11/17 report

[SouthernBelle]

Happy Saturday!

Headed out about 8:30 to get a few miles under my belt. Temps were low 40s and it was windy. But I did pretty well getting the layers right. Ativa top and tights under regular shorts and my orange smartwool hoodie. I could have used warmer socks.

Rode into a headwind, which with my lack of riding of late was a little tough. I didn't get warmed up and into a good rhythm until about the 10 mile mark. After a bit my feet, ears and the back of my neck got a little cold, probably from the wind. But as I was headed toward home, the sun came out for a bit and felt so nice and warm on my back.

But a nice ride and 25.43 miles.

[RoadRaven]

Hey there Belle... glad you had some sun on your back

Well my ride was sweet... Club race, Individual Time Trial... I did a personal best over the 25.6 km flat course in a difficult changeable light winds...

Very sore legs, relatively pleased with myself (my average was .3km below where I wanted it to be...)

Total of just under 40km with warm up and cool down...

If I get some energy I'll post a race report - but the 17th was (its the morning of the 18th here in KiwiLand now) a very good day

[Tri Girl]

Sounds like you both had fantastic rides!
I rode with a small group- for about 5 miles then got dropped. I'm just no good on hills (the uphill part anyway ). Wound up riding the rest of the time by myself then rode home.
On the way home, went by the hospital for the "drive-up" flu shot clinic. They laughed and said I was the first bike to come through.
A great fall morning here- 35 slow miles- but very enjoyable ones!

[SlowButSteady]

Chilly and windy here in the Piedmont of South Carolina. Our fall colors are still beautiful, just beginning to fade a bit. Our small group rode 25 miles--we're so lucky to have crop fields, cow pastures and woods on our routes, which are also light on traffic. We also rode past fields of cotton, a crop that is making a comeback in this neck of the woods. These fields are white as though dusted well with snow. Just beautiful and well-worth bucking the wind to ride.

I'm riding my new bike, a Giant OCR A-1 W. Still in the "getting used to it" period and doggone if I didn't pick up something in the rear brake pad that scraped my rim a little bit. But the good news is that I can keep up with the group better than I could on my previous bicycle, which was a teeny-weenie Trek 1000 WSD. Yay!

[PinkBike]

what a great day for a ride!
started out a little nippy but warmed up dramatically.

we showed up at the start around 6 am and the gold section was filled up and the silver was getting there, so we lined up halfway into the silver. it took prob'ly about 10 minutes to actually get up to the starting line once the ride started. there were 5300 riders on the 109-mile route. so i spent the first hour just trying to work my way up the pack. got into some good pacelines that helped a lot. i didnt have a problem with the steep snyder hill but the rollers were endless and a couple times i couldnt stay with the group i had settled in with.

i dropped my chain somewhere on airline road and had to stop and fix that, and i stopped once for water. being such a big event there were cops at EVERY intersection to direct us thru and i only had to stop twice for traffic. it seems like all the riders were just so friendly, and the crowds were outstanding! we even had one guy who was running along the road next to the riders going up rattlesnake pass like you see fans doing in the tour. too funny.

so i finished in 6:12, i had so wanted to do it in 6:00 but it was such a good event that i'm not really that disappointed. and the great news was that DH finished in 6:47, but when he crossed the line he was just so happy. usually at the end of a race he's a big drama queen about his aches and pains, this time he was just gushing about how much fun he had! i am thrilled!

i sure would've liked to have met up with any TE-ers, i hope mimi and don and mtk and any others had as much fun as i did.

[Fredwina]

I did 66 miles
Did the what we call the "Bryce" version of the club ride,a fter the guy who cam up the idea. It has the mileage of the long ,with out the climbs. Did some climbing to a ranger station, and checked out a detour for one of my brevet routes. wound up hitting a pavement edge wrong(Time for my yearly Fall )
some pics: