We did 51 miles, a variation of a group ride I did a couple of weeks ago. We were going to do a club ride, but I wanted to leave earlier; we are at the beginning of a heat wave. Today is hot, but not humid and it felt a bit like AZ as the ride progressed. So we left at around 8:30 and it was already 70 degrees. We headed to do a loop south and back toward our start at first. I miscalculated a turn and figured out it wasn't so bad, as we were a bit ahead in our mileage at that point. At mile 15 we stopped back in Concord center, used the bathroom and ate my first shot block. We headed the flattest route we could find to Acton (cheating a bit from the original ride) and got into a rhythm. This ride is on all familiar roads we ride all of the time, taking us into Littleton, and Harvard just for a bit. There's a little climbing (rollers) at miles 20-25), but really it was a good route for a blistering hot day. The ride turns off of a road that becomes very steep and hilly and you ride through the Cisco Corp. campus, skirting a gate (it is the fire truck entrance), which takes back into Boxborough, through my old neighborhood. By the time we got there, we had stopped a couple of times, briefly, to take long drinks, eat, and loosen my shoes. I was starting to feel the heat at about mile 40, so we stopped at mile 43, bought some cold Gatorade, which did the trick to get me home. I was sort of not feeling great, but nothing specific when I got home. I made myself a tall drink of chocolate milk, and that revived me. I definitely was not dehydrated, though. After a shower and a nice cool chicken salad for lunch, I am enjoying a coffee and waiting to go to my friend's house for a BBQ.
Saw just a few cyclists today and it was great to ride on some busier roads that were traffic free. We did run into a 5 mile road race in Concord, but the runners were going in the other direction. They didn't look happy.