Did You Ride Today?



Consecutive day 60 of riding:

24 miles in beautiful 85 degree warmth! The sun was shining and the wind was 10 to 15 MPH, so a little stiff when the gusts hit.

Only 820' worth of climbing and the pace was a moderate 16.3 MPH avg. Another fun ride.

How many days straight are you planning on doing?

Do you have a rain bike? Fenders?

60 days is pretty amazing.
 
"Weatherby,
"How many days straight are you planning on doing?"

Until it rains. The current drought has been great for my conditioning, saved hours on my mowing equipment and driven the price of my hay up! As I said earlier, I've hit 44 days twice before and 76 days once previously in the 45 years I've been on the road.

"Do you have a rain bike? Fenders?"

My track bike is my rain and snow bike, but I hate subjecting any precision mechanical device to such abuse. Even a simple one with a fixed single gear, no brakes and those antiquated toe clips and straps. Seriously, I've been in light rain several times this Spring and Summer and I don't mind riding through snow flurries. As long as the roads are 'close' to dry...I'm riding. Throughout the last 60 days, I've dodged many a storm and only got really wet a couple times.

Now that's voluntary training. I refuse to race in the rain anymore. At my age, recovering from the stupidity takes too long. If I were touring, rain would just be a part of the deal. And no, I haven't had a bike with fenders since touring Europe on my Holdsworth back in 1975.

"60 days is pretty amazing."

Thanks! I don't think I've done anything all that special. After reading about 'Tarzan' setting the Annual High Mileage Record (something like 130 miles per day, every day, for a year!!!!!) my little accomplishments are just for fun and the joy of getting out and riding. You randyknees types and long distance touring types get my applause. My short jaunts and little hundred milers are the stuff any rookie can knock out. Being free enough and dedicated to the sport enough to do those long journeys takes life planning and more than just a little resolve.

Maybe the one thing that makes it a little special to me is that I've done it Ohio...land of poor roads, poor drivers, poor weather and **** poor liberal assholes everywhere. If I were free to roam the country like Tarzan in search of the perfect roads and traffic and weather...well, there's still no way I would threaten his mark!

I just got back to the office from an offsite meeting with a customer. I was looking out his delivery dock and a long haul trucker parked his box trailer semi on the lot and unstrapped a mountain bike from behind the sleeper and...took off riding! Good for him!
 
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I think Tarzan did 230 miles per day for a year.

I did a leisurely 35 miler while the off road rig was getting work done on it. Need to rest up....thinking of a big ride soon.
 
Consectutive day 61 here in the land of the Amish:

Yeah...he sure might have! The guy is an animal! And I need a long ride, too. My only window for that is the weekend and the last two have not been very cooperative.

Only 22 miles with 625' of climbing this afternoon. It was very humid and 89 degrees with the sun shining. Perfect! Let's ride! 17.3 MPH average with a little effort, but nothing killer. No major climbs at all.

I hammered it a little here and there and slowed down to talk to an Amish gal cruising along on her push / scooter bike in her flip flops. The push bike was a hot pink...I **** you not. And the tires held air...they were low by more than a couple pounds, but only flat on the bottoms.

Our sects of Amish are more 'modern, but must have to ride the scooter style bikes. The old order Schwartzentruber sect West of here can ride modern touring and racing bikes. Go figure.
 
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15.7 yesterday..Mornings are getting colder, days are getting shorter..Better dust off the rollers and get more miles out of my weekends. Not much distance, but spent the time doing cornering drills. I'm actually decent when I focus, although one technical descend was taken waaay to wide. I make sure to practice those ones on completely dead roads.
 
Industrial parks (after hours) and cemeteries make great places to practice cornering.

I used to do a weekly crit in the western part of the state in an old industrial park. Here's an old name for you Tyler Hamilton he was one of the young guns that would show up back in the day.

No ride yesterday ! I was to tired from no real sleep, and the back ripping me all day just adds to being tired.

Today the back has eased up enough to get my leg over the top tube, so the TT bike was my play partner. I did my other 15 mile TT route, the one that takes me by the center of town. This means more traffic and a few areas where I'll have to slow down. 86 degrees 6-8 wind mild humidity resulted in 20.73 mph.

Backs not as bad after this ride, so hopefully I'm on the downside, and the extra pain goes away. Looks like a nice weekend for riding, and Sunday the new bike shop has a used bike sale. I picked up my mountain bike last year at the old shops sale so I'll check out what they have.
 
Here's an old name for you Tyler Hamilton he was one of the young guns that would show up back in the day.

Are you it wasn't his chimera? (old doping joke). I hope your back relaxes. Sometimes mine challenges me just to get dressed and load the bike up, but once I'm riding it seems to straighten itself out a bit...at least until I have to get off and walk again.
 
Consecutive riding day number 62 living here in a Poultry Paradise.

Just a 21-mile light spin to shake the legs awake. It was 88 degrees when I took off in bright sunshine with the breeze a nice, steady 5 MPH out of the South. Only 730' of climbing only one really short burst of speed before settling back into cruise mode.

I did climb one moderately tough little hill this afternoon. It starts out easy enough with a steady 3% to 5% ramp the drags on for just under a half mile. Then the fun starts as it progresses to 8% to 10%.

I was spinning up the ramp, but had to slow down for two loose, friendly dogs that ran out into the road to play with me. I changed down from the 39x19 and went into a 39x23 grind as it steepened up. Just as I swung around a blind turn with a steep bank to my right...two hens and a rooster that were in the ditch eating bugs decided to see which of us was the faster at sprinting up the hill.

Hen No. 1 freaked out and ran in front of me and off the left side of the road into the weeds.

Hen No. 2 went sprinting up the ditch and berm on the right side of the road...dropping me faster than Andy Schleck can drop a chain.

The rooster was totally freaking and making weird rooster noises as he ran full tilt boogie up the road and into the nearest driveway...which set two mutts to barking up a storm as the rooster peeled out across the farm house yard.

During this mad poultry hill climb that shattered the pack (translation: even the broiler hens dropped Campy) I managed to slip the rear onto the 25 as the percentage went above 12% and the real work got under way for the next 3/8 of a mile.

Only 174 BPM over the top so no where near a hard effort...just keep it under control. Tomorrow will be a 93 degree day and a long one at that.

Wasn't it Roseanne Rosannadanna that said, "Just goes to show ya...If it ain't one thing...it's another!"? One afternoon it's Amish girls on hot pink bikes and the next it's an uphill drag race with some chickens.
 
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Industrial parks (after hours) and cemeteries make great places to practice cornering.

And if I crash hard in a cemetery, an easier burial,lol...

14.6 miles/17.5/700 ft. Way to much glare, not enough miles. Think i'll go for a metric tomorrow.
 
65.8 miles/15.9 mph/3850 ft of climbing. I felt sore to sit the first few miles,but no way was I adjusting my plans for that. It dissipated after 5 or so miles. Most of the climbing was concentrated in the middle and very steady. Like 18 miles of steady climbs and mixed terrain during the rest of it. One thing that was great about this ride is, I rode through every type of road condition and it was a real confidence booster after what happened 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Those long climbs made the descends feel like a godsend. I was actually descending with decent skill today. I also noticed something about my technique. I'm a lefty and seem to corner and descend with much greater precision when i'm making a left hand turn.Is it common to be much more skilled when maneuvering from your dominant side?Took about 9 minutes out of the saddle to stretch and eat some eggplant/pepper/onion wraps I made. It may have worked to my benefit, but I couldn't do any hard sprinting today. If I'm in a big gear, in the drops and out of the saddle, the spokes make a very loud ping noise. Have to bring it back to the shop to have the tension adjusted. They'll do it for free since I just had it tuned and trued from them last week.

Most enjoyable ride of the summer.
 
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Nice job, U! I knew you would crush it! I hope the wounds are healing up and the soreness goes away!


Day 63 of consecutive riding!

It was 'almost' a Century. 92 miles and got up to 93 degrees by 1 PM after a cool 63 degree morning start. Perfect! Let's ride!

It clocked a reasonable 3,800' of climbing so mostly just a rolling ride with a couple stiff climbs.

I took one **** stop around the 10-mile mark and a quick stop to call the wife around mile 45. Other than that I just kept the new Campagnolo crankset spinning that bright, shiny chain. I was all over the cassette. Low gears for some of it, spinning mostly medium ratios on the flats and every now and again opening up the throttle. Max. heartrate was 180 on a couple of the steeper hills so a decent workout...especially factoring in the sunshine and heat of the last two hours.

I finished it up feeling great and like U said...maybe the most enjoyable ride of the Summer. Because it's the one that was ridden today!
 
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Kept it real simple today and was out pretty early. The temp was a cool 78 degrees with almost no wind 2-3 mph. Due to the back still not playing nice I decided to roll out 34.93 miles. Couldn't stand on any climbs so it was spin, spin, spin which isn't my favorite. I see a climb and I'd rather power over it and attack it. Finished off the ride at 17.4 mph and just become a lump the rest of the day. Will work at stretching the back out throughout the evening and get out on the road tomorrow.
Stay safe out their everyone !
 
6th day of riding this week. I took off Wednesday and did upper body workout. Nothing epic , just staying in the game.
 
6th day of riding this week. I took off Wednesday and did upper body workout. Nothing epic , just staying in the game.

You're not just in the game. You're leading 99.5% of all other Americans. Kudos to you!
 
Day 64 of consecutive riding:

53 miles in 93-94 degree hotness. The sky is sunny and the wind a light 3 to 5 MPH. Perfect! Let's ride!

Right around 2400' of climbing.

Hey, Weatherby! I found 14 rounds of perfectly good Wolf Polymer Coated Case 5.56 x 45 NATO / .223 Remington 55-grain FMJ still in the 20-round box. It was 6" off the asphalt on the berm. I shall make good use of it.

The socialists want to get guns off the streets? **** that ****! They can't even keep 'high caliber!!!' 'military grade!!!' boolits capable of killing a busload of nuns and babies off the side of our county chip & seal roads. Why...what would have happened if a third grader had found those eeevil weapons of massive destruction? Those boolits could have decided to go off all by themselves and kill that kid!!! Or worse!!!
 
You're not just in the game. You're leading 99.5% of all other Americans. Kudos to you!

I will take that as a compliment. It was a hot ride today but I was kicking 26 mph the last few miles. That is good for an old guy. My Swiss friend once told me I was about average for a Swiss cyclist. I took that as a compliment also.
 
Used the rollers for 30 minutes, don't really trust the accuracy of speed sensors, but the mph seemed relatively accurate. Said 18.7mph/9.5 miles/30min 30 sec.
 
A sad ride. I went home. Did my shortest little loop that I did as a kid. Surprised it was 30 miles. Dad is dying. I guess I used to ride some hellacious distances....no cycle computers back then. I had planned on the medium loop up into NH and down into Ipswich and back. I'm slower. The distances are further than I remember. Bitter sweet to be home. The bike helped