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It's been a great riding week for me! 200 km in the last 8 days. Today we did 20km of our favourite hilly ride using my new Garmin Edge 305! Whoo hoo, what fun! Downside is I have to use DH's computer to run the software that came with it, until I upgrade the system software on my Mac that is...
I sent a message to my women's team to see if anyone wanted to go out and do a long, hard training ride yesterday - only had 1 taker!
In our area, we are pretty lucky to have a series of very well marked bike loops. One of the local clubs provides cue sheets for various rides, and some of those are made easier to follow with markings painted on the road to indicate the loop and any turns. My teammate and I set off on what is called the Apple Pi loop - 55 miles.
As Robyn mentioned, the wind was blowing pretty good here in New England, and the temps were in the lower 50s. I was under-dressed, and cold for most of the ride, despite some of the hill climbs in the apple country. Rolling down Oak Hill at over 30 mph in that cold was not as much fun as normal... And somehow, even though we rode in a loop, we seemed to be riding INTO the wind for the entire 55 miles!
It was nice, though, riding past the apple orchards in bloom!
SheFly
Yesterday was the 5 boro bike tour in NYC. It is 42 miles of traffic-free cycling. I did the ride last year and loved it. Yesterday however my group was in the back of the pack of around 33,000 cyclists and ended up walking for significant portions of the ride (through central park, up the 59th street bridge). The thought of waiting with all of these people for the ferry in staten island was too much, so we bailed and biked back home via the west side cycle path. Around a 30 mile ride, but so slow and with so much walking in between I don't feel like I did my usual long weekend ride at all!
Today was my first ride (on this bike) of any real measurable distance.
I think I have finally found a shifter configuration that will work for me - I ended up with a bar-end friction shifter for the chain rings. the brakes and the cassette shifter stayed the same.
I ended up doing 9.5 easy miles.
Number of dead animals seen- 3, a deer, a oppossum, and a black snake.
Number of dead animals smelled - 1, a deer, no mistaking that smell.
Number of animals that might have been dead but might have just been starting to cross the road - 1, a box turtle. I should have stopped to check on that one.
I got up yesterday morning and took off on my bike towards the southeast part of my county. It was cloudy and a little chilly, only in the mid to upper 50s so I put on tights and arm warmers. I even ran into some light rain and saw some lightning that fortunately stayed in the distance. We've had so much rain that I took this picture of the Arkansas River. It normally has little to no water in it due to irrigation, but not this year.
After I took the picture, I got a call on my cell phone from work; they needed me to work severe weather...again. After stopping quickly for a bathroom break and a snack I headed back. Got home and rushed around to get cleaned up. Total of 54 miles, not too bad, but wanted to do a bit more.