Today I went on my "usual" almost daily 21 mile loop ride on the rolling hills and country roads in my area.
Today was a bit different. I noticed as soon as I started that I felt way stronger than before. All through the ride it seemed as though I could stay in slightly higher gears than before, and I seemed to be going faster without really trying to. The hills were quicker because I was able to get up them further before switching into low gear. I felt great.
When I got home, I compared today's ride to the averages for that same ride I had notated several times over this past month. Today's average speed was 10.6 mph as opposed to last week's 9.7 mph. And my overall time today was exactly 2 hours as opposed to last week's 2 hours 16 minutes! I was really surprised at such a big sudden jump- I don't really know why. (Did one hard hilly ride on Sat, a brief ride sunday, didn't ride monday.)
Now I am really inspired!
I worked on my bike quite a bit this evening. I got rid of some annoying rattles, tuned both front and back derailleurs, tightened brake cables, and PUT ON MY NEW SKINNY TIRES!! I'll talk more about the tire change in another thread.
Now I can't WAIT to see how the bike runs tomorrow- should be really exciting!!

We seem to be holding on to decent weather here despite other people's reports of cold and snow. It was just cloudy, in the 50's, clear dry roads. Pretty much the same for tomorrow. Might get colder and rainier on Friday. Guess we're lucky to be still able to ride.