Quote Originally Posted by ny biker View Post
I led a 39-mile club ride today. It was colder than I had hoped it would be, apparently due to some clouds that wedged between the Chesapeake Bay and the Blue Ridge. It was especially chilly by the bay, which was our destination. The views were nice anyway, though, and temps were above 40 for the entire ride. Overall it was a nice winter ride.

My legs were tired by the end and I have tons of stuff I should do around the house tomorrow. But one of the friends on today's ride asked me to join her tomorrow up in Frederick County. I've been told that when I'm an old lady I will not look back fondly on memories of cleaning the house -- so I'm going for another ride. I just hope my legs are up to the task.
So we rode 42 miles on Sunday. The planned route was 40, but we added a couple of detours for the sake of scenery. But here's the thing -- it was springlike around DC on Sunday, sunny and in the 60s. And our ride was in northern Maryland between Frederick and Taneytown -- where it was cloudy and cold with temps in the low 40s and enough snow on the ground to make it feel a good 10 degrees colder. The route was really nice, with lots of quiet rural roads and plenty of creek and river crossings. For our rest stop we chose a nice little bakery with tasty food. And it was a great chance to explore some roads that I've never been on before. It was just so cold, on a day when it was warm and sunny in our backyards. When we got back home we saw cyclists wearing shorts.

Despite the chill, we had a fun time. We were disappointed with the weather but did not regret going.

I will try to ride the same route again on a warmer day. In the meantime I've ordered new booties (from TE, of course) because the ones I bought last year are just not warm enough to keep my feet warm when temps are in the low 40s or lower.

So I rode more than 80 miles last weekend, which is way more than I've ridden since last October. My legs are a bit sore but overall they don't feel too bad. Of course now we're expecting two arctic blasts over the next few days and below-average temps beyond that. I'm just glad we're not buried in snow and hoping things stay that way.