up to 9 miles total.
The first photo is the street behind my house. I live right past the little sign in the middle of the road far down there.
The second photo was taken on our ride yesterday, on the Burke Gilman trail

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

It was 45 degrees this morning, and DH and I went into town on our bikes for our usual Sunday breakfast at Ralph's Pretty Good Cafe. Afterwards, we went on a brisk cold windy ride for 23 miles.
We did a ride we call the Five Chathams. We start in Chatham, then bike through the hamlets of Chatham Center, North Chatham, Old Chatham, East Chatham, and back the Chatham again. :p
What a beautiful cold autumn day, sunny and windy! :D Glad I brought plenty of layers, gloves, a balaclava, and warm wool socks.
Last time I did that ride was about 6 months ago....and it seemed longer and hillier to me then. :cool: ;)
Broke in my brand new tires today. It felt like I was riding on velvet. :p
Love when my bike is totally silent when I'm cruising down the highway....stealth biking. :cool:

[nic840]

It was a great ride with purpose today! I coach girls U-12 soccer and we had a tournament in town...well on the outskirts of town. Perfect ride destination...18 miles to get there along the river trail. Excellent. Gave the ball bag and change of clothes to my neighbor (coach her daughter) the night before and planned to be on the trail by 7am. Had to be there for warm-ups at 8:15am. Plenty of time!!

Woke up and I did a double take at the temperature....58 degrees!! Heaven! I put on jersey, underarmour, vest and shorts and I was off. It was an incredible fall morning.
The sun rose over the river, geese were just lifting off of the water, light traffic on the trail. Perfect!
Testing out a new saddle, adjustments made on a bridge overlooking the river. Fisherman out there to try their best at the fall run salmon. Enlightening. Back on the trail.
Get to cut-off and climb one of the few hills, brave a little traffic. I pull up to the school just as the first ones on my team show up. Hah! I beat all those Mommy SUVs!! Love it! It was a free ride for me! One of the parents went out and got me some coffee...perfect morning.
We got crushed by the other team. The girls were little older than us...got to work off the frustrations by hoping back on my bike and heading back home to my two little girls!

My team was amazed that I rode to the game, the parents felt a little lazy and my workout was finished!!! Excellent morning - averaging out at 18mph for approx. 35 miles. All smiles here in Sacramento!

[makbike]

I joined the club on their afternoon ride. It was a beautiful day to be on a bike. I really thought a lot more people would show for the ride given all the rain we had last week which meant most bikes were parked for the week. However, a small but fast crowd was there and chomping at the bit to ride. The pace was blistering and I was amazed that I was able to hang on from start to finish. It was so much fun. We set up a pace line moving down River Road to help combat the strong head wind we were battling. I was really having to work to keep up with the guys but I stayed with them and the further and faster we rode the more my confidence grew. Nothing like being the only female in a pack of guys. Did I mention I had a blast! In the end we logged 23 miles and averaged 17.3 mph - a great day to be on the bike.

[Fredwina]

I wish autumn would show up! it's 92 Degrees! not goo for the fires.
Rode out to check the progress of one of my riders on a brevet, but got sidetrack by some friends. The rode over to Claremont before winding up with 32 miles

[fastdogs]

I decided today to ride from my house. Normally, when I ride, I load up the bike and drive to a park or something. I decided to brave the country roads around here. I had a mile of narrow two lane winding road before I got to hwy 30. From a car, hwy 30 looks like it's got lots of gravel shoulders. From a bike perspective, it only has gravel shoulders sometimes. It varies from no shoulder to gravel to washed out debris littered rocks and holes. Invariably, the hills were loose gravel and debris. The traffic was non stop. There are no cyclists around here, apparently they know something I didn't. I got off hwy 30 as quickly as I could, and took another narrow two lane road back to my house, only about 6 miles total. The hills were killing me, I've got to get better at hills. But the bike handled the rough shoulders and hopping on and off the asphalt. I was lucky I didn't have a flat.
vickie

[limewave]

I went for an early morning mountain bike ride with DH and his friends. It was a very cold 25 degrees. I had on tights, long sleeve jersey, full gloves, and a hat. I had planned to wear a wind vest too, but at the last minute I grabbed my post-ride sweat shirt and threw that on as well.

It was a beautiful morning. The bright leaves falling everywhere and the ground covered in frost. I rode about 9 miles out by myself (the guys are way too fast for me). Then turned around. I picked up the pace for the second half of the trail.

About 2 miles from the end, I stopped dead on the trail. Less than five feet away from me, on a low branch across the trail, was a huge white owl :eek: I thought I was seeing things. We stared each other down for a minute. And then he unfurled his massive wings and flew up to the next branch and stared back down at me. He was gorgeous.

I finished up the last two miles. Waited in the car with the heat on high for DH and gang. We stopped for real apple cider and fresh-out-of-the-oven sugar doughnuts on the way home.

It was an awesome morning.

[sundial]

I finally took my new mtb out for a spin! And I survived, lol. Dad and I rode some neat trails in the state park.

[elk]

I think today was my longest ride yet...16 miles along the east Esplanade, a trip to the market for a snack and out the springwater corridor and back. GORGEOUS day along the river! (Yesterday I rode 5 miles on the other side of the river)..

I was with DH and 2 others....one was riding a Bridgestone he built and the other had a De Nucci...which she got used, built by the guy who builds Vanilla bikes...and he did the Pyrennes on it....it was GORGEOUS!!!! a grey/silvery blue...lugged steel, light, fast and sweet!!

I was a wee bit green, but me and my little draft horse did great. It was a great fun day.

My quads are a little sore and my bum is too...the good thing about my bum hurting is that that means I was on the seat right!!

[Tri Girl]

Great job on all the rides, ladies!

A few of us met early for some mtn biking. I forgot that the first month of cold weather kills my asthma, and I was "attacking" within about 10 min. of the ride. Had to drop off the back and ride REALLY slow to keep my HR down so I could breathe. Enjoyed the nice crisp morning, tho. Had a great time. Boy- I need to get my mtn bike courage back- I'm always such a weenie at the first of the off-season. :rolleyes:

[Susan126]

Today was just as nice, if not a tad bit nicer than yesterday! Honestly I do not remember the last weekend where both Saturday and Sunday were both gorgeous! Such being said, Joe and I jumped at this opportunity and rode both yesterday and today. Yesterday we enjoyed a fun mountain bike ride and today a splendid road ride. This morning it was cold, sunny yes but very cold too, 31 degrees F when we woke up at 8:00 AM. So we waited until the sun had a chance to do it's thing and it sure didn't let us down. Around 11 AM it was in the mid 50s. Perfect! We drove to our favorite starting spot for a nice 20 mile ride. I think I over dressed a bit because I was sweating 10 minutes into the ride.

The day was absolutely picture perfect. We rode through the back roads of Enumclaw's farm country. I brought along my camea but Joe did not want to stop. He had a tempo going and I just pulled in behind him and it was like nirvana, a place or state of freedom from the world. And the trees, my goodness the trees! They were decked out in all of their gorgeous fall foliage. Mount Rainier was strutting it's presence too. It was out and white as a white snow cone. There was no traffic, no headwind, just a nice steady ride with beautiful scenery for a backdrop. I did not want it to end. How often (especially here in the pacific northwest in the fall/winter) do you get two back to back gorgeous days on a weekend?!

What a weekend! Glad I got to ride on both days! :D

[KnottedYet]

Went for a ride with SGTiger, Eden, and Mr. Eden. Kenmore to Recycled Cycles, then to 20/20 Cycles (which was closed) on First Hill in downtown Seattle.

Eden showed us a great route that I can take to ride to/from work.

When we got back to Kenmore SGTiger and I had dinner up in Third Place Books.

Beautiful day for a ride, and great folks to ride with!:D

[sgtiger]

Beautiful day for a ride, and great folks to ride with!:D

Most definitely! We'll have to do that again sometime soon. :D

[froglegs]

My husband and I rode our MTB's on the road to Point Sal beach (west of Santa Maria, CA). About 10 years ago a bunch of bad rainstorms washed out the road and the county closed it and never fixed it. Part of it is on the Air Force base property though, and I guess post-9/11 they closed it. So we climbed a painfully steep 2.5 mile hill and then didn't get to go down the other side to the beach.... oh well.

If it wasn't so hazy, it would have been a nice view from the top of the hill.

http://www.alicescottmorris.com/robin/pt_sal.jpg

[DirtDiva]

Thirty-something kilometres of beech forest singletrack goodness, AKA the Wharfedale Track. :)

[elk]

Nice foto, froglegs! I don't mind the haze...gives it a sense of great distance...

[Geonz]

Rully beautiful day here, tho' it sounds like some folks would have thought the 32 degree start was cold. Almost no wind for the first time in ages, though. Local high schoolers were putting on a benefit ride so I tossed some money at 'em and we rode 45 miles. (Hope they figure out to invest in some Gatorade for next time :-) ) ... then rode out to our favorite Sun. afternoon starting point for another few miles. We got back and I had 79 miles and figured if I took the long way home with an extra loop I'd hit that century mark, and with no wind the road was beckoning - and now my ridiculous goal of 1000 miles for October is 70 miles away (63 if I include this a.m.'s commute). Might see me out late on Hallowe'en...!

[indysteel]

Rully beautiful day here, tho' it sounds like some folks would have thought the 32 degree start was cold. Almost no wind for the first time in ages, though. Local high schoolers were putting on a benefit ride so I tossed some money at 'em and we rode 45 miles. (Hope they figure out to invest in some Gatorade for next time :-) ) ... then rode out to our favorite Sun. afternoon starting point for another few miles. We got back and I had 79 miles and figured if I took the long way home with an extra loop I'd hit that century mark, and with no wind the road was beckoning - and now my ridiculous goal of 1000 miles for October is 70 miles away (63 if I include this a.m.'s commute). Might see me out late on Hallowe'en...!

Geonz, you humble me. It was 37 chilly degrees when I started my ride yesterday and I barely eeked out 50 miles before calling it a day. Even though we were likely having the same weather here in Indy that you were enjoying in Urbana. For shame!!!!

Congrats on your October mileage! That's fantastic!