august rides

[ny biker]

I think you should try to bring up the possibility of cardiac issues with your friend, just to be safe.

I rode 20 miles after work last night. The guys at my LBS are beyond awesome. They replaced the broken spoke, trued the wheel, and also replaced the cable to the rear derailleur after I had mentioned that it's been needing more adjustments than usual lately. It's now shifting beautifully. Since my usual post-work route is ~20 miles from the LBS, I rode a different route last night, which included portions of some other rides I've done before. It was very dark for the last 10 miles (very few streetlights), so it's a good thing I knew where I was going. Also a good thing that I had just changed the battery on the headlight that's on my helmet, because I needed it to read the cue sheet.

[Crankin]

DH took today and tomorrow off and I don't start my Thursday clients until 9/11. Had all intentions of doing a 40-50 mile ride and I woke up feeling like a truck hit me. Who knows why. My weird autoimmune/allergy stuff has been acting up this summer, but since I know the drill, I push on, at least in a modified way! We ended up doing a more local route, that goes into Westford and Chelmsford for a bit and then stopped at Ferns for lunch on the way back. DH put a new chain on my bike a few weeks ago and I have had issues since, despite him fiddling with it continually. After the second "shift by itself" incident, of course, on a hill, and the third time we had to stop, he found the correct fix and it's finally back to normal. Yesterday I dropped my chain making a left in traffic and I could not get it to go back on with the "put it in the high gear" trick, so I actually had to pull off the road and lift the rear of the bike and spin the pedals to get it to move.
We sat at Ferns for quite a while; it got cloudy and was feeling a bit cool for the last 7 miles home, but it was fine. Actually averaged over 15, so, in the end, a good ride of 23 miles.
I am going to take a day off from riding tomorrow, probably hike in the afternoon, after I am done with work.

[Crankin]

Awesome ride to the Fruitlands in Harvard, MA today. It has to be perfect weather... 73 degrees, breezy, no humidity. DH did his first post surgery ride with bigger climbs, including Oak Hill. We are kind of experimenting for our Portugal tour, and we went at touring pace! We rode about 17 miles, ate lunch at the restaurant at the Fruitlands, where the view is outstanding, but we were surrounded by loud women, having lunch! This is where I have often seen the Red Hat group, but, it was just various random groups of people who had fun staring at our bike clothes. We went home a more direct way, past our old house, where the trees DH and DS #2 planted are totally mature. Total ride was about 37 miles, with 2,000 feet of climbing.

[ny biker]

I rode 79 miles today, my first >70 miler in years. It was a century ride put on by a local racing team, but I figured out a couple of short cuts because I didn't want to ride more than 80. I rode with several friends and had a (mostly) good ride.

Five miles from the end, I had another broken spoke. I was able to finish the ride; the wheel was out of true but I opened the brake as far as it would go and ignored the rubbing brake pad. I'm planning to start a separate thread to discuss broken spokes. In the meantime, I can't get to the LBS until Monday but have a big ride planned on Saturday. So I called the LBS from the parking lot of the ride start/finish location, they looked up the type of wheels currently on the bike, we discussed some options, and I ordered a new set of comparable wheels. They should be in by Tuesday, but if there's a delay the shop can lend me a wheel temporarily.

This is not an expense I would like to have right now, but I consider it an investment in my sanity.

Btw one of my companions today was asking about winter cycling clothes. The general discussion centered on layering, wool and shopping at TE.

[azfiddle]

I rode about 64 miles today on an organized event east of Tucson, from Willcox to the Chiracahua Mtns and back, with about 2500 feet of climbing. I did not go with my regular breakfast of oatmeal or a bagel, but threw together a piece of toast & peanut butter and mini-yogurt from the motel we stayed at. It warmed up quickly and was a little humid, and my stomach felt yucky as soon as we left the flats and started climbing. It basically felt yucky the whole ride, though I managed to drink a bottle of electrolytes, 3 or 4 more bottles of water, and ate half a banana, a cookie and a piece of my home made fruit-nut bar (pan forte).

I felt so crummy on the last uphill portion (about 15-16 miles before the end) I stopped and rested twice on the climbs. I considered just getting a ride back, but stopped at the last aid station and dumped a bottle on my head, sat in the shade and then got back on the bike for the descent and a 5-6 mile flat section. After all the riding I've been doing, I was a little depressed about my lack of progress and an overall moving speed of 13.5 mph.

I blamed it all on my eating, but then after I got off the bike, I realized that I was getting a headache and scratchy palate (actually ignored a little preview of the scratchy palate when I woke up this morning). So now I am thinking it was more that my body was just having to deal with too much: oncoming cold, sub-optimal breakfast, and a long bike ride with heat and hills.

It was still a beautiful route with almost no cars, grasslands green from the summer monsoons, soaring Swainson's and Red-tailed Hawks and the songs of the desert sparrows serenading me.

[emily_in_nc]

Been riding a lot but haven't been posting. Today's ride was just a little 13.5 mile market ride, but overall for the past week I've done several 50+ milers. I've been battling a bad saddle sore, but I think I finally turned the corner on that in the past few days. Thank the gods.

The wind has come back with a vengeance here, and the past few rides have been less than fun having to fight it. Looks like more of the same tomorrow. Other than the wind, the weather has been lovely, though!

[Crankin]

Today we did a CRW ride and then went to the Labor Day party at my friend's Jack, house, after. It started about 2 miles from his house, in a parking lot at the VA campus. Unlike AMC rides, it's a kind of "you're on your own," thing, so we took off about 20 minutes before the start. Rode some new roads and nice ones in Lexington (where i've never ridden, except on the bike path), and then we headed back to Concord, into west Concord, Acton, and up Nagog Hill. Now, this is in the area I live in, but I rarely do the whole hill... it's a series of 5-6 hills on one road. Today, we did them all, and more, because we took the road all the way to the end, which I have only done a few times. Then, we headed into Littleton and Westford, back onto a route that we often do. From there, we had about 12-15 miles left to get to Jack's house for the food! Need I say, that the weather is the absolute opposite of Saturday. It's 85 degrees with like 70% humidity. Thankfully, partly cloudy. We did stop to eat and take long drinks twice, but overall, we got to Jack's hosue with a decent average for a hilly ride. Sat and had pizza and beer, sat more, because then we had to ride 2 more miles back to the car. That 2 miles felt pretty painful, after sitting.
I'm really stiff and tired, need to go revive myself. This weekend I've ridden about 80 miles and hiked 8 miles.