April rides

[rebeccaC]

oh, for starters, a portable charger for USB things... maybe try to figure out a camera mount? ... if I actually were good at such stuff, I'd design a rotating Squirtgun or Projectile Releaser or Bubble Machine...

If you work out the bubble machine let us know and I’m getting a SON hub for my front commuter wheel…

btw…I have a friend who likes to ride across continents. She uses E-Werk and a cache battery with a SON hub to charge her garmin, phone and ipad mini.

[Crankin]

So, I was so determined to go for a ride that I went out this morning at 5:30 AM. Unfortunately, it was spitting rain, and I had no idea there was a chance of rain. But, it wasn't that cold for early in the AM, so I went off. After I had gone about 4 miles, the rain got harder, I was at the point where I could home the way I planned, or turn around, and it would have been the same distance. It really wasn't bad, so I kept going.
My ride ended up being a grand total of 7.3 miles, but it felt good. Now i am off to the gym and work.

[pericat]

April is my month for leaving winter behind. Today did an 11.4km ride, which is not far by most standards, but is very hilly so I was pleased with the effort. I made pics of elevation and gradient, since the mapping site does that:





New bike behaving very well. The gearing is very different from my old hybrid, but I think after all there are enough to get round all these bloody hills.

[Crankin]

I just came home from the hardest group ride I've done in a long time. It isn't that I haven't ridden in the area the ride was in, but there were some different roads and the on the familiar ones, we were going up instead of down. There were a lot of people; I did the shorter ride, which was only 28 miles, with 1775 feet of climbing. Long climbs... the longer ride was not much longer, 34 miles, but with almost 700 feet more of climbing, on hills I know that suck at this time of the year. So until the 2 groups split, near the end, I was in the front of the short rider group/back of the faster people. We rode to the Wachusett Dam, actually around it, through some gates on a sidewalk right next to the water. I had to put my foot down, with sharp right turns, I was getting dizzy. Once we got to the viewpoint, it was all uphill, although there had been lots of climbing before, too. Beautiful day, sunny, cool at the start, a day where it is hard to dress right. I was unzipping and zipping, and switched to a lighter head cover and took out my glove liners, which made it OK.It's about 55 now and the wind died down.
My average was the kind of average I have when I ride in the Berkshires (i.e. big climbs). But, I am happy, I stayed up front in my group and was clearly in sight of the faster people until they split off. And, I had my highest speed descent, ever, 33.6.