4th of July Rides

[mimitabby]

for me it was INDEPENDENCE DAY! Independence from everyone else's plans. Also, a hope that I can be independent of our horrible government. But I digress.
The plan:
return books to library on bike. Then fly down Cheasty blvd, a winding tree lined road that takes you right to the heart of south eastern Seattle; usually a place I don't like to go even in a car because of traffic jams and road construction.
But it's early in the morning, on the 4th of July! I went straight down Martin Luther King, Junior Way like it was my driveway! There were hardly any other vehicles, and since it's all newly paved concrete, it was a beautiful ride.
Then I went back up the hill on Henderson, even more tree-lined than Cheasty, a lovely 2% grade all the way up to the top. 12.2 miles and i'm in for the rest of the day to do domestic things Independently.
(Raleighdon is doing a 200 k ride today)
!

[Kimmyt]

Today was independence day here too. Independence from men. A group of 7 girls I sometimes ride with got together. It wasn't on purpose, just turned out all the boys were busy. We rode down to Manayunk and had breakfast and then came back. 39 miles rt and 2 flats due to wet and gritty roads!

Now I'm gonna eat some chips and salsa with the boy and then take a ride with him out to a park nearby, maybe another 50 miles rt. It's a cycling day for me!

[pooks]

I'm puttering in the kitchen with my locally grown veggies, waiting for the sun to break through long enough to toss a couple of ribeyes on the grill.

I hope to get a longer ride in, but --

My big fun was seeing the storm clouds gathering and deciding I could beat the storm -- hopping on my bike to ride to the supermarket to buy prosciutto and melon and returning before it hit. I didn't go far, but I went fast!

[Kano]

A bit over 25 miles this morning -- up hill and down, up again and down with an around the corner look out for the gravel, and where the HECK did that head wind come from!

I don't remember riding into a wind like this one that wanted to push me around like this one before, so I decided to try something new for me -- I don't use my drops much yet, cuz unlike that svelte broad in the logo up top of the page, parts of me crowd other parts when I use the drops! So, I thought I'd experiment with that, and wow, what a nice difference that made! I think it was good for about three miles per hour, so I worked at staying there -- or at least going back to it often on this great stretch of road. Kind of rolling, long long stretch between any intersections, the gravel companies aren't driving their trucks today, so NO traffic at all! Well, no WONDER: we got to the end, and discovered the tow truck, the truck with the boat trailer, and the two sheriff cars, and the rolled pick up sitting on top of the tow truck's bed. (wheels down again) An abundance of people milling around too -- hopefully no serious injuries, and certainly not among the group standing around. We carefully cruised through the tail end of the clean up process....

Stopped for a bit under a shade tree to mess with the wheel DH broke a spoke on again, so we could finish the ride, then took a less direct route from that stop to the new favorite coffee shop, and then a pretty direct route home.

Chased by a chubby chihuahua on the home stretch, but he was no match for 18mph! Kind of exciting -- they usually go after DH, but he took a short cut and didn't get chased...

Now I need some lunch, and I should probably remind him that he needs to fix his wheel before long, or he'll be cussing before work tomorrow morning!

Karen in Boise

[Fredwina]

Well , I felt like Goldilocks
One part of the club was a full century to the beach in Orange County, Given my luck with Bicycling activities in the OC and that fact that it's 98 degrees at noon, I didn't want to do that. too far
Another group was doing Sunset Loop in Redlands 15 miles a loop with 2 loops - not far enough
And I had my RBA contact me last night about turn one of my permanent routes into a Brevet. The problem was I wanted to revise the route some more.
So I started off at 6Am and rode down to Azusa. Sure enough, found a better way to get my riders from point a to point b. came back up foothill through Glendora, Baseline, and 19th to Fontana. I then rode down the hill ,past Jiffer's house (Hi!) and the Rancho Cucamonga Adult Sports park and back home.
A Story, I like to have a chocolate milk after a long ride. I had meant to but one last night, so I stopped a C-Store about a mile from home and got one. By the time I got home it was already warm!

[Crankin]

Did a 53.4 mile ride today (longest this year). It actually was most of the route of a charity ride i did 3 weeks ago, but we started at our house and met friends at a different start point than the original ride. The first 2 towns we went through were having 10k races this morning, so lots of runners and traffic and people on foot. In fact, there was more traffic than I thought there would be, probably like a Saturday. It was hot and humid for the first half, but the sun did go in and it is now cloudy, breezy, and great for riding. We stopped in Weston Center to refill on Gatorade and eat a Clif bar. Then we went through a bit of Waltham, into Lincoln, where we did the only really steep climb of the ride. Then on through Hanscom AFB, back into Concord. I have never seen so many bikes there! We ate lunch on the grass by the visitor's center and I was moaning that I was 4 miles from my house, but we had only ridden 35 miles, so on we went. The rest of the ride was on regular roads that I ride, so it was fun.
When we got back, I downed some choc. milk and hummus and pita. Now I have to stretch and get ready for our BBQ.

[East Hill]

Today's ride was nothing special--just a chance to get out of the house essentially, because it's too hot to do much of anything energetic. So, I went to Big Soos Creek, and saw a huge crowd out there--more people than I've ever seen before.

Now, I've seen muskrats, river otters, mink, etc. down there. But I'd never seen a beaver--until today! I rode by this poor creature and did a double take:



The hat is in there for reference. It's not much more than a kit, but it confirms that there are indeed beavers down there. Now if only I could spot a live one .

East Hill

[Jiffer]

I was SO looking forward to today's ride to the beach on the tandem with our tandem buddies. We were SO going to kick butt! Dh has gotten so strong in the past few months, and I've gotten stronger since the last time we rode with our tandem friends.

Everything was going well until the first hill. Hills have become my husband's specialty on his single. He's much stronger at them than his buddy who was on the other tandem. However, we were so weak on every hill we hit. In fact, about 20 miles into the ride, we were both commenting on how dead we felt. The next 10 miles or so were fairly tough for me as I was lacking energy, the "hoo ha" was hurting, the backs of my thighs were feeling weird (I think I need to try other saddles) and my muscles just didn't want to push any more.

We took a good 10 minute break and it helped. A little later we found ourselves drafting with a group of guys, which helped with the energy level and made the ride more exciting. We were passing people like crazy the farther we got to the beach. The bike trail was full of all sorts of interesting folks.

When we 1st got to the beach, we had gone 54 miles from our house. It took us 2:49 minutes of actual riding. We conitnued on the beach path through the circus of beach people celebrating 4th of July. It was overcast and cool. We forgot they had a 5k & 10k run there every year (which we've done before), plus a parade, so it was even more craziness everywhere. Kind of exciting, but made it hard to get to and even figure out where they had parked the truck the night before. I was so ready to get off the bike and was emotionally spent. Therefore, when I heard the words, "Oo! A tandem!" and was slammed with a water balloon ... I was SOOOOO not happy about it. I found myself in misery for the next 30 minutes as we finally found the truck, loaded the bikes and headed to lunch. My entire front side was soaked and I was now cold and wet with nothing to change into (that won't happen again). To add to it all, I was PMS-ing, so I kept finding myself crying over the ridiculousness of it all!

Luckily, Dh offered me a t-shirt he had and it was big enough for me to take off my wet bra and not be obvious. We ended up at a Mexican Restaurant sitting outside, away from the beach where it was actually sunny, which was perfect. I warmed up in the sun and hid from anyone who thought I might look ridiculous.