July 22 rides

[shawnada]

Did a nice 25 miles of rolling hills and one incredible steep hill that I have been working on. Even after 6 miles of running and 12 miles of biking yesterday, that hill was no problem today. Even looked forward to it. Thats my last hard workout until my race on Saturday.

[cosc]

Dh and I rode 41 miles. Especially nice to have a riding partner when the temps get hot. We had the select few trees landmarked to take breaks. We hoped to be riding Ragbrai today, but DH needed to stay close to finish combining at the farm.

[BikeDutchess]

DH and I rode 18.7 mi round trip to the top of Emigration Canyon and back. He hasn't been riding much at all yet this year, so I was impressed that he made it to the top! It was too stinkin' hot however (will it EVER cool down again around here???). The heat (late start) and the fact that I did quite a bit of climbing yesterday near Park City slowed me way down today. But that's OK, it was nice to be riding together.

[Crankin]

I just got back from my annual trip to the Berkshires. Can you hear climbing???
Our friends had mapped out all new routes. I won't make a long report, but on Friday we rode 52.5 miles and did about 4,000 feet of climbing. I found out I do better with shorter steep hills. There were 2 long gradual climbs and I decided my strategy on these will now be to keep my speeds down and save my legs. Not that I am super speedy, but I am not going to try to up the speed on this kind of riding. Yesterday we rode about 32 miles, with 3200 feet of climbing. This included one of the longest climbs I've done since I was in Austria. I was not happy, but I did it; about 4.5 miles. Then we did the "Tyringham Wall," aka, Main Rd. in Tyringham. At one point the Garmin said 25% grade, but I think it's more like 18 in spots. But, it's the third time I've done it. Today we did a 24 mile ride with about 1700 feet of climbing. One really long one, about 3-4 miles and then another one, about a mile that was steeper, but gorgeous. All of the scenery was awesome and the food was outstanding, too.
I am up to 1745 miles for the year. I predict I will hit 2,000 by August 10th, maybe before.