July 5th Rides.

[Fredwina]

Started out early rode to the bank ,and then down to the airport. I then rode back up, to do the club ride. Chatted with Jiffer for a while(she was on the tandem with her DH). I did hybrid of our two routes with Mike B and Dan. (same miles as the long , but less climbing Hung around the coffee shop, before heading home( I think Jiffer and DH did the long version up Mt baldy Road, I''ll check with them at the club's TdF party tonight.
52 miles

[makbike]

A great day on the bike. The club hosted a century which started in Louisville and made its way to Madison, Indiana. There were two good climbs on this ride and the rest of the route was pretty flat to gently rolling. The day started out cloudy and foggy with temps in the low 70's. It stayed this way for the first 50 miles which probably was a good thing given the roads we rode had no shade. Lunch in Madison and then we turned and headed back to our cars. The sun did come out but only for a very short period before the rain started. Thank goodness it was not a heavy rain and it did not last long. My legs felt really good and strong today.

The route was 96 miles long and I averaged 17.8 mph (a PB). I'm pretty excited and I'm feeling better about RaIN next weekend.

[OakLeaf]

Club ride this morning. We started out with a very large group (not sure how many - somebody said 18) and kicked off by riding a mere 9 miles to a local church for breakfast. For $5, you get an all-you-can-eat buffet of scrambled eggs, two kinds of egg casserole, home fries, pancakes, two different kinds of sausage, bacon, biscuits, gravy, fruit cup, OJ and coffee. Silly me, I didn't realize this was church breakfast day and ate before the ride. Oh well.

After breakfast, nine of us (including a couple on a tandem) split off to do a longer route. Some of the slower riders took a short cut. We caught up to some of them, but others apparently took another alternate route (I don't know whether it was intentional or they weren't sure of the route). By mile 35 my group was seven riders including the tandem. At the next intersection, we waited a good long time for the tandem. They were fine, knew the route, just taking their time, and said it was okay to drop them.

At the final water stop, one rider split off because he'd ridden from home, and the remaining four of us debated which route to take back. We generally agreed that we didn't want to take a super-hilly route, but we figured that we'd just use repeated coin-flips to choose the way. The hilliest route got excluded on the first toss of the coin, so we were happy... until the strongest rider in our group, who'd gotten a little ahead, took the turnoff onto that road. The rest of us grumbled, but no one wanted to be the first wuss, so we followed along.

51.5 miles, 3270 feet of climbing.

[han-grrl]

Mtb ride today with hubby.

biked from home, on the road to the trail head in Gatineau Park
then up the 1 from the bottom, across to the 24, down to the 40, road to the 36, then the 50, then out to the road and home...

took 3 hours. felt great today.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

DH and I did a 32 mile ride this morning.
It rained on us about 1/2 way through and we got pretty wet. But happily my brakes still worked. I had to take off my glasses since I didn't have windshield wipers. Hosed the mucky mud spray off my bike when we got home. Hot shower sure felt good.

[sundial]

It was overcast and kind of cool when I headed out to ride. Did 28.5 miles and av. 19.2 on the way back.

[mimitabby]

ferocious dark clouds scudding by the whole time i was outside, and temps in the 60's except for the headwind all the way home, weather suited me fine. It rained on my bike for the short time i was on the bus; the other 25 miles were actually dry. I also managed to stop at my son's house for a meal! (both sons were there )

[7rider]

Was raining this a.m. again, so we slept in (again!).
And since we apparently didn't get enough oppressive humidity and rotten deer flesh yesterday, we headed back INTO Rock Creek Park . However, we didn't go all the way down to Broad Branch, and we "did the hill" - i.e., Ross Ave past Military Drive. - counter clockwise. It is MY preferred route - a long series of steps up to the top, then a swooping zig-zag down back to the creek and a climb out of the park, past the ranger station (and ultimately, to the LBS...cuz we can't head down in that direction without stopping at the shop! ).
Well, climbing up Ross, I let out a "YAY!!" at the end. DH asked "Did it all in the big ring?" Yup. All in the big ring! It's so great to have DH who understands my little victories! It's the first time I did that hill totally in the big ring all season.

[mary9761]

This was my first time riding the Monon since my injuries. I got my bike ready, aired the tires up, washed my water bottles, put on my Team Lighthouse jersey, Hypoxia socks and then I headed down the street to my first big ride. Before I got to the end of the street, I noticed my seat felt low. I'd had a tool box on the rack at a weird angle and when I went to dismount and check the seat level, I cut my leg on the tool box probably about a 6 to 8 inch heavy scrape. So I turn around, clean it up and start over again.
I hadn't eaten much before I left so I stopped for a sandwich on the way to town. I rode all the way to the White River Greenway. I wanted to avoid some of the heavy construction on Washington St heading into town so I followed the Greenway to New York then to town.
I caught the bus to take me to Broad Ripple so that I could ride the Monon. After I got off the bus, I took one of the side streets that head to the Monon and I saw that there was a group of people painting a mural on a building. I stopped to take photos.
I got to the Monon and headed north. It was an incredible feeling to be back on the trail. It was congested in Broad Ripple, but it's normally like that especially on the weekends. I rode to The Bike Line in Carmel and surprised my friend and bike guy Jimmy. I looked at new lights and panniers for my bike and I'm going to wait until the better priced sets come in a few weeks.
After I left The Bike Line, I headed back to the Monon and Broad Ripple to catch the bus home as I was approaching 20 miles and didn't want to push my luck any further than I had. While I was waiting for the bus, I had a couple guys with bikes approach me to see if I had a patch kit they could use. I got the kit and my frame pump out and let them use them to repair their tube.
All and all, I'm exhausted, but it's a GOOD exhaustion. I had a fantastic ride on a great day, warm and a bit humid but not bad for July AND I got to help someone on my first out of neighbourhood ride. YEAH!!!
20.04 miles @ 9.1 avg mph 02:12:00

[JLMitchell]

I did thirty miles with a group today, but I bonked with about eight miles left to go. It was bad, we hit a hill and I just didn't have any juice. And there were three hills after that one, I think. The rest of the group tried not to drop me, but it was alright, we were so close to the end. I finished, threw the bike in the car, went home and passed out. I had a Gatorade and a cereal bar on the way because I knew I wouldn't make any stops between there and bed.

[Mr. Bloom]

46 miles at about 17mph.

Now, I'm just going to be doing short rides until RAIN. I'm a bit concerned that my left hamstring was aching...and that's a first.

Mary9761 - WELCOME BACK!

[Crankin]

I did about 20 miles of local riding; we did a variation of one of our Great Brook Farm loops, by doing it in the reverse direction. We decided to make this a slow ride. When we got to Great Brook after some very slow climbing of Strawberry Hill we stopped and I ate my Luna Bar. There were a lot of families getting ready to mtb on the trails there, which I thought was weird, since it has rained so much and the trails are not in good shape. We took off and headed out when I realized that I had only ridden that road in that direction maybe once. Everything looks different going a different way! When we got to the rotary in Carlisle a guy passed us. We stayed a bit behind him and then passed him up a ways on Lowell Rd. I guess he didn't like being behind a girl because he came up behind me and stayed on my wheel for quite a bit. Then he went up and asked my husband if he could pull. Since we didn't care one bit, we had a nice time behind him at about 25 mph. Then we turned off toward home when my husband declared he was going to crawl up the hill. Since I was warmed up and feeling good from riding slowly in the beginning, I managed to do the climb at around 10 mph, and about 8 going up the driveway.
This was a nice ride, since it was only 68 degrees out.