Oct 7 rides

[Aggie_Ama]

You can do it Midgetcycler!!

Today I got back on the bike. I have been very lazy since my husband was in the hospital last month. I think we only rode twice. Today we ran several errands and then got the bikes ready for a short ride. We were racing daylight but managed to get in 18.37 miles. The hills told me I need to get some work before the metric we want to do next month. I did manage to average 16.7 mph.

DH has a colonoscopy Monday, so we won't be riding again until Tuesday. It felt great to be back on the bike!

[salsabike]

Did a 30 mile tandem ride on the Sammamish River Trail and saw dozens and dozens of spawning salmon. Don't know whether I'm weird or what, but I thought it was a simply awesome sight.

[7rider]

DH and I, along with my friend Karen and her DH and about 6,000 other maniacs did the Seagull Century on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The first Nor'easter of the season hit (normally a winter storm) bringing rain and horrendous wind. The system seemed to park itself over the area for the first half of the weekend. Grrrr....
Last year, we attempted the ride during the remains of tropical storm Tammy - 7" of rain and 30 mph wind. This year, we didn't have as much rain, but much, much more wind...the gusts had to have been over the predicted 40 mph. Ask anyone who rode (or walked) the bridge onto Assateague Island - and got sandblasted for their efforts. Cyclists were riding at an angle into the wind. I wish I could have taken my hands off the handlebars to take a picture, but I was too freaked out to think about it at the time.
Normally, this ride is full of hammerheads in pacelines, but the few groups we saw go by were slow and disorganized and hardly breaking any land speed records. It was a ride to survive, not thrive, and I applaud those who did it.
Kudos to all the TE folks who were out there! I saw one Velo Bella jersey - TE sells those, right? - but didn't see anyone else that I could say was obviously a TE forum-ite.
So all 4 of our group finished with no mishaps (except for my waterbottle that went flying, spilling Gatorade all over me while on the road). We did about 101 miles all told in about 6.5 hours. It was our first century together and we went back to our B&B and toasted our success with wine and Epsom salts! (Soo romantic, eh?)

[Kalidurga]

Wow, Regina, congrats on finishing what sounds like a seriously tough ride. I caught a weather report from Ocean City before I left for work yesterday morning, and it did not look like a pretty picture out there!

Here's hoping that you'll have a beautiful, calm blue sky next year...

[KnottedYet]

Whoops, don't know what day it is! This should be Oct 8. Oh well.

Just a little 10 mile ride in the evening on a bike trail. Rode with a friend of mine. It was a shock to realize how much faster my new bike is. Without meaning to, I left her behind several times.

Got to play with Flosshilde's new tires, bell, and light.

The tires are marvellous! Smoothed the road buzz! (vittoria randonneurs)
The bell is LOUD. Even folks with earphones knew I was coming. Nice.
The light is bright and cute. By the end of the ride I was very glad I had it.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

It was a shock to realize how much faster my new bike is. Without meaning to, I left her behind several times.

Nice new avatar of your GoldiFloss! Beautiful!!