October 14 rides

[enzed]

Today was a loooong ride for me. In all, I must have ridden 140-141Km, which is my new long distance record.

It all started with a 20Km ride into the city, where I caught the train to Springwood. 4 of us got the train there, and we rode towards Richmond.

The other 3 happened to be 3 guys on roadbikes, and there was me on a Trek hybrid. Luckily most of that way was downhill, so it wasn't too hard to keep up.

At Richmond, we met other 2 woman riders in our group, and had brunch.
The 6 of us rode towards Parramatta (and a cafe in the park), where the 2 other woman left us, and once again I had to keep pace with 3 roadbikes. Whilst they weren't riding that fast, they did give me a bit of challange.

We parted ways at North Sydney, where I brought a cookie from Subway & rode 18Km home by myself.

So, how was your sunday ride?

[RoadRaven]

Well, my Oct 14 ride was a "fun ride" (the fun part is where you go, "haha, Raven ride a 50km fun ride as JUST a ride and not a race...)

It was a tough 50km, we had gale force westerlies predicted and they turned up - gusts of up to 130kph! The one good thing about the gale/winds is that on most uphills we had a tail wind... thats a real bonus for a hill turtle like me.

I rode strongly and I felt really good afterwards (good in the head that is... I could barely walk and kept dozing every time I sat down for about 2 hours afterwards!)

MMMMMmmmmm - a cookie from Subway, EnZed... you know I have never had one of those before! I think you truly deserved it after clocking up just over twice my distance!!! (I did about 20km warm-up/cool-down as well as the 50km "fun-ride").

[Aggie_Ama]

We did a short 31 miles. Three miles into a ride a friend called to invite us over. We haven't seen them in a while, so we scaled back the ride. The wind was strong and in our face much of the ride so I didn't mind cutting it down.

[Tri Girl]

The wind was strong

And that's why I didn't ride. Winds sustained at 20 with gusts into the 30's and 40's. That just makes for miserable riding.
Volunteered at our club's duathlon until noon anyway(2 people crashed their bikes due to the wind), so I got to see people riding and fighting the wind.

Nice ride enzed and Road Raven. Glad to hear the weather is warming up for you ladies down south.

[Fredwina]

I met up Amy and Aly, had breakfast , and then did a loop of Griffith park In La. about 14 miles

[mimitabby]

We got home from oregon; i have a headache and my stomach is... so so... Raleighdon, as full as enthusiasm as always was "oh, come on, let's go for a ride"
i finally gave in, we rode 18 miles up and down some hills and then along the lake and then back up the hill again home.
bleah. it's gorgeous out but i still feel stinky.

[makbike]

I rode a club century today. The day did not start off well, a lot of bad juju surrounded me. I awoke at 4:30 a.m. and almost talked myself out of riding - the thoughts of climbing Doolittle Hill scared me beyond belief. However by 5:15 I had convinced myself to give it a go and went about getting myself ready for a challenging ride. I left the house with plenty of time to spare and this turned out to be a very good thing. The club offers directions to a lot of the starting points and I had printed these off last night, however, they proved to be very inaccurate and well I got lost in southern Indiana. Thanks to the gentleman who turned me around and got me headed back in the right direction. Thanks to the couple who had stopped at the end of their driveway who also gave me directions. I arrived at the starting point with 5 minutes to ready myself and my bike. I quickly signed myself in and returned to air up my tires. More bad juju struck - I torn the valve stem off my front tube! A club member came over quickly to help me - he changed my tube while I finished getting myself ready. The main group left but Paul, the guy who changed my tube and the ride captain stayed back with me until I was ready to ride - a very kind gesture. Finally, we journeyed out of the parking lot and onto the route. We rode a couple of miles and while making a left turn I saw my bike computer come apart right before my eyes and trail behind me! I turned around and went back only to find the screen - the buttons were MIA. However, the good news is the computer components and display screen were still with me so I was able to track my mileage and all the other nice data it likes to supply. I told myself at that point three bad things had happened all in the course of an hour so the rest of the day would be delightful and I was right!

The century took us around southern Indiana - and boy did we spend a lot of time climbing hills/knobs as the day progressed. However, we were treated to some beautiful sights along the way. We climbed Skyview Drive at the start and the view down into the valley and across the river into Louisville was awesome. I think the funniest sight of the day was the bathtub shrine we passed early in the ride. This shrine was painted purple on the inside and had a large owl statue sitting it it - not like the others we had passed on our many rides. I give the owners major points for creativity! We passed a lot of dried fields and creek beds all evidence of the power of the drought that has settled upon us in the region. As we passed on plowed field we were treated to dueling dirt devils as they danced across the way - a cool sight to behold.

The ride took us up and down a lot of knobs/hills today and the toughest one came at the 80 mile mark - dreaded Doolittle Hill. It is a 13% grade, goes on for .7 miles with no breaks and came to about 450 feet of climbing. It was a killer and I was determined to not walk any portion of it so I settled into a slow pace and kept climbing - I thought I was going to die several times but I made it to the top and felt a huge smile consume my face. This was a first for me. I had to laugh for a couple of the men following me up the hill told me at the "summit" that they had decided they would stop and walk when I did but I kept going so they had to keep pedaling. I told them "I never walk up a hill."

It was a great day to be on the bike even with the bad start to the day. In the end we rode 100.52 miles. My average speed was 15.46 - not my best but I'm really happy with it given all the climbing we did today.