Good job Helene :)
My husband and I did a slower paced ride, ended up going just 26 miles, but got spectacular views of the arrival of a flash flood- check out the ride pics thread.
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Good job Helene :)
My husband and I did a slower paced ride, ended up going just 26 miles, but got spectacular views of the arrival of a flash flood- check out the ride pics thread.
Hills are such a mental thing! We went for a ride on local country roads yesterday. No big deal, except I finally felt ready for my "nemesis" hill. It's 8/10 of a mile, but turns out I've been riding much steeper hills all spring/summer long! Why does this hill do this to be every year? I don't think I ever even got up the nerve for it last year! No more, it's just a hill, get over it!
We did a 28 mile ride on our last day in the Berkshires. Another wonderful, rural, beautiful ride, and this one had quite a few flat miles, too. One steeper hill the middle, and then a long slog up false flats and rollers for the last 10 miles. We had already checked out of the inn, but we were able to change, take a swim in the pool, and then get changed to drive home.
I am beat. The weather was perfect, and heat wasn't a factor, but this kind of riding does me in, on multiple days. I wish I wasn't such a wimp, and the fact that I am getting older means I do need more rest.
Took a walk this morning, couldn't face boot camp. On to work. I will probably rest tomorrow and do the club ride Wednesday.
Crankin your trip the Berkshires sounds lovely.
Yesterday I rode 38 miles with a friend. East of Tucson, one of the regular routes for cyclists is out to "Pistol Hill". It goes through some beautiful desert, though housing developments are everywhere, even so far away from any kind of services. The first half has a climb, a short descent and more climbing. The last half is mostly downhill or relatively flat. Total of 1500 feet of climbing. It was not super hot, but humid (for Tucson- 70% to start) and I was happy to stop and refill one of my bottles with ice for the last 5 miles.
If I want to nail some of the Natchez Trace on my upcoming trip, I have to get my thighs pumping hard. And cycling outdoor when too hot is just not me, although I try hard. So I did an hour of trainer in the basement with a concentration on working at a low cadence/highest resistence and working on my push/pull. My thighs are burning so they did work. Will try to keep at it for the next couple of weeks. That and back to muscle training.
We are getting rain and major storms as of tonight for the rest of the week. So trainer will be my best friend for now. :)
Day 2 on trainer. Same program. Easier today and hubby did the same since it is pouring out here. Feels like it's winter as we normally don't use indoor trainer in summer. But lately, it is either too hot and sticky or raining/stormy outside. So this is the best I can do to keep up with my training if I want to be able to keep a good steady pace outside.
Today I did a farmstand ride, with the caveat that I went to a farmstand that is on one of my regular shorter loops. There is all kinds of road work going on in Concord center, so getting anywhere else I usually go for produce would have been a mess. Some interesting observations. I was riding my Guru, with the pannier, and also wearing what I'd call "city riding" clothes, my commuting capris that look like leggings and a sleeveless tunic with a pocket, made out of lycra that looks like a regular blouse. I had several roadies pass me so closely, without calling out a warning, I jumped just about every time it happened. Really, I don't mind being passed, especially when I was not trying to go fast, even before my pannier was full! I ride the Guru on regular road rides at times, so it's clearly a (very nice custom) road bike, with a rack. I think the difference was what I was wearing. It was like I was an invisible nuisance to these riders, and the women were worse that the men.
19 miles, and I also stopped at the bank to get cash. Glad I didn't go on the group ride, as I am sort of struggling with some of my usual auto-immune symptoms. This always happens after a hard riding trip, especially in the heat. It started when I got back from France and has been up and down. The riding I did last week in the Berkshires was really hard; I took a short walk Monday and rested yesterday. We are going down the Cape Friday-Sunday, so I may not even take my bike. The riding is horrible there, and you really can only safely go out very early in the AM.
I hate this, so hopefully, my body will settle down, as we are thinking of doing an AMC trip back in the Berkshires over Labor day weekend.
This week has been busy with my daughter's busy dance life so my new bike had to wait. I've only ventured out on my local little trail that starts just a small distance from our house. I had 30 minutes last night before I had to pick up said daughter at the dance studio. While it's no big ride, the scenery is pretty....
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I commuted today. It was a weird one. I left at 6:40, as I had an 8:00 client, with stuff to do before. Right when I left my neighborhood, I was blinded by solar glare for about half a mile. Considering this is a road with lots of potholes, and I often have to get out in the lane, I was expecting cars to not see me, even with my 2 flashers in the rear. OK, I was done at 5, which is a crappy time to leave for my commute. I actually had some stuff to do, and then I got 2 phone calls. In the middle of this I got a text from DH saying to look at the email he forwarded to me. Apparently, sometime today the construction work on the commuter rail bridge did some kind of damage today and the main road into town was shut down, with no re-opening time. I had an alternate route that is only about 2.4 miles longer; it was that or re-route myself about 7 miles out of my way. I left at 6, and while the route itself was OK, the street I took to get across the highway and nto a neighborhood that cuts off the closed part of the street was the most pothole ridden street I've been on since March. It was so bad, I should have been on a mountain bike. Saw a few other cyclists taking my route, but thankfully, the detoured cars were all going in the other direction. When I got into the very nice neighborhood that was a cut through, I was kind of looking around, when some goofy guy on a Bike Friday passed me. OK, we were coming up to a light where I had to turn left and it was green.I hate stopping at this light, so I sprinted and turned left, of course, from the left side of the road. This genius decided to turn left from the right side of the road, where he then almost cut me off when I got onto Main St. I booked out of there and dropped him. The rest of the ride was my normal commute. It's already noticeably darker at 6:30 PM :(.
Spent a nice weekend at the Cape with friends; riding in beach towns/tourist areas is not my cup of tea, but we brought our bikes, "in case." On Friday, we went for a pretty strenuous hike in an area I had never been to (unusual, since I spent about 50 summers on the Cape, in some form). The next day, DH and I got up and went out at 6 AM, the only time I feel safe riding around an area, with people who don't know where they are, and lots of elderly drivers. We did 15 miles, pretty quickly. It always surprises me how rolling the riding is here. Pretty, but since the water is surrounding the area, not a lot of through roads.
It's super humid and hot out. Although it was not as hot on the beach, there is something about riding on the Cape that always gets my sinuses/allergies going, if it's summer time. This is the first time I've been on the Cape during the season in a few years, and this solidified my reasons why I stopped going there for vacation in the summer. Fall and spring is OK, but the riding is not great.
My husband and I went and stayed in Packwood, WA for the weekend. The great thing about that location is that if you head south, you're biking on Mt St Helens, and if you head north, you're biking on Mt Rainier. In other words, there's a ton of incredible riding there!
On Saturday, we biked up to Windy Ridge on Mt St Helens--it was a really challenging ride. Different than a lot of mountain rides I've done in which you go up constantly, then come back down, this ride had a lot of up and down, with constantly changing gradients, some of them quite challenging. The scenery was gorgeous throughout--particularly amazing was a moment when you came around a bend in the road, and were suddenly in the blast zone from the 1980 eruption. There were a few dead trees standing, cut off at half-height or so, and then a carpet of fallen trees, all oriented the same direction. It was a very humbling view.
We meant to ride on Mt Rainier on Sunday, but my husband had some work stuff come up, so we came home and I did some painful-but-productive hill repeats by our house. We're hoping to head back next weekend, to repeat the Windy Ridge ride and also get our Mt Rainier ride in. I'll get a couple good rides in this week, then do that trip on the weekend, and then I will be doing nothing more strenuous than grocery store runs (14 flat blocks round trip...) for a few days. Hopefully the challenging rides, plus the several days of rest will leave me peppy and strong as I return to the Italian Dolomites to give summer a last hurrah--I'm simultaneously excited and wondering why I'm crazy enough to be doing this again, when I know for sure this time how hard it's going to be!
but now you also know you can do it and how beautiful the rides are :)Quote:
Originally Posted by khg
......you make me feel like i'm lazy :):)
nice image creationsbyuli !!!!!!
Khg- we rode on Mt. St. Helens about 5 years ago- it was gorgeous.
Tonight, my husband and I went out for an hour on the bike path after dark (with lights of course). We saw a baby Western Diamondback rattlesnake and shooed it off the path. It was incredibly hot out still- about 95 degrees when we started. We also saw a Colorado River Toad and a rodent- either a pocket mouse or kangaroo rat- along the path. Surprisingly, we saw about 7 or 8 other cyclists even though we started at 8 pm. We went about 10 miles but it was very pleasant. Much less demanding than the two rides on the weekend.
Was good to know everyone is being sporty and health conscious and enjoying the August fun run. :)
So far...still cycling INSIDE! Weather is overly hot and humid here. Hubby did try a 20km ride Saturday and said it was truly painful. Coming from him, it must have been.
So I did my training inside on trainer last night. At least we're moving and keeping up...