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Today was a perfect day for the Salt Lake Century. Sunny but not hot, and almost no wind (the last stretch we even had a slight tail wind - never happens on this route!). The route is flat as a pancake. We did the metric portion which was 72 miles. It was a super, gorgeous day! :)
It was gorgeous here today, too. I didn't ride as far as you did -- only 20 miles -- but it felt great and was a glorious ride!
56 kms.
Towards the end I dropped by an even where I helped out local cycling advocacy group on giving out info. It was public official opening of the Olympic and Paraolympic Village...at least the park, public outdoor areas and facilities. Speeches, etc. There is a bike-pedestrian route that runs through the Village.
Muddled in all this was flogging of the condo suites (which housed the athletes a few months ago) for sales. Some photos of certain Village complex areas:
http://insidevancouver.ca/2010/05/10...-sat-may-15th/
We lead the AMC Boston chapter New Member's Ride. We had 25 people, a lot less than last year, but it was fine; the weather was great. About 63 at the start and partly sunny. There was a stiff breeze, though, and I suspect, that turned some people off. I had an email from a friend who said,"it's cold and the roads are wet." This was at 7 AM and the ride started at 10:00!
Anyway, this year we decided to have 3 groups of riders, because last year, we had a lot of riders in the "slower" group who were riding at an average of 8-10 mph. This is a show and go ride, so I don't screen the participants. It was a lot of work to find leaders for the middle and slowest group, but off we went at 10:00. Steve and I ended up with only 3 people in the "fast" group... 2 women and one other leader. I was working quite hard as the sweep, to keep up, and about a mile before the rest stop, at Great Brook Farm, I slowed to rest, although they pulled in just ahead of me. One of the women was a triathlete, who said she was "out of shape." Yeah, right. She made me feel quite sluggish.
My friend, Janine, who was leading the middle group eventually came into the farm. She had told a whole bunch of her group to go ahead, as they were itching to go faster. So, this group, about 6 more people, joined us. Now, I actually had my "sweep" job to do. There was one woman on a hybrid who was quite nervous about a short but steeper hill coming up. I told her I would coach her up. I had to give her a lesson on shifting. Why do new riders never shift? I told her to put it in the granny *before* the hill (she had never used her granny). She made it up fine, but now I was really behind the rest. They waited for us at the end of a downhill. We then picked up a few riders from another club, one who was strangely riding in a time trial helmet, trying to chat up the woman I had coached up the hill. Since I had to stay behind them, I heard the whole pathetic conversation. Then we got to the cross street with my street. DH decided it would be fun to give the group a "hill climb" challenge. I was more than a little worried about 3 of the people, but none of them wanted to opt out. So, they all made it around the loop of our street, including the 10-12% grade. I did go ahead of 2 of the riders here, but the group was waiting at the bottom.
After this, it was only 3.8 miles back to the start, so the others raced ahead (it's flat) and I was bringing up the rear. All in all, it was a fun group.
Only one woman ended up riding with the slowest group, but I am glad we provided this option. But, it was a distinctly different group; lots of 40 something women from the city, a few dressed a la Sex and the City: tank tops, dance tight-like bottoms, Jackie O glasses. Oy. But they did the ride.
Afterwards, Janine had a BBQ at her house where we drank Corona and ate good food, prepared by her DH, who is still recovering from his broken hip (he's riding on the trainer now).
I did an AWESOME 80 miler yesterday. I decided to go down to Houghton and then ride to the south, because it would be warmer inland. When I started, it was about 10 degrees warmer down there than it was when I left home. About 60. Not sure how warm it got, but it was perfect.
I didn't have any steep climbs on this route, but stretches of continuous long grades, which I find more tiring overall. Felt all googly-brained for the last 10 miles. I'm doing 100 miles with a couple of friends on Memorial Day weekend, so I'm just upping my mileage every week.
Anyway, it was a gorgeous day. Only 1 tick (yes, a tick on a road ride). I stopped to look at some trillium, and just stepped off the shoulder for a minute. The dirty bugger was half-way up my leg by the time I got back on my bike. I had the creepy-crawlies for the next 35 miles. Lots (actually, an ocean) of trillium blanketing the hillside in one area. Saw an eagle, saw 1 deer. Several places with horses, on the first 1/3 of the ride. No bears, though. Sometimes it is just wonderful to ride alone, especially on roads that aren't real familiar. I have ridden that loop before, but only once, and the first 1/4 of it I ride a couple of times a year. The only thing better than a really long loop is a really long point-to-point! Those rarely are an option, though.
I did a 42 mile windy, hilly ride. It was my longest ride of the year and I was VERY tired when I was done. I've rarely been so glad to be done riding for the day :( I'd love a weekend ride without the 15mph winds!
(Regina, I went by the bunny statue :) )
I did a 55 mile hilly ride. Wanted to get out on the racer with a little distance and a little bit of hills. I chose a route I know that is challenging, yet doable since I haven't done a lot of long hard rides this year yet. It was a good choice. Very windy though. Made it a little more challenging than I anticipated, but hey, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?
I had the most perfect ride yesterday! I did a group ride with the Cascade Bicycle Club. It was my second time riding with their blue group (16-18MPH). My first ride didn't go so well. But everything was perfect about this ride. It was beautiful rural scenery. The weather was perfect, low 70's, barely any wind. We did a little over 70 miles, with 3,087 feet of climbing.
I had a beautiful 20 mile ride yesterday in a local park (more on it in the New Riders section). I was much warmer than the temps led me to expect, probably because the ever-present wind seemed to be, well, missing :D