December 27th rides

[Crankin]

I decided to start the thread because I had a weird, but good ride today. My husband took the day off and we were going to go on a club ride starting at 10. But, it just looked really gray and freezing out and it was only 32 at 8:30, when we were starting to get ready. So, first we did a 20 minute warm up on the trainers and did a core workout DVD with Graham Street (I think he spells his name differently). I decided we should ride our mountain bikes to the trail about 3.2 miles away, explore a trail we discovered hiking last weekend, and then ride to Concord Center for lunch. So, it was 36 when we left. The sun was poking out a little, but not much. Got to the trail and we both decided that riding the FS mountain bikes on the road is a plenty good work out. I can't go much faster than 11 mph on the road on that bike. Started out on the trail feeling very confident. That is until we got to a short rock garden on a little down hill. My pedal scraped a rock, I freaked a little, and forgot I was clipped in. I got my foot out and stopped, and continued. But, I was way too cautious after that. A lot of the trail was slightly down hill and rocky and I was dreading going back, although I tend to do better going up than down on the trails. I actually walked around a couple of obstacles on one downhill. Then we got to an area where I could see houses, but the trail kept going. I was interested to see where it came out, so we rode up to the street and near the entrance to the street, it actually intersected with another conservation land trail (off of someone's driveway). It turned out we were on the main road back to Concord Center, so instead of going back the way we came, we rode into town on the road. By this time, it felt colder and windier. I was sweaty, though. Somehow, my core didn't feel warm enough on this ride and I can't figure out why. But my feet were toasty, since I put chemical warmers on my socks! Perfect, with booties and wool socks. We passed the North Bridge, with millions of tourists crossing the street. We ate in a really good French bistro, that is conveniently next to the bike shop, so there are good racks where we can lock our bikes. After a nice cup of soup and half a sandwich, we headed home, about 4 miles. It was really windy and I saw a few snowflakes in the air. It felt like torture, but after climbing up our street and driveway (15 &#37, I felt great. A total of 11.5 miles, average speed about 8 mph!
I truely appreciate my road bike.