Aug 11 rides

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I rode on my own today 32 miles over lovely rolling hills and countryside.

This was my 3rd ride testing my new shorter reach handlebars, and the longest one so far.
So far I am very pleased.
The totally unexpected bonus of these bars showed up dramatically today in that my usual quite painful left elbow did not hurt!
Usually for the past 8 months, I get elbow soreness after 10 miles and it gets steadily worse with each 10 miles thereafter, til it hurts- a LOT -just to bend it. It's the only real pain I experience in my biking, and it happens on EVERY ride over 10 miles.
But today for the first time in many months, I felt some mild sore twinges after a few miles, then they went away, then came back a tiny bit, then just went away, kept doing this...by the end of my 32 miles my elbow wasn't really hurting much at all!
This huge sudden change can't be anything but the new bars. YAY!!!!!!!

[RolliePollie]

It is quite smoky here this morning (not sure where this fire is...I think the whole state of CA is going to burn up this year) so I didn't push it. 21.2 miles and I did my easier route to avoid a few long hill climbs. My eyes were watering so bad that I had tears dripping off my chin for much of the ride. Other than that, the smoke didn't seem to bother me much.

[Crankin]

It was really nice out, but we have to leave in about 10 min. to see an exhibit at the MFA and I was lazy this morning. We did aabout the most flattish loop you can do from my house, 16.44 miles. My husband decided to do intervals and was really far ahead of me. Don't ever eat a chicken salad wrap before riding. What was I thinking? Well, my aveage was 16.4 before I climbed the hill to my house, and 15.8 at the end. But I did not feel good!
Off to the city.

[solobiker]

Well, this morning a friend and I headed out for some hill climbing. We started out at the base of one of the local favorites which is a 5 mile climb with about 1700 of elevation. After that we continued on for more hill training for about another 10 miles or so. It was a beautiful ride and we explored some areas that we had not ridden in yet. It was a short ride day, about 13 miles of hill climb and of course 13 miles down . We were going to continue on but decided against it as it was starting to get hot, we are supposed to be near 99 today Hope everyone is well.

[Fredwina]

I did 65 today.
One of my favorites - the club , plus another climb to make a metric out of it.

[mudmucker]

Today I did an unsupported solo metric. Well, almost - I went 59 miles. I decided I needed a break and some flatter terrain and kinder pavement and actually drove 35 minutes east to the flatter terrain. I rarely drive to ride, maybe 2-3 times a year, and now I remember why. It used to be I despised going points east of 495 because the residential population density as well as the traffic increases by orders of magnitude. Now I have this feeling going east of 190.

Anyhow, it was a gorgeous day. Last weekend I got whupped by the heat, did not have electrolytes with me, food that didn't agree with me, and subsequently faded quickly. I think I had a bit of a stomach bug through the week as well. I woke up this morning feeling crappy and with pretty low energy but wanted to put in some miles and did not want to let this gorgeous, precious, entirely free day for riding go by the wayside. I wanted kinder terrain as I didn't know how I'd feel and my stomach was still bothering me. Well, I had a great ride. You know, no land records set but happy and comfortable and worked out the stomach bug I think. I brought plenty of electrolytes and better digestable food. My route started in Lancaster, then went up to Lunenburg, over to Shirley, Townsend, Groton, Ayer, into Harvard and threw in the Fruitlands for old times sake. I used to go birding at the Oxbow Wildlife Refuge and Bolton Flats almost every weekend when I lived out that way so it was fun to ride by those places. Continued from Harvard to Bolton, Clinton and back to Lancaster. A very good day.

[KnottedYet]

Rode about 10-12 miles. To and from a class I'm taking.

Because of the class, I had to miss "Tour de Fat" (Fat Tire beer brewery guys and bikes). Very sad.