saturday apr 7th ride

[Wahine]

Mimi - that area is beautiful. I bet you had a fantastic ride.

DH and I rode up along the Klickitat river, one of the few natural rivers left. The grade was steady and moderate until about mile 20, then we had to climb a big pitch with switchbacks. We were rewarded with a large herd of white tail deer and 3 bald eagles. It was quite spectacular. Cloudy and a little rainy but not cold. We turned around at mile 22 and headed back. We saw another bald eagle on our way back to the truck. 3:19:55 for 43.40 miles. Thank goodness that nothing at Ironman is nearly this hilly or I wouldn't make the cut-offs.

I jumped off the bike and ran 3 miles. This is the beginning of the longer brick workouts for Ironman. Gotta love how your legs feel running after those hills and miles.

[lesliejo]

Wow Mimi,
I love the ride that you did today. The Klickitat River Road is beautiful.
I rode from White Salmon to Trout Lake this morning. I tried to beat the rain, but no such luck. It started sprinkling about BZ Corners, then turned into a drizzle. No worries though, it was warm and relatively light traffic. Not a lot of road spray. It was only about 42 miles, but a real nice ride to start the day. I will have to head east and do the Klickitat soon. Did you run into many dogs....had a problem last time I rode that route. Good thing my riding buddy had dog biscuits in his bike bag. Looking forward to sunnier days.

[LBTC]

Yay! I finally have a ride report!

Our friends B&C, DH and I drove to Salmon Arm (about 40 minutes away), and rode the Salty Dog race course. The event is May 6 and is a 6 hour enduro mtb race.

After having just learned about the muscles in my abdomen that are involved in the Crohn's symptoms, I was focussed on completing the trail loop, having fun, but avoiding any overuse of the involved muscles. There was quite a lot of climbing on the course, and I'm used to climbing hard and digging in in the cosmic crunch when the sudden steeps happen. However, at just about every change of incline to a bit steeper, I'd feel the familiar twinge. I'd gear down if I could, pedal lighter, and sit up as straight as possible to give my lungs and belly lots of room to breathe.

It worked!! At about 1 hour 40 minutes I started to notice that I wasn't getting twinges anymore, just a fairly constant but low-grade discomfort. More keeping my upper body as relaxed as possible, more long breaths and belly breathing, more slower speed than I'm used to, and consequently, for the rest of the ride and now, several hours later I feel only the slightest discomfort, similar to any evening. Yay! I'm so glad my belly didn't get to full-on cramped stage and seriously, the rest of me feels ready to go again! My legs and lungs feel absolutely fine!

And, despite the slower speed, I really enjoyed myself and felt like I still have the bike skills that took me so many years to acquire. The course has lots of man-made obstacles - ramps, bridges, etc. I haven't been riding these for several years now, and had basically become quite afraid of them. I love that the obstacles on this trail system are all very confidence inspiring! There was only one incident, and the trail goddess and my tires really helped me out with that one - tire had a bit of mud on it, so tire spun on the little ramp, then spun again, then a sort of shot over to one side, luckily it was not a really high ramp, and somehow I managed to pedal through it and not put a foot down. Cool!

There was a super fast section near the end - so much fun! I can do that faster next time now that I know there's nothing super scary on it! There was some fabulous deep tree riding that was just divine! Just the right amount of roots rocks and odd corners, all winding through big trees with little underbrush. My favourite!! No, I wasn't really thrilled by the longish road climb in the middle of the ride, and I so had to go slow on it to keep the belly happy, but that allowed me to enjoy the scenery and the view! as we got higher and higher.

Best of all were all of the (get this) butterflies!! I kid you not! At the onset of the ride, they were just everywhere, and there were at least 4 different species. What a joy to see them! And there, on that terribly long road climb (no, it wasn't that bad, I've ridden worse), as I plodded along, a lovely mourning cload butterfly, fluttered alongside me for a bit, then alighted on a nearby rock to bask in the sun. It didn't even move when I pedaled by. Ah, thank you!

Part way through I also remembered to converse with the trail goddess. I thanked her a lot. What a wonderful world we live in - what a great life to have. To live in such a wonderful area with so many riding opportunities, to have great friends to ride with, who know the trails, and to have enough health to enjoy the riding, and enough new insight in my health condition to adjust my riding style to accommodate my body's new needs.

I'm hoping we can do a nice little ride nearby tomorrow. There's a few other big things to do, but we hope to get out to the park anyway. I'll certainly find out if my "new" body can tolerate the effort two days in a row!

Thank you for listening and happy riding to you all!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[mimitabby]

okay, here are some pictures:












we did about 2300 feet of climb, not that much, Lisa!
we were going along the columbia river for a while and we rode up to Beebe state park
(through Orondo ) not Klickitat.

[Aggie_Ama]

Mimi- Fabulous pictures, thanks for posting them.

We had SLEET in TEXAS in APRIL!! DH and I did the next best thing to riding- we visited the local bike shops. We dropped in a new one that sells mainly custom stuff, the had a Waterford frame that was this funky purple and I was in lust. The owner was extremely nice and I felt bad that we wouldn't be using his shop for anything.

More rain forecasted tomorrow, this completely stinks.

[lauraelmore1033]

what fabulous pictures, Mimi! 2300 ft of climbing seems like a lot to me. That must have been a lot of fun, though...

[mountainchick]

Awesome Mimi!

Yesterday I did 29 miles, and today (Sunday) I did 35. Yippee! Its much easier to get out on long rides when my hubby is away.

[kelownagirl]

I got out Friday and Saturday for rides this weekend - so nice! Friday I did a fast hard hilly 20k route and did my best times on that route.

Yesterday, I went out with DH and his brother and we did another 40km. One had to ride the MTBike so we didn't go as hard as usual. It was SO nice for me to be able to not be the slowest and I even got to lead quite a bit. I found I was easily able to be far ahead of the one on the MTBike (not possible last year) and I am finding I am MUCH faster up the hills this spring. I love progress! Yesterday it was even warm and sunny and I peeled down to a sleeveless jersey for the trip back and got a sunburn! When I got home, I did a 2km run to see what it felt like.

[Celeste]

We had SLEET in TEXAS in APRIL!!

Well, DH and I were on our hills part of training for our Tahoe TNT ride in June....yup! We had some nasty winds of 20-25 miles an hour and nasty cold rain about 34-36 degrees! Not sure we had sleet in Chappell Hill, TX but it was nasty none the less!

My cleat broke right at the beginning of the ride . Coaches told me it was not a good idea to ride the hills with only one foot clicked in. I was bummed, but decided to help with SAG services instead. Good thing too; our ride was supposed to be 45 miles....Most only made it half way and SAG'd back to the start. Independence, TX was the dying point for most at about 25 mile mark.

Frozen fingers, hands, toes, feet and legs. We are just not used to riding in these freezing conditions down here! And for our first real hill training, it was rough! Hubby continued on with the ride and he completed 30.15 miles with 11.5 mph average. He felt bad that he had to SAG some...I told him I was proud of him that he completed as much as he did. I thought everyone did great considering the conditions.

I was cheering my team on at the top of the hills and posting my Jeep at corners that had no signs where they needed to turn. Good to see my team dig in when I was cheering them on.

Will get my cleat fixed tomorrow so I can ride during the week. Bummed I have missed out on some hill training. Getting nervous that I am falling behind. But maybe I was in the place I needed to be.

[Kano]

Our sixteen mile ride yesterday morning turned into twenty, which was a fun surprise! Tater missed the ride -- SPIN had its first group ride of the season, with a surprising 35 or so riders sprawled out along an 8 mile path to a coffee shop. (which was very busy, so we wandered off to the Moxie Java down the road) Funny how an out and back route turned out to be 8 miles to the coffee stop and 12 back!

We were just cruising along, back toward the parking lot where we'd left the cars, wondering why none of the route looked real familiar (did we see that hoard of cattle on the way out?), but we were following many others in our group, and had many behind us, so we MUST be going the right way, yes? Turned out most of the group took an "alternate" route back. Eventually, we did meet up with the "non-alternate" members of the group, and found the parking lot!

This was the longest ride so far on my new bike, and aside from that disoriented feeling of being just a little bit lost, it was a breeze! (some hand troubles, so I think I will try, was it Lisa's or Mimi's suggestion to adjust the handlebars just a smidge?) And, I'll gleefully admit, it was a delight to NOT be the last rider in!

DH and I decided that it must have been a downhill ride going out, and uphill coming back, because we weren't going near as fast on the way back -- but it didn't LOOK like we were climbing, except a few times. BUT what I thought was really cool was that I didn't use my small ring, and didn't go below 10mph all day, even on the hills! Well, no, that's not quite right, I did have to slow down for a bit, til it was safe to pass other riders.

It was a bit cool when we started -- about 49 degrees. Got really nice by the time we finished, and then later in the day it got rainy, and most of today was rainy too. Good thing we got in a nice ride yesterday!

Karen in Boise

[mountainchick]

Karen, sounds like you guys had a good ride. I think those are my favorite, getting lost

My Saturday ride, I started riding and just kept going. I didn't know where I was for the first half, but ended up circling back to a place I knew and kept on going. Its a little harder here where if you ask someone about the next town over they sometimes don't know how to get there on the roads. That and they might not be able to understand my broken Japanese!