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