June 17th rides

[RolliePollie]

28 miles for me today. I can't believe this, but I'm really starting to appreciate and almost enjoy the hilly terrain around here. First of all, screaming down the hills is a blast! And a nice cool down too. Crawling up the hills is getting easier every time I ride. I only stopped to rest once today which is a big improvement from just a few weeks ago.

One unpleasant thing that I encountered was a freshly smashed roadkill skunk right in my lane. Wow, the smell couldn't have been any stronger! The up close and personal smell of skunk is MUCH worse than the whiff you might get if you pass an unfortunate dead one in the car. The instensity of that stench nearly knocked me off the bike!

[7rider]

The "official" June TE-D.C. ride today consisted of KaliDurga and myself -- okay - maybe next Saturday's monument ride will be the official one.
We left from Riley's Lock and did a 26 mile loop that was loaded with hills. KaliDurga was...well, noticing it more than normal, but I'll let her tell her tale. I tried to ride the delicate line between encouraging and nagging as we stared up et another daunting hill.
Followed up the ride with Sunday brunch at Bassett's in Poolesville, which was packed. We had forgotten it's Father's Day. Still, we sat at the bar and had a high protein brunch of questionable meat-like products (me: corned beef hash, her: scrapple <<shiver>>). Yum!

[Zen]

I prefer puddin'. What happened to her, anyway?!

[Kalidurga]

We left from Riley's Lock and did a 26 mile loop that was loaded with hills. KaliDurga was...well, noticing it more than normal, but I'll let her tell her tale. I tried to ride the delicate line between encouraging and nagging as we stared up et another daunting hill.

I'm a whiny, out-of-shape weenie, and that's all there is to it Actually, I surprised myself by keeping up a 15-20mph pace for longer stretches than I ever have before, but then, of course, we'd hit an uphill grade and I'd crack and slag back down to 8-10mph... I'd love to see what my avg speed would have been if I hadn't walked up those three big hills And Regina was a great "coach". If she hadn't been there with me, I would've been hitchhiking back to the car halfway through the ride

ZenC, I sent you an e-mail!

[Sheesh]

I told Mr. Sheesh that I wanted to go for a ride this weekend, and I did not want to ride on the lake path. Now that I'm commuting by bike 3-4 days per week, along the lake path, it isn't as much fun to just ride the lake path anymore. It's kind of like going for scenic Sunday drive on the same route you drive to work every day. Instead, we headed north.

The first section is very bumpy - the roads are crap. Once you get past the first 10 miles though, the route is beautiful. Twisting roads through quiet northern suburbs with a few rolling hills thrown in for good measure. The route back took us through Fort Sheridan. At the end of the trip, we had ridden 37 miles in two hours and forty five minutes.

This morning, Mr. Sheesh asked me if I wanted to try and catch a local group ride that leaves from Evanston at 8:00 a.m. I've never been on a group ride before, so I was very nervous, but up for the challenge. I'd like to learn to ride with other people - close proximity, drafting, talking while riding. We got to the local coffee shop with just enough time to introduce ourselves and learn that the route would be the same one we had just ridden yesterday. Good! I knew what to expect!

This was supposed to be an open "anyone can join" ride where noboby gets ldropped. So I didn't expect the pace to be so fast that we lost sight of the group within the first five miles. So much for a no drop ride! Good thing Mr. Sheesh was smart enough to know to stay near me, because when he saw me falling off the back, he came back and rode with me. Since he knew the route, we rode it at our own pace. On the way back, we picked up two other guys who had been dropped from the ride and they rode back with us.

In all, I had a great weekend of riding - 75 miles! Now I feel like I could eat a horse, though! Good thing we're having steaks on the grill for dinner!

[RoseC]

I rode to work again! As a friend said to me, there's something just not quite sane about using weekends to practice going to work...

Found another route that's more road / less bike path, but there's a nice bike lane on the road. Fewer road crossings / stop signs than the path, too. And it's shorter - 12.5 miles each way instead of 14.25. But it's a little hillier, and I'll need to be careful of cars entering the road or making right turns off of it and across the bike lane.

So I did a total of just about twenty five miles, which puts me over the 350 mile mark on my bike. Woo-hoo! OK, so there are those of you here who can do that in a week.

[mudmucker]

My second attempt at doing at least a 40 mile ride this weekend failed. Yesterday I got caught by thunder and lightening and cut the ride short. Today, I left it was bright and sunny. I rode north on what is one of my more picturesque and favorite rides into Southern New Hampshire but at about mile 17, I was in North Winchendon and all of a sudden black clouds appeared and it started to rain again. So I decided to turn around as I didn't know how torrential it would get. I didn't have any rain gear with me but it was warm and humid and unlike yesterday it stayed at a steady drizzle which was quite tolerable. And the visor on my helmet kept the water off my prescription glasses to a minimum so I could at least see today. Ride cut short to 32 miles.

All in all it was such a great ride. I saw another deer, it loped in front of me about 150 feet ahead. I love where I live - my biking routes are so nice and on many roads there is very little traffic. I hear all these horror stories of unruly motorists. I'm thinking now I must be pretty lucky - the drivers around here are so courteous - they wait, they don't rev engines, they don't show animosity and most of all they give an extremely wide berth to pass me, even if I'm on a road with a decent shoulder. Most times they are practically in the left lane. I usually ride solo, I don't mind, and I'm out every weekend and there are very few cyclists out my way here. I might only see 4 or 5 a season and none of them are women. I wonder if that has something to do with how the drivers behave around here - that there's not enough people on bicycles for them to have what they consider a bad experience enough to get annoyed with cyclists.

[Popoki_Nui]

First chance to ride in a couple of weeks. Windy as usual, but a quick and pleasant 55km jaunt on "Vee" thru rolling farmland on the Saanich Penninsula. A nice mix of highway/ backroad/ trail riding. Just had to photograph this sign in Lochside Park (don't you hate it when you just can't find anywhere to park your saucer??? And they call this a tourist-friendly city...!)

[jobob]

Hee hee, good one PN!

[Mr. Bloom]

don't you hate it when you just can't find anywhere to park your saucer??? And they call this a tourist-friendly city...!)

Geez...my buddies just moved to a place with "no saucer parking"!

[Zen]

First chance to ride in a couple of weeks. Windy as usual, but a quick and pleasant 55km jaunt on "Vee" thru rolling farmland on the Saanich Penninsula. A nice mix of highway/ backroad/ trail riding. Just had to photograph this sign in Lochside Park (don't you hate it when you just can't find anywhere to park your saucer??? And they call this a tourist-friendly city...!)

All this time i thought those signs meant "yield to Amish hats".