April 26 Rides

[Fredwina]

Well, at least I got the date right
Thing started out fine. I was going to do one of my brevet routes for the r-12 award.
I went to downtown riverside and took some pics of the Mission Inn:


I rolled across some train gates just as they were coming down. I climbed up to Alessandro, and then went down to Victoria Street:

Need and Orange?

Since some folks Had complained about going through the McKinley/91 interchange, I tried a different route. It was much better!
Made it thru Corona and turned on Hamner to go back up to "Rancho" - whoa - 20 mpg sustained headwinds for 15 miles! (plus 600 feet of climbing)
I made it back up her and decided that winds were just making it too dangerous and called it a day with 67 miles

[evangundy]

Here in Portland, we had low 60's and sunshine, finally. What a glorious day for a ride. We were going to ride out the Historic Columbia Hwy up to Women's Forum, but were running late (Mandy had to be somewhere by 2pm) so we turned to Troutdale instead of Corbett. My DH caught us just before Marine Dr along the Columbia River. Couldn't resist a pic. I'm ready for more of this weather.
Edna

[blondiebiker]

I have to ask... what's happening in this picture? I've never seen anything like that before.

[KnottedYet]

Did a gazillion things on one bike ride today.

Found two geocaches, had coffee with Salsabike (she did one cache with me), bought a copy of "Slow Fat Triathlete," took my bike into Home Depot (no bike rack) to buy a plunger, went to my friend's house to take care of her dogs.

Gorgeous beautiful day here, warm and lovely.
(and Harlot Habit shorts with wool boxers underneath totally ROCK!)

[tc1]

I road the route I will go if I ride to work. A pitiful 61 minutes from Matthews Beach to 8Av NW and Leary Way. I lost a lot of time in Fremont trying to figure out where the !@#$ the trail went. It's kind of a Seattle/regional thing, atrocious to nonexistent signage on our bike trails. It's part of the Seattle freezeout, our special way of saying "if you don't know the way already, you don't belong here." The trails are beautiful, though. And I didn't crash on the railroad tracks, which have already claimed two of my coworkers, one of whom busted up his shoulder so bad he needed surgery.

[bmccasland]

Rain, lots of rain, so far my rain guage reads 3 inches. No bike ride.

Took a nap instead.

[shootingstar]

Rode with Grog today. First I've ever met a TE forum member.

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=22934

I lost track of our distance. Maybe it was around 35-40 kms. by the time I got home. One thing for certain I don't talk much on bike it's not my style of cycling, not even with my partner

With Grog, she was kind enough to tolerate my speech efforts to respond to her while I was puffing along. On the other hand, I wouldn't have been offended..Grog if we rode in silence. We would cycle-meditate on the beautiful scenery that we saw today which included some eagles.

[spotlightmama]

Today I did 20 miles, mostly at about 15 mph (although I did get up over 20 mph a couple of times for a little speed work). DH dropped me off at the trailhead for one of our local bike paths - it was about in the middle, so I rode to the start, backtracked to my starting point and took it the other end. I was nervous about hitting the pedestrian bridge on my new bike (going down, that is), but it was cake.

After I had covered the entire path, I rode home. This is still very new for me, so it's still such a lovely and exhilarating feeling to ride in the road. There is something so great about sitting at a stoplight on a bike!

[smilingcat]

... went to the garden party...

well not quite. Rode the Wildflower ride in San Luis Obispo today. Still hacking, coughing and yes sick and my back is really sore from all the coughing so bailed and did the 50miler, there shortest route.

Just like the cindy ride, we had wind. not as bad, none the less wind. I love the ride, so well supported and rest stop were so well stocked. Maybe because I was one of the first ones to hit each stop.

I knew Paso Robles just north of the ride has lots of good wineries/vineyards and to the south in Santa Barbra has them too but I didn't know San Luis Obispo had its share of the vineyards. Pretty country ride with very few cars. I think maybe half a dozen or so car drove by me the whole ride.

And at lunch stop 9:30AM ish, they had sanitized hand wipes to clean your hand. OMG first evar on a ride for me. That was soo nice. To have clean hand for sandwitch lunch The support people were all so nice all smiling and cheering. They told me not to eat too much because the ride after the lunch has this (killer) hill. I asked around and it was 800 feet of climb broken into two section. 4% grade with parts at 6%. Well I paced myself on the hill. Got to the top of the hill and they had water station. From there it was mostly downhill back to the start/finish.

Not much of wildflower to see this season but the temperature was near perfect got bit warm (no where melting) toward the end of the ride.
All during the ride, I was looking all around. Taking in the view. Beautiful quiet place. lots of vineyards. Farm fields and virgin hillside with giant coastal oak trees everywhere. so pretty.

When I finished the ride I was bit early for the bar-b-q. I had to wait. It was worth the wait. I ate a very light lunch and had no breakfast before the ride. So the bar-b-q chicken was delici. and the cold lemonade was wonderful. felt like I was a kid again.

Then I drove 4 hours to get home. I hate LA traffic

start 49.??miles 18?? (one thousand eight hundred and ?? ) feet of climb. not much of climb. total ride time approximately three hours.

Fun ride,
smilingcat

[evangundy]

I have to ask... what's happening in this picture? I've never seen anything like that before.

We are riding along the bike/ped path that runs between Marine Drive and the Columbia River, in Portland. Oh, I bet you mean the bikes :-)

We ride recumbents, (ours are Easy Racer brand - DH rides a Gold Rush and I ride a Ti-Rush - see www.easyracers.com for some photos without bodysocks to see what the bikes look like). We usually ride wearing the bodysocks - made from lycra (swimsuit fabric) so it stretches over the frame. There is a lexan front fairing and an aluminum framework for shape for the back end. I'll post some links to other pics and websites - there are some pretty interesting bikes out there.

For a look at lots of different recumbents, see http://ohpv.org/HPC/ if you click for all the different pages, there is a different picture at the top of each, and I think a separate page somewhere for photos from various years. Found it: http://ohpv.org/HPC/RacePhoto.html

Enjoy :-)
Edna

[mimitabby]

I'm over in Wenatchee with the Redmond Cycle Club. I was sag yesterday while they did a 100 mile ride. After 50 miles one of the others got to feeling poorly, so i had the opportunity to ride, I thought 20 miles would be just great "oh, you'll love this 20 mile segment, it's the prettiest part of the ride... oh and by the way it has a mountain pass in it, quite a climb! so I climbed Navarre Coolee pass. It was not bad at all, just a 7-8% grade for a mile and a half.. in the heat of summer it would have been tough.
A few miles down the other side, i got a flat tire. All that travel through glass finally got to my tube. Raleighdon changed my tire, only to have the second go out. Later on, in the hotel room, i dug out no fewer than 5 piece of glass that were embedded in my rubber tire.

so, i was done with 13 miles.
Today i hope to ride 50 miles, if that tire holds up!
pictures later

[Kano]

Eva -- I think I would want a wardrobe of those sock things! Without having researched anything at your link, are they for wind resistance? Or maybe wind blocking?

Mimi, I like the sound of your ride yesterday, except for the flat tire thing! We incoporated a similar climb into our ride yesterday, and being "early season" for DH and I (third ride together), and our first time up that one this year, I was delighted to make the climb, and without using my granniest granny! (a first!)

I was missing a women's event that started out in one of the downtown parks, cuz "if I can't go, I don't care about that thing," says the man who passed the information of its existence on to me! There seemed to be a group of women riders -- mostly anyway -- coming from the other way as we rode, though. This was not one of the routes listed on the event information, so it must have been a different group. I didn't know our route was so popular, at least from the other way!

At the top, irrigation "sprinklers" were running, and where we stopped to take off a layer now that we were pretty well warmed up, the field was covered in ice. Kind of pretty! As I packed my Cirque jacket, I thought again -- gotta replace this. It does what I'd like, blocking the wind pretty well, but it's warmer than I want, and doesn't pack up real tiny, so it wasn't easy to stuff into my pack. DH probably would have put it in his trunk for me, but I figure I need to learn to pack my own stuff!

So, I spent the pre-ride and ride gathering a shopping list: wind pants, a bit too warm, and definitely way too big. Can probably live with them until fall though, since it will soon be too warm to wear them. Jacket, too warm, too big, too bulky. I'll probably tolerate that too, for a couple of rides. Jersey, too big. Wind vest, a bit loose, but tolerable, and delightfully yellow! Saddle. Hmmmm, not delightful. Gotta think about that. Can't not think about it by 15 miles, can't figure out what to do with it to make things better. Bones aren't hitting the right place, though the size appears to be pretty close. Interesting that this was not an issue last year! Going to talk with bike dudes this week, for SURE! Then started thinking: these gloves, should they be a bit tighter on my hands too? DANG, weight loss gets expensive!

Altogether, a lovely, cool morning 23 mile ride that included a couple of garage sales. A little slower than we expected, but again, early season, so that may have been the reason, or maybe we were riding into the wind a lot? Didn't purchase any bikes/bike stuff, though we were looking. Want to get a bike for our grandson to ride when he's here, but only saw "girl-bikes" that he wouldn't like, according to DH. We also saw a Nishiki Mixte. Didn't look carefully enough to see what it's condition really was, but it was pretty interesting. The lady who was running the sale asked how we get off our bikes again when we clip ourselves to the pedals, that she would surely fall down. We laughed a bit and said, yeah, stopped is the easiest place to fall over!

Couch to 100 here I come! DH has planned about 40 for us today. Bet he's pretty whipped after that! (he's dressed already. I better start thinking about that, so I'm ready to go when he decides it's time!)

Karen in Boise

[BeeLady]

Finally rode from the country into town with my DH, about 8 miles one way. Rode it once during the supported Wildflower ride but that was at the end of the ride. Wanted to see what it is like riding the 8 miles into town to do my shopping and errands. I'm here on the weekends and either don't go into town or rarely use my car.

Anyway, the ride was quite pleasant and safe. Much safer, it seems, than riding in traffic in San Antonio. Once my Big Dummy is ready I will leave it in San Antonio for errands there and leave my Volpe in the country to ride longer, peaceful country rides. Plus I'll have my panniers to make the occasional errand run into town.

Today, Sunday, we are getting more much-needed rain so probably no riding today. But Monday . . . looking to my hilly loop that's just outside my door.

[tulip]

Saturday's ride was a delightful 66 miles in northeast North Carolina in the Tarwheel Century ride. The weather was fantastic, and the SAG stops were delicious. One SAG stop even has smoothies!

I did the ride on my newest bike, Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro. I'm very pleased with my little bike--how it performs, how it fits, and how fast it is!

It's all packed up now in it's suitcase for Sunday's trip to France. I'll be riding my Jamis Coda for the rest of the week around town doing errands.