Sunday April 11 Ride Reports

[TrekTheKaty]

I did a 30-miler on my own while hubby headed out on an organized, Trailnet hilly, 44-miler (Dog Prairie in the spring!).

Beautiful weather, nice pace, and a light wind! The coffee shop put in new bike racks (surely an attempt to keep us cyclists out of their landscaping--where we put our bikes against the trees!) Despite almost being hit head on by a CAR using the Katy trail in St. Charles (last week I saw a motorcycle cop patrolling near the Page Bridge?!), it was uneventful.

If I start adding in some hills, I will be rocking and rolling by MAY! Sweet :D

[Catrin]

After my delightful 13-mile first road ride yesterday, I went pack to the park this afternoon for a 7 mile light spin - only had 30 minutes to ride due to tight work schedule and slacking off too much last night.

The park was beautiful, as always, but not near as much fun as being on the road yesterday... It is good to have a close place to ride for times just like this, but I may have been spoiled for a time. It IS a beautiful park though...

[shootingstar]

46 kms. After starting off with a detour so that I could shoot more photos, we continued onward.

Now other sets of cherry trees are blooming while others have shed the blossoms. Towards end of ride, I spent more time elsewhere shooting more photos. (But not of cherry trees, this area is too new and devoid of cherry trees.) :)

[denda]

Did 22 miles today by myself. The first time back on my bike in months. The weather was beautiful. We finally had a day that the wind was not blowing 40 miles and hour

[solobiker]

I got in about 22 miles today. Longest ride yet for this year. It was a little cool when I rode, about 40 degrees but it was still a nice day for a ride. Not a very hilly ride at all, just one hill to climb back up to my house.

[CAL932]

I rode about 20 miles today. It was my first time out and on my new bike! The last 3 miles was a moderate climb, but most of the ride was pretty, along the Olentangy River. The weather was beautiful and the trees were blooming. :)

[owlice]

26 miles for me today, all on trails except when I got off of one to ride in the street because of all the broken glass on the trail. (Grrrrrrr!) It was great! I saw a lot of cormorants, which is unusual. I haven't seen any turtles yet this year in the swamp; I suspect they didn't survive the winter. :(

It was warm and sunny and felt great to ride!

[jdubble]

My mom had the boys for the night, so instead of sleeping in like any sane person would do, I did 24.5 slightly hungover miles this morning with my DH on our cross bikes, up Leif Erikson through Forest Park. :)

According to mapmyride, it was 10 miles of climbing, though a pretty gentle grade for most of it. It was my first real "off-road" ride, and despite not being able to get into my lowest gear for some reason, it was fun! But between that and 28 hilly, super-windy miles yesterday, plus 7 hours of standing and dancing wearing platform knee-high gold boots at the school disco-themed auction last night, my legs are done. Where's the hot tub?

[MartianDestiny]

I MADE IT!!!!

Managed to stay with the "B" group for 50 miles today (keep in mind "B" in Boulder means 17mph average with quite a bit of 20+mph work). We rode through some beautiful rolling farm country. I felt GREAT through most of it, the gym work is paying off.

[bikerHen]

Had a super 46 mile ride with 5 members of my cycling group. Mostly hills and some nasty winds. It was a little on the cold side and we managed to miss the scattered rain showers. The sun finally started to peak through the clouds when we were almost home. Stopped at the half way point for fresh donuts and coffee. Mmmmmm yum . . .

Started and finished at my house. Returned to a pot of chili and cornbread fresh from the oven, thanks to my DH and DD. Oh and some adult beverages to wash it all down. :rolleyes:

All in all a great day spent with my cycling friends! :D bikerHen

[Miranda]

30 miles for me with my riding partner at my side for morale support... at my first local club ride back out since my crash. Part of my body is still saying "no", while my spirit is saying "yes" I have rejoined the cycling world:cool:. Whew I am spent tonight!

[kmehrzad]

It was a great day to ride along the Potomac River with views of the monuments in Washington, DC. Here are a couple photos.

[crazycanuck]

We did a 4hr mtb event yesterday & had a ton o fun. This event's a part of a 3 event series including 2 4hrs & 1 6hr. Tis our XC club series & other events season (now that summer's over :()

I decided that for this 4hr i'd focus on racing my own race & not mentally losing it..like i often do...:o I just wanted to ride and go away knowing I enjoyed the day.

I ended up doing 4 consecutive laps(only 24km in total :o)-didn't pay attention to time, i just thought about how i was riding. After my 4 laps, i considered throwing my other hydration pack on & doing a few more but thought..nah..I've just had a ton o fun & really want to go and drool over some demo Yeti's...:o

Next event in two weeks at a new track down south :cool:. I've heard it's cool but really hard!

[NoNo]

Just over 11 miles, which is far less than I'd hoped for. We took off and went a different way than we normally do, but it apparently was a bit shorter. However, it was hillier, and my legs (and lungs) felt it. We're doing a century in June, so 11 hilly miles will probably benefit me more than 25 flat ones. It was also obnoxiously windy, which just added to my suffering. I think I'm going to bike in to work a once or twice this week. It's a good way to work in miles and hills.

[PamNY]

I did 27 miles or so. Unfortunately I saw a biker being loaded into an ambulance at the outset of my trip.

Checked out the hawks (no eggs hatched yet).

Got fed up with my seat slipping and headed for the wonderful LBS who fixed it while I waited. Had a lovely chat about people who continue to ride road bikes into their eighties. Cruised through Central Park which is all pink and green and lovely.

A car almost pulled into me and a pedestrian yelled at the driver and praised me for being alert. The driver couldn't hear, but it made me happy.

Miranda, congratulations on returning to the cycling world.

[violetpurl]

33 mile group ride - too slow for the fast group, want to ride faster than the slow group - heh. No middle group this week. Stuck with the slow group until the rest stop. Able to hang with the "fast guys" after the bakery stop (I was bringing up the rear, but still :p) New Felt ZW2 - :cool:

[Crankin]

I had an "OK" 20 mile ride with my friend yesterday. I took her on part of the club ride I did Wednesday. It was warm and very, very windy. We had one big climb near the beginning of the ride and I just about was blown off of my bike as I got to the top of the hill. One good thing was that I found a new street to ride on, as an alternate to one that is all torn up.
Lots of cyclists out. At one point, we were on a street that the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail crosses. The people on the trail have a stop sign. I approached and saw I could ride faster than the riders on the trail, who were approaching the stop sign and I had a feeling wouldn't stop. My friend, who was behind me a little, almost crashed into a rider from the trail who blew through the stop sign; she gave him a piece of her mind!
My legs were burning, and every sports injury I've ever had I felt on this ride. On Saturday we led a 30 mile ride for AMC... the slower people who had signed up didn't show, and I was, let's say "dropped," even though I was the sweep. DH and the group waited for me at one point, and I did stick with them for the middle part of the ride, including the big climb. But, at the end, I just couldn't do it. I was furious at my DH, which is most unusual, and embarrassed in front of my son and his very close friend since age 7, who came on the ride.
Of course, the fact that I was quite sick all morning, before the ride, in the bathroom, had something to do with it... I had to fill up with Pepto, to even get to the start. Then there were the 30 mph wind gusts, and the fact I got caught at 2 lights at the beginning. Still, I am disgusted with myself. One part of me says who cares, and the other is upset, since up to this point, I was very happy with my progress at the beginning of the season.

[WindingRoad]

Sorry to hear that Crankin, its frustrating sometimes riding with others I've decided. We just have to love the sport to keep doing it at times :)

I rode this weekend with one of our good friends and she just got brand new beautiful carbon road bike. This is only her second ride of the season so she's still getting back into shape obviously so she is very slow right now. It worked out great though we all (me, my BF and her BF) took turns sticking with her. I even got her to draft for the first time yesterday which was awesome she could go WAY faster. I think maybe in the past her old bike has just been too awkward for her to handle for her to feel safe doing that (it was way too big) but she did it on her first ride out on this new bike. That was pretty huge for her! Very proud of her! :D We ended up going as far as our butts could manage to take us being we are all pretty 'soft' at this stage of the game, LOL. We did right at 37 miles and it was a lot of fun but we were all wiped after, did I mention the we are all 'soft' still, grin. We gotta get busy training for RAIN this July; gotta get tough butts for the 168 miler :D

[OakLeaf]

The up-side of my Achilles injury was that after a couple of enforced rest days, I was fresher than I'd been on a Sunday ride in a long, long time. It was a big group (for this ride) and a pretty hard pace and I was able to hang with the group the whole time. Last hard ride before the marathon....

[ColoKate]

My husband and I took our "new" bikes out for their first real ride yesterday morning. We left the house and rode about a mile to the Clear Creek trail and wound around on that until we met up with the Platte River trail. So nice to see all the bikers out, it was a gorgeous and cool morning. Got home after 2 hours and my husband said "I bet we rode 10 miles" but I mapped it and our route was actually a little over 20 miles. Felt great! I had to walk up a hill and a half on the way home and hope I don't have to do that again. But man, padded shorts and gloves are awesome :)

[lo123]

I had my first 'road race', a local bike club sponsored 12 mile TT.
I came in second in women's division and chalked up a PR on the course (17.9 mph on a semi-hilly course 634 ft. climbing)!

[tulip]

36 miles, 16mph, beautiful day and great ride! Followed by pizza and beer, even better.

[Aggie_Ama]

12 miles of singletrack. I ran out of daylight before I ran out of desire to ride, spring in Texas is a magical time!