May Rides

[Crankin]

Today we did our first ride of the season to Bolton Orchards for lunch and back. This is a hilly ride, so good training for France. Usually, it's 50 miles + a little, but because of grooved pavement on a downhill toward the end of the ride, we took a slightly shorter way home, so it ended up being 46 miles and about 2,400 ft. of climbing. We purposely keep it slow on these rides, so we feel good when we get to lunch! The majority of the hard climbing is right before the stop, but there is an awesome downhill to make up for it. After lunch, there is a 4 mile gradual climb, not shaded. It does flatten and go down a few times, but after lunch, it feels hard. DH was really going slowly, and I forced myself to stay behind. Good thing, because after this, there's one more annoying climb, and then a long downhill, when we get back to an area that's more local riding for us. This is where I started feeling like I was losing it, but I ate a Shot Block, which helped right until I got to the climb up my street. It was 81 today and the clouds cooperated and came out for most of the climbing that wasn't shaded. It was quiet out today; not so many cars or riders, and Bolton Farms was quiet, too. I think there's a lot of graduations and end of the school year sports stuff going on.
Yesterday, we did a fast 19 miles just around Concord and Carlisle. It was also my first beer and ice cream day of the season .

[MarieV]

We've been lucky with unusually warm and dry weather here in the PNW, so I've been bike commuting and doing more 100 km rides on the weekends. DH and I did my favorite Maltby-Granite Falls 100K ride last weekend, and I matched my fastest time on a 100K ride. I guess all the bike commuting, which involves uphill climbs both ways, is finally paying off. Yesterday, we did the Seattle Lakes and Trails 100K, which got kind of crazy since there must have been hundreds of riders going in the opposite direction on the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish River Trails doing the Haul Ash bike ride commemorating the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

[Jolt]

Just got back from a 4-day tour with a friend...we started in Augusta, rode to Camden (about 45 miles) and camped in a state park there that night and the next (the second day was spent in the local area there, taking it easy), then the next day we rode 10 miles to Rockland, got on the ferry to Vinalhaven (one of the islands off the coast) and rode about 10 miles there before taking the ferry back and then riding to Rockport where we camped last night. Then today we rode back to Augusta, another 45-mile day which felt like it was mostly uphill (there was also a bit of a headwind for parts of it). Today was the hardest day...between the elevation/headwind and the fact that I think I waited a little too long to eat something and was probably in the beginnings of a bonk about halfway through; the rest of the ride after that just felt a lot harder than it should have. Despite the "off" day today it was a great trip and I hope to do more trips like that. Trying to figure out where I can pare down the weight of my load a bit, since that will make the climbing a little easier.

[Dragonfly5]

Sounds like a great trip Jolt!