november rides....outside and inside

[ny biker]

Well I had hoped to ride after work last night but just was not able to. I'm not ready for Thanksgiving! I'm leaving tonight, driving north for a few days, and will not reach my destination until the early hours of the morning. I had to get up early the past few days which left me very tired last night. So I decided to skip the ride and go to bed early. My next chance to ride will be Sunday, maybe, depending on the weather.

The combination of being sick in August and having big rides rained out in September and October has left me feeling weird -- I should be in the mindset of doing shorter, easier rides now that it's colder and getting dark earlier. Usually by this time of year I really feel like 30 miles is more than enough. But part of me feels like I should be putting in more miles, like there's a big challenging metric century coming up that I have to get ready for. I hope this feeling keeps me motivated through the winter.

[Crankin]

NY, is your bike club the Potomac Peddlers? Today at lunch one of the board members was talking about using your club as a model to change the way they do things. From what he described, it sounded familiar. I am not involved with the board of this club, but the members are getting older and older, and except for the group I ride with on Wednesdays, all the other rides are "we are out to drop you," or you end up riding alone in most cases. I am involved with AMC as a leader and the administration of the bike committee, as opposed to this group, as the philosophy is totally different. But, I thought of you during the conversation.

[Crankin]

On Thanksgiving, I did a little 13.5 mile ride. I was a bit sluggish, as I had already done 20 minutes of hill intervals at a fast walk pace on the treadmill. Trying to up the metabolism here.
Just got back from a just under 20 mile ride. It was 62 when we started, but very windy. We were supposed to meet 2 of our leader friends in Concord center. They are actually an AMC "love" story, and have now moved in together. Pretty awesome, since he is my age. We were waiting for them, when he called and said his bike rack had fallen off of his car in West Concord, and now they have 2 wheels that are wrecked . Let's just say he was pretty upset. She's the one who bought my Kuota and she had a pretty bad crash at the bike club rally in June, and the wheel on that bike was all out of true. She still hasn't had it fixed, as she wants to get the bike professionally fitted. Anyway, they went off to hike.
The ride we did was fun. We were only going to do 10 miles after my friend called, but the wind died down, I took off my arm warmers when we stopped at Ferns, and we ended up going faster than I thought I would.

[ny biker]

NY, is your bike club the Potomac Peddlers? Today at lunch one of the board members was talking about using your club as a model to change the way they do things. From what he described, it sounded familiar. I am not involved with the board of this club, but the members are getting older and older, and except for the group I ride with on Wednesdays, all the other rides are "we are out to drop you," or you end up riding alone in most cases. I am involved with AMC as a leader and the administration of the bike committee, as opposed to this group, as the philosophy is totally different. But, I thought of you during the conversation.

I'm an on-and-off member of Potomac Pedalers, but the club I ride most often with (and lead rides for) is the Oxon Hill club, which is smaller and focused on riding in southern Maryland, whereas PPTC also has rides in other parts of the metro DC area. My experience with most PPTC rides actually is of the "we are out to drop you"/you end up riding alone variety. For the most part I only ride with them if I know the ride leader personally or it's a route that I really want to ride and am comfortable doing alone.

[Crankin]

Well, the guy I spoke to seemed to be enamored of the way the rides were listed. I will tell him what you said.

[ny biker]

There are plenty of people who like the club, so either their experience has been different or they don't mind getting dropped/riding alone. The ride listing is fine. Their website is more complex than that of other bike clubs I've seen, with more options for displaying and filtering the rides on the schedule. I can't speak to how hard or easy it is to post a ride since I've never done it. They typically post the schedule for the entire month during the last couple of weeks of the prior month, and I think the individual ride leaders send the info to a ride coordinator (one per ride category) for a mass posting rather than each leader posting on their own.

I think the issue I have with them is one of culture. My impression is that all bike clubs or organizations that try to have group rides struggle to some degree with pace inflation and keeping riders together. But different groups have different approaches, cultures and expectations.

[Crankin]

I went to spin today, as it was raining and yucky out. The group ride was rescheduled to Friday, so that works out well for me!
Class was hard. I felt a little bonky in the middle, but that happens sometimes when I am inside, where overheating is easy. It is well ventilated, so I just dialed down the intensity for about 15 minutes.
I disliked going to this class when i belonged to this club before, and it still is annoying today. It's the people in the class. I like to get there early to warm up, and the vapid conversation bugs me. It's hard for me to tune them out. Back in the day, the instructor was someone who rode outside, her DH was a racer that knew my son and exchange student, and her rides were great. The class itself is great now, but the fitness director, who teaches it, was giggling about the "nozzle" of the new saddles on the bikes, saying they were too long and hard. Oy. I wanted to say it's called a nose and if you wore bike shorts, it wouldn't hurt.
But, I kept my mouth shut and worked really hard.

[ny biker]

Last night's post-work hill ride was rained out, but the sun was out today so I'm planning a ride tonight. It's been breezy today too so I hope that has helped to dry out the leaves on the roads.

I've got some new clothes to try out. I have an Endura fleece jersey that's hi-viz pink with lots of good reflective bits, but it's not windproof. Some months ago I scored a Gore windstopper base layer on sale from TE, so I'm going to try it tonight under the Endura jersey. I'm thinking I'll wear a lightweight wool layer under the windproof top.