February rides

[Crankin]

OK, i did ride today, but not much, even though it was around 55 degrees. The club ride was led by a really fast rider, and since it is still winter, there wasn't a choice of groups. The hike was a boring one, most likely with people who are super slow for my hiking speed.
I met a friend for coffee, came home and ate lunch, and then finally, around 1:45 got out. A huge issue is that there is still at least 5-6 inches of snow in my back yard, where my walk out basement leads to. It's south facing and gets no sun. So, I shoveled the steps (4) and carried my bike out. The side of the condo was not as snowy. I left my bike behind my car and then had to go back in and put my shoes on, etc. It was really nice out and not as horrible on the road, in terms of melting, until I got close to home. I had to ride out in the lane on Rt 62, for most of the last 2.5 miles. This is a busy road, but thankfully, it's school vacation here, so quieter than usual.
I decided on a short, hilly ride and it just about killed me. I feel like I am in good shape between winter sports, the gym, and spin, but it is just not the same. I ended up doing 10.5 miles, at an OK average for me. Then, bringing the bike back in sucked. I got my boots back on, but I was tired and ended up dragging the back wheel through some snow. I cleaned the bike the best I could, without a hose, in the basement.
It's going to be 60+ tomorrow. I have a short day tomorrow, I may ride to work, but it seems hardly worth it for 5 miles total. I'll be up early to go the gym and then I will decide after I get back. The street my office is on is just full of terrible potholes, so it's dicey.

[emily_in_nc]

What a strange "winter"! I'm amazed to see you northern gals getting to ride right now. Very surprising. NC has been truly springlike, I see from my friends back home on FB.

I rode both Mon-Tues (36 and 32 miles), but yesterday it rained 1.5" (something they sorely needed as it's been very dry), and this morning it was still raining lightly, with huge puddles everywhere, so I did yoga/light weights inside instead. Tomorrow is supposed to be very nice, so we plan to take the Bike Fridays out to Walmart, as we really need a few things that are too hard to find elsewhere. That's the hilliest ride we do here, so I am glad to have the mountain gearing on my Bike Friday!

[north woods gal]

Well, winter is heading back to us with a vengeance. Forecast is a for a winter storm with 6-10" of snow for the next two days, so looks like my February flashback to summer is over.

[azfiddle]

Tucson has a quaint tradition of "Rodeo Days"- two days off from school- that dates back to a time when a lot more of the city participated in the annual rodeo activities. So, I have two extra days off and yesterday I took most of the day for a long ride with birding stops. I had about 47 miles and 64 species of birds by the end of the day. What surprised me was that even though I consider the route mostly flat (I was on the multi-use path that encircles Tucson for most of the day) I still had 1600 feet of elevation gain. The most exciting bird was the very rare Louisiana Waterthrush that someone else found two days ago at one of my regular birding stops. Second best was the Merlin at the last stop, as it plucked feathers from a little bird that it had caught. There were great numbers and variety of ducks for a bunch of desert city park ponds.

Today I'm planning to ride up Mt. Lemmon about 5 miles after it warms up a bit.

[north woods gal]

Snow and cold is back, but I got my fats and this girl will ride.

[Crankin]

It is 66 degrees out, but the roads are just sloppy with melting snow, so I will wait until tomorrow, when DH and I will ride before we leave for our "dumbed down" overnight nordic ski trip to southern NH. It will still be in the 60s tomorrow, although there is a chance of rain.
Best bet, we will get to snow shoe Sunday, but most likely we will end up hiking. At least it will be around 40.

[emily_in_nc]

64 species, AZ???! WOW! Tucson is a great place for birding, but I'm still duly impressed.

Today we did my much-dreaded errand ride on our Bike Fridays to Walmart, the ABC store, and Home Depot, filling our panniers a little more at each stop. Fortunately, DH carried the lion's share, to the point that we could actually ride together for most of the way back -- yay! Despite this only being a 30 mile ride overall, though, I only ate one granola bar, and drank only water, which is fine for the mileage, but because of the length of the stops and getting from place to place, we left at 10:30 am and were not home until 2:30 pm, so that was simply not enough calories. So the last 30 minutes, I was pretty much starving, and I slowed down quite a bit. We hit the food big time when we got back!

It was on the hot side today -- lower 70s when we left but around 80 upon our return, windy (in our face most of the way back; not ideal with the load). Still, a pretty day and a successful ride as we had a long list of things we needed to buy.

DH just put another Selle Italia Diva (in white, my first ever white saddle, and she is gorgeous!) on my Bike Friday and changed out the ripped up, old red handlebar tape for white, so she was looking pretty stylish. And the saddle was such an improvement -- I was miserable the last time I rode this bike!

[Crankin]

Glad you were more comfortable, Emily. A new saddle and tape always gives me a lift.
AZ, your post brought back memories of "Parada del Sol." I believe we had the day off, when I started teaching, even though I did not teach in Scottsdale.
Fun memories of the parade and ensuing partying. And, when I taught in the Roosevelt district, we used to have the rodeo people from the Phx rodeo come and give a demo on the playground.

[north woods gal]

I remember shopping at that Walmart on our Florida trip, last September. Definitely some hilly country, but nice area.

Rode, today, out on the freshly plowed roads, but only a few miles. Super windy and low 20s, but, hey, I did ride.

[azfiddle]

Yesterday my son and I rode up Mt. Lemmon to Molino Basin (2000' of climbing, 32 miles total) to see a Long-eared Owl that had been reported the previous day. We were successful and it was a beautiful ride but the descent was quite chilly! The directions were perfect, and I was excited to share the info with the birding community since we saw the bird in about one minute (Since then, both the original poster to the birding email list and and I were reminded that owls and nest sites are not to be reported publicly on the list... and I duly apologized...)

When we arrived at the shopping center where many cyclists park before going up the mountain, we saw this:

Untitled by Sharon Goldwasser, on Flickr


And on our return, the door was open, a bikes were parked and we had a short chat with one of the riders. My son was generally nonplused but I thought it was very cool...

Untitled by Sharon Goldwasser, on Flickr

[Crankin]

Cool, AZ.
We rode 24.5 miles today. It is freakily 69 degrees out right now. The front is getting close, though, as it's windy now.
We abbreviated a ride that my club did this week and then made ourselves do it. No more wimping out and no more short rides when we planned a long one. We, especially me, do not want to power through our trip in June/July, which I always do, but then I fall apart. I am tough enough to do that, with little training, other than my normal riding, but this year I am going to train more, by riding more; longer and hilly rides. I am motivated. We didn't care about speed today and that will be my mantra for the next 6 weeks or so. We rode on all of our "old favorites," roads where I first started riding, which I could do in my sleep. It seemed like some of the towns have already swept the sand off the roads, as it was so much nicer than Wednesday when I rode.
A guy on a hybrid pulled out in front of us a bit, when we had gone about 4-5 miles. We passed him, and then he caught us at a light. We sprinted and passed him again, but then he went one way and we went another. Then, he ended up in front of us again, near my old house in the last town we lived in. We let him work, until we got to the bottom of a hill, and he said he had enough! Anyway, our last 2 miles were a hilly street that parallels the street we usually take home. We often take it going the other way to get to Acton and Boxborough, as the ups are less severe in that direction, for the beginning of a ride. Now I know why I don't usually take this road home... the first hill (there's 3-4) is annoyingly steep. They are not long, but in almost 20 years, I can only remember doing this road in this direction twice.
Nothing hurts and I will continue to keep my motivation as the main thing I need to work on. Getting ready to leave now for what was supposed to be 2 days of x country skiing. Instead, it was riding (today) and tomorrow hiking. We found a small mountain pretty close to the inn in southern NH, so we will do that tomorrow morning, and be home home in time for DIL's birthday celebration. The inn has a nice bar and restaurant, so that is where I will be...

[Pax]

Got my bike back from the shop with my new OrthoPedal installed, works fantastic. Got a short ride in but the temps were dropping like a stone and the wind was gusting to 35mph.

[north woods gal]

Teens and very windy, today, but still rode the fat bike back on some of the trails in the fresh snow. Challenging and hard work, but, of course, that's part of what makes it fun.

[ny biker]

Got my bike back from the shop with my new OrthoPedal installed, works fantastic. Got a short ride in but the temps were dropping like a stone and the wind was gusting to 35mph.

Great! I hope it works out well.

I have been suffering far too much from the early pollen explosion -- a double whammy of elm and juniper/cedar -- so I'm staying indoors for now. As noted elsewhere I got in a 30 minute ride around my neighborhood last Monday to see if my sore ankle tendon was okay with the new flat pedals on my mountain bike. All went well except I don't remember how to ride without clipless pedals. No idea when my next bike ride will be...

[azfiddle]

Good news Pax!