riding into the heat of july

[rebeccaC]

Left work a little early to ride the beach bike path to Manhattan Beach for a gathering of friends.

Got an image of a cute boy...perhaps he thinks people need to know to use caution around his bicycling


off to France saturday to watch the TdF ride by the family house in Gordes next thursday on the Mont Ventoux stage.

..safe rides for all !!!!

[north woods gal]

He may be on to something.

Rain, rain, rain for me. That means boring old indoor work on the trainer, but at least I can safely use my iPod to listen to some music. The good news is that the rain will make some of my sandy road trails more rideable with less fishtailing. Will be experimenting to see just how narrow I can go with tires before things get too spooky. Getting off the pavement to experience the huge variety of trail surfaces is very educational and very fun, as always.

[azfiddle]

Rebecca- hope you will post some pics and descriptions of the ride past Mt. Ventoux. Wow- envious!

It's too hot to be riding later than 9 am- I went out Weds for about 13 miles after watching the end of the TdF stage. Skipped yesterday and rode 17 miles up to Saguaro NP and back.


I had to stop to take a quick pic of this little Mamillaria cactus blooming along side of the road near the park. There were half a dozen or so- all sparked into flowering with recent summer rains. A nice surprise.

Untitled by Sharon Goldwasser, on Flickr

[Crankin]

The cool, misty, humid weather has put me in a lazy mood! I so enjoy the break from the abnormal heat, but it's coming back Wednesday. I rode the one mile to and from the gym on Thursday, where I did my circuit training and yesterday I hiked 4 miles, followed by walking 3.5 miles to dinner and back. So, today, after lounging around, watching the Tour, we went out for an 18 mile flat ride that was very enjoyable, mostly because now, I don't have the steep climb to get home anymore! Almost every other ride I do has some climbing, but this doesn't, only 425 feet of elevation. It was 64 degrees and cloudy and I started out with arm warmers and a vest. I ditched the arm warmers at mile 9, and although I was cool at first, it was fine.
So, I even though I had to force myself out, I am glad I went.

[emily_in_nc]

I've been away for awhile because my laptop died. I am back now. :-) During the time I was off-line, I did several rides. One was a very hot, hilly ride in the rural Iowa countryside (near Elkhorn) where I think I bonked. We had a rest stop at the top of a hill (in full sunshine) near the end of the ride (which was only 30 miles total but difficult because of the hills). When I stopped, I felt faint and nauseous and had to sit down awhile. I couldn't eat anything but did get some water down.

After the ride, I felt really off for about an hour. I had to sit down in the shower, I felt so light-headed and nauseous. I have hardly ever had anything like this happen, so it was quite strange. I did manage to eat a good lunch and drink a lot of water, and an hour or two later, I felt perfectly normal. It was really unpleasant, though.

The last two rides have been more utilitarian. The first was to pick up my new laptop at Walmart, and the second was to take our clothes to a laundromat. We are staying in a lovely campground about 10 miles from town, and the way there is about half bike path, half road. Very beautiful area (southern Minnesota and northern Iowa). After getting through two nights of helacious thunderstorms with high winds (very scary!) we are now having cool, sunny, breezy, and low humidity days and downright chilly nights (to me, anyway, 50s!) You just can't ask for better in July!

Here are a couple of photos from recent rides.

This first one is of my DH on the ride I bonked on:
Attachment 18080

And he took this one right before I had to sit down because I felt faint and nauseous. The photo is kind of nice, though!


Here's part of the bike trail near our campground we've been riding on lately:

[north woods gal]

That's the way it works for me, sometimes, Crankin. I'll sit around, debating whether or not to ride or where to ride, but once I'm out on the bike, I wonder what took me so long.

Been having a great week going out of my way to find the nastiest gravel and/or sand backroads and testing my various bikes as to how they performed. Did a full 14 miles of gravel/sand with my standard 26" 2008 vintage Trek 8000 MTB and it did very well, though conditions were excellent, given that we had a nice rain, last night, and the sand was firmed up nice. Have to be very careful in dry sand, though, with this one. Definitely a lot more squirrelly in the dry stuff. When the sand is dry, I use other bikes. Great bike for typical hard surface MTB trails, though. Light, very quick and agile bike.

Did have 25 miles of pavement to get to these gavel/sand roads and back, so even though those old 26" wheels are slow by road bike standards, did okay on the pavement. (LOVE the way the front shock eats those road cracks!) Also used this bike for winter commuting while living in Chicago.

[Crankin]

Emily, your pictures with the hills look like the San Juan Islands in WA. Lots of ups and downs!

[emily_in_nc]

Emily, your pictures with the hills look like the San Juan Islands in WA. Lots of ups and downs!

It was a roller coaster for sure! I was glad I rode my Bike Friday as I needed every gear!

NWG, your MTB is lovely. I am partial to a blue bike myself.