12/22 Rides

[7rider]

About 10 miles of singletrack at Schaeffer Farms with the RLAG (Ride Like A Girl) crew from the Mid-Atlantic OffRoad Enthusiasts (MORE).
Nice, semi-casual pace. The various DH's of the riders went off bombing along at a high pace (my own was home, sick), and we followed at a more sedate pace, stopping every so often to work on jumping logs and such (not me...I'm such a wimp). They all knew each other...I was the "outsider" - but they were a great group to ride with.

[fastdogs]

went to visit parents in rolla today, took my bike as usual. It was in the 50s and nice. But my neice wanted to ride with me- she rode with me once and seem to have been hooked. So I waited most of the day. It started raining. I figured I needed to ride now or I wouldn't get to ride at all, so I set out on the two lane, no shoulder blacktop road to st. james. It rained the whole way, but sort of a light rain, and the temps were nice. There's not much traffic, and usually there's no problem, but for the first time today a car passed from behind, too close. I know it was intentional because the goofball in the backseat looked back and was laughing. Then a pickup came from the other direction and the driver yelled something at me. Don't know what he said, but it was an unfriendly tone. That's the first time anything like that has happened. But, I made it up the worst hill, all the way, no walking. Not fast, barely fast enough to stay upright, but I was pretty proud of myself. Total of ten miles, pretty good, for me.
And, I had my gps on my handlebar bag, and my cellphone in my pocket!
vickie

[jobob]

Rode my first metric century in ages!

I went over Palomares Road, headed up to Pleasanton then to Sunol, and over Calaveras Road and through Fremont & up Mission Blvd., ending at Mission Coffee where LeeBob graciously picked me up.

I'm still climbing awfully slow, and there was quite a bit of climbing - nothing particularly steep, but lots of long grades - so I eeked out 62.5 miles and 3750 ft of climbing at a rip-roarin' 11.5 mph. Can you say booyah?

It was pretty chilly but between my 2 layers of wool on top, the thin wool tights over my witches britches knickers, double layer of wool socks, earmuffs & gloves, I was doing fine, especially with all the climbing. I usually had to take my gloves off while climbing. I wore my yellow windstopper vest only for the last 15 miles or so, for the descent down Calaveras and the rest of the way to Mission Coffee.

The Calaveras bald eagle was perched at the tippety-top of his/her electrical tower, there was no missing it. Lovely sight.

I got tired on the rollers on Calaveras between the false summit & the Wall, but between the rest on the long descent into Milpitas and the even longer break I had changing my rear flat tire (happily well after the descent), I felt pretty good over the last 15 miles or so.