November Rides

[north woods gal]

What heavenly roads to ride! Thanks for the pics. Pretty darn good photography skills, too.

[Catrin]

Beautiful roads - and great photography!

[emily_in_nc]

Gorgeous roads and photography, Rebecca! Thanks, as always, for sharing!

[Crankin]

It was 29 degrees when I woke up this morning, which meant I was pretty sure we would not be doing a 63 mile ride, for my "ride my age" birthday ride. But, we ended up doing a lovely, very local ride of 33 miles, starting when it was 39 degrees and after 11 AM. We rode a loop we often do when we don't want to do big hills, to start off, and then we thought we would head to Harvard, MA for one climb, lunch, and home. But, it was already after 1:00, and we were hungry, so we ate our snacks and decided based on our slowness today, we would be eating around 2:30. Since we are going out for a really nice dinner tonight, we decided to head into West Acton via the long way and stopped at the local gourmet farm market to buy a sandwich to share. It was a little warmer out, so we sat at the picnic tables outside. We ate pretty quickly and then decided to head home, which was not that far. Ended up riding 33 miles, and noticing that a lot of the trees still have beautiful color, which was very calming. It stayed mostly cloudy, with some sunny breaks, a light wind, and I was also dressed mostly correctly. I did change to a lighter pair of gloves and head cover. I think tomorrow will be a hiking day.

[Catrin]

Sounds wonderful Crankin! Glad to hear you still have color and had a relaxing ride. I will be hiking tomorrow myself, just ran out of time to go today but tomorrow is supposed to be just a couple of degrees warmer.

[north woods gal]

An hour workout on the trails, trying to up my pace, plus more hours working on the trails. How could I not with the temp hitting 70 degrees, this afternoon? This is just nuts. In an average year, our lake has begun to ice up and some snow on the ground. This year, though, have only had one night below freezing and still none in next week's forecast. Makes me a little nervous because when Old Man Winter wakes up and looks at the calendar, we're probably going to get walloped. In the meantime, though, I'm going to ride, ride, ride.

[emily_in_nc]

That's crazy weather, NWG. We had a high in the 60s yesterday in NC, while you were 70! So very wrong. Glad you are able to take advantage of it as long as you have it.

[Helene2013]

Nothing too exciting to report for November yet. Weather was warm for time of year yesterday, but oh so windy. Too bad. Told hubby we are taking our Crux out (the road bikes are on the trainer already) and we did only 18km ride. But with the wind facing us for almost half the trip, at some point I could not do more than 13km/h. Heart rate was sky rocketing but no pain in legs. yeah

Note that I managed to slip 3 weekends ago on a clear plastic mat (those you buy by the foot on a roll at home depot, etc.) in the basement. Hubby uses it to put a bike stand and clean up our bikes on. I was decluttering the area and never saw the clear plastic. Nasty fall and luckily I did not re-injure the broken knee (ok now) from this past January. I managed to land on the other leg. Painful but no major damage. So I took 2 weeks off yoga, gym, etc to let it heal properly.

So yesterday was 1st day doing something decent - gymwise! Yeah. Tonight yoga class.

Week is looking mild and hoping to get the bikes out next Saturday. Maybe we'll be able to ride on Xmas day like last year. hihi Then the storm hit on the 26th Dec. and we were done for winter outing on road bike.

[Helene2013]

Tomorrow night we are expecting 5-10cm of snow. 1st of the season. So much fun (NOT) when this hits rush hour traffic. blah!

We had quite a few jobs around the yard to finish before winter. We were wrecked (back, thighs, etc). But still found the energy to do a quick ride of only 18km on the cycloross. Very warm for time of year. A bit windy but I've seen worst. So now we are ready to welcome the snowflakes. Crossing fingers that it won't be a huge storm just yet. We did see a few cyclists on the road we rode but they are rarer.

[rebeccaC]

Still, almost forgot how uplifting, even spiritual, it can be to ride in the snow on a quiet, lovely day. It's very much the same "I'm in heaven" feeling I get on the cross country skis when everything comes together for that perfect glide. I am so blessed to live, here.

....and feeling blessed ftw!....and and luv the snow covered trail image!!

Taking the weekend off, just a ride to the farmers market, to a morning pilates class and a ride to a meeting on some community issues I’m involved in. We went to the L A Opera’s performance of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten last night (a wonderful creative evening) and just enjoying being home together today .