Mother's Day Rides

I got started at pre-dawn for a 43-miler and encountered a few surprise sprinkles. A cold front came through yesterday, so temps were about 15 degrees colder today compared to Saturday's ride. Had to layer up again. The wind was fairly feisty, making it more of a challenge. Luckily, I was riding my Orbit, which has a compact crankset (I have triples on my other bikes but never use the puppy gears---always feels that I'm going to drop the chain and I'm strong enough that I don't really need those lighter gears).

Highlights of today's ride: saw a gorgeous doe and a fox. The bunnies were out in full force and I had a very close encounter with one. Luckily, he scrambled out of the way in time (I was hammering---had a great tail wind!). The skies treated me to a gorgeous sunrise.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. :)

Thanks mickchick! Sounds like you started the day off right. No ride for me today. I'll be in the car making road trips to both moms. That's okay. I'm glad they are still with us.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms!

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Originally Posted by mickchick

I got started at pre-dawn for a 43-miler and encountered a few surprise sprinkles. A cold front came through yesterday, so temps were about 15 degrees colder today compared to Saturday's ride. Had to layer up again. The wind was fairly feisty, making it more of a challenge. Luckily, I was riding my Orbit, which has a compact crankset (I have triples on my other bikes but never use the puppy gears---always feels that I'm going to drop the chain and I'm strong enough that I don't really need those lighter gears).

Highlights of today's ride: saw a gorgeous doe and a fox. The bunnies were out in full force and I had a very close encounter with one. Luckily, he scrambled out of the way in time (I was hammering---had a great tail wind!). The skies treated me to a gorgeous sunrise.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. :)

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Where did you ride today?

I was going to do a potomac pedalers ride in Montgomery County today, but couldn't see the point of getting up early to ride when wind chills are below 50(I'm not a morning person and cold air stirs up the asthma). Right now I'm thinking of heading out in a couple of hours to Reston and back -- on-road there, WOD trail back -- which would be roughly 40 miles and should involve a tailwind for the return trip.

We did a short 7.5 mile easy road ride. It was my teenage daughter's first outdoor ride since she had her 2nd hip surgery 6 weeks ago (1st was in August - on the other hip). She just got the OK from her PT to try some easy outdoor riding. I was so happy to see her out riding again - a great Mother's Day present!!! Her goal is to be able to do the shortest distance at Little Red this year.

We played head wind/ tail wind today. Got a nice wind mix and perfect temps.

Escaped from our neighbourhood northward and did 52 kms. on gorgeous sunny jewel-like Sunday. This morning was a major annual run with over 55,000 joggers run through/congregate in our area. It wouldn't be surprising today was record-breaking number of joggers.

Was test-riding also my new folding bike. It rides well and is light. :)
Just one of those memorable, happy beautiful days for a ride. :)

Today's shop ride started on a downer note. The group was heading towards the park, when folks slowed for a car ahead. A guy wasn't paying attention and touched wheels with a woman in front of him. She went down - hard - and he went sailing over her. He was okay, but she wasn't - banged up hip and knee. She was able to walk it off, but her rear wheel was not rideable, so she waved us all off to resume our ride and walked the mile or so back to the shop and her car. Later, we got an email from her that she was sore, but otherwise okay. That was a relief.
The rest of the ride - from my perspective at least - was thankfully uneventful.

I set out today for a 20 mile ride after church today, but a strong crosswind across the cornfields, combined with coolish temperatures, finally turned me around sooner than I had planned. I did get close to 15 miles in, so that was good.

I have noticed that when the temps are cooler (high 50s today) that hills, head and cross winds are more challenging. I wouldn't call the high-50's cold, not by any means. I was dressed properly so it wasn't that. Perhaps it is just those 50 year-old knees that likes warmer temps.

Somehow I managed to cut my leg on the chain-ring :o Can't for the life of me figure out how I did THAT, but as it doesn't have the distinctive look of a chain-bite, it has to be from the ring!

It was a beautiful ride though, it is nice to be able to see the young plants breaking ground in the cornfields, and to see the flowers blooming along the way. No wildlife as of yet.

After a really good Mexican food breakfast with my son and his fiancee, we opted to hike instead of ride. I felt a little guilty, but with winds gusting to about 35 mph and the temperature around 52, which made it feel even colder, I decided I didn't want to get blown across the road. 52 is actually a perfect riding temperature, but the wind made it feel downright wintery. We have actually had a real spring this year, with some summery days thrown in, so I guess I'm a little spoiled.
We did a 4.06 mile hike in 57 minutes, a good pace for me. I was horrified to see at the beginning of the trail, someone had driven a rather large vehicle on the trail, until it got so narrow, they couldn't pass. We've had so much rain, in some spots, the trail was decimated. I wouldn't even be riding a mountain bike in these conditions. Sad to say, this part of the trail is in my old town, and it was probably some drunk, spoiled teenagers from the high school.
Well, the hike was good, even though I actually had my headband on in the beginning, it was so cool.

Okay, 45 miles done and dusted. Headed west, partially on MUT and partially on roads. It turned out to be 25 miles to my turnaround point (Reston Town Center, where not one but two little kids did the stare-in-amazement thing at me in my helmet and mirrored shades :D).

The return trip was only 20 miles since it was all on the trail -- with a tailwind, thank you very much. Good thing, too, because my legs were screaming in pain for the last 15 miles or so.

Today was my first wearing of the Sugoi Wallaroo wool base layer that I bought recently. It's a great shade of red and was very comfy under a short sleeve jersey. AND I got it on sale for more than 1/2 off. My new favorite shirt. Seriously they should make pajamas out of this fabric...

It was beautiful here in Chicago today. Unseasonably cool, but clear, sunny, and almost no wind. Left home at 6am to ride 20 miles to the shop for the shop ride. It was a big group today and some of the riders were a little squirrely, but not too bad. Lunch with the club after the ride and then rode home for a total of 90 beautiful miles.

It was in the 40's this morning! So hubby talked me into going to the shooting range with him first. I did pretty good, but he's spent a lot of time on his set-up. Home for lunch then I followed him out on his hilly route, planning to turn around early (my first hill workout of the year). However, we found an alternate route and ended up with 30 moderate-hilly miles including a few sprints up some smaller hills and I even rocked my big chain ring! Hubby's computer wasn't working, so he didn't know what a she-beast I was being! My legs got tired about 5 from the house, but I managed to bring it home. I earned some homemade low-sugar banana nut muffins and a nap.

For mother's day, my cat scratched me in the face. I got on the inversion table, to stretch out my back after my ride. She's tried it twice before with bad results, but attempted to jump on with me anyway. As she realized her error and departed in a flurry of fur and nails, she scratched me on the eye lid! Happy kitty-mommy day to me :p

Twelve miles today on my usual hawk watching route, but today's ride was sad. Our three beautiful red tailed hawk babies perished yesterday when high winds destroyed their nest. Mom and Dad hawk are fine.

We had worried about their nest being so exposed, but after it survived two major storms I thought we were okay. The babies were just a few weeks from fledging.

I spent a few minutes staring at the empty spot in the sweet gum tree where the nest used to be.

I did 35 miles in 15-25mph winds; not much fun

DH and I got in a quick 14 miles this evening. We waited until late afternoon to ride in hopes the temperature would climb some. It was a breezy, chilly day here in the Bluegrass region. I'm glad we kept it short for I was cold by the time we made it back home. We are looking forward to the return of warmer temperatures this week.