Say do you remember...cycling in September

I was the sweep for a club ride today, last minute. My friend, who we often lead with, posted an impromptu redux of the bike rally route for this morning on Wednesday. I took a rest day yesterday, felt a little off, but seemed OK last night. Then, when I woke up, I felt like I had been hit by a truck! Oh, oh... I couldn't cancel, so I went back to sleep for awhile, since the ride starts in Concord, but that kind of made it worse. So, I had some tea, took 3 Pepto tabs, and rinsed my nose. It was about 35 when I got up, but it was predicted to rise rapidly, and it did. In fact, I was a bit warm on the ride, but taking my arm warmers off, did the trick enough to make up for having my vest on.
This is a really pretty ride that I planned with DH; the group was nice, and I am really glad I was sweeping, because I could not have kept up with the rest! There were 2-4 slower people, and they didn't start annoying me until about 5 miles from the finish, when I usually book it, and they got super slow. No incidents, and pretty good riding behavior. The only down side was it's apple picking season and one of the prettiest roads on the ride was just filled with cars going to Honey Pot Hill Orchard. I know this is a big deal to people from the city, but it gets really annoying to have these roads clogged at my favorite time of year. Thankfully, the hill is after the orchard.
The group stayed to eat lunch at Verrill Farm, where we started, but I headed home, since DH had just arrived home from a 2 week trip to Japan and China.
29 miles with about 1800 feet of climbing.

We had a damaging snow dump last week, which damaged 2,000 trees across the city.
Snow melted..but now with combination of rising temperatures, the trees are turning brilliant yellow too fast, already! So my bike ride started to feel awfully nostalgic today.

Thanks Dragonfly5 !!

Perfect day of riding for me after being gone for a week… I rode into the Santa Monica mountains for a 71 mile ride. For the climb off Pacific Coast Highway into the mountains I did Las Flores canyon road which begins with a 4.6 mile 2200 ft of elevation climb where once the grade eases back down to 8% from 13% I feel I’ve come onto a flat section. 30 miles and three more good hard 1.5 to 3 mile 10-11% climbs and it was then Encinal canyon road, which is one of the easier climbs into the mountains, and a pleasant descent back to PCH. Mid 70’s and ocean air conditioning for a lot of the miles. Since I just took my second weeks vacation this year I’ll probably be working too much to ride, other than commuting and shopping, for the next two weeks. That’s one of the reasons I wanted a good ride this weekend. Tomorrow it’s just a ride to the farmers market in the morning, some errands and to a lunch with some friends 9 miles south on the beach bike path.

One of three creek crossings.
This was a real backcountry adventure. I've done this ride before, Long Canyon. 19 miles over all, 2K of climbing, 6K descend. The numbers are misleading. It's not a 6K flow descent; it is 17 miles of rolling technical trail through old growth. The forest management designation of this area is changing in 2015 - it will be managed as "Wilderness" even tho it is not a Wilderness Area, and it will be closed to bikes. Last year it took us 8 hours; this year 7.25. Whew.

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It's been great, but warm riding weather. Unfortunately, I got a flat on my front tire on Friday, then today, just after the ten miles I rode to get to a multi use trail...and actually thinking to myself, "Well, at least I don't have to worry about glass and crap on this leg of ride", I flatted on my back tire. So...when I got home I figured I must have about 2,000 miles on my tires so I ordered some new tires and this time so puncture resistant tubes which I've never used before. Anyone have any experience with them? Are they any harder to change than regular tubes?

Wednesday night...rain. Thursday... rain forecast to end in the afternoon but it kept raining into the evening. Yes I can ride in the rain but I really don't enjoy it, especially when it's dark and cool at the same time.

Friday night...clear skies, no wind, temps around 70 dropping to the low 60s. So I went for a very nice bike ride. 17 miles.

Sunset was just before 7 pm. (Our next post-7pm sunset will be on March 8. I have noted this in my calendar.) I was having an easy day at work and thought I'd be able to leave a bit early, but I made the mistake of exchanging pleasantries with someone as I was leaving the restroom and learned the hard way that this woman really likes to talk. It took me 20 minutes to extricate myself from a conversation about cold offices. For some reason I now know that this woman has to leave the drawers of her dresser open otherwise her clothes smell bad. Anyway that was 20 minutes of lost daylight for my bike ride.

Another lesson learned the hard way -- soccer season has started and the soccer parents in this town are clueless and self-absorbed. I was thinking of moving the ride start, and now I think I have to do that to avoid either being run over by their SUVs or crashing into them when they look straight at me coming towards them down a big hill and then step into the street in directly front of me.

We led/swept our annual ride in Tiverton/Little Compton, RI/Westport, MA. It was 81 degrees today! Some years it's been 48.
DH agreed to sweep, which left me with the middle of the pack. Poor DH was stuck with a group of women, who weren't just slow, that would be OK, but treating the ride as a tour, not a group ride. A couple peeled off before lunch, to looky-loo, and after lunch, the whole group of them went off alone. Why even sign up? Well, I think they wanted to go to the after ride dinner at a lobster shack. So, I stayed in the back with DH after lunch, for awhile, until he left me, then we regrouped and the leader told us to go ahead with a few people while he waited for some to use the bathroom. We had just regrouped again, after the top of a hill, when a guy got a flat. Since the leader was now at the back, we went ahead, and DH went back at one point, to ask some of the riders if the leader had stopped to help the guy. He had, so we continued on, in the lead. We really picked up the pace, since we have plans to go out tonight , for DH's birthday. The last road on this ride is a slight uphill, and I always feel it. However, we did really well, and the whole ride felt like it went faster than usual.
The 3 of us decided that next year, we will not advertise this ride on the club's web site, and Lamar will just call the people who want to ride in a beautiful location, but are all about the same speed. We have had 2 groups in past years, but this year we limited it to 22 people, but Lamar gave in and let those women sign up, despite knowing they did not fit in with the rest. He has a "following" of ladies, always does a dinner afterwards, etc., where I just want to go home after a hot and sweaty ride. It takes an hour and 20 minutes to get there, so I am glad I am home and ready to EAT!
40 miles, flat and some small hills in the second half.

Today was one of my worst riding experiences, ever! But, even worse for DH. We volunteered to lead a ride that was done in conjunction with our synagogue and 2 other local congregations in other towns. We worked with with the guy spearheading the thing, in helping him with things like liability, etc. I invited him to come on a ride that I swept last wk. with another leader, so he would see our style. So, after leading yesterday, going out to dinner last night, we drove over to our temple, which is in the next town at 8 AM. There were about 20-25 people for a 9 AM start. The purpose of this ride was to provide information about several organizations that work for peace in Israel; one, Seeds of Peace, is a well known group that works with teens from many warring countries, by sending them to camp together, in Maine. They do all kinds of other stuff, too. DH gave the safety talk, and we headed out.... cutting through the high school campus, where my kids went to school. As soon as we got out to the next street, I could not even see DH, maybe a couple of other riders way ahead, and 2-3 slower people in front of me. I was pissed.
One of these women, was wobbly, had poor road skills, and was scaring me to death. I won't go into details, but when we had to ride through Concord Center, she got on the sidewalk and started laughing, in the middle of tons of traffic, pedestrians, and other riders. I had her and another woman get behind me, and led them though the traffic... and got to the next congregation.
DH came running up to me and said, "I'm done!" Apparently, the riders went racing ahead of him, pushing the speed up to an average of 18-20, after we advertised the ride as 13-15 average. They basically told him they would do whatever they wanted, were very rude to him. Now, DH can ride this fast, but this was not the purpose. Plus, they all got lost, since they weren't following him, and half of them didn't even look at the cue sheet or have a GPS. We were about to ride back to Acton, when the guy who had set this up volunteered to take the "fast group," and several people were clamoring to go with us. It was fine after that, in terms of speed, and staying mostly together, except for one woman whose chain fell off twice, and the we got caught up in a group *motorcycle* ride, as we were approaching a left turn at a busy intersection. They were 3-5 abreast on a 2 lane road, wouldn't let us in, and made the left turn, on a red light, stopping the cross traffic. We had to work to quickly get in the next left turn lane and the wobbly woman was hugging the right side of the road, after the motorcycle people got through. Oy. I think I said the f word, not very leader like. When we got to the next synagogue, I was upset, hot (it was like 85 degrees today), and suffering with allergies mightily. I got some food, and it was fine after that, as we were heading back, and after another horrendous left turn in traffic (we did not plan the route), we were on quieter roads that I am familiar with. The wobbly woman made a few other egregious moves, but I tried to teach her how to shift,a fter she almost fell over on a hill.
We all came in together, and were thanked profusely, but I will not be volunteering to do this again.

.....the reason i most often ride alone or with people i know

My best riding month so far as weather was generally cooler, but for this weekend which was pretty hot.

My rides are generally between 50-60km and on weekends only due to lack of time or obligations I have during week nights. This weekend we were camping and I did 2 rides of 50km but they were hilly and for today lots of winds. This bike is my best sport purchase ever. I love it a lot and becoming a better dare devil. Lol no fear...well with reasonable risks. If I could I would ride it more often but it is what it is for now. Better than a lot of people doing nothing.

Rebecca, I hear you. The rides we usually lead are with a club that is very safety oriented and we have to screen the people for most of the rides, so we can turn people down. We also tend to get the same people on the same rides every year. We do lead 2 of the bigger club rides that are show and go, but we've learned to manage this. But, we only lead about 5 rides a year, sometimes help out as co-leaders with someone else. Other than that, I ride with my DH, or2-3 other friends, or alone.

The wobbly woman was probably more scared than you were. Was it advertised as a beginner ride?

No. This was a ride devised as a mini fund raiser/informational thing by a man at my temple. He is a good rider, but I don't think he had a clue about these types of things. We advertised the ride as an average of 13-15. Which is why the fast guys were totally out of line.
The wobbly girl was not scared. She thought it was "funny." There was a cultural thing going on, too. Not sure if she was Russian or Israeli, but she was young and had a decent bike, just hadn't ridden in awhile. Didn't know how to shift or where to put her hands. Thankfully, her friend was with her and helped her, too.

We are having beautiful fall weather here--and I've been completely buried in work :(

But I did take advantage of my commute on Saturday--I got up 30 minutes early (=6AM--this is a big deal for me on a Saturday morning...) and tripled the length of my ride to work--then on the way home I took a 25 mile detour, riding to and around Mercer Island. It was gorgeous--even more so than in the summer, I think. Some trees are starting to turn, and their color is highlighted even more by the deep green background of all the evergreen trees around here. Add in bright sun, and views of water and mountains, and I'd be happy for my "commute" never to end :)