Friday April 24 rides

[Duck on Wheels]

Whoohoo! I did my 20-something-mile loop for the first time since the snow season. The reservoir is still iced over, but the coltsfoot flowers are on their last legs and the white forest anemones are taking over. It's definitely Spring! Also, I'm definitely faster than I was 7 months ago. I used to do this loop in 2 hours 20 minutes. Today it took me just 2 hours. Well, actually 1 hour 40 minutes, but then I have add on the 20 minutes I used on my morning commute since that's part of the same loop. Of course, I was still the slowest cyclist on the road, but I'm doing hills in higher gears and with less gritting of teeth and screaming of quads than last Fall, and only that one first nemesis hill still has me stopping to bring my HR down before I can finish it. Only 5 weeks to go til the ALC. I'll probably have to cross-train the biggest hills on that route, but maybe I can actually finish on my own steam nevertheless.