June 9 Rides - Great Weather Everywhere!

[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!

[Alex]

A lovely 28 mile ride this afternoon with DH. We had some nice hills. Very sunny. Temps in the low 80s. I tried out my new wheels and I was fretting over an annoying rattle that seemed to emanate from the front wheel. Stopped a couple of times and couldn't identify the source. Upon arriving home, DH figured out it was the little round thingie that goes around the valve on the tube. So, he took it off. You don't need those, right? I'm hoping that fixes the rattle cuz these wheels are FAST!

Alex

[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!

[Kalidurga]

Today I had a rollercoaster ride through fear, demoralization, and a small bit of exhilaration. I wanted to preview a route that I'll be riding with Regina & MdHillSlug next weekend. Started out late afternoon, about 4:00pm, with temps in the 80's. The beginning of the ride heads up a steep hill, then a lesser grade, a long downhill stretch, then up another curvy steep hill. 2.5 miles into the ride, coming up the second steep hill, I found myself actually sobbing for breath. Stopped at the top for a break and ended up with Elvis legs, a weak feeling and cold sweats through my upper body, and a very strange feeling around my heart. I didn't know if it was the heat, the hills, or both. I seriously wondered if I had pushed myself hard enough to have a heart attack, and considered walking the bike the 2.5 miles back to the car. After a break of at least 20 minutes, I finally got back on the bike and very slowly pedaled off with the intent of shortening the route. Within a mile or so I felt much better, but a breeze had kicked up and I continued to struggle on every uphill and a lot of the flats. In spite of flying down hills, my avg speed was around 12mph for the first half of the ride.

I took a lot of breaks. Around the middle of the ride, though, I must have gotten a tailwind because suddenly in between the hills was a flat stretch where I got the bike up to 28mph, which is the fastest I've done on a flat surface (that was the exhilarating part). But there were still other stretches of small hills and flats where I was in the small chainring and cussing up a storm at only 12mph or so.

Total miles= just shy of 25. Avg speed= embarassing, considering 30mph down hills and that super-fast flat stretch. On the positive side, the weather and scenery were gorgeous, no cars tried to drive me off the road, and my hootie-hoo had absolutely no discomfort. And, it was my very first road ride all by myself.

Nicole: Good luck on the diabetes ride tomorrow!