May 28 daily ride report

Rode 25 miles in the rain. Again! This time I had fenders. Niiiiiiiice. I really do like riding in the rain. Something was blooming along the bike trail, and it smelled great.

Met the lovely Ms. Quillfred for coffee, then rode to the lbs and had them work on my dragging brake pedal and got some bolts for my fenders. Though I must admit my string attachement system worked pretty well.

Had a picnic at the edge of the lake (banana and Clif Snot) then rode home. Overshot my destination by a couple miles, just because it felt so good to be riding.

Once again, my Ibex wool top and knickers came through with flying colors.

I enjoyed my 22 mile ride today with the club. It is the traditional Sunday ride which takes rides through a beautiful park in Louisville, winds through downtown Louisville and dumps rides out on Riverroad (runs parallel to the Ohio River). It is a nice flat ride and for once I did not have to battle the wind going up the river. I averaged 16.4 mph today and felt great the whole time I was on my bike.

Well - it's been a TE-filled weekend - Mt. Diablo yesterday, and a nice flat "recovery" ride today!

We (Jobob, Trek420, Winddance and I) had a lovely 27 mile ride today along the Alameda Creek trail - thanks Winddance for suggesting it. It was a gorgeous day out along the creek and bay, duck and goose familes everywhere one looked, including smack in the middle of the trail at one point! I survived another assault on Jobob's "nemesis hill" - and it was a treat to come over the top and look up and see her waving me on! And Winddance made it much further up that hill (on her compact double!!!:eek:) than last time - well done!

We pushed hard back to the cars - I did my little trick of trying to increase my average mph over the last few miles. That was a lot of fun everyone, thanks!

I did "Bike the Drive" here in Chicago, where they shut down Lakeshore Drive from 5 to 10 AM and let you ride on it (for a fee, of course. At least the give you a T-shirt). You can choose from a variety of distances, ranging from 5 mil to 30 mi. I did the 30. It was SO HOT! And humid too! About 85 degrees, 80% humidity. Ugh.

The worst part of it though, was that I had planned on doing the 30 miles with a friend of mine, and instead she sped off and rode with her ex-bf the whole time. So I rode alone. <sigh>

I love air conditioning.

Went for a hard 100 km with my boyfriend yesterday to celebrate end-of-exams, but I was still short of 2000 km by 12 km so I went for the slowest-possible recovery ride today. That was nice. (He didn't come with me... I think he abused his body these last few weeks and his immune system has decided to step back now that exams are over...)

So 21 km in an hour, including the last 2,5 km climbing this nice 5-6% hill by where I live, in small gears, super slowly, basing my speed on my heart rate (that I kept as low as possible). Cloudy, a little chilly, but just fine.

Came back home, cleaned both bikes (boyfriend still sick in bed) thoroughly... Now I'm ready to jump in a nice, warm shower!

Spouse and I did 50 miles on the tandem in sprinkles, showers, and downright rain, around the north half of Lake Washington and across Mercer Island. KnottedYet is so right--fenders are GOOD. Was a wet but good ride and made us happy. Nothing like a hot shower after a ride like this!

Did 21.5 miles today! Very nice ride on a new route I'm exploring. Hopefully will be much longer once I figure out where it all goes!

Low 70's, lil breezy....was awesome!

Kim

Guys at the bike shop said it was in the low 50's today. That's the PNW!

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Originally Posted by bikerz

I survived another assault on Jobob's "nemesis hill" - and it was a treat to come over the top and look up and see her waving me on! And Winddance made it much further up that hill (on her compact double!!!:eek:) than last time - well done!

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Here she comes ....

http://i4.tinypic.com/10znviw.jpg

And she did it!! :D

http://i4.tinypic.com/10znw90.jpg

That hill's such a stinker, it's a great feeling to reach the top. And she did it on her second try - it took me many more attempts than that!

Got dirty today! Hit the trails in California for the first time this year. Had a little spin around the Fleming Meadows loop (above Placerville) with Ed (from yesterday's Diablo ride) and Robb (from the Dam Corners ride). Today is Robb's 60th Bday and we're normally in Bend celebrating in the dirt up there followed by some local brew so it seemed appropriate to haul him out to get a grubby here. White iris in bloom and the trails in such perfect gummy condition that the tires made no noise and you could hear the birds singing.

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Originally Posted by SadieKate

Robb (from the Dam Corner's ride)

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Hey! Is that an apostrophe where it doesn't belong??? :eek: What belongs to the Corner?

I don't see one. I need a shower and some ice cream. Which order?

Yay BikerZ! You've come a long way baby! :p Isn't it grand to see progress.

Today's ride was a 30 mile loop that I prefer to do only in non commute hours. It heads out Deer Valley, a gorgeous road through the farmland, out to Marsh Creek and comes back on the highway 4 bypass. It's really out in the country, horses and cows everywhere, lots of orchards too. Deer Valley has no shoulders however and gets a lot of commute traffic. There are two hills on it and when Thom and I first started riding the tandem, those hills seemed so hard. I still use my little ring on them - that's why I have a little ring. :p But I spin up them with a much higher cadence now. BTW, I'm becoming a cadence watcher. That seems to me to be the best way to get faster for the Mt. Tam Double (why do they HAVE to have time cutoffs?) and not blow out my knees. Today's average cadence over 30 fairly flat miles (1000 feet of climb) - 91 RPMs with a high of 122.

V.

I was going to play hooky from church and do the club ride, but I was not feeling very "clubby" today,so I went to church and did my own ride over mots of thier route. I cut out about 20 miles of flat, but left in most of the hills. wound up with 52 milesadn about 4,000 feet. dont ask about my avereage I wish I had brought my camera along, as lot of the wildflower were in bloom. There is a about a 10 mile section of road that Los Angeles county keeps closed to cars, but open to bicycles and peds on the weekends. it's nice, except for the fact that ascends about 2000 feet. I met a couple of fire engines coming the other way. Not sure if there were on a "real" run or doing a training exercise. I'm looking forward to getting my "bear" of a ride over with! only 2 more week of "climb every mountain"

DH and I found an alternative route to the road closed for construction that stalled our ride yesterday. We had to go up a highway for one mile, but it had a tiny shoulder and little traffic. Most of the rest of the ride was through lovely and quiet Texas country. There were some rolling hills and I was a turtle on them today. Poor DH, he patiently rode so slow. We logged 54 miles, I then blew the effort by eating too much Chuy's Tex-Mex. Great day!

well, it sure was barely 50 in the Seattle area. we waited until it stopped raining, about 330 or 4pm and looked at each other; and said; "let's go for it"
and we dropped all the other stuff we were doing and hopped into our bike duds.
I wore my new 8 panel bike shorts WITHOUT underwear (for the first time)and put tights over them. We rode 31 miles; partially up the green river trail. We turned around when the clouds in front of us got too black. IT was just in time, it started to rain on us on our way back, but we missed the brunt of it. Now I am safe and warm and dry in my warm house.
All body parts okay!

Tomorrow we hope to do a longer ride!

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary, so we decided to bike some of the Katy Trail as a family. This was my sons' first BIG ride and they did great! 10.3 miles total distance at 8 mph average. :)

Once we got home (it's a two hour drive from our house to a Katy trailhead), we got our road bikes out and went for a short ride without the boys (the road bikes were early anniversary presents that we got a week and a half ago). We did a hilly loop, 17 miles, in a little over an hour, averaging 16 mph! What fun! It was a gorgeous afternoon to be riding!

We did have a cross-wind for part of our ride which just about knocked me over, but even that couldn't put a damper on our ride(s). My youngest is HOOKED and the oldest will be when he has his bike fitted properly (he was sitting a little low). All in all a GREAT biking day!

Lorie

Lots of firsts happening! Wish I'd had some of that coolness...

Did 72 in the HOT hills of Kentucky... on the Xtracycle. It was different - I"m not used to passing people on the downhills and them passing me on the uphill, but when you're riding something like 45 pounds of bicycle... yesterday's 53 was a piece of cake... today's was hillier, hotter... oh, and I didn't have my tea. Heck, I could have stood **coffee** getting that thing up the hills - but it's been a long time since I've recalled what tired, stiff and sore feel like - and usually then I've got some monster mileage to brag about. Ah, well, good for the character!
The Xtracycle came in handy... the ride is in a dry county, so my buddies could get that 12-pack at the Last Chance County Line Liqour STore and toss it in and I didn't really notice it. The blender drew a crowd and the Xtracycle in general got amusingly diverse reactions. It's interesting that some people wanted to know exactly what specific function it was supposed to serve (was it especially designed to carry a certain cargo?); one person wanted to know what it's purpose was (I mean, it's not obvious?); most people didn't believe I had a blender :=) and a lot of people were impressed at its elegance. (Okay, and the volunteer at the end who asked how far I'd gone ... just said, "Holy cow!" So I could get chuffed :) :) )

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Originally Posted by Veronica

BTW, I'm becoming a cadence watcher. That seems to me to be the best way to get faster for the Mt. Tam Double (why do they HAVE to have time cutoffs?) and not blow out my knees. Today's average cadence over 30 fairly flat miles (1000 feet of climb) - 91 RPMs with a high of 122.
V.

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Thanks! I think it was Yellow who told me all about the benefits of a cadence meter - I installed one at the end of last year, and I love it - I think it's has really helped me with keeping a constant speed and spinning better. Today I was working on SK's advice about keeping my upper body still, and I noticed that whenever I really paid attenton to my form, I felt more comfortable, and I went faster. Well, whaddya know. I guess there's something to all this! :rolleyes:

Looking at Jo's photos of me, my first thought was "get those shoulders DOWN!" My second thought was "good thing those photos aren't time/date stamped" - it was a looooong time between the first and second pictures!