April Rides

[Crankin]

I commuted again today. The rain stayed south, or at least it didn't rain while I was riding! I got home from boot camp and DH was still home, so we rode out together, at 8 AM. There was a major back up of traffic on one of the more main roads, as they were street cleaning along the curb. DH went ahead and I guess he went to the left of the cars to see what the heck was going on (a bad move I would never do.) But, then, all of the cars stopped, and I could see the street cleaning stuff. There was no room in the small area where I usually ride, as that's where they were cleaning. But, I got in the lane, and it was just a minute of stopping, as they were letting vehicles go through on a one way basis. I caught up to DH quickly, as we were in a wide bike/parking lane over the Concord River and then we parted ways. All in all, a bit faster today and I wore a new tunic from Terry (made by a French brand) and my commuting capris that have a tri chamois, with my bolero, so I did not have to change, except for my shoes. Nice.

[ny biker]

I did go out for a ride last night after work. (I also successfully changed the tail light bulbs in the car. It was easy -- sometimes car manufacturers make it difficult to access the light housings, but in this case I was able to get at them with plenty of room to work even though the bike was in the back of the car.)

It was windy yesterday, but it was warm. I was overdressed! It was 70 degrees and right around sunset when I started. I didn't know how much it would cool down while I was out, but I thought there was a good chance it would get chilly. So I wore wool capris, a long sleeved lightweight wool shirt under a short sleeved jersey, and toe covers. But it was still in the high 60s when I finished with strong breezes from the south, so I didn't really need the capris or the toe covers. It was a pleasant change from all the "I wish I had an extra layer" rides I did this winter.

In all I rode 16 miles, a short version of my usual hilly route. My legs were pretty tired, but I averaged slightly faster than the last time I did the same ride, not bad considering I've been off the bike for several weeks.

[Jolt]

It got up into the 60s here today (!) so I made sure to get a ride in. However, it wasn't one of the best rides I've had...first I was bombing down a steep hill, and when I was going pretty fast I came around a curve to find that at the bottom of the hill there was a logging truck turning right onto the road I was on and taking up both lanes. Had to come to almost a complete stop (fairly quickly) to avoid either running into it or having to ditch at high speed, neither of which would have been good. Later, I had decided to explore a road I hadn't ridden before only to find out that it turned from pavement to dirt which would have been fine except it was wet, mushy and my tires were sinking into the surface making it hard to keep moving forward without falling over. So, I turned around and went back to the main road home, making the ride shorter than I had originally wanted it to be (13 miles instead of about 20). It appears that for D2R2 this summer I will want to use different tires, and I really hope it isn't wet that weekend!! And, my average speed was a craptastic 11 mph (but then again there was a LOT of climbing in the first half of the ride, with a slight headwind to boot).

[azfiddle]

We get Friday before Easter off.. and unlike Crankin, I didn't have to do any Passover cooking because we're going to a friend's house and I'm bringing the matzah and a bottle of wine.

Getting warm here in Tucson- up to the 90's for a few days, but today was cooler (85?) and I did a ride this morning with one of the local bike clubs. Adding 10 miles of travel to the ride start and end, I rode 42. One of the usual destinations: Saguaro National Park east, with lots of brittlebush still in bloom and the earliest cacti blooming: Hedgehog Cactus with a brilliant magenta flower. I also saw my first live rattlesnake of the year (Western Diamondback), but it was on the side of the road, not even on the pavement, as I rode up the steep hill on the back of the loop through the park. I averaged a respectable (for me) 15.4 mph. Added a few miles with a bike trip to the doctor and will be riding my bike to the Passover dinner as my husband needed the car.

Tomorrow I'm riding Mt. Lemmon again but I will not get to the summit as we are starting at 7 am and I have to be home by 11. I would say that a reasonable expectation might be to get to about mile post 10 at Seven Cataracts view point. That should take about 2 1/2 hours up at my snail's pace, with a couple of stops to rest, and includes the 5 miles from the start to "mile 0", and about an hour ride or more down. I'm not one of those fearless descenders- glad I have good brakes).

[Crankin]

OK, today we decided to "test ride" our new route for our club New Members Ride. Good thing we did..
We rode to the start, 6.2 miles, where our friends (3 of them) and other leaders met us. It was 48, but partly cloudy and extremely windy. Right away none of our GPSs were working right, and my friend went off another way. Her DH stopped to find her, but eventually, he caught up. The route is nice, and in the beginning felt like a lot of climbing, but on quiet roads, nothing horrible. As we were heading back, we turned off a main road into a neighborhood, where DH had added enough miles to get to 21. I had told him not to, as there are hills. Well, it had been many years since I had driven up these streets, and they were not just hills, but two with grades between 10-15%. I had to turn off onto a side street to get momentum to finish my way up the second hill! In fact, this is the first time I have heard my friend Brant yell a swear word at DH! We are usually yelling at him about planning routes with these kinds of climbs. Who knew that these hills existed in Acton? Then we missed a few turns,Brant got separated from us and my friend was gone, too. Our other co-leader stuck with us, as he lives in a different area. Got back to the start, and then my friend pulled up! We all agreed we will cut out the hills, even though it makes the ride just under 20 miles. We rode back to our friend's house, about 2 miles, to revive ourselves with tea and chocolate matzah and cheese. By this time, I was frozen, but, after socializing for an hour or so, we made it the last 4 miles home, where the real feel of the temperature is 34. Brrr, but a total of 35.5 miles.

[DebW]

I got in a 39 mile ride today. First ride of the season other than commuting to work (6 miles each way) which I've been doing most days now for about 3 weeks. Joined a ride with the Harvard University Gay and Lesbian group, which turned out to be only 2 of us. We met up in Arlington Center and took the bike path to Bedford, then Rt. 62 to Concord and West Concord where we had a picnic behind the Nashoba Valley Bakery by the Assabet River. Luckily this spot was out of the wind. Then we rode back to Concord, Old Bedford Rd. and Virginia Rd. to 2A, from which I headed down Rt 4/225 to Waltham. I'll probably be sore tomorrow. I start back wrenching at the bike shop this week.

[khg]

It's been a fun week--Thursday I ran a bunch of errands by bike all over town, and only found out when I got home that there had been some major traffic snarl-ups all over the city. I had no idea, never sat fuming in traffic, and got to spend quite a bit of time outside on a nice spring day. Yay!

Then yesterday, my husband and I rode the Oregon Randonneurs Birkie 200k. It started out miserably cold and foggy, and we shivered our way to the first stop, 36 miles in, at Vernonia. Normally we try to keep stops quick, but we opted to sit down and eat at the cafe. It was a good choice, as a hearty breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns, and coffee later, the sun was starting to burn off the fog. The ride did a very scenic and enjoyable out-and-back from there, and after stopping at the same place in Vernonia for lunch, the last 30 miles were a delight. 20 of them were on a gorgeous rails-to-trails path that went through the woods--you'd have no idea that the highway was a short distance away. And the sun was shining (though still bundled up in all my stuff, I was at least finally warm!), the roads that we did ride on had little traffic, and it was an altogether lovely day with great company.

I'm getting close enough to my husband's riding ability that he occasionally is the one to complain about me riding too fast... His complaining aside, we're starting to have really complementary paces, which is making riding together a lot easier and more fun. He can still drop me on a prolonged hill, and I can still drop him on a prolonged downhill (especially if it has corners) but for the most part, we don't have to do much adjustment any more to ride together. As the weather improved after the chilly start, we had a great time. He's done this ride before, and raved about it, and now I see why--it was a great route that I would gladly do again. Part of the fun was that the ride started and ended at the McMenamin's in Forest Grove, where we stayed--it's a quirky fun place with good beer and cheap rooms. What more can a person ask for!?!

Alas, spring break at my Saturday teaching job is over, so the fun weekend getaways are at an end for a bit, but we tried to make the most of it while we could!

[ny biker]

I did a club ride yesterday, 38 miles. I did not want to do the ride. It was windy, sustained winds 15-20 mph with gusts of 35+. I consider this borderline dangerous and completely not fun in any way. If it was up to me, I would have canceled the ride the night before and not bothered to set my alarm for the morning. Saturday morning rides are usually hard for me, because I don't get home from work on Friday until around 7 pm and I have plenty that needs to get done after that so by the time I'm finished getting ready for the next day's bike ride and get to bed it's usually after 1 am. On hot summer days it's worth getting up early for rides despite the lack of sleep, but in early April it's really not worth the exhaustion to ride early in the morning when the most comfortable temperatures are in the afternoon.

But I was not in charge of these decisions. It was an all-class club ride -- routes of different lengths for different ride categories that all start at the same location, to give people a chance to get to know folks they don't typically ride with. The coordinator asked me to lead one of the rides, and I agreed. So I was committed to ride a specific route at a time that was not chosen by me. On Friday night I contacted the coordinator and told him I was worried about the high winds. He agreed that it was a concern but decided not to cancel.

So I had to get up early to do a ride that I really really really did not want to do. And I did not have the option of choosing a shorter route, because I was the leader so I was obligated to ride sweep. I was extremely tired and cranky at the ride start. Oh I forgot to mention that I've been dealing with a nasty yeast infection all week long and though the medication had mostly gotten things under control by yesterday morning, it was causing some burning and irritation, and I was worried about it getting worse over the course of the ride.

The whole thing ended up pretty disorganized for some reason. Usually for these all-class rides someone says a few words of welcome to everyone at the start, then each group leaves a few minutes apart, from fastest to slowest, with the slower groups watching the faster ones leave. This did not happen yesterday. People were milling about, saying hello and getting ready for the ride, then someone announced that the nearby restrooms had just opened so I and a bunch of others went for a pre-ride pit stop. When I got back to my car a few minutes later, the fastest group had already left, the next group was on it's way out, and people who signed up with my group were riding past me telling me that they were going to start with a faster group and then maybe join me later. Then the remainder of my group and the next slower group all left at once. We had 13 miles of headwinds to start the ride, so we were slower than usual and I really had no idea who was in my group and who was in the other group. Since my average speed was well below the expected pace of my group, I decided that anyone who was behind me was with the slower group. After a few miles, it was me and two others riding together, with a few people out of sight ahead of us and everyone else way behind us.

For the most part, the ride was a long struggle against the wind. We had a few miles here and there with a tailwind or enough trees along the road to shelter us, but mostly it was fighting headwinds and trying to stay upright in crosswinds. The only good thing was that the sun was warm, which kept the wind from being too cold.

I think I need to do some solo rides over the next few weeks. I led a fair number of rides over the winter, and I think it's getting to me. Sometimes you just need to be on your own without having to worry about being ready to start at a specific time or being committed to a pre-planned route.