Saturday, August 7 rides

The weather was so very nice here today! I went to a local club ride that I could actually RIDE to :D There were three loops possible, each about 25 miles and we could ride them as we chose. There was a fast and flat loop, a hilly loop, and a rolling loop. I did the hilly and rolling loops, which brought my mileage for the day to 55.5 miles :D

I felt really strong during the ride, and think I am finally drinking enough. It was a beautiful ride - and NEXT Saturday will be time for my first metric century I think.

We did an out the door 41 mile hilly ride. Well, the first half has all of the climbing, including a nice, 3 part 3/4 mile 10-15% grade climb to the top of Old Bay Rd. in Bolton. We rode there a slightly different way than we usually do, since we were not with our friends, but this variation also involved several hills before the steep climb. We always stop at the top and eat lunch in front of an abandoned house that is front of an apple orchard. Not too many cyclists out today; I guess they are all riding the PMC. Seriously, there was a noticeable difference in how many other cyclists I saw, which tells me that i am correct in my suspicion that everyone training for the PMC likes to ride where I ride and live. After the climb and lunch, there's a steep downhill that ends in a stop sign, and then some nice flat riding on a busy road at 23 mph. We stopped at gas station where I was going to refill my bottle in the bathroom, when 2 other cyclists offered us what was let of the half gallon jug of water they bought. So, I use it, mixed up my Accelerade and we headed home. I decided to cut the ride a bit short by taking an alternate route home, but it involved a final climb right before the climb up my street. DH and I were tired, so we went really slowly.
Came home, drank my chocolate milk, and decided that the "touring" pace of the first part of the ride was quite nice. DH was going so slowly, looking at scenery at one point, I yelled at him as I thought I was going to crash into him. We are getting old :).

Nice ride to the farmer's market plus added on a bit of extra mileage. Total mileage: 15.8. The humidity was down a bit, and there was a nice breeze out of the north (rare in the summer in NC), so a great day to get out!

I went on a nice mellow mostly flat 32 mile spin with two friends, complete with a relaxing coffee stop mid-way, where I was served the most lovely latte ever, made by a very talented barista.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/...1fe6dfd6_m.jpg

then home for a quick shower and off to downtown on the xtracycle for lunch with the family, so another 6 miles of tooling around on that.

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Originally Posted by jdubble

I went on a nice mellow mostly flat 32 mile spin with two friends, complete with a relaxing coffee stop mid-way, where I was served the most lovely latte ever, made by a very talented barista.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/...1fe6dfd6_m.jpg

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Very clever.
When I was in San Francisco last week, a few of us went to a coffee shop at the ferry terminal and the barista made a leaf design in my friend's latte. She took a picture of it and was afraid to drink it. It was almost too pretty to ruin! :p

I did the Poolesville loop with the N2 crew. They held a decent (read: moderate) pace, so I did go out to Poolesville, rather than cutting it short - which I was tempted to do, having suffered a bout of insomnia last night.
57 miles at a 17.4 mph average, which was pretty good, considering.

But...I really need to get multi-day long rides in...and I have very few days left to do it. My commutes are too short to serve that purpose, and lately I have too much going on to tack on extra miles at the end of the day. Our bike trip is coming up very soon, and I only hope I'm ready. Tomorrow, I plan to add extra miles to the shop ride - ride to it, do the extra loop through the park, and then drive home with DH (do some shopping along the way...ewwwww...stinky).

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Originally Posted by 7rider

Very clever.
When I was in San Francisco last week, a few of us went to a coffee shop at the ferry terminal and the barista made a leaf design in my friend's latte. She took a picture of it and was afraid to drink it. It was almost too pretty to ruin! :p.

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Latte art is so ubiquitous here that I almost didn't even notice the bike, I just don't look anymore! I was about to take a sip when my friend called out "Wait! Is that a bike?!" You must've gone to Blue Bottle at the Ferry Building. They make delicious drinks! My favorite is the Gibraltar. Mmmmm coffee.

Did my second group ride in my new home: we did 48 miles, took about 3.5 hours and it was relatively hilly. Someone said we did 2700 vertical feet of climbing, is that hilly/kinda hilly? I dunno. I'm a flatlander in a new hilly place so I'm just trying to survive. It seems I'm doing OK but my legs are really heavy after that ride. My hamstrings were starting to twitch near the end but I did make it. :) Score for me!

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Originally Posted by WindingRoad

Did my second group ride in my new home: we did 48 miles, took about 3.5 hours and it was relatively hilly. Someone said we did 2700 vertical feet of climbing, is that hilly/kinda hilly? I dunno. I'm a flatlander in a new hilly place so I'm just trying to survive. It seems I'm doing OK but my legs are really heavy after that ride. My hamstrings were starting to twitch near the end but I did make it. :) Score for me!

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Yayyy for you! Where is your new home?

I did another ride I haven't done in over a year.
The latest advance in Sports Nutrition. meet mr Gumm E Bear:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1545.jpg
House on Hill @ Glen Helen Park:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1547.jpg
Interstate 15:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1548.jpg
Downtown Devore:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1549.jpg
go down hill:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1550.jpg
and you come to something Familiar:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1552.jpg
route 66 has been bypassed, so it's now a lonely road:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1553.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_vuerRrNlUQI/TF...0/100_1554.jpg
and for going downhill, there's always youtube

DH and I did a very hilly 27 miler from home today. Thru lots of canyons and along new bike paths that have just recently opened up. Unfortunately quite a few of them are not fully complete and just dead-end so we did a bit of turning around and backtracking. On many of the flatter sections he got me to practice drafting and riding his wheel. WOW - I'd heard you can use 30% less energy that way and now I understand the concept :)

Fredwina, great photos and video. Love your music choice.

I did a few miles on a car-free avenue -- part of the Summer Streets program, where cars are banned for a few hours.

Alas, the Bamboo Bike Studio is out to seduce me; they had a booth with a beautiful bike and a helpful young woman who has no idea why sixty-year-old knees might want low gears.

Did the club ride today which was one of my favorites from Ione to Andrae's Bakery in Amador City for coffee and a fresh peach scone. Started out with about 20 guys and one other biker chick. Great biking weather here, unusually cool for August. DH and I did shorter route for 25 miles and 2900 ft. Had to climb for that scone. :p

DH and I did 23 pre-work miles with some of the shop crew and a couple of others. Good company, and great route.

Is it selfish of me to hope that this doesn't turn into a huge group ride? There were 7 of us, and it was just the right number for good conversation and a good pace, without getting totally stretched out or upsetting drivers.

The hubby and I went out with our club and did the best 35mi so far. We've been riding a few months and are in between catagories. The new rider groups is a little slow, spreads out too much to really take anvantage of the draft and takes a few too many breaks for me, but I'm not up to the 40mi 14-16mph group that I hear really rides about 18mph. Becuase of that we've stuck with the newbies.

Then yesterday a rider from one of the faster groups had a flat and once he changed it in the parking lot he decided to tag along with our group. We all stayed together the first 20mi or so, but after a long rest stop a smaller group of us took off with him and my hubby taking turns pulling and we were booking it. He was great and looked back constantly to make sure I was still on his wheel. We actually caught the faster group and once I was on the back wheel of that group he moved off to the back to take a break. It was the fastest I've gone in a group ride and was a fabulous workout out.

Now I can't wait to get back on the bike this week and really push myself to go faster so I can move up to the next group.

Fredwina- loved the photos and video. That's close to my hometown of Redlands- we just drove through Cajon Pass last month, but not on the old road. We did do a ride in Victorville, not too far from there.

As for my Saturday ride, it was 35 miles and ended at an upscale grocery store w/ a bakery and we shared a beautiful fruit tart at the end.

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Originally Posted by azfiddle

As for my Saturday ride, it was 35 miles and ended at an upscale grocery store w/ a bakery and we shared a beautiful fruit tart at the end.

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Yum! AJ's? That's the first/only upscale grocery store that pops into my mind in Tucson...

Anyway, I went for about 30 miles yesterday afternoon on a path here in Omaha. It was very sunny and the headwinds were slightly demoralizing. I was looking forward to the tailwinds when I turned around and headed back, but of course the wind shifted. But I'm getting more and more comfortable cruising faster on my Jamis. It was so nice to be able to get down in the drops and cut through that wind... I would have been parasailing on my Trek. :rolleyes:

I spotted this cool metal artwork/memorial bench along the trail, too, and snapped a picture with my phone. "friend, athlete, role model, jokester" and then "In memory of Harry Jenkins Jr MD." If he was all that, I bet the world is a better place for this Dr. Jenkins having been in it!

DH and I rode 26 miles on our hybrids yesterday!:D