June rides....hopefully a pleasant month of weather and rides for all

[azfiddle]

Today was a "training" ride, now that I am participating in a coaching program.

The schedule activity was this: Endurance Focus Ride: Medium
Once you are warmed up, keep your heart rate between 117 and 136 bpm. Make the total exercise time at least 1 hour 30 minutes but not more than 2 hours 45 minutes including warm up and cool down. If you get tired or have trouble keeping your heart rate up, finish out the time with your heart rate between 100 and 119 bpm. Spin a comfortable cadence while warming up and cooling down.

I picked pedal stroke as my focus from a list of 7 options:
Focus on one quarter of the pedal stroke at a time, doing 20 strokes for each quarter before moving to the next quarter. Thus, push down 20 times. Then pull back 20 times. Then pull up 20 times. Then push forward 20 times. When you have done all four quarters in this way, do halves: Down and back 20 time. Back and up 20 times. Up and over 20 times. Over and down 20 times. Repeat sets of quarters and then halves until you drop to your Recovery Zone or are ready to cool down.

You know that expression fast, good or cheap- you can pick 2? I feel like these training rides are like that. Follow the guideline for the activity, keep the right cadence, stay in the right heart rate zone. I can do the activity and keep up the cadence or manage my heart rate, but not all three. I picked a slightly hilly route so the HR was just out the window on most of the climbs. And I by chance, I ended up riding along with a 78 year old guy on a light mountain bike who told me about riding to the Grand Canyon and another ride from Flagstaff to Mexico, and we discovered we had mutual friends, so I didn't concentrate on counting pedal strokes the whole time, but it was still an interesting exercise. And I'm in awe of the 78 year old- wow- I hope I'm that fit in 20 years!

[ny biker]

I'm going to get rained out again tonight. I think this is the third or fourth time since the beginning of May that my Wednesday night ride has been rained out. The thing is that it might not rain until later, but if it does start earlier it will be a thunderstorm and I just don't want to be out in one of those. Several of the times I have cancelled recently, it turned out that the rain never materialized, but I'm being cautious because I hate trying to ride in heavy rain and I refuse to ride in gusty winds.

Now I have to decide -- cancel my appointment with my personal trainer tomorrow and ride then, or go out and ride after work on Friday, which might be difficult since I have a mid-day appointment so I might end up working late afterwards.

Meanwhile I keep gaining weight, and one big reason is that I'm not getting the mid-week exercise that I need. Boo.

[cosc]

I finally was able to ride my bike after a very windy day and several days of thunderstorms. The rain was wonderful but not great for training for Bran (Ride across Nebraska) coming up this weekend. I'm hoping for a calm weather week.
Today's 41 mile ride was great with low 70's and no wind. Everything looks lush green except for fields with crops just starting. I'm looking forward to the mature sunflower fields.

[Irulan]

Here is how my ride went to today. Let me preface this with last night we had to cancel due to massive regional t-storms. This morning it was gorgeous, and I was contacted about 7 am for a mountain bike ride.

Right off the bat I went over a pile of dog poo that was hiding and got it flung onto my new shoes.
Then we hit a little mud puddle about 1/2 mile into the ride. Being a good trail citizen I went through the puddle and not around it. Whatever that mud was... well, it was some sort of horrible sticky clay. It jammed up the jockey wheels in the derailler and before I even know what had happened I snapped the derailler off. I was hoping to pull the derailler off and single speed the rest of the ride but I was having problems with the chain tool. I could get the chain off via the master link, but I couldn't shorten it. I ended up taking the chain and derailler off and coasting back to the lot.

[Veronica]

What a bummer! Hope the next ride is much better!

Veronica

[ny biker]

I'm going to get rained out again tonight. I think this is the third or fourth time since the beginning of May that my Wednesday night ride has been rained out. The thing is that it might not rain until later, but if it does start earlier it will be a thunderstorm and I just don't want to be out in one of those. Several of the times I have cancelled recently, it turned out that the rain never materialized, but I'm being cautious because I hate trying to ride in heavy rain and I refuse to ride in gusty winds.

Now I have to decide -- cancel my appointment with my personal trainer tomorrow and ride then, or go out and ride after work on Friday, which might be difficult since I have a mid-day appointment so I might end up working late afterwards.

Meanwhile I keep gaining weight, and one big reason is that I'm not getting the mid-week exercise that I need. Boo.

So the evening rain never materialized, despite the menacing clouds. Of course if I had taken a chance and gone for a ride, we would have had a deluge. Anyway I went for a walk after I got home from work, which is better than nothing.

[lauraelmore1033]

It WAS a beastly ride Laura, and you must have been in beast mode, you did so well! I was slllowwww going up those hills. 3000 feet of climbing, ugh. I'm surprised I wasn't more sore the day after but I felt pretty good! I was sad I missed seeing you though.

The pics are from the duck pond in Mill Creek. :- )

I suspect I just started a lot earlier than you did.

[Giulianna23]

110 miles for the month already. Been riding a lot (6 days a week) Averaging 155 miles per week. Variable terrain and intensity. I am enjoying every single mile of it. Especially since I got my new Carbon bike and lost about 20 pounds over the past 6 months or so (still have about 15 more to go ). My speed improved so much and my climbing as well. Now I am able to keep up with the group on a 32 miles hilly ride averaging almost 17 mph without the pace line help and about 18+ with the pace line. Last year on the same hilly ride I was averaging about 15 hardly 16mph with the paceline and about 14 on my own on that same ride but with a slower group. I am climbing those hills half time quicker than last year and the season just started...woohoo..I am so happy and I am sooo in love with my Girl (my bike) that last night I almost put her in my bed to sleep with me.

[Crankin]

Rode 21 miles with Hirakukibou. We were again sort of thwarted by what looked like rain, at our lunch stop, but even though we turned toward the end point, I do think it's raining a bit just west of here, where we were headed. At least our ride got us out of Concord/Carlisle and into Acton. I had my bike in the car at work, and changed there, and drove to meet Hirakukibou in Concord center, so we could start earlier. We had a bit of weird beginning... first my brakes were rubbing again, after I though they were all fixed. I addressed that. Then we went to clip in and my chain fell off. Fixed that. Started up again and Hira realized the screw had fallen out of her cleat and she couldn't unclip well on that foot. Rode to the LBS (just about half a mile) and got that fixed. Phew. Then we headed out. We went to west Acton a circuitous way, a bit too much on Rt 27, but it was flatter than what we normally do, and I am leading a ride tomorrow. Don't want sore legs. Rode back throughh west Concord, lots of traffic everywhere. Where are all of these people going at 2:00 in the afternoon?

[shootingstar]

Started off @6:30 am on my day off --which in the end, I wasted a lab visit because I forgot the doctor's forms... After detours due to yet more reconstruction of some damaged path sections (last summer's devastating river flood that evacuated 100,000 people), I cycled off to the north end where I went grocery shopping and shrimp dim sum. After dropping off stuff at home, went a different direction for milk, yogurt.

Must have packed in 56 km. today. Fine day, abit cool. But blazing bright sun.

[ny biker]

Due to fear of thunderstorms on Wednesday, I did my weekly post-work hill ride tonight instead. We had beautiful, near-perfect weather today -- sunny, low humidity, highs around 80. I started riding just before 7 pm and it was still light out when I finished at 8:30. It was my first ride with my new narrower handlebars, which I like very much. I also tested new insoles, which I did not like.

I modified my route a bit at the beginning to add a new, steep hill, the kind of hill you look up and think you're crazy for riding up it by choice. I kinda liked it.

[Jolt]

About a 12.5 mile ride today since I was short on time. I picked a route with some good hills since I am working on climbing...the total amount of climbing was only 674 feet according to MapMyRide but it is ALL in the first half of the loop, the second half is a long gradual downhill. The first climb starts about 1/2 mile in and goes on for about 2 miles with a couple of steep sections...that section was brutal since I was in no way, shape or form warmed up yet when I started the climb. The second big hill was better but still hard because it also had a really steep section. I do OK with the longer more gradual uphills (can sometimes even shift into a higher gear after a while), but throw a steep section in and it's painful! Seems to be much more of a leg strength issue than a cardio issue. On the second half of the ride, I happened to get mixed up in a group that was doing a training ride for the Trek Across Maine next weekend and was able to stay with them for a few miles...some impromptu speedwork of sorts. Today was also the first ride with my new cycle computer...it was interesting to see my speed on different sections (average 13 mph, hit 37.4 mph going down the other side of one of the big hills!).

[azfiddle]

Nice ride up Mt. Lemmon this morning- almost 37 miles total, starting from home, 10 miles to the base and up to about mile 11.5 at Middle Bear Canyon (cool, shady, 5500 feet). I always need to make a few stops and let my heart rate come down- I think I stopped 5 times once we started up the mountain. That's the furthest I've gone this season- the climb tops out at over 8000 feet and there's no water available at all right now, so that means carrying a LOT of water.

[emily_in_nc]

We've been visiting relatives in NC and Ohio but did manage to get quite a bit of riding in, and I summarized the Ohio rides in a blog post -- the rides described therein were mostly done in late May into early June. We were lucky to get some wonderful weather and found some excellent roads for riding.

http://travelingtwosome.weebly.com/t...to-see-and-eat

Since leaving DH's parents' home in Dover, OH, we've been to Xenia, OH to ride part of the Little Miami Scenic Trail and to Richmond, IN to ride the Cardinal Greenway. In both cases I got my longest rides in of the year -- 71 and 75.8 miles. Blog posts on those will be coming soon!

[emily_in_nc]

Just got the Little Miami Scenic Trail blog post published. Definitely check out this great trail if you are in southwestern Ohio!

http://travelingtwosome.weebly.com/t...i-scenic-trail