Since getting my first road bike about a month ago, I've commuted to work twice (about 11 miles each way) on it, and that's been it. Yesterday, I finally did what I think of as a "real" road ride -- a thirty mile loop from my house back to my house.
As it turns out, there's some great road riding accessible right from our driveway -- either back country farm roads or highways with exceptionally wide shoulders. What surprised me was what I liked. The more scenic parts along the farm roads were okay -- but the fun came when we did an eight mile stretch of 36, from Neva to 66. It was this great, rolling terrain, the kind where you can pick up some speed on the descent, and you're already half way up the climb before you really have to start working, and so you just keep pushing through, and then you're flying downhill again, wheee!
Ahem.
The bike computer shows 29 miles in 1:50 hours, although I had to stop a few times, so it was actually a little more "clock time" than that. Max speed of 36 mph. Overall 1400+ feet of climbing, according to mapmyrun.com
Positive stuff: my thighs felt great the whole time. I never felt like I would get too tired to continue. My hands and wrists felt fine the whole time, although my elbows / triceps started getting just a little cranky toward the end -- something I expected, because I need to work on form. My saddle felt great (ie, I didn't notice it at all) the whole time, and I wasn't sliding forward onto my soft bits as much as I tend to on the commute, for some reason.
Not so great stuff: my knees were making their displeasure known. I believe this is just my arthritis speaking up, since we've had a lot of weather changes here recently. Some days, my knees are fine. Other days, less so.
But the big thing, and the reason I had to stop several times, was my ankles. The front tendons (?) of my ankles got really sore -- not from rubbing. DH wonders if I am doing something weird in my pedal stroke. It started by mile seven, which is weird because I've never noticed it on my commute, which is longer than that. That front part of my ankle is still sore today; I can definitely feel it if I flex my foot upward.
One thing I'm definitely going to have to learn to do is drink from the water bottle while moving. I have been very happy using a camelbak for mountain biking, but I gather that's just not done in road riding. I can do it, but it takes a lot of concentration, and it seems like I have to tip my head up enough that I can't see the road as well as I'd like. I guess it'll just take time.
DH said that he was surprised about two things -- how fast I rode the gradual climbs, and how slow I road the short steep climbs. I mean, "steep", nothing was *that* steep. He suspects that I'm downshifting too aggressively -- see, in mountain biking I've learned to downshift early and fast, because downshifting while you're on the climb and maybe riding technical stuff is a mess. But DH thinks maybe when road riding, where climbs are typically not so abrupt, I should take a more gradual approach to shifting, and I won't lose so much momentum.
I did feel like I "ran out of" gears faster than I expected on the downhills. I mean, how am I supposed to go superfast when I can't pedal fast enough to engage the wheel? But I don't know if this means that I should ultimately shop for a bigger big ring, or maybe just wait it out and see what happens. DH points out that bigger big rings usually come with bigger small rings, and you never know when you might need those baby gears around here. (We both unabashedly run triples -- eventually I'd like to do rides like Jamestown, Ward, etc, and those mountains are tall!)
Anyway -- yay, first road ride complete! Here's to many more! Any thoughts on the ankle pain very welcome!
