Say do you remember...cycling in September

[ny biker]

I can't believe it's September already. I want more summer

And I say that despite the brutal heat we endured on Saturday during the Civil War Century. My account of that ride is in this "hilly century" thread:

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=54125

And a discussion of my unhappiness with my new wheels, which debuted at that ride, is here:

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=54252

One thing I did not already mention was a mechanical problem that I had. There was a terrible rattling sound, which I thought was caused by the new wheels, and I also had a lot of trouble shifting. I thought that the derailleur needed an adjustment. There was a mechanic at one of the rest stops, so I brought the bike to him. He took the wheel off and determined that a spacer was missing from the cassette. He didn't have the right spacer to fix it, but was able to use a bracket spacer instead for a very good repair. I will need to have my LBS fix things with the correct spacer, but I was able to finish the ride without further shifting problems, and the rattling noise was gone.

The mechanic at the rest stop was Joe, from Joe's Bike Shop in Baltimore. He did a great job, and saved my ride.

As for the cause of the missing spacer, I think that was due to some miscommunication at my LBS that caused a delay in getting my bike back to me with the new wheels. It was definitely not the type of thing they typically do, and I'm confident they will take care of it.

Onward.

[Crankin]

I guess I posted all of my rides last week in the August thread. I had two good, but short rides this weekend, before my DH left for 2 weeks in China and Japan.

[Dragonfly5]

Saturday I rode 42 miles in the Maine Lighthouse Ride. It was my longest ride yet. The weather was quite humid but the ocean breeze helped. My friend was supposed to ride with me but we got all the way down there (we live about 45 min. away) and discovered she only had one shoe, Of course she rides with cleats and was wearing a flimsy shoe that wouldn't be comfortable for 40 miles so she had to go home. Fortunately, another friend was riding and I was able to ride with her. All in all it was a great day and I'm already toying with the idea of doing the metric century next year.

[smittykitty]

Great ride Sat. With DH. Temps in the Upper 80's. Rode 54 miles, a nice loop from home. Mostly quite country roads and a stretch on our wonderful, local paths. Lunch at our fav. Bike path dive!
One jerk honked and didn't move over, but the next driver stayed back all the way up the hill and wouldn't pass until he had a clear site line. He totally made up for the jerk (plus unknowingly put a little pressure on me to go faster!)
Embarrassed to say this was our second longest ride of the season! Gonna miss summer!

[Crankin]

DragonFly, I really want to do that Maine Lighthouse ride. One of my friends did it last year.
Next year, it will be on my list to do the metric.

[marni]

I envy you all in your cooler temperatures. Did a 40 mile ride 9/2 and then the same ride again yesterday. Both days were 85-92 during the ride with very high humidity. Makes one very grateful indeed for the 15 mph winds and an occasional puff of fair weather cloud for their minimal amounts of cooling. i'm waiting for the salty sweat rigns on the garage flour to start groeing alien moulds or something they are gettin that deep and that prolific.

[AppleTree]

khg, amazing ride report! Italy! Dolomites! Andy Hampsten!!

I have to say I'm exhausted just reading about all the climbing though, whew wee. Congrats on a terrific adventure.

[emily_in_nc]

Been riding a lot but not posting much. On Wednesday we went up to Clarkston, WA and did the Clarkston and Lewiston (ID) trails. Very pretty and scenic ride on a very windy day. Just put up a blog post on it if anyone is interested:

http://travelingtwosome.weebly.com/t...s-clark-valley

[khg]

I gotta hand it to Emily--I'll take hills over wind any day. The only hill that I walked part of in Italy was going up Passo Fedaia on a super windy day. After a couple gusts that blew me crosswise across the road, I was more than a little freaked out, and walked much of the rest of the climb.

I've had my eye on this Italy trip for a while, but a couple years ago it was with the thought "that's amazing, but I'd never be able to do that..." So it was really special to do the trip, above and beyond how great the trip was in itself.

[Crankin]

I went on a small group ride today, with a leader who is known in our leader circles as rather strange. He promotes his rides incessantly, by Google groups, not just the regular place where we post our rides on the AMC site. I've heard that he's kinda angry and that once, on an after work ride my friend was leading, he was punched by a rider in another club, because this guy was in the middle of the road and no one could get by.
Not to digress, but the ride was weird. It was advertised at a moderate pace, and it was going into a hilly area, so I said, sure. Found the group at the meeting place, which was not clearly described (lots of parking lots on this road), interspersed with the high school x country skiers getting ready to do dry land training on Oak Hill. Without going into boring details, the guy had sent links for 40, 50, 60 miles, so I downloaded the 60. At one point he told us to go ahead, he was staying with a slower woman... of course, he had no sweep, and no safety talk, either, totally against our rules. My GPS went off to turn, but the 4 guys I was riding with went straight, since he told us to wait at the stop sign. We did, and then he arrived, he says, "We're lost." How can you be lost with a GPS/cue sheet that you did? I was familiar with the area, not the road we were on. They wanted to ride to the NH border, it was getting dark and windy out and rain was predicted. We got back to a main road and I led them to a good restaurant. Oy. The other riders were very nice, but I felt like I was at the MIT Nerd bike club. Sorry, and no offense to any MIT grads here, but... they complained about riding on a busy road, but hell, I did not want to get rained on. We did about 5 miles after lunch on a bike trail, which I hate. Other than that, there were some cool roads, a fairy tale house in Shirley, MA, where there's book characters on the roof, and only moderate climbing for this area. I ended up doing 41 miles, so I am happy, but I am going to talk to the bike committee about the lack of following our rules.

[emily_in_nc]

I gotta hand it to Emily--I'll take hills over wind any day. The only hill that I walked part of in Italy was going up Passo Fedaia on a super windy day. After a couple gusts that blew me crosswise across the road, I was more than a little freaked out, and walked much of the rest of the climb.

I've had my eye on this Italy trip for a while, but a couple years ago it was with the thought "that's amazing, but I'd never be able to do that..." So it was really special to do the trip, above and beyond how great the trip was in itself.

Thanks, but the hills you climbed were massive, khg! I can't imagine doing rides with the amount of elevation gain you posted on your blog above. Wow! I'm duly impressed. But yeah, I do hate wind (when riding) a LOT.

What gearing did you have to do those climbs? I just can't climb super steep hills on my Trek. I have a 30t granny in front, and my lowest in back is 25t. Pretty standard for a road bike but not low enough for me! My Bike Friday has mountain gearing, so I can do a lot bigger hills on that one, but it's heavier, so a bit of a trade-off.

[shootingstar]

I've been doing utility bike rides for last few days since returning home from vacation. After all, I need to fill a bare refrigerator and great excuse for farmers' market load-up on bike. Besides, our city had a freak snowfall 4 days ago and it became suddenly quite cold ..over a -25 degree C drop from summer shorts weather.

Prior I was cycling in Toronto daily for nearly 2 wks. All within town...the city has changed a lot: Waaaaay more cyclists compared to 12 yrs. ago when I relocated from the city. To a point where, it truly is now difficult to find a bike rack downtown during the day, that doesn't already have another bike or 2 locked up already. I seriously walked over 1 block in the financial/glitzy shopping downtown area before I could find a bike rack clear enough to lock up mine.

I rode around marvelling over the city's green tree canopy in the downtown core, in its park system, and on residential streets...how I'm so starved for trees after living in prairie city.

[Crankin]

Emily, I think you might find that a 25 on the rear is not so standard anymore. I've gone from a 25 to 27, then a 28 on my triple. My other bike has a compact, with a 34 small ring and an 11-34 on the back. It's a mountain rear derailleur, but it's already 3 years old and there's newer technology. My friend just got a Trek Project One bike with a road derailleur and a compact set up that has a 32 on the back. As we all age, there's just a bigger demand for these types of set ups.

[khg]

Thanks, but the hills you climbed were massive, khg! I can't imagine doing rides with the amount of elevation gain you posted on your blog above. Wow! I'm duly impressed. But yeah, I do hate wind (when riding) a LOT.

What gearing did you have to do those climbs? I just can't climb super steep hills on my Trek. I have a 30t granny in front, and my lowest in back is 25t. Pretty standard for a road bike but not low enough for me! My Bike Friday has mountain gearing, so I can do a lot bigger hills on that one, but it's heavier, so a bit of a trade-off.

I have a compact (50-34) in front, and had a 29 for my lowest in back. I rode all summer with a 27 as the lowest in back, and then swapped out cassettes a couple days before we left. It was great to gain the 29, though there were definitely times that I was trying the gear lever to see if maybe I had one more gear to shift into... (And then a few minutes later, trying again--"maybe now there's an extra gear!")

Since I still haven't reassembled my bike from the trip, I hopped on my single speed to commute yesterday, for my first ride since getting home. I've got a cold, and can't really breathe great, but it still felt really nice to be out on a bike again!

[Crankin]

So, today, I did the same ride to Bolton Farms with my friends, that I did right before I went to California a month ago. I did not bring my bike with the super low gears, because I am trying to ride only the bike with similar gearing to what I will have in Portugal. I was fine last month and was dying today. My average was 1.5 mph slower today. My knee hurt, my back hurt, and I just felt slow, like I just couldn't find the right gear. I even stopped once to see if my brake was rubbing! But, it was clear and sunny, and a bit windy. Same temperature as yesterday, and I did dress the same even though yesterday was cloudy, but I took my arm warmers off at one point today. The sun didn't make that much of a difference; it was 65 and it felt like 55, like October. A bit worried that I felt so off today, after 2 40 mile rides in a row. I am going to have to ride 7 days in a row in Portugal, one rest day, then one more day. There's one day (day 5) with a longer and steep climb and the rest just normal climbs. I probably will cut back all of my stuff the week before, so I have one more week of heavier riding to get through. Then, just little recovery rides.
Today was 39 miles with 2,445 feet of climbing.