4th of July Rides

[SadieKate]

Sorry for the grainy quality. I had to just shoot at the portion of the field she was in and hope for the best after a lot of trimming. I was strategically positioned in front of our new Peets Coffee so as to catch her after the ride, baiting the trap so to speak.

[SadieKate]

Easy to get in the mood around here in July.

[tygab]

did a 26 mile loop around our house and we took some new roads (not a preplanned, we just went). It's been nice to expand our riding territory this year. Today's route was much flatter than what we've been riding the past several times out but we still managed to log decent elevation gain. There were no dirt roads today... the sun was out and it was very warm for the early part of the ride so we eventually worked our way back to more backroads with trees. Phew. Had a good ride overall.

We got back to the house, changed, and got our kayaking gear together as we met up with friends and headed out for a few hours of paddling. During this time it got overcast and rainy, but we all had rainjackets and it was still a great time. The nice thing about kayaking in the rain is it drives a lot of people away. We had many sections of the water all to ourselves. It stopped for a while, and then just as we hit the boat ramp it started again.

So, a tale of two activities, two types of weather, and all in all perfect.

Oh, in ref to above comment... we've been "finding" dirt roads on a lot of our more exploratory rides recently... the below is a pic of me on one from Sunday's ride. This one was not rideable, but luckily we knew it was a short connector to pavement and just walked it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/m750/684951499/

[Jiffer]

I was SO looking forward to today's ride to the beach on the tandem with our tandem buddies. We were SO going to kick butt! Dh has gotten so strong in the past few months, and I've gotten stronger since the last time we rode with our tandem friends.

Everything was going well until the first hill. Hills have become my husband's specialty on his single. He's much stronger at them than his buddy who was on the other tandem. However, we were so weak on every hill we hit. In fact, about 20 miles into the ride, we were both commenting on how dead we felt. The next 10 miles or so were fairly tough for me as I was lacking energy, the "hoo ha" was hurting, the backs of my thighs were feeling weird (I think I need to try other saddles) and my muscles just didn't want to push any more.

We took a good 10 minute break and it helped. A little later we found ourselves drafting with a group of guys, which helped with the energy level and made the ride more exciting. We were passing people like crazy the farther we got to the beach. The bike trail was full of all sorts of interesting folks.

When we 1st got to the beach, we had gone 54 miles from our house. It took us 2:49 minutes of actual riding. We conitnued on the beach path through the circus of beach people celebrating 4th of July. It was overcast and cool. We forgot they had a 5k & 10k run there every year (which we've done before), plus a parade, so it was even more craziness everywhere. Kind of exciting, but made it hard to get to and even figure out where they had parked the truck the night before. I was so ready to get off the bike and was emotionally spent. Therefore, when I heard the words, "Oo! A tandem!" and was slammed with a water balloon ... I was SOOOOO not happy about it. I found myself in misery for the next 30 minutes as we finally found the truck, loaded the bikes and headed to lunch. My entire front side was soaked and I was now cold and wet with nothing to change into (that won't happen again). To add to it all, I was PMS-ing, so I kept finding myself crying over the ridiculousness of it all!

Luckily, Dh offered me a t-shirt he had and it was big enough for me to take off my wet bra and not be obvious. We ended up at a Mexican Restaurant sitting outside, away from the beach where it was actually sunny, which was perfect. I warmed up in the sun and hid from anyone who thought I might look ridiculous.

[Kalidurga]

Great ride with the D.C. T.E. gals - and my DH.
As DivingBiker noted, a bunch of us rode Rosaryville State Park for a sweet singletrack fix on Independence Day. With a few extra spurs, I got in a hair over 11 miles.
DH left our group when he hooked up with friends and discovered a whole new section of the park - definitely the "R" rated section to our "G" - well, perhaps PG-13 - ride!
Check out our route at: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Rosaryville-SP

Hmmm, bikely.com's being temperamental this morning and won't load the map. I ended up with just over 14 miles, due to my exploration of the rest of the park before you guys got there.

Definitely a good ride. I wasn't quite as comfortable this time around, and my squealing brakes probably scared off all the wildlife within 5 miles, but I definitely want to get back out there again.

Regina, we should check out that "R" rated section to see if there are any good vantage spots where we can sit and watch the boys hurt themelves