Sunday, August 8 rides

[TrekTheKaty]

Trailnet organized ride at Augustfest in Mascoutah, IL. Flat 40 miles. Beautiful farmland, lots of riders, kids selling lemonade & cookies on the side of the road. No traffic. Lots of fun--DH did the longer route with another riding buddy. A record pace for me. Good ride :-)

[Crankin]

I rode my mountain bike today, for the first time in 2 years. We rode the 1.5 miles to the local conservation land trail, which I had hiked on Monday.
Sigh. Whenever I get on any bike that isn't my road bike, I am a shaky mess. Add in rocks and roots, and well..
I did fine on the first trail, where we rode up a bit and into a beautiful field of wildflowers and into a neighborhood in the next town. I was a bit nervous coming down a teeny hill, but, I did it. I waited for DH at a junction for the other trail. He took a while, and as I suspected, he had crashed, while trying to take a video while descending. Yea, he can do this quite easily on the road, but not good on the trail. He was fine, but right away, I realized this next trail was more technical. Lots of rocks and uphill. I crashed for no reason, falling into the bushes on the side. It seems like every little teeny thing that hits my wheel makes me fishtail and feel like I am going to crash. I walked a bit and yelled to DH that I would wait for him to come back. This trail ends at a grassy field that is part of a gas line access behind my neighborhood and the "prison farm." It's a really fun place to ride, but I was not ready. I made it down the uphill on the bike, but crashed again, not really sure why. Once back on the main trail, I pushed it and rode up the steep grade on my street quite quickly for being on that monster bike.
Total of 5.2 miles.
I considered selling my mountain bike, since maybe a 56 year old with osteoporosis shouldn't do this, but decided I will try to give more time to it. I love being outdoors in the woods, but I guess I have to start all over with this.

[loopybunny]

51.83 km in 2:21:17
average speed: 22.01 km/h, max 33.3 km/h
A whole whopping 256 ft of climbing... haha

This was a repeat of an out and back ride I did last Saturday. I didn't see nearly as many cyclists out. In fact, I didn't see any until 25 km. Ended up seeing only 4 total, the cool part is that 3 of them were women.

Anyhow... it was a pretty good ride. My average pace has remained fairly unchanged for the last couple of months.