September 4th rides

[makbike]

I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. (I did question my sanity when it went off at its scheduled time) so that I could travel an hour up the road to Scottsburg, Indiana to participate in the "Nifty Fifty" ride. It was a great route, well marked and the SAG's were positioned about every 15 miles. The people associated with this ride were super, everytime a SAG car/truck passed someone would shout words of encouragement. I do believe this will become an annual ride for me for it is a nice tune up for the OKHT next weekend. The route was as flat as it can get in this area and the temps were in the low 60's when the ride started. I will admit I was a bit cold throughout the ride but I'm always cold so I shouldn't be used as any kind of judge when it comes to temperatures. I logged 53 miles today and posted my personal best average speed (17.0 mph). It is now time to take a nap before I head back into Louisville to help stuff the packets for the Old Kentucky Home Tour next weekend.

[AuntieK]

Happy Labor Day, everyone!
Today I rode with DH & DS. This was DS's final ride he needed to earn his Cycling Merit Badge for Boy Scouts. It was 15.5 miles, fairly easy with some hills. Halfway through we stopped at my grandma's house for popcicles. Bad idea! DS got sick to his tummy and was miserable the rest of the ride.
I love riding with DS because it is a total recovery/easy ride for me. He is starting to get a bit faster though--one of these days I'll bet he'll become a challenge.

[7rider]

Boy!
What a difference a day makes!
Yesterday, I had a great ride (except for some breathing issues noted in the Health forum). Very speedy, very social. Lots of fun.
Today, was bad Karma day. Shleprock rides again!
Lots of road debris from recent storms. Lots of chewed up roads under construction. My back was one big string of knots from the way I slept. I had DH rub my back down with Ben Gay before we started our ride. And, on top of it all, this techno geek had no operational computer....my Garmin 305 got buggered up when I tried to update its software and my old Polar doesn't read my bike pickup anymore (I think that just needs a new battery, which I hadn't wanted to get, since I'm using [sic] the Garmin now).
In the words of DH: WAH, WAH, WAH!!!!! Yes, I was one whiney person you wouldn't want to be riding with today. What a sour look I no doubt had on my sorry face.
So we stopped at the LBS to talk up Garmin troubles and shoot the breeze. We intended to top off our waterbottles so we could do a longer ride, but as we rode away, realized we forgot. So, we really didn't have enough water to add miles and it was too much effort to turn around and go back to the LBS (wah, wah, wah!), so we cut the ride short. Still got 44 miles or so, but really wanted to hit 50 as we're supposed to be training for a century next month (Yikes! Is it only a month away???)

[Kano]

Regina, aside from the troubles you're talking about lately, how is that Garmin thing? I think I might like one of those fancy computers for my bike (though they probably cost more than the bike did!) I got a mighty inexpensive one when I got my bike, not knowing what I might want in a computer. Just figured if I could know how fast and far I was going, that would do for this season. Now I hear about cadence, heart rate, and that they'll let me know how high and what the incline was on my climbs, and that's just SO tempting! Except the heart rate, I don't know that I want to know that!

I think you're right -- today was a whine day for me too. It was supposed to be an easy 25 mile ride on our city greenbelt by the river, you know? Flat, mostly straight, only a few pedestrian-type obstacles early on a holiday morning....

HEADWINDS. the first half, the up-river half, we had headwinds the whole way, and I did well to break 12mph. Much of the time, 10 was doing good. After yesterday's zippy ride (well, aside from the headwind/hill combination) this felt pretty miserable! And humidity too! Well, again, what passes for humidity here in the desert. I don't like feeling sticky, you know? And, besides that, we've ridden hard the last two mornings. My muscles were rebelling. And my "shifting wrist" was too. More shifting with the right hand, since it does the back gears, and it's complaining the last few days, from overuse, I guess!

Managed to keep my whining to myself and trudge on. When I realized that it was wind slowing me down the most, I brightened, knowing that the ride back would be delightful (well, after yesterday, HOPING) And the air is clearer here today: we can see the mountains again! And I brightened more when Earl didn't come up with some "bright idea" about doing a climb into those foothills today. Like I said, I've got him feeling pretty well whipped with riding 70+ miles this weekend!

So, Shiraz and Tater know the drill -- when you're on the greenbelt, Lucky Peak is your destination. We had a snack in the park there, and then turned around and rode back, with the wind pushing us along, at a delightfully fast pace. We stopped at one point to enjoy the Osprey that nest on a cell tower near the river, and a couple stopped to "share shade" with us. They're newbies, I could tell -- no helmets, no comfy shorts, and poor Mr. Newbie. He was riding in his biggest gear, just like Earl used to do before I convinced him that you ladies know what you're talking about! They were heading east yet, and asking how's the ride. We shared our experience, telling them, but coming back is going to be SO much fun that it will be worth the work of the ride there...

It was tempting to ride with them for a bit, and teach them about shifting and making it easy to ride! (Oh yeah, Earl would be all over that!) Instead, I followed Earl and his friend Mark back toward the cars, and they didn't pay attention when I stopped at the rest-stop. Yup, flush toilets, right there on the side of the trail, almost in the middle of nowhere.... About a mile later, they realized I wasn't with them, and by that time, I'd just about caught up again!

So, 23 miles today, which turned my odometer over to 800 miles! (since april 23.) 600 of that is since mid-June, when I started logging each ride into a spreadsheet here in my computer. Cool!

Karen in Boise

[Trek420]

I rode to BART and took the train to Castro Valley Station where I met Stephanie (I'll try to recruit her to TE). She rolled up right on time. We set off to what we planned as a 3-Peets ride.

Our first Peet was the Castro Valley one, just a few blocks away, a good thing as I had not quite had enough caffeine. We didn't stay long then headed up Castro Valley Blvd (another thought had been Crow Canyon Rd which we both rejected as pretty but just crazy-unsafe).

After the climb up Castro Valley we took a right to where it connects to the Dublin Grade and there was a little loop of a road she took us on (must make a note of what road that is) misses the most busy part and was very pretty. I wished I'd brought the camera for the old painted barn on that part.

I felt good climbing, I've only done the grade once before and going East seems easier. Into Dublin somehow connected to the Iron Horse Trail which was pretty busy due to the holiday. We got to Danville for the 2nd Peets.

By then it was heating up so I needed an iced cap.

We kept going to Walnut Creek and caught the BART back.

So it was only 2-Peets, not 3-Peets nor did we re-Peet the 3-Peets. But a nice ride was had by all.

About 29 miles + for me to/from BART.

[Geonz]

We drove down to Perrysville, IN because there are hills there and did our annual 51 mile loop, except that I did 62 miles because two of us left our water bottles at the Kingman Oasis Ice Cream Shoppe, which added 6 miles, and then we missed a turn and added the other 5. The otehr water bottle leaver had already done 6 extra miles from a previous missed turn and had not eaten enough for the extra miles (especially at the faster, try-to-catch-up pace)... so we had to stop (his shoulders were bugging him, too; a few miles of the route were horrendously bumpy, beat-up-your-body-and-bike miles) and we took long enough they came out in the car to get us... but our "thumbs out for a ride" was interpreted as "thumbs up" so we had to do those last 3 miles anyway (2 of which were very much downhill, the third only a bit uphill...) if you want a ride, don't smile... and speak (Yea, I could have offered a back rub, but it mighta gotten back gto his GF )

[im4smiley]

Hi all, I did a group ride today, 3 different groups went out, different paces. There are several of us doing a century next weekend and we wanted to get a good ride in so we planned a 50 mile trip. I was in the intermediate group, we did 50 miles at an avg speed of 18mph.. ..whew...we were moving...I had plans of a slower pace but once we got going we kept a nice pace line going and everyone took turns at a pull. The wind picked up at about mile 35 and that was tough but I was able to hang on. Century next weekend WILL be much slower!!

[7rider]

Regina, aside from the troubles you're talking about lately, how is that Garmin thing? I think I might like one of those fancy computers for my bike (though they probably cost more than the bike did!) I got a mighty inexpensive one when I got my bike, not knowing what I might want in a computer. Just figured if I could know how fast and far I was going, that would do for this season. Now I hear about cadence, heart rate, and that they'll let me know how high and what the incline was on my climbs, and that's just SO tempting! Except the heart rate, I don't know that I want to know that!

Karen in Boise

Karen, I'll PM you on rants and raves on the Garmin.
Regina