January rides -- outdoors!!

[ny biker]

I feel so very fortunate reading posts from those of you who live north. We enjoyed another upper 60s-70-degree day yesterday, and I rode 40 miles on my road bike for the first time in over a year (I think). I've done that distance on my MTB a couple of times in the past year but am not sure about the roadie since I haven't been tracking my miles until this year when I decided to get back to tracking on bikerides.com.

It was windy but nice, and I enjoyed wearing my new high-viz quick-dry top I picked up at Walmart for a cool $8.97. It's Danskin brand. Normally I don't shop at Walmart for athletic wear, but it was an impulse buy since I had no long-sleeve high-viz stuff and wanted to make sure drivers could see me while riding around here. Although the vast majority of this ride was on the road, we rode a short stretch on the packed sand of the Padre Island National Seashore -- beach bikes would be really fun here!

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I am jealous!!

Yesterday was the halfway-point for meteorological winter -- 45 days down, 45 to go. (Meteorologists track the seasons by calendar month -- winter is Dec 1 - Feb 28 (or 29), spring is March 1 - May 31, etc. I like to celebrate the arrival of spring on March 1, rather than waiting for the equinox.)

I have tentative plans for an outdoor ride this Sunday, to test out the new AmFib tights.

[emily_in_nc]

Another 40-miler to the national seashore and back yesterday. Almost a carbon copy of Tuesday's ride -- stiff breeze on the way there and nice tailwind on the way back. Temps in the upper 60s with bright sunshine. Today is a bit cooler, upper 50s, with a stiff NE breeze. DH is doing a recovery ride as he did 55 miles yesterday. I just did a 45-min walk/run on the gym treadmill and some light weights today as I had no desire to fight the wind on a cooler day. And my butt is tired of the saddle, so it's nice to have a break.

I was really pleased not to have any pain yesterday from my nearly 9-year old pelvic fracture. It continues to ache at times when I ride, mostly when I do a lot of hills or don't get off the saddle to stretch frequently enough. Yesterday was a good day, especially for the amount of time in the saddle (3 hours).

Hope everyone will be seeing warmer weather soon!

[azfiddle]

I'm in awe of you in the cold winter zone who find a way to ride!!

I've gotten in 10 rides for 407 miles - but that is thanks to great weather and the end of Christmas vacation with free time the first week of January.

I posted a long report of my 210k ride from yesterday in its own post, so I won't do it here. Off to take advantage of the MLK day holiday for a 20 mile recovery ride shortly.