June 22 rides

[Fredwina]

I was going to do Glendora Mountain and Glendora Ridge Road, since I'm supposed to do the Grand Tour on Saturday.
Nut is 100 degrees. and the club ride didn't start until 8. So I started at 6. It turned out for the best, as I ran in to of my buddies in Claremont and we talked as we road down Bonita ave together
Why do such a road?


Later on you can look down at the lakes in the San Gabriel Canyon:


After riding back down I rendezvoused with some of My biking buds for Brunch. Discussions about the route back centered on whether to take the direct route or the shady route . Shade won out
I split off from the group with 56 miles in. "only" 100 Degrees. at noon

[madscot13]

those are some awesome pics.

for my first real ride of the season I biked down to Mount Vernon. I'm pretty proud of myself. 38 miles all together at 12.66 mph. not too bad. i could do better but that is what training is for.

now I am eating up a yummy beef stew and drinking a glass of red wine. not quite post ride refueling but I am feeling pretty good right now!

[spindizzy]

I'm feeling a tad envious..those are gorgeous pics..and to have a choice of gorgeous routes....

[mimitabby]

my rides today were a lot less glamorous 15 miles of riding in the 'hood including a hill repeat of the 12% grade on the switchback behind my house because i left without my pannier!! Went to 3 different stores to buy food; a chore i normally do in the car.

[divingbiker]

Today I rode 54 hilly miles to finish the Tour de Nebraska, a 300-mile, 5-day loop tour through the rolling fields and pastures and Sandhills of Nebraska. I was ready to get off the bike.

Will post more in the Touring forum in a few days after I get back home to MD. It was a good ride, but I'm not a camper, and it's verrry difficult to find vegan food in rural Nebraska. I may never look at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich again.

[Crankin]

I wrote about this in Mr. Silver's lightening thread, but there's more to the story.
We were supposed to do a local charity ride today, benefiting the Acton Lions Club. It's very low key and we have done it 2-3 times. This year they moved the start to the local rod and gun club which is across the street from my neighborhood. We had vacillated about doing the century or the 50 miler, but we signed up for the 50 and the BBQ lunch. You pay a fee and there's no fund raising. So... last night we went out to dinner with this guy who came on one of our spring warm up rides in April. He's very nice, but his gf was a bit, ah "different." We didn't get home until 11 and somehow, I had it in my mind the ride started at 9:30. Rain was predicted, so we thought well, if it's raining hard, we'll bag it. I woke up at 7:15 and at 7:25 I looked at the flyer for the ride. It started at 8:00 and we needed to be there a half hour early! So, the decision was made for us. The weather forecast had changed to rain later in the day, late PM. We leisurely read the paper and decided to go mountain biking. Now, I only went mountain biking once last year, although I had been a bit more the previous 2 years. We headed off for Estabrook Woods, about 3 miles away. We decided to drive over, since we weren't sure what else we would do. On the way there, there were some cyclists going down Strawberry Hill Rd as we were. They were on a different charity ride. This one woman wobbled and lost control as she tried to signal left; we were leaving room for her to move in the lane and then she crashed into the car in front of us! We got away from her quickly! (she was OK). We did the main trail and part of another and then decided to check out another trail that actually connects to this one, but I was a little leery of being able to do the ride back because it's very rocky and uphill. So we drove to the trailhead of the second trail and headed in. I've snowshoed and hiked here, but we really didn't know where it went.
My husband had his Garmin on. All was well until we stopped and sort of went off on another trail. It started getting dark and thundering. Short story, we headed back, but we were definitely turned around, so we followed the Garmin's directions, but by this time it was extremely windy, sprinkling, and I was tired. The trails were single track, but not too technical. I get nervous about being lost in the woods even though we were still in Concord, not exactly in the wilderness. It started pouring out and it was so windy tree branches were flying. Not to mention the thunder. By this time I was soaked, caked in mud and laughing, but worried about the cold. We finally made it to the road and got in my car.
A total of 8 miles. I did pretty well, only one stupid fall over nothing. I really liked riding in there, but will go back on a sunnier day!