July Rides

[Veronica]

We spent the first two weeks or so of July mountain biking in the Hood River, Mount St. Helens area. At some point I'll have pictures. It was a blast and I came home covered in bruises, so much so that I have had people ask what happened to me. My chiro said it looked like I had been beaten. We don't have much in the way of single track in our immediate area and these trails were a real challenge for me - technical, steep. I only had two falls and those were both in the first few days, but every day I had more bruises. We also "hiked" through a two mile lava tube. That was pretty cool. I say "hike" because it involved a lot of rock scrambling and one section that we had to scale. It had really good hand and foot holds though and was not very tall, maybe ten feet.

Yesterday we took the road bikes out for the first time in forever and rode 30 miles. We actually got rained on a little bit. It doesn't typically rain here until the fall. It was just sprinkles, so the drought is not over. My road bike is SO light! But on every hill I wanted a smaller gear than I had. I think my legs are use to the feel of climbing in my mountain bike gears. It wasn't a big deal that I ran out of gears. I think the steepest climb was 15% and they were super short. My road bike is a compact double so of course the gearing feels different.



I have decided to race tri again in September so this ride was kind of a benchmark ride to see where I am on the road bike. I'm pretty happy with how I felt on the bike and my average speed. It's a good starting place. I'll have different things to day about tomorrow's first run I'm sure. I don't think I've run outside in the last six months.

Veronica

[roo4]

I rode the Keystone MS150 this weekend. About 75 miles each day through rolling country roads. I averaged about 14.5 mph on both days. The first day I started with my group, but they outpaced me after 20-30 minutes. We regrouped at each rest stop and repeated this throughout the day. Yesterday I just did my own ride and never saw them after the start. The ride was extremely well organized, roads were marked, most intersections had people flagging traffic, there were lots of support vehicles on the road and plenty of food at the stops. The weather was overcast and cool the entire weekend, just perfect for cycling.