May Rides

[Jolt]

Short 12-mile ride today with a couple of good climbs in the first half. Would have liked to do a longer ride but had limited time, and figured a short ride is better than none! I have a 4-day tour coming up in about a week so am working on getting ready for that, I've figured out pretty much how everything needs to be packed and maybe my next ride will be with the full load to make sure no tweaking is needed. I am still not entirely happy with the Selle An-Atomica and just ordered a Brooks Cambium C17 from wallbike.com...debating whether to put it on before the trip (and get a couple shorter rides in on it at least) or wait until after.

[Crankin]

Did an 8.6 mile recovery ride today. I felt incredibly good after my long ride yesterday, in terms of nothing is hurting. However, as soon as I got on the bike, I adjusted my plans. My quads were tight, and unfortunately, a short ride for me involves around 600 feet of climbing. But, I am glad I did it. It was about 84 when I went out, and it's so dry, I had the "oven" feeling, reminding me of AZ. Not sure about tomorrow; I definitely will go to boot camp, so I might bag commuting. I will be leading a 20 mile ride Saturday and plan a longer ride after Mother's Day breakfast.

[Crankin]

Our New Member's ride went extremely well. We changed the route to a different area, with less traffic and less cyclists. Only had one guy with a mechanical within the first 2 minutes. He was riding a borrowed bike and the derailleur snapped off. Back he went. About 5 women started with my group and quickly decided to stop and wait for the slower group. As the sweep, I gently help them make this decision. Then there was the guy who kept telling me he was out of shape, had cramps, but wouldn't listen to me try to help him climb better, by actually gearing down. When he fell back and I stayed with him he said, "You're still here???" Like he was mad a girl could go faster. I was so nice and really tried to help in a non-condescending way. Finally after 6 miles or so, I asked if he wanted to stop and wait for the other group and he said no, he would just ride on his own, for me to go ahead. Thing is, he came in after some of the riders in the second group. Oh well. We had lots of compliments on the route, great weather, and no real problems. Afterwards, about 10 of us went out for lunch.
A fun 20 miles.

[rebeccaC]

A weekend without any hard physical challenges is what I need. Today just a pleasant morning ride down the beach bike path to Redondo Beach and a late breakfast with some friends. No climbing, just a relaxing 26 mile ride with a great conversation and good food in the middle

[lauraelmore1033]

Did the Skagit County Spring Classic metric century on the recumbent. Started out fine, but as soon as I hit the climby bits of Chuckanut drive, I started having problems shifting. The chain wouldn't drop down from the middle ring to the small ring, so I had to dismount and move the chain myself--all old-school like. After a couple similar instances, I just decided to keep it in the small ring until the lunch stop, 20 miles off, since there were a lot climbs and rolling hillyness, and I couldn't continue to hop off the bike and move the chain to the small chainring manually every time I encountered a hill, or it would have taken forever! The mechanic at the rest stop really knew his stuff and adjusted the FD, and then hopped on and put the bike through some loops, making hard shifts, making sure it was shifting correctly, but wasn't set too far to the inside. It shifted like buttah after that, and I didn't tip that guy enough! The rest of the ride was pure pleasure, and I enjoyed the long descent after Bow hill, the scenic farm lands, and on to the beautiful views of Fidalgo bay. I was happy as a clam until I was almost killed by an on coming truck, swinging wide to pass a slow moving farming implement on Farm to Market Road. Screamed like I was in an 80s slasher movie, I did, then dropped a lot of f-bombs at the driver, who did luckily, see me at the last second, and narrowly avoid hitting me head on.
This remains one of my favorite rides, in spite of the fact that it seems to get more dangerous every year.

[azfiddle]

LOVE all the photos!

I have been getting in a few rides- Last Saturday was Mt. Lemmon. I had a long, long week at work and was pretty unmotivated so climbing to milepost 11.5 (from about 2400 feet at the base to about 5900 feet at Bear Canyon) was further than I expected. With the ride to the base and back, it was 42 miles. Sunday, quick ride to Saguaro NP and just out on the short road to the picnic ground. A "half-commute" on Monday and then the rest of the week was really windy so I opted out of riding in the afternoons.

Yesterday I rode with a friend out east of Tucson. It was pleasantly and unseasonably cool all morning- about 15 degrees below the normal 90 degree high for this time of year. We had a great ride and conversation and covered about 42 miles.

Monday I noticed shifting (rear) was a bit weird, and yesterday it quickly got worse. I had my suspicions that the cable was fraying and sure enough, that suspicion was confirmed when I took it in to the bike shop on the way home. They were able to replace the cable that afternoon but this is the third time I've had the problem. Their advice was just get the cables changed more often so I don't end up with a more expensive repair to replace the shifter.

[khg]

Nothing epic to report on for a while now. But for the last few weeks, I've been on the bike quite consistently commuting and doing errands. The miles pile up pretty quickly for not having done any "real" rides. At some point I need to put some training rides back on the calendar so that I don't suffer unduly on some upcoming events. But I feel like the consistent riding is helping too--or at least I like to tell myself that I've put up a few personal best times recently while weighted down with panniers or my messenger bag, which has been gratifying. I also think I've added some muscle, as my weight is right now at the higher end of its usual range, but my muscle visibility/definition is the same as when I'm at the lowest of my usual weight range, and my tight jeans are going on without the elaborate squeezing and shimmying that they sometimes require...

Meanwhile, Bike Month and good weather have a ton of cyclists out, and I've been running into full bike racks quite frequently... If I wanted to hunt for far away parking, I'd be in my car--half the time I ride my bike somewhere, it's because I'm feeling too lazy to deal with driving!