Oct 7 rides

**BleeckerSt_Girl** · 10-07-2006, 04:15 PM

Can anybody start this daily thread? Hope so...let me know if I've done a faux-pas....

**BleeckerSt_Girl** · 10-07-2006, 04:34 PM

Today I hit a new record for myself! 41.5 miles! Woo-HOOO!!
DH and I did a great ride today, with lots of rolling hills (quite a few steep ones at that) a nice mix of gravel backwoods roads and main routes. All pretty nice.
We started out at 9am after a big breakfast in town, stopped for about 30 minutes at lunch time for apple cider and ice cream at a country store, where we sat and rested on cushy rattan chairs on their front porch in the sun.

Rolled back home at 4pm after stopping again in town for a couple of grocery items to take home.
I'm pretty tired out, let me tell you. But amazingly, I had no aches or pains at all until the last half hour or so. That's about when my sit bones started complaining a bit, and I had a little soreness in my knees and between my shoulder blades and a slightly stiff neck. Overall, nothing too bad! When we got home I raised my seat yet again, another cm- that should do it. Was wearing my SheBeest Tech tights with a chamois that I am finding very comfortable indeed.
The ride started out COLD at 40 degreesF. and wound up at about 65 degrees and sunny, so we had to do various unpeeling of layers along the way. My SB tights kept my legs comfortable throughout those temperature changes. On my upper body, I have lately discovered the beauty of using several layers of THIN merino wool or polartec (I know, duh). The best part is that they roll up tightly into SMALL bundles that can easily be strapped to the back of your saddlebag once you take them off.

It was a great all-day biking day for me, and a new longest distance ride!

I'll probably sleep like a rock tonight.

**Cassandra_Cain** · 10-07-2006, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by Lisa S.H.

Today I hit a new record for myself! 41.5 miles! Woo-HOOO!!

It was a great all-day biking day for me, and a new longest distance ride!

I'll probably sleep like a rock tonight.

Great to hear Lisa - PR's are always a good thing

So is sleeping like a rock!!!

**Cassandra_Cain** · 10-07-2006, 05:04 PM

Saturday morning. Ride. Of course -oops, wait. Clouds, gloomy, and threatening skies. Hmmmm. A nap.

2 hours later. Ah, there's the sun, let's go!

I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach today's ride. It was the usual 4000 feet of climbing @ 5.2%. Partly I considered doing L4 intervals up with easier periods between as well as a few other options.

Naturally I decided to do it as an all-out time trial.

Felt like I was flying at first, starting out a bit too hard. My pace leveled off and I made it in good shape to the base of the ski area @ 8500 ft. After that though the next 2000+ feet were much harder, like always. From the base of the mountain to the summit, apparently Vo2max drops by about 7-10% even for someone acclimated to altitude like I am - which probably explains why the 2nd half of the climb feels disproportionately hard, that and it is steeper.

It was a grind, but I forced myself to push hard through the less steep sections which is precisely where the body usually wants to take it easy. Very challenging to the mind and body, to keep yourself at the limit nonstop.

Easily broke my own PR from last week, doing it well under 2 hours.

It was pure hoots and grins on the way down zipping along over 40mph and passing a car

**BleeckerSt_Girl** · 10-07-2006, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by Cassandra_Cain

It was pure hoots and grins on the way down zipping along over 40mph and passing a car

I passed a car today too!

(but it was parked)

**mtkitchn** · 10-07-2006, 05:47 PM

It was actually cool this morning in Phoenix (64 degrees), so my ride was quite pleasant. Did 23.5 miles, and felt good during the whole ride. I've really gotten out of shape recently, but am happy that this ride didn't hurt me at all.

**Cassandra_Cain** · 10-07-2006, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by Lisa S.H.

I passed a car today too!

(but it was parked)

LOL

**midgetcycler** · 10-07-2006, 07:21 PM

Didn't ride today, but I will be going out tomorrow! Hopefully I will hit about 45 or so miles. Just looked at the odometer, and I am only 46 miles shy of hitting 1000 miles on my bike! Wish me luck!

**Aggie_Ama** · 10-07-2006, 07:44 PM

You can do it Midgetcycler!!

Today I got back on the bike. I have been very lazy since my husband was in the hospital last month. I think we only rode twice. Today we ran several errands and then got the bikes ready for a short ride. We were racing daylight but managed to get in 18.37 miles. The hills told me I need to get some work before the metric we want to do next month. I did manage to average 16.7 mph.

DH has a colonoscopy Monday, so we won't be riding again until Tuesday. It felt great to be back on the bike!

**salsabike** · 10-07-2006, 07:58 PM

Did a 30 mile tandem ride on the Sammamish River Trail and saw dozens and dozens of spawning salmon. Don't know whether I'm weird or what, but I thought it was a simply awesome sight.

**7rider** · 10-08-2006, 05:25 PM

DH and I, along with my friend Karen and her DH and about 6,000 other maniacs did the Seagull Century on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The first Nor'easter of the season hit (normally a winter storm) bringing rain and horrendous wind. The system seemed to park itself over the area for the first half of the weekend. Grrrr....
Last year, we attempted the ride during the remains of tropical storm Tammy - 7" of rain and 30 mph wind. This year, we didn't have as much rain, but much, much more wind...the gusts had to have been over the predicted 40 mph. Ask anyone who rode (or walked) the bridge onto Assateague Island - and got sandblasted for their efforts. Cyclists were riding at an angle into the wind. I wish I could have taken my hands off the handlebars to take a picture, but I was too freaked out to think about it at the time.
Normally, this ride is full of hammerheads in pacelines, but the few groups we saw go by were slow and disorganized and hardly breaking any land speed records. It was a ride to survive, not thrive, and I applaud those who did it.
Kudos to all the TE folks who were out there! I saw one Velo Bella jersey - TE sells those, right? - but didn't see anyone else that I could say was obviously a TE forum-ite.
So all 4 of our group finished with no mishaps (except for my waterbottle that went flying, spilling Gatorade all over me while on the road). We did about 101 miles all told in about 6.5 hours. It was our first century together and we went back to our B&B and toasted our success with wine and Epsom salts! (Soo romantic, eh?)

**Kalidurga** · 10-08-2006, 05:32 PM

Wow, Regina, congrats on finishing what sounds like a seriously tough ride. I caught a weather report from Ocean City before I left for work yesterday morning, and it did not look like a pretty picture out there!

Here's hoping that you'll have a beautiful, calm blue sky next year...

**KnottedYet** · 10-08-2006, 07:06 PM

Whoops, don't know what day it is! This should be Oct 8. Oh well.

Just a little 10 mile ride in the evening on a bike trail. Rode with a friend of mine. It was a shock to realize how much faster my new bike is. Without meaning to, I left her behind several times.

Got to play with Flosshilde's new tires, bell, and light.

The tires are marvellous! Smoothed the road buzz! (vittoria randonneurs)
The bell is LOUD. Even folks with earphones knew I was coming. Nice.
The light is bright and cute. By the end of the ride I was very glad I had it.

**BleeckerSt_Girl** · 10-09-2006, 03:51 AM

Originally Posted by KnottedYet

It was a shock to realize how much faster my new bike is. Without meaning to, I left her behind several times.

Nice new avatar of your GoldiFloss!

Beautiful!!

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