May 23 Ride Report

[Crankin]

Today I used my last personal day of the school year to go on a group ride with the Wednesday Wheelers, a group I rode with last summer. They are a mixture of older people (I swear some are 70-80) and others who can get a day off in the middle of the week. My husband came with me today. There were about 50 people there! Some of these riders are bit squirrely on the road, so I try to stay up front if I can. What i like about this group is that it's social and they use "human arrows" at turns, so no one gets lost. We went on a 38 mile ride that started in Ayer, MA and went through Shirley, Townsend, and Groton. There was a pretty good climb in the first half, on a street that was ironically called Flat Hill Rd. I was able to stay up front on the climb, though it was hard. I felt great during the second half, which was essentially flat. The last 8 miles were on the nashua River bike trail, which normally I would NEVER ride on, but it was pretty empty in the middle of the week. A group of us went ahead of the leader for these last miles and I was able to maintain 18-20 for most of it. Afterwards, we went to a sandwich place for lunch.
Some of the last part of the ride, before the trail was on roads that I ride on quite a bit. It's funny to hear the comments from others who live in the city, about "how pretty that farm is," and all that. I think I have become very jaded, given that I can ride in beautiful country/suburban like settings pretty much out my door.

[Scarlet]

Hi Robyn,
it is easy to become blase about where you live, if you are lucky enough to live an nice area.
Also many of us are able to just get up and go on our bikes just out of the garage or garden/back yard to you folks over the pond!! and so forget for some folk they have to drive miles or hours just to get out of city areas.
and this is true in UK too.
I too am lucky that within 5-10 minutes I am out of town and along beautiful country lanes and about 20 miles from the coast. I cycle with two other women who live within a large town (almost city) and they are awe struck sometimes at the scenery and the quietness.
This is good for me as when cycling solo I forget to "see" and tend to focus on "getting there"
Happy cycling and great to chat

Scarlet x

[Mr. Bloom]

About 32 miles. Great weather. I'm hyped about shooting for my first century on Saturday!

[Geonz]

Shooting Go for it dude....

I was profoundly unproductive at work (usually I work with students, who aren't here right now, so I *have* a list of Things I Really Want To Play With, Develop or Whatever... ) so I went out and rode 10 miles for lunch doing laps around campus and came back and was a TINY bit more productive (and called and talked to Laughter at Xtracycle and ordered a "caliper protector" for my brakes, and according to a comment on my blog, Xtracycles are on backorder! There is hope for the world!

Toodled on home and I swear a runner was using me as a rabbit. I mean, maybe that *was* his route, but even so I decided not to blast away on the grounds that if catching me at every intersection lessened the boredom of his run, that was cool - I even let a hybrid guy pass me (okay, I know it's hot! I coudln't have done *that* on a cool day ). Lemme tell ya, this guy ran *strong* for that three miles 'til we parted ways.

[Zen]

This evening was a short training ride with some of my fellow Catoctin Challenge participants. I am an uphill demon but a terrible downhill weenie and it really slows down my average time.

Even though it was a short ride we stopped at a little grocery at the foot of the "mountain" to drink some cold water and shoot the s**t. while we were sitting there, one of the local good ol' boys came inside and said 'Hey, biker people!" A real nice guy but a bit chatty, he thought we were going up into the mountains and wanted to warn us of a bear and her three cubs in the vicinity.

[Zen]

oh, and

GO MR. SILVER!