September rides

[Crankin]

Well, we are now in my favorite cycling month. Today's weather matched it, too. So many weeks of 90+ degrees and humidity. Ugh. We started our ride at about 68 degrees and clear/sunny. It got up to about 78, with some clouds.
Did the ride we were going to do Saturday, which ended up being 45 miles. It wasn't anywhere I haven't been, just a couple of roads we usually do in the other direction. Took a longer, circuitous way to get out to Bolton, which is very hilly, but then we turned off to head back on a road we love, and usually only do after a very hard climb that we haven't done in 2 years. The last bigger climb is called Long Hill Rd... it lives up to its name, but it is worse going the other way. This is actually the street the school I taught in is on, but it is in another town. The part we were on is very rural, small farms, and large properties. Once you cross the town line, about 3/4 a mile from my school, it's like there's hardly any greenery and lots of smaller homes close together. This is very typical of New England. We turned left right before this demarcation, down a lovely mile long hill that was part of my commute when I first started riding. We stopped at a park with a covered ramada to eat our sandwiches, and soldiered on. I felt tired at this point, and actually had some cramping, not bad, though, in my quads and calves. Somewhere along the way, I had to stop and eat a Shot Block.
So nice to not be dealing with heat. Going to go stretch!

[emily_in_nc]

Sounds like a nice ride, Crankin!

I too love September rides. I took yesterday off after riding three days in a row; felt like my body really needed a break. Today my DH's hip was barking at him (he'd ridden four straight days), so I did a solo ride. Same temps as yours but 18% humidity here in Grand Teton NP! It was beautiful but verrrrry windy out. Upper teens to lower 20s sustained, with gusts to 30+. I did basically a square, so I experienced everything from amazingly wonderful tailwinds that had me easily pedaling at 20+ to headwinds that made even downhill stretches feel like hills. The crosswinds were scary as they were either blowing me off the road or into traffic (fortunately there was very little).

The main purpose of this ride was to pick up a packet of mail we'd had forwarded here at a post office just two miles down the road from our campground. I passed the PO at the beginning of the ride but didn't feel like dragging the mail with me for the entire "square" so decided to get it at the end of the ride instead. Due to the wind, I bit off a bit more than I could chew and made it to the PO with only 15 minutes to spare before they closed for the day. I'd figured on a 25 mile ride but ended up with 38.2 instead!

Fall starts early here:

Attachment 18143

[north woods gal]

Yup, must be September. Had to wear leggings to start my ride, yesterday, but typical September, things warmed up, nicely.

My 23 mile ride turned out to be more of an adventure than I anticipated, though. Decided I needed to wean myself out of so much single track MTB work and figured riding gravel roads would make for a nice transition before getting serious on pavement. Headed to one of my favorite (and nastiest) sections of gravel road. About 4 miles in, stopped at an intersection with a gated road off to the side. Had stopped there, before, but this time I read some of the fine print on the posted map of the area (all managed forest land, owned by the country). Read in the fine print that bicycles and foot traffic are allowed on the gated roads, but no vehicles when the gates are up and the gates stay up all year long expect for deer season. Great!

Hoisted the bike over the gate and with the map still in mind, took off down the gravel road. Now, keep in mind, this is a remote area and there was a very good chance that I was the first person to use these roads all summer long. For sure, saw no sign of anyone having used them and, given the way the roads were washed out in spots, obviously the county hadn't maintained them for some time. The roads were actually pretty decent, overall, though, having been closed to vehicle traffic. Much better shape than the 4 miles of tortured gravel and sand roads open to ATV traffic that I needed to ride to get to this spot.

Glorious riding. Total serenity, total privacy and lots of wildlife sign, including what were some possible wolf droppings and some that were very definitely bear and tracks of both in places. Yup, I was in heaven.

Somewhere along the way, though, missed a turn in the network of roads, so, okay, I was lost. Had a compass, though, and figured if I just kept tracking west, I would eventually come out on a highway I knew. I was right. 9 miles, later, through some awesomely wild country, came to another gate with the highway on the other side, just as predicted.

Needed to ride two miles on this very busy highway to get back to my local paved road that would take me the several miles home, though. No problem, not with my Trek 29er plus Stashe with its 3" tires - a bike I use for these isolated backroads which often turn to sand. Even though the highway did have a narrow paved shoulder, just rode the Stashe out onto the much wider gravel shoulder for safety's sake. Actually, the Stashe handled riding this much better maintained gravel with ease and no problem keeping a reasonable 12 to 13 mph pace. Another discovery! With this bike, I could ride this highway and others like it in the area by taking the wide gravel shoulders with this bike. (Note: our highways have these wide gravel shoulders for the sake of handling all our snow in the winter.)

This discovery really is a gold mine for me. Probably 20 miles of these gated gravel roads in this area to explore and all just a short 7 mile ride or so from my house. Will return soon, but this time with a printed map or maybe it's time for me to buy that long overdue GPS.

23 miles total, 14 of which were awesome, remote gravel.

[Crankin]

Buy the GPS...
Both DH and I really were feeling our ride from yesterday. So, first, we walked to the farm, bought our veggies, and walked home, about 2 miles. The, after lunch, we took what we thought might be a 12-15 mile flat ride, but ended up being 10 miles of rolling terrain. We took it very slowly and I ended up feeling good. I should hike tomorrow, still worried about my trip, but I would prefer to ride.

[emily_in_nc]

Sounds like an epic ride, NWG -- great that you can handle riding those gravel highway shoulders!

We rode into Jackson (WY) from the campground at Grand Teton NP and made a lot of stops in town: farmer's market (very nice, but had to pass on a $30 huckleberry pie we wanted, once we heard the price! ), health food store, bank, ice cream parlor (a $5 scoop of delicious, organic huckleberry ice cream sufficed to quell my h-berry craving!), and bakery. Busy day in town, of course, being a Saturday and Labor Day weekend. An excellent ride, marred only by a motorcyclist who yelled at us because we didn't put our feet down at a 4-way stop sign. We did "stop", or very close to it, and no one was coming, so we went on. So he was right, I suppose, but he was so nasty in his approach than he and my DH ended up in a cussing match, and I was nervous because for all I knew, he could have been packing (this is the wild west, after all), and I could just see him pulling out a gun and shooting my DH over something so stupid.

Testosterone!

Got in 32 miles.

[Helene2013]

A nice 70km ride today. Perfect weather. My dream weather has started. Although it will be very hot for the next week or so. I took it today. Very welcomed. I had planned 80km but the last 10km I knew I was pushing my knees too much. Even the front/back of my thighs were talking to me. So instead of pushing myself and injure my knees for nothing, I told husband to do the last stretch (he's much faster and stronger than me) by himself and I'd do the last 2.4km on my own and would wait for him at this bike rest area. It is safe and lots of people around. I will put some Voltaren on my knees tonight to avoid swelling, etc.

Overall, I am so happy of my ride. It is not an easy one and managed good time/speed on it.

Thought of going for an easy and shorter one tomorrow but we'll see how my knees are in the morning. Since we're at campground, that means we also have to walk the dogs a lot vs being home in our closed yard. So it adds to our "exercises".

I also signed up with my PT/Kineo for a yoga class starting on Sept. 12. She said she will give me options for the exercises that would be too hard on my knees (like the warrior position).

I just can't wait for summer to go away and bring me decent weather so I can come out of my hole (like a bear in the winter - but me it is summer).

[Sky King]

Kicked off the month with a fun 3 day trip. We had a loose plan to reach an area in the Jarbidge Desert called the Arch. We picked our route thinking it was feasible as long as the "roads" that show on the map were there... HA. Missed a major turn on day one (hate to confess it was probably my fault as I was in front as we climbed out of the Bruneau Canyon) Actually in hindsight it was not a bad thing as we would have been even more challenged with finding water. Saturday night found us camped by Dead Horse Spring. Not much water but it wasn't covered in scum, nor was it muddy. We double filtered and crossed our fingers. Some Antelope came down in the morning to drink and they all seemed healthy . Continuing off course, Sunday we found an intersection with an actual sign. We could see a few trees and bushes so we rode to that area and hiked in, hoping for water in the creek - no such luck. We opted to backtrack about a mile to an old, fallen down ranch outpost. This time there really was a dead horse in the corral - Yikes. There was water pooled in the stream bed so again we double filtered and crossed our fingers. Glad we stopped because that was the last water we saw until we recrossed the river on Monday. Late Sunday afternoon found us battling tumbleweeds and in wander/wonder mode - as in where the heck are we anyway! Off in the distance I see 3 ATV's, usually I cringe at the sight but the desert spirits were looking out for us as the ATV's were on the "road" we needed to get back to the truck without having to retrace our steps. We have decided to invest in spot tracker, this part of the desert is so remote it would be a challenge for someone to find us if something went wrong. Happy to say my Surly ECR performed the best. I have gotten really comfortable with the handling and trusting the bike on descents. The Bike Hermit did a blog post on our website Here are a couple photos

[Crankin]

Geez, Sky King, I would have been freaking out.
Didn't do the group ride today, as it was raining at the time I had to leave (it was along the coast on the north shore, about anhour away), both at home and at the ride start, with mist and spot showers predicted for the rest of the day. The ride was not cancelled, but I doubt it would have been a good day to ride by the ocean. We've had so much sun and heat, I am enjoying the damp, cloudiness. I walked to the gym, did the power lifting class i missed on Labor Day, and walked home, a total of 3 miles. I may commute tomorrow, will definitely ride Friday. Saturday is the Ghost Bike Memorial service, so we are riding about 5 miles to a group meeting place, about a mile to the service, and then not sure what afterwards. Then we are driving out to Amherst, staying at our friends' and doing a 50 mile charity ride on Sunday.

[north woods gal]

Wow, Sky, me getting "turned around" back in the woods on our county land seems like small potatoes compared to your ride in the desert. Still, it has convinced me that I should be using a GPS, riding solo like I do. Didn't even know there was such a thing as a Spot Tracker, but sounds like a great idea for me, too.

Would love to send some rain to anyone who needs some. Had 3" in a few hours, yesterday, and much of my MTB trails look more like a lake.

[ny biker]

Kicked off the month with a fun 3 day trip. We had a loose plan to reach an area in the Jarbidge Desert called the Arch. We picked our route thinking it was feasible as long as the "roads" that show on the map were there... HA. Missed a major turn on day one (hate to confess it was probably my fault as I was in front as we climbed out of the Bruneau Canyon) Actually in hindsight it was not a bad thing as we would have been even more challenged with finding water. Saturday night found us camped by Dead Horse Spring. Not much water but it wasn't covered in scum, nor was it muddy. We double filtered and crossed our fingers. Some Antelope came down in the morning to drink and they all seemed healthy . Continuing off course, Sunday we found an intersection with an actual sign. We could see a few trees and bushes so we rode to that area and hiked in, hoping for water in the creek - no such luck. We opted to backtrack about a mile to an old, fallen down ranch outpost. This time there really was a dead horse in the corral - Yikes. There was water pooled in the stream bed so again we double filtered and crossed our fingers. Glad we stopped because that was the last water we saw until we recrossed the river on Monday. Late Sunday afternoon found us battling tumbleweeds and in wander/wonder mode - as in where the heck are we anyway! Off in the distance I see 3 ATV's, usually I cringe at the sight but the desert spirits were looking out for us as the ATV's were on the "road" we needed to get back to the truck without having to retrace our steps. We have decided to invest in spot tracker, this part of the desert is so remote it would be a challenge for someone to find us if something went wrong. Happy to say my Surly ECR performed the best. I have gotten really comfortable with the handling and trusting the bike on descents. The Bike Hermit did a blog post on our website Here are a couple photos

I have been to the town of Jarbidge, which had a year-round population of 11 at the time, and I doubt it has grown in the past few years. A group of us drove there from Elko in two vehicles, one of which kept breaking down. The map tells me you were north of there, but I imagine it's all pretty similar. I'm glad you made it out safely! It is worlds away from the crowded cities and suburbs that many of us are used to.

[Aromig]

We have decided to invest in spot tracker, this part of the desert is so remote it would be a challenge for someone to find us if something went wrong. Happy to say my Surly ECR performed the best.

I own a spot that I use when hiking/hanging out around Moab, and I will take it on long bike rides in Southern Indiana where cell phone reception might be spotty. I've owned mine for 4 years now, and never needed it but it is reassuring to look at the blinking lights knowing its transmitting somewhere when I send a message (mine you can only send a preprogrammed message, but I do that to save GPS coordinates).

I've had one friend (not bikers) use theirs for rescue when they got lost and had no water and then it's worth every single penny. I also pay for the optional (its not very expensive) insurance where they'll pay for the charge of emergency services if you're billed for them.

The device and the annual service is totally worth the peace of mind.

North Woods Gal - I think they have new spot devices that may communicate with your phone, I'm not sure, but I have an older device that doesn't help me get home, but can signal that I need help and can send signals to family about where I'm located. I also use my Garmin Edge 800 and it's helped me find my way home when I've taken a wrong turn, but I didn't quite need to call for help yet :-)

[north woods gal]

Thanks' girls.

Speaking of GPS units, what is everyone using? I'm not digitally challenged, but I don't want anything complicated and loaded with options I won't use. Just need something to track my movements, save way points and so on. Just hate that "I'm lost" feeling. Very rewarding when I come out on the good end of things, but really takes away from enjoying my ride. Thanks.

[Blueberry]

The Wahoo Elemnt was recommended to me recently. Curious to hear what others have to say!