Labor Day Rides

[mayanorange]

I'm so jealous you got to tube! DH and I went out for a long ride- probably too long for me! 24.8 miles with way too much wind and the usual rolling hills of Dover and Sherborn. Now I have a bruised bum- still working on finding the right shorts apparently- and a couple twitchy muscles in my hand that are repairing themselves. Tubing would have been better although it was probably too cool up here for it.

[Aggie_Ama]

Tubing would have been better although it was probably too cool up here for it.

This has been one hot summer, I am jealous of cool temperatures.

[kfergos]

I went for an amazingly nice (if lonely; I have no biking buddies here ) 62-mile loop around the Wachusett Reservoir, to Holden, down to Shrewsbury, and back to Malrborough through Westborough. Left at 6:30 am, and it was a mere 56 degrees outside -- I was positively cold without my arm warmers for the first hour or so! Fall's a-comin'. New England has been beautiful the last few weeks; trees are changing colors, the temperature's remained moderate, we've finally ditched those thunderstorms. If only it was like this all the time!

I say "amazingly nice" because I had the horrific experience of riding over freshly-scraped, pre-repaving road. The road crew must've gotten it ready to repave on Friday, and just left it over the weekend. OUCH!! My hands, wrists, butt, knees...everything hurt. Felt like my skin was going to jitter right off. A couple miles of that (I think; I kept my eyes on the road, trying not to fall or get a tire stuck in one of those grooves) made me practically weep with gratitude when I got back to normal paving. Guess I'm not cut out to operate a jackhammer!

[Misandal]

Labor Day for me was a short recovery ride after the 50-mile, 5,000' ride from the day before.

Stay tuned...next week is the Blue Ridge Epic Tour, beginning on Monday the 8th at Mile Marker 0 and ending Friday at Mile Marker 470. I'm told there's an average elevation gain of 10,000' every day. Woohoo!

I just pray that Hurricane Hanna stays away!!!

[mimitabby]

Got up early and rode downtown with Raleighdon. We found Mr & Mrs Shootingstar, bade our farewells and headed out to Alki point of west seattle. From there we headed back towards Beacon hill. We rode 41 miles, fairly flat.

[bikerHen]

We camped out in Idaho's Silver Valley, and nearly froze overnight. The temp was in the mid 30's. Next morning we rode to the top of Lookout Pass on the Idaho Montana border. Froze again at the top of the pass and on the way back down. Clouds moved in and there was talk of snow flurries! We didn't see any, but it was certainly cold enough. It was a very pretty ride through cedar forests, with lots of little creeks flowing over moss covered rocks and logs. Next time we'll dress a bit warmer. bikerHen

[LBTC]

We took our newbie friend and her borrowed bikasaurus rex on our 50km pretty flat loop. She was doing very well considering the ancient 6 gear cassette and friction shifters! And I was doing very well on the hill that usually saps me completely, possibly since I wasn't trying to catch anyone! We stopped in the next town for a bathrrom break and a bit of fuel. About a block from there, her rear flatted. Well, I thought I had three unused inflater cartridges, but I only had one cartridge in my inflater, and it was *used*!! since I have never used the thing, I don't know whne that happened! DH came back and he had enough, so we (mostly he) swapped it out and filled it. But we put a presta tube in an old shrader rim and it promptly flatted. Between us we had one more tube and one more cartridge, so DH rode home to get the car and my friend and I hung out in the park a block away and chatted....
I am so grateful that it didn't happen further up the road which is way far away from anywhere nice to hang out and wait! And I'm wondering if the flat and poor preparation happened so I wouldn't crash when I had the next ice pick headace. Yup, my brain has decided to give me a new type of headache - the first one woke me up in the middle of the night! Before the ride I only had one more, but while we waited in the park (when we would have been riding) I had another. These are super sudden, very intense, and very short. I have no idea what I would do if one hit while I was riding on a highway at speed!!

It cetainly was a not-quite-what-we-had-planned kind of ride, but a good time, nonetheless.

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~