June 9 Rides - Great Weather Everywhere!

[Kano]

Helmet's off, still wearing gloves and camelbak -- drinking the water!

DH and I just had a delightful 23.5 mile ride, the one I didn't get to do with friends last weekend, since I was watching my grandsons. We got off to an interesting start --

FIRST, I didn't wake up early enough to suit him.

NEXT, I went out to put air in my tires, and wouln't you know it would be the back one.... Pumped up just fine, but then I went to take the gizmo off the presta widget, and all the air came out! First time I've had that happen, but WORSE, it wouldn't let me put air back in!

What to do, what to do....

Dig out spare tube, still in box. put a little air in it to be sure it holds air, and take wheel off bike. bring grubby thing into living room, lay blanket on floor to keep filthy light colored carpeting "clean." (DH says we will get new, so why have it cleaned, eh? It's not working, going to have to succumb to urge to get carpet cleaned) Remove tire and tube -- this was easier than I expected. You have to know this tidbit: first tire change for me!

Didn't have puncture, but inspected wheel rim as a matter of starting good habits. Tire too. put old tube aside, and got the new one to put into tire.

IT WAS TOO BIG!!!

Box says it's 700 tire, but tire says it's 27." I'm annoyed, make a proper fuss, then dig out my other spare, and fortunately, it was the right size. New tube into tire, tire onto wheel, also easier than expected, carefully inflate, inspecting to make sure I don't have anything pinched and everything is seated properly.

OH EXPLETIVE! DH comes running.

I put the tire on backwards!

We decided that if I'd been sitting roadside, I should let it go until returning home, but since we were home... Deflated it and did it over again, that's okay, right? Practice! (wait, now I'm relatively good at this, and DH doesn't know how yet!)

Now I go to reassemble bike. OOPS.

Thought I'd released the brake when I removed the wheel. Not so lucky there: it just came off easily with no air in the tire! "Honey, do you remember how bike guy taught us to release the brakes?" We fiddled a bit, decided to get the manual out. OOPS. discovered that somehow, we'd gotten a BMX/Single speed bike manual instead of the one for my Roubaix road bike.

Deflated tire, put wheel in place, and reflated the tire. Bike back right side up, we should be ready to go, yes?

Oops! By the time we got to the end of the driveway, I knew, something wasn't right, and I still haven't a clue what it was, but when I pedaled, the wheel didn't go. Brake was a bit off kilter, and that was easy to straighten out, but something was just not as it should be. DH loosened wheel nuts, and put it back tight again, and we were back in business.

I said, hmmm, well, not the best start, we're an hour and a half later getting out than we expected, but hey, we learned lots this morning, right? Down the road a bit, to a favorite beginning of the ride downhill run that is easy to ride about 20 mph. Hmm, we got headwinds this morning, that's a bummer. Now the downhill, can't go over 12mph. Something's GOT to be off yet. I stopped, checked to make sure I had air yet, and discovered the brake had gone off kilter again. Straightened it out, and fortunately, that was that for the ride!

ANd now we're off! (well, girly bits need some adjusting, but gotta go find a lonely spot where traffic and neighbors won't notice, but...) Not real speedy, that head wind is a bugger!

We're on our way to a hill that's got a GREAT road on the other side. We've had a rocky start. We're tootling along behind a mail truck we'd rather not play leapfrog with. Get to the corner where it's time to turn to go up the hill, and Son-in-law is on the phone to let us know that his sister will watch grandson for sure so we don't have to wonder (hooray!)

DH wants to turn around and go home.

NO WAY!

Tandem riders head up in front of us, coming from our left. I told him, look, they're going to need two people to get up the hill. Nother lady comes by, hollers, YIPPEE! HEADWINDS!

He wants to turn around and go home...

NO WAY! I've only climbed all the way up this hill one time before, and I told him I didn't know if I could do it again, much less with the wind, but we were danged well going up the hill.

He's better at hills than me.

I nearly passed him. If the hill had been any longer....

(DH was impressed)

We even almost caught up to the tandem and other rider, who had a big head start on us! (_I_ was impressed!)

I even tried my drops a little bit on this climb. Interesting difference!

Anyway, once one gets up this hill that I climbed at about 5.5mph today, there's a wee flat area, then a delight full down up down with a right turn halfway down that second down (keep speed in check!) onto a great gradual downgrade with no cars ever on a Saturday or Sunday and the hill barricading the wind, and we FLEW! Well, until we got back into the winds, when we slowed down lots again.

Our average speed ended up around 11 1/2, but we were doing an amazing, astonishing 20+ for several miles!

Now he's still in a bit of a tizzy about my bike's mechanicals -- that cool freewheel sound, when you coast? He's dead certain something's broken and I need the bike guys to fix it. He claims his doesn't make that sound, but it's just louder on mine than his, I think!

Now I'm cooled down a bunch, and ready for some FOOD!

Karen in Boise

[Fredwina]

we had clouds this AM, Mr s. Normal this time of year('june Gloom'). Condensation forms over the pacific and blows inland and gets trapped by the mountains. burns off by about noon
I did about 67 miles.
was going to do the long club ride, but I looked we had a wide variety of talents on the short one, so I changed my mind
He have one who hates to get passed by girls. I guess he was have a bad day
Afterwards, I climbed up into one of our local canyons. Normally, I stop a c-store for break on this route, but a strange homeless guy has taken up residence there , so I stopped at a ranger station.
Downhill for 15 miles and then 5 flat one, and I'm back home

[Aggie_Ama]

I ended up spending most of the day feeling a bit under the weather. Took some Promethezine (sp?) an hour ago and now I am done. DH is out for a 50 mile ride and I am feeling sorry that I didn't go. Come on be rational, I just ate a bagel as my second and biggest meal- I can't ride.

[liberty]

I did my first hill ride since my return from South America two weeks ago. Probably have only done 60 miles in the past two weeks, so I was a little worried how the hill ride would go. But I did fine. I was able to power up the smaller hills no problem. The one longer hill I took nice and slow. I did run into my two nemesis dogs though. Only did 8.25 miles, since there was a bike event today.

My club did a children's bike fix-it at a trailer park today. The kids had a great time, and so did we! 25 bikes were outfitted with repaired brakes, new saddles, personalized license plates... The whole works! It was a blast. You should have seen the looks on their faces. It was worth cutting short my hill ride.

[Tater]

Kano, you and E. missed a neat ride out in Nampa! I did the Bob LeBow century with the winds Kano mentioned. Guh. Report and pictures in the adventure section.

[madscot13]

Wonderful weather in St. Paul! However, I am so tired from yesterday's 40 miler (a personal best!) that I only managed to go downtown to the Farmer's Market.

[RolliePollie]

Only 17 miles today, but tomorrow I'm going to try a new route which should be about 35 miles. I've really noticed that my stamina is improving, so I planned to complete today's ride with no rest stops. That plan was put on the back burner when I was getting ready to run a stop sign and a Sheriff's car pulled up. Needless to say, I unclipped really fast and stopped. Since I was stopped anyway, it was a good excuse for a 5 minute break. And I happened to be in the shade so that made the rest break even more attractive.

I know running stop signs is a really bad habit (not to mention illegal), but when you're riding rural roads with no traffic, it's much easier to just keep going. Especially when the stop sign is on a steep hill!

[Jiffer]

Beautiful weather here in So. Cal. As usual lately. I drug DH out on a recovery ride this afternoon. He did a century and SMOKED IT! Ride Around the Bear. (Big Bear mountain with 10,400 ft of climbing.) He doesn't know how his time compares to the other riders yet, but he's pretty sure he's in the top 5 or 10 of 350. He even did a cool stunt at the very end where he was trying to beat a yellow light at 30 mph turning left, saw water and slime and, short story, both tires slid into the curb right at the exact same time and he found himself lying upside down on the grass wheels spinning above him. The guy riding with him yelled out, "Nice! Let's GO!" And then he practically pulled the easy up down as he came skidding in at the finish to get scanned and hit the front brake too hard, lifting his back tire, continuing to skid, grabbing the easy up post, dragging it a few feet! Some guys from his riding club were sitting near by and yelled, "That was great!"

So, I drug him out for a recovery ride, since he's always preaching to me how good they are for you. We just did a little 13-ish mile ride and stopped to visit his sister and fam and show them my great new bike!