Yesterday we did a 20-mile afternoon ride on the road bikes. Temp was in the mid-50s with sunshine, and it was very breezy with sustained winds in the 20-25 mph range and gusts to 30. Challenging, to say the least, but wonderful during the stretches when we had a tailwind! Still, that much wind really takes it out of me, and 20 miles was plenty. (Truth be told, I was ready to quit after 10, but DH soldiered on, so I sucked it up and did better than I expected!)

Today it was less windy, a little warmer (low 50s starting out, 60 at mid-afternoon peak), and still sunny. We took the MTBs out and planned for a usual loop involving 5 miles on the road to a paved bike trail, ride to the end of the trail and back, then 5 miles back home with an errand stop on the way back. 34 miles total. However, DH got a call as we were riding on the path that his glasses were ready at Walmart (3 days early!), so we detoured and did 10 extra miles to/from Walmart for a total of 44.5 miles. We didn't take enough food for that long a ride so bought a box of granola bars at our grocery stop near the end and demolished a couple of bars apiece. That gave us the energy to finish the last few miles to home. Since this was an urban ride with many stops and street crossings, we ended up with 4 hours of saddle time, but I felt amazingly good. I guess all the miles over the past few months have finally paid off! I am also at my lowest weight in years despite plenty of eating, so that is good too going into the holiday "eating season".

Tomorrow winds are supposed to be up to 40 mph as a front comes through, so we're going to walk to the farmer's market and take a well-earned day off the bikes. Hope some of you get some good weekend weather for riding -- it gets harder to find good days to ride this time of year, but we've been pretty lucky, especially considering we had a low of 14 earlier this week!