Oct. 10th rides

[recycle613]

Mid 50s here and windy. I finally got my DownTube VIII FS set up for sightseeing kind of rides, so I was excited to give it a try. I took a nice leisurely ride along Evanston's lakefront ... and on all those root infested paths. It was nice and smooth. Not a quick ride at all ... but that's the point sometimes isn't it? I think it'll be nice in some Forest Preserves, too. It's definately a casual ride and the original components are not good, but finally adjusted to work. I'm going to try to wait to upgrade. That's always such a challenge!

The ride was gorgeous ... windy, intense gray clouds and a clear view of downtown. Very dramatic.

Hope you all have good rides!

[DebW]

28 mile ride in Maryland today with my friend and a guy from her bike club. Hot down here - 80 when we started, ug. Kinda weird to drive for 7 hours, then jump out of the car and get on the bike. A few whiffs of freshly manured fields to keep the sights and scents interesting.

[uk elephant]

cycled all the way home from work. 37 miles with a couple of decent hills along the way. It had been raining on and off all day, but I had a patch of blue sky following me all the way home. Beautiful ride, and it took me "only" 3 hours . Felt great when i got home. Stretched, showered, made cookies, made dinner. Then I collapsed. Fell asleep on the couch and got woken up by BF just in time for bed. The ride must have been harder than I realized.

[jobob]

LeeBob and I went out on a night right. Although I go on the Alameda Creek Trail and around Coyote Hills Park at least a couple of times a week, it was a whole new experience riding around it in the pitch dark.

Since there are no streetlights out there, that ride's a good test for our lighting setups. I just got an Busch & Mueller Ixon battery operated light from Peter White Cycles, and it works great. Unfortunately it messses up my wireless computer when the light is mounted near it on the handlebars so I'm trying to come up with plan B. Hope the fork crown mount for the light arrives soon, it's been backordered for a while.

[velocilex]

Had a nice 17-mile ride with a fellow lady cyclist. We went out at 5:00 and hit the main north/south artery out of town. It's a downhill and it was *very* busy, so we hammered along with traffic until our turn-off-- it was really exhilerating! Tackled the big climb of the ride almost immediately and got that out of the way. Shortly after, we passed a woman sitting in her front yard with about ten yellow and black lab-type puppies gambolling around in the grass. I about died from cute overload. The weather was great, traffic was co-operative. I always feel so rejuvenated after my Tuesday evening rides.

[LisaB]

Scary commute home for me, too. Coming down a big hill, with a bike lane, daylight, flashing helmet light, matching traffic speed, when a car weaves into the bike lane and it's right rear quarter panel must have clipped the edge of my left rear pannier. Wobble, wobble, wobble, but I didn't go down, don't know why not (my bike handling skills suck), so I caught up to the guy and yelled at him, at length. To no known effect ("I didn't see you" - duh!). However, I did beat him down the rest of the hill, through the lights, up and out of downtown ... never saw him again. I did nearly burst into tears about 5 minutes after it happened, however. Adrenaline let down, I guess.

Now I'm feeling rather fragile. I've gone down before, but this time was really scary - the thought of the damage I could do to my body was scarier than the actual damage I've done in the past. So I spent the rest of the night being very clingy with the dog and my husband. We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

[CyclChyk]

{{{{{LisaB}}}}}

Sounds like a good time for a hug.