May 6 ride

[Darby361]

Only 9.5 hilly miles for me today. Had to listen to my body - apparently I need a break after several long days of riding...
Trish

[Popoki_Nui]

Did my first dedicated "cyclo-geocache" ride today. This weekend was forecast to be sunny and warm. It was neither. Decided to go out anyway today and nab some caches by bike. Glad I did! Found some wonderful new trails --and despite the rain-- had a great afternoon. Thirty-two off-road kilometers on "Vee", and two cache finds as well.

[Trek420]

OK, it's official, I suck at any training regimen. I skipped a planned 55 mile ALC training ride when I checked the fine print and it was CAT3, the description went on at length that they would set a fast pace. The hilly route is one I know well, I'm a slow but steady rider, decided not to hold them back.

But I told myself "self, you have to do something as hard." So instead of my light fast zippy road bike I took the MTB to Alameda Creek Trail.

Wouldn'tcha know that it was hot, and from start to 24 mile finish I had headwinds. It was almost as if they followed me "look, we'll show her. Betcha wish you were on Old Tunnel Road trying to catch CAT 3 riders now, huh?"

I love that trail but on one stretch was reminded why I prefer to be there when the weather is bad. Nice weather brings out &*^% riders. One group of four, no helmets, wearing brown business suits sprawled 4 up across the path as they headed towards me.

I waved and smiled ... no reaction
rang the bell ... no response
did the international sign of pointing to the left ... no reaction
yelled "stay on your right" ... no reaction
then just stood up in the pedals and full out sprinted right at 'em

brown suit guys expression looked like this

After the ride I went to Mission Coffee Roasters and met up with a couple of friends who live nearby.

[DrBadger]

Went and did my standard loop... the portola valley loop from home, 25 miles. NIce day, warm and kind of windy, but I had fun playing with my new toy...picked up a Garmin Forerunner 305. Got home and downloaded my route and wasted too much time looking at my heart rate, elevation, pace etc. Such a fun toy! Here is the route I did: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2662863

[BabyBlueNTulsa]

PABadger - that's a really cool toy!! Thanks for the addy to see what you did today.. way cool...


I had a good training ride today... 44 miles of wind (17-22 s, sw) and some pretty good hills. Came home and mowed the lawn... Doggone, i'm pooped!!!
Oh yeah...and had to give one of my cockers a bath. No more dirty dog! :P

[lauraelmore1033]

Was carless today, so I decided to ride to the starting point of a club ride which was advertised as a "classic"/heavy/unusual bike ride around town from the library down to the waterfront and back. Ten miles down and ten miles to back to join a 12 mile ride! I don't have a classic bike, so I rode my hybrid, thinking there would be simply loads of old heavy clunkers at the ride. Turned out there were a lot of beautifully maintained classic racing bikes. I almost turned around and went back home! But I did manage to keep up-- even on the hills-- and made it over the scairyiest bridge I've ever seen without getting off and walking. It would have been scairy either way, but it was faster just to stay on the bike. One of the beautiful racing bikes was ruined, unfortunately, and the rider thrown over her handle bars when her front tire got wedged in between the boards as we rode around the marina. So tragic! The woman landed on her face, but arose worrying that her front wheel (which was irreplacable) was permanently damaged. Such dedication; I would have been worried that my face was permanently damaged--but then I'm a wuss...
I was so pleased with myself for managing to keep up with the speedy people. At one point I noticed that we were going 18-20 mph (on a flat stretch). This time last year, I was lucky to reach 10-12 mph on that hybrid. I was pretty darned wiped out when I got home, though.

[Fredwina]

with committee meetings, i didn't get on the bike until 5PM. I managed to get about 27 miles in.
Like most of you I had a good headwind (going out). But then we usually have a string wind coming in from the ocean late spring / summer afternoons. I used to my advantage coming back. The only lowlight was that my HR monitor froze up

[teigyr]

DH and I went 50 miles - we went down the bike trail to A Hill (demon hill that defies us to tell it that it's easy), then back to a park then to the Velodrome to watch a new class learn to ride!

It was supposed to be warm but it turned out being chilly then humid then really quite windy! I did this same route last week and it was a bit painful but I guess I got stronger because today I was moderately perky! That's a good thing

It was a great ride really though the stroller pushers and pedestrians tended to be on the oblivious side. DH is much more polite than I am, I'm the type to remind them that "on your left" means get OVER!!!

[pastrypam]

It was really windy this a.m. but I got out there and did 18+ miles anyway. Loved the tail wind on the way home. Got up to 30+MPH using that tail wind.
After work did 30 minutes on the eliptical trainer. Since I have been riding the bike I have noticed a huge difference in my endurance while doing other forms of exercise.