April Rides

[Crankin]

It's sunny!
I just saw a FB post from Prospect Mountain, in southern Vt, the last place I went Nordic skiing. They are *still* completely open and had 4 inches of snow yesterday. The place is at elevation, 2,200 ft, but it's only 8 miles from Bennington, VT. To say that this is most unusual for a nordic ski center to be open on April 20 would be putting it mildly!
Boot camp was really hard today; she tried a new format, so I think I am going to skip riding to my lunch. Of course, if it's really nice when it's time to go, one never knows.

[north woods gal]

Love the post, Emily, about riding from town to town with all that shopping and things to see along the way. It's one thing we do NOT have in our rural area and one of the things I do miss from my years of bicycling and commuting in more urban areas. I'll always be a country girl at heart, but having bike paths and places to stop and shop made city life bearable for me. I miss it, sometimes. Thanks for the post.

[emily_in_nc]

Love the post, Emily, about riding from town to town with all that shopping and things to see along the way. It's one thing we do NOT have in our rural area and one of the things I do miss from my years of bicycling and commuting in more urban areas. I'll always be a country girl at heart, but having bike paths and places to stop and shop made city life bearable for me. I miss it, sometimes. Thanks for the post.

You're so welcome! I do enjoy this kind of a setting, but it's not the most ideal for real fitness, since there is more stop/start, slow riding, and of course those stops off for yummy things to eat! But, this is a vacation for us, only a week (minus one day since I have to get back for an orthodontist appointment), so it's not an everyday thing. We'll be back to our longer rides in Winter Garden soon enough!

The path does sound similar to yours, Rebecca (nice pic, btw), and here too, there are ways to bypass the busiest stretches in a couple places; we've discovered one already. We were able to detour off the path and ride through uncrowded neighborhood roads most of the way to a Publix 3 miles away, which was great.

Today has been super busy here as lots of long weekenders have arrived, or just people playing hooky from work for a day, since it's so beautiful out. We haven't ridden yet but are going to take a short ride (an hour or so) in a few minutes -- I'm waiting for DH to get ready. We did do an 8.5 mile beach walk this morning, with a couple of detours off the beach for a healthy lunch AND a donut, so we have gotten some exercise in, but we're missing the bikes too much to stay off them altogether, so a short ride just to enjoy the breeze and the sunshine is in order before wine-thirty and then dinner!

Here's our campsite:

I sure will miss this spot!

[Crankin]

We went out to ride with our friends, into Historic Deerfield, about 12 miles from their house in Western MA. Clear and sunny and it got up to 57. But, a vicious headwind, for the first half of the ride, I could barely get my speed above 11 at a few points. It was about 20 mph, wih sustained gusts. That, plus my hamstrings screaming from yesterday’s boot camp, was demoralizing. Went through a few places I haven’t seen and we did have tailwind for about 8 miles near the end. A 22 mile ride turned into 27.5. It was tough.
Afterwards, we went to the spring wine release event at the winery down the street from our friends house. It’s 8.15 and I am ready for bed.

[emily_in_nc]

The wine event sounds fun, Crankin!

We ended up riding today after all. We did a loooong beach walk this morning, and DH's achilles started bothering him from stretching too far in the sand, so we walked back on the path along the road. We noticed it was not as busy as we'd have thought for a Saturday, because most people were on the beach, even though it was a mostly cloudy day. So, we headed out around 3:30 pm and rode for an hour. Very nice. We found a spur trail that went 2 miles north and was free of cyclists and walkers, and only one road crossing, so we enjoyed that little bit very much, and even the main trail wasn't super busy. Between that and riding to the beach to walk a bit after dinner, ended up with 15 miles on the day. Not much, but combined with all the walking, still a fairly good fitness day.

We leave tomorrow morning and drive back to the Orlando area. I am sad. This beach is so beautiful! I will miss it. This really does feel like going home after a wonderful vacation, something that was always a letdown for us. Even RVing, some spots are like "home" and some like "vacation".

[rebeccaC]

just a quick 22 miles on the beach bike path to clear my mind from working all day and then a nice dinner out with some of Alex's colleagues.

[Crankin]

I didn't take any pictures of my rides this weekend.
Today, we did 32 miles from Whately to Montague MA and back. It was still a little windy this morning, but it died down. Some climbing in the first half of the ride, most of it the kind I don't love, longer shallow grades. Since this is when it was windy, I just dug in. Then we had a steep, shorter climb, which was fine. We got on a bike path for about 3 miles, into Montague, where we stopped in a park at the end of the path. Just as we were leaving, we saw that the street we were headed on was closed and a peloton went by, very quickly. There was a criterium going on. Our alternate was another steep hill, but I was feeling good. Then, on to the Montague Book Mill/Café. It was mobbed, with tons of cyclists and others, so we decided not to wait for food. The ride, overall was beautiful, rural, farms, along the Connecticut and Deerfield Rivers, and a canal. Even a waterfall. We ended up stopping at a little pizza/Italian restaurant only open on the weekend, and ate our sandwiches outside. Then we had only 4 miles back to our friends' house.
I felt a shift in my attitude and strength in the second half of the ride. My speed wasn't fast, but it was a good ride. And, it was 64 degrees out.