Saturday March 8 Rides

[Mr. Bloom]

... did a 22 mile spin on the bikepath on our MTB singlespeeds - in the POURING rain .

It's a sincere question I have...HOW do you do that? What kind of gear kepts you adequately warm at that temperature in a pouring rain!

[Crankin]

Mr. Silver, SheFly does it because she is tough (but very down to earth... she likes coffee). The rain here was horrible! I did a core workout inside. We had to take our son to airport to head back to San Diego. He is leaving for Iraq on Thursday.
I am hoping to ride outdoors later this afternoon because it will be LIGHT until 7 or so.
My husband has to fly to Phx to help take care of a family situation (bad, both parents in hospital) and is taking his Bike Friday. Although I don't envy him dealing with his siblings, I am jealous he will get to ride in 65-75 degree weather.

[Mr. Bloom]

My husband has to fly to Phx to help take care of a family situation (bad, both parents in hospital) and is taking his Bike Friday. Although I don't envy him dealing with his siblings, I am jealous he will get to ride in 65-75 degree weather.

Wish him Godspeed! I can't imagine what it would have been like to deal with family situations from across the country!

[SheFly]

It's a sincere question I have...HOW do you do that? What kind of gear kepts you adequately warm at that temperature in a pouring rain!

Thankfully, Gore-Tex helped, but only to a point. I had on a Gore-Tex jacket with wool underneath, and "water-resistant" pants. Also had on my Lake MTB shoes (and there is a reason the call them that ), and some water-proof/resistant gloves. When I started to complain of cooling off some, DH would say "OK, we're gonna race from here to that sign. Ready? Go!" And we'd spin down the path like gerbils, at about 140 rpm!

BTW - he always wins . Truthfully, I didn't really get cold until we were headed home and the downpours had truly started. This created HUGE puddles on the path, and in my shoes and gloves. The warm shower when I got home was great though.

SheFly

p.s.
I think the wind on today's ride was worse.

[Melalvai]

My ride Saturday was an adventure.

I need to go about 30 miles north to drop off 2 more dining chairs to be repaired, and pick up 2 that were finished, at one of the Amish carpenters. These are heavy oak chairs, turns out they weigh 22 lbs each, and the trailer coincidentally weighs the same. Weight hauled in addition to my usual 40 lb bike and me: 66 lbs.

I guessed it would slow me down by about 4 or 5 mph (resulting in 10 mph average). I guessed wrong. I averaged 6-7 mph! I thought it to be a 3 hr trip. It took 5.5 hrs, with few breaks. The 2 breaks took longer than I liked (grocery store, remove broken fender).

And COLD. It was ~10F when I started. My water froze in less than an hour. My toes hurt so much at the grocery store I had to sit down until they thawed. After that first miserable hour, it warmed up, and I fell into a rhythm of pedaling and wiggling my toes. Pedal-wiggle wiggle left, pedal-wiggle right, pedal-wiggle wiggle left. (My left toes froze faster than my right toes. They were also less coordinated wigglers.)

I don't know what happened, but suddenly the plastic fender had bent in half, my foot was caught in it, the front tire wouldn't move, and we all fell over. The trailer with chairs stayed perfectly upright. NO traffic on that quiet road. A 6 mph fall doesn't really hurt much. I didn't even tear my jeans.

It was only a fender bender.

My husband and I had discussed beforehand that I might be too ambitious, particularly in light of the temperature. I had nothing to prove and had no problems calling him and having him meet me at the carpenter with the car.

My knees hurt today, reminding me that I really need to get a longer seat post. The seat is high enough for my knees ONLY when it is past the "Do not raise past this mark" mark.

One of the nice things about this ride is that I rigged up a sort of handlebar bag (although that may have contributed to the fender mishap). I kept food in there, and by opening all packages right away, I could get at the food even with my awkward gloves. I clipped a little radio to it and a radio talk show ("What Do You Know") made the hours fly by.