March 31st rides

[DrBadger]

So, was supposed to be working on my presentation today... but my roommate asked if I wanted to go for a ride, and it was a beautiful day. My roommate just got a road bike a couple of weeks ago, but has been spinning for almost a year and is good shape, so she has taken to road riding really quickly.

Well, I had an idea of a good route to do, but she suggested that we do Old La Honda Rd. This is considered one of the premiere climbs in the Bay Area, and most road riders know their times to the top. It is 3.37miles long with an average grade of 7.3%... all up climbing 1290 ft. Very quiet road through the redwoods, lots of bikes, not a lot of cars, really narrow, and lots of switchbacks. I had attempted this climb once before (last year), but took it WAY to fast at the beginning and hit that hurl wall about a third of the way up... I ended up walking over half of it, so really wasn't too excitied about doing it again.

So, we get to the bottom of the climb, take a breather to get something to drink and I eat some sport beans and then start off. We get into our grannie gears (I love my tripple!) and I tell Amie that we need to keep the speed below 6 MPH. We ended up keeping it around 5 MPH for the entire climb.

But we made it!!! and with out stopping at all! I was even able to talk most of the way up. I really can't believe how much stronger I am this year, I think a lot of that is from spin class and BodyPump (a group weight lifting class)

After we got to the top, we of course had to go down at some point.. so rode a bit along Skyline, the road at the top on the Santa Cruz Mountains and took 84 down. That is a kind of crazy decent because there is a lot of traffic, and no shoulder so you have be willing to take the lane pretty frequently. It was a fun decent, but I found that my middle back was really tightening up during it. Do you think that is a core issue?

So, the final distance was 19.3 miles, but with lots of climbing. I have to say, I had a really good time doing Old La Honda today... I guess it is better when it doesn't beat you! I think that I will be doing it again soon

Guess I am really going to be working tomorrow

[Veronica]

Double century?! HOLY COW!!!!

Yeah, I'm targeting 5 this year. And since I also volunteer, I can get the gold thousand mile club jersey. 'Cause you know, I really need another jersey.

Thanks Wahine! My quads felt awful the whole second half of the climb.

V.

[Aggie_Ama]

PAB- Your ride sounds fabulous. What a great feeling of conquering the climb!

Aggie, you take the grand prize on excruciating rides... get thee some cranberry juice and drink it all the way to your doctor's office!!

Or the grand prize of stupidity. 50.24 miles of pure hell, ugh. I have been drinking cranberry juice like crazy all week, which I why I had the false healed feeling. Still I bought a big old bottle last night to keep drinking. Today is another gorgeous day, I wish I had gone the doctor during the week.

[Triskeliongirl]

Amanda, can you phone your doctor. If this happens to me on the weekend I just phone my doctor and he calls in a prescription for me. It is important to get on an antibiotic ASAP so you don't end up with a kidney infection. For pain relieve, try pyridium, which is now available over the counter (its a bladder anesthtic, makes you feel better but doesn't kill the bacteria so don't assume you are cured).

[7rider]

Or the grand prize of stupidity. 50.24 miles of pure hell, ugh. I have been drinking cranberry juice like crazy all week, which I why I had the false healed feeling. Still I bought a big old bottle last night to keep drinking. Today is another gorgeous day, I wish I had gone the doctor during the week.

I had an ex- who swore by the healing properties of blue cheese! He said it was the precursor to penicillin, and when I was in your situation once, he had me down an entire block of the stuff. Darned if I didn't feel better the next day. I don't necessarily advocate it, tho. Just passin' on the info.

DH and I did our "French Countryside" route yesterday (the 31st) - a 26 mile loop. Was a pretty nice day - high thin clouds and low-60's. Saw an interesting site - a couple on a tandem recumbent trike! Was pretty cool and it was definitely a smile-maker. We passed them easily on an uphill - they really throw out the anchor on the ups. But they smoked us on the downhill. At one point, we were doing 30 mph and watching them pull away!!!

Of course, that got us thinking about taking a trip to the LBS. The shop is consigning a Trek tandem. Hmmmmm......That would be one way for me to keep up with DH on the hills!

[Crankin]

We lead our second "Spring warm Up" ride. It was mostly the same people as last week, with a couple of additions. The day was beautiful; it started at about 50 and was about 55 and extremely bright and sunny at the end. But it was a hellish ride for me, as sweep. There was one woman who was so far below the ability of the others that I ended up riding most of the way alone with her. Why do people lie about their ability when I screen them? I swear, some people do not know what average speed means. This woman could barely climb at all and i clearly described the ride as a 25 mile ride, with 2 challenging climbs, with grades of 10%. We were not going fast, but I mean this person was dying on little rollers. So, with her permission, I went ahead a bit and waited for her at intersections. I did not get to interact with the rest of the group at all and Steve basically had them by himself. I have noticed that it is a certain type of person that comes on our rides when they are not really qualified; it's usually a woman (not always) who lives in the city and really has no experience riding the type of terrain that is clearly described. I know that if it was me, I would have turned around and gone back, or done the ride on my own. It had to have been miserable for her, but she made it , and so did I. My only other catastrophe is that i packed a pair or regular gloves to change into after wearing full fingered ones for the first 5 miles. i ended up packing 2 right hand gloves! My hands were hot, needless to say.
Hoping to do a nice ride later on today.