Great Lakes - Did you ride today?

TSURU, Thanks, It's easy when you have a wife who loves to ride and can ride almost as fast as her hubby. It all comes down to time, of course that means we have a few other things that don't get done when they should. Oh well!

21.39 miles, 18.4 avg speed . Not Great but my best so far.

4/10 ...... 30 miles ..nice ride with a buddy of mine out and into the parks....
4/11 27 mile commute to work and home....

I commute from my home to my office everyday.It is a happy journy for me.

4/13 - 35 miles
Rode to Romeoville and back. Rode on the Centennial Trail from 135th St. to I-355 overpass. Also rode on the I-355 path which stops before Bluff Rd. You really would have to walk up a steep hill to get to Bluff Rd. (135th St. torn up from IL-53 to the big bridge - road getting resurfaced soon.) Nice and beautiful the whole day.

4/13 50 miles, cold evening, temp must have dropped 10 degrees while we were out.

(135th St. torn up from IL-53 to the big bridge - road getting resurfaced soon.)

Yeah, I rode out that way (to Brookfield, 64 miles round trip) on Sunday.
I take Gaylord north, Renwick east, Weber north, Airport / Taylor east, then thru
the subdivision on the southwest corner of 135th & Rt. 53, to 135th and
on to the trail-head.

135th just completely sucks, you can't even use the sidewalk on the south side.
It does look like it's just simple re-surfacing, hopefully not a long project.

17 miles last evening, 20 miles this evening, mix of roads & the Greenway / Junction
MUP's.

Cheers,

Kelly

Oh... 40 yesterday! Should get 40 tomorrow and we'll see on Thursday before we drive up to Toronto on friday for the weekend.

I take Gaylord north, Renwick east, Weber north, Airport / Taylor east, then thru
the subdivision on the southwest corner of 135th & Rt. 53, to 135th and
on to the trail-head.

I usually take Essington north thru the mall area, cut thru mall, Essington north to the curve before Renwick, walk bike uphill and carry it over guardrail at Renwick, continue north on E. Frontage, Helen Dr. east, Budler north, Airport / Southcreek / Taylor east, Belmont north, Com Ed trail east, Spangler north, cut thru Romeo Centre Plaza, 135th east past 53 to trail.

I avoid Weber at all cost unless i'm going towards shopping area of west Bolingbrook or towards Whalon Lake preserve off Royce Rd. in which i'll use Budler Rd. up to it becomes SE Frontage Rd. then left onto Weber.

Brian

4-14.... Spin Shop Ride. Fast 40 miler out through the Metro Parks just past the covered bridge then back through Berea...... Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I went on my first group-ride of the year last night. My younger and stronger group-ride friends help me find new levels of cycling performance. I hit 168 bpm on my heart rate monitor last night. We were holding a 25 mph pace without any assistance from a slope or tailwind.

The ride started at 6:30pm and I got home at 8:30pm. Watching the sun set and enjoying the quiet of nightfall added to the pleasure of the ride.

I went on my first group-ride of the year last night. My younger and stronger group-ride friends help me find new levels of cycling performance.

Awesome!!! now stick with it and you will get stronger week after week and that ride will get easier and easier...

Rode 25mi yesterday and today which is a long ride for my form right now. Out in the country I ran across one of these guys right on the crown of the road, and he was ornery! Snap! Snap! He was just a little guy and not wanting him to see any harm, I took off my front wheel and flipped him back toward the pond he came from. Luckily he didn't snap at my tire when I did that! Heh heh. :)

http://www.perhapanauts.com/blog/uploaded_images/Snapping-Turtle---Mary-773278.JPG

40 yesterday, nothing today, by the time I pulled into home last night I was d-o-n-e. No real riding until we get back Toronto, so not til Tuesday.

Rode 25mi yesterday and today which is a long ride for my form right now. Out in the country I ran across one of these guys right on the crown of the road, and he was ornery! Snap! Snap! He was just a little guy and not wanting him to see any harm, I took off my front wheel and flipped him back toward the pond he came from. Luckily he didn't snap at my tire when I did that! Heh heh. :)

http://www.perhapanauts.com/blog/uploaded_images/Snapping-Turtle---Mary-773278.JPG
No doubt. Those snappers have long necks and can easily reach all the way back to their tails!

But good on you from rescuing it. I came across a big one last year (about 24" long) but didn't feel like risking my anatomy to drag it off the road. I've seen snappers that size bite through a broom handle like it was paper!

4/14 40 E-Z

4/15 60 very hard, very fast, very hilly miles ABC Thursday Fast ride, big group and lots of hard efforts. Great ride but boy am I tired

4/15- 54 miles. Avon to Rocky River then out Berea and back. Awesome day!!

4/17 42 miles and much to our surprise, not nearly as bad as we thought it would be based on the weather forcast and the cold and wind that was already here!

4/17 13 miles on a new (to me) bike. I am quite pleased.

Did not get a-lot of riding in this week, but I was able to knock off a metric century today.

John Wilke, are turtles like that a common sight on your rides?

What's the most unusual thing you've seen?

Cullen

Good 40 today... first time since Wednesday. Felt good. Stiff road-trip legs, but good.

31 miles with 6 really hard one mile efforts.

Found some much needed mojo this morning around mile 13 or so.... Good strong finish.

Did 65 from Canal Winchester through Hocking county and back around. Hilly, rainy, rough, fast, & amazing! Hit 50 mph! WHEE!

Did 65 from Canal Winchester through Hocking county and back around. Hilly, rainy, rough, fast, & amazing! Hit 50 mph! WHEE!

Okay.. 1) we wanted to record the ride on mapmyride for a better map to ride this again & 2) some of these hills seemed pretty steep so I had to do this. First, I mapped today's ride on mapmyride here --> http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/oh/canal%20winchester/546127214353428823 leaving out the 3.5 mile detour where we got mixed up at the end.

THEN (the fun geeky part), because mapmyride's gradient chart is not very detailed, I downloaded the raw data & built a chart in Excel, screencaptured it and uploaded it. Looks like we hit over 10% a few times! Nice! And you can see where we were able to hit 50mph, eh? ha! Check it out (full size recommended):

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/3506/canalwinchesterhockingh.jpg

If you are near Columbus/Canal Winchester, I really recommend the ride! So much fun & absolutely beautiful! The rainy weather made it feel like we were on some European mountain & country-side or something. Pretty wonderful.....

Cheers!

40 with a finally quiet bottom bracket!

Where you guys at? You riding?

40 with a finally quiet bottom bracket!

Where you guys at? You riding?

I have been riding quite a bit just not posting all that much. Looks like the weather is finally ready to moderate a bit.

Westlake Training Race tonight in the 38 mile, A race with the big boys. Nocondorfx was there also.

im so glad they patched those holes!

im so glad they patched those holes!

I'm so glad I went back to the middle of the group about 1/2 way through. For a little bit I thought I was heading OTB.

Did our team's Tuesday night group ride. Funny, we thought it would be great to have the older guy lead out. Well, he was feeling like Superman tonight and shredded many people's legs off, including mine. I was dead 10 miles in out of 30. After about 15 miles I couldn't do no more, so I had fun playing with my new Droid phone and My Tracks. That is a pretty bad ass app, and it matched damn near what my cycle computer said. All in all, it was a good ride, and cold!

Wednesday Night Spin ride...... Saw my max heart rate of the year tonight. 38.6 miles that rarely saw under 26mph. Tough tough ride for me.

Man.... it's BEAUTIFUL out today!

Man.... it's BEAUTIFUL out today!

Yup.... Just pumped up my tires and getting my kit on. Easy 2 hour ride this morning for me.

40 today, a bit of a headwind this afternoon coming from the west made for a slight struggle, good times, good rides!

28 easy easy miles for me. My legs were still beat from Wednesday night

13.5 miles..yes it was a short ride, but I got a couple hill repeats in on one of the two hills that I found. It is a short and steep hill...

50 wet & windy ones today! Nice route...

35 miles on the new bike today. Felt crappy at the end by my ridding has been put on hold the past couple weeks, oh well ill make it up this week, TOSRV on Saturday and Sunday :D

Have fun at TOSRV! I'll be in AZ. But, getting some miles before the trip. 50 on sat, 40 yesterday, and 20 veerrry windy miles today. The wind.... always the wind.

TOSRV- 226 miles this weekend. Did it solo but with a SAG.

Saturday morning, Starting from the state house:
Cold and overcast with a good but manageable headwind from the south-west. Started off waring leg-warmers, long-sleeve shirt under jersey, arm-warmers, skull cap and neck-warmers.

Saturday-From outside the city until Circileville:
Still cold and cloudy. Then the winds really picked up, steady 25-30 mph headwinds/crosswinds. I could literally heard the wind howling across the farm fields and loved the 10 sec. break from the wind when I passed a farmhouse. Everyone was struggling along until at 12-15 mph until the food stop at Circileville.

Saturday-Circileville food stop:
Cold; cold, cold. I didn't stay long, had to keep moving to stay warm.

Saturday- Circileville to Chillicothe:
The sun started to peek out a little bit and it got slightly warmer as I went along. Still had strong headwinds wiping across the farm fields. This portion is my least favorite part of the tour, its just to flat and boring. Hoped on with some groups and we all chugged into Chillicothe.

Saturday- Chillicothe food stop:
The sun was getting through the clouds fairly well when I rolled into the park. Nice music and food, rested a little then refilled on water and moved along.

Saturday- Chillicothe to Waverly
This year they had to detour because of the bridge, it added about 8 hilly miles to the route. However, in my opinion it was the best part of the tour. Flew through that 8 miles, really nice uphill battles and hit 40 regularly going downhill. Traveled with a group of 3 that i caught up with and had a great time. Took off my leg and arm warmers :) Got out of the hills a hit Waverly, its a meh town.

Saturday-Waverly food stop
Little state park with lake. Winds were better and it was warmer. Didn't stop for long.

Saturday-Waverly to Portsmouth
People were more spaced out at this point, I was only with a group for a 10 miles or so. Other than that it was a nice ride into Portsmouth. 113 miles at 6 hours 30 min. 16 ish average.

Sat. Night
Dinner at the Scioto Ribber, very good. I recommend it if your in Portsmouth.

Sleep at motel 8.....nice warm bed, felt bad for the campers.

Sunday Summery latter.

Haven't posted in quite some time...I guess no one else has either. Tuesday night was my first Westlake race of the year (working life sucks). Finished in the lead group of "B" riders. Six of us jumped about 7/8 laps in and pulled away. Attempted to lead out for my son at the finish but the tank was empty. He finished 3rd, I was 5th. Fast pace!!

Saturday's plan is a double-header, Buckeye Crit in the AM and Mid-Ohio in the afternoon.

Haven't posted in quite some time...I guess no one else has either. Tuesday night was my first Westlake race of the year (working life sucks). Finished in the lead group of "B" riders. Six of us jumped about 7/8 laps in and pulled away. Attempted to lead out for my son at the finish but the tank was empty. He finished 3rd, I was 5th. Fast pace!!

Saturday's plan is a double-header, Buckeye Crit in the AM and Mid-Ohio in the afternoon.

You rode strong Jeff. I wish I had a little more in the tank to close the gap and when the 4 man break blew by us on our own mini break. That lap and a half of my solo effort took it's tool. You have to be proud of your son.

Thanks Bill. It was a fast ride. Yes Jason is quite fast at 16 and these Tuesday rides help him learn the sport and get better. I think once he saw the old man in the break he put the hammer down to bridge across. Claims he hit 37mph with his Jr. gearing (52-14) to catch us.

The Buckeye Crit was a scramble at the cat 4 level. 46 riders on a very tight course. Finished 11th and averaged 24.9 mph. Should have placed better but some lady stepped out off the sidewalk (closed course) and nearly took out the whole leading group on the last turn. That could have been really ugly...hats off to everyone, it caused some creative manuevering.

The Mid-Ohio race was tough. Placed 2nd in the +50 group. My sprinting is improving slowly.

No exciting ride reports to post of late. Last week totaled 207 miles of mostly solo rides and a couple rides with a few friends........ It was a good cycling week.

My first ride report in a while...
I raced yesterday for a bit, got into the first major breakaway of the day and couldn't get back on after my pull, so I dropped back to the 150-strong peloton. Rode around for a few more laps. The rain started coming down in sheets and guys were pulling out left, right and center. One guy crashed while riding in a straight line.
I passed two of my roommates who I rode in with and they just shook their heads, so I pulled myself. The last 2km were on really, really slick brick cobbles and that was too dangerous for me.

Today I wanted to race in the same venue again, but it was raining in the morning, so I headed out in the 10* and overcast weather for some 10 mintervals in leg warmers, a light jacket and a gillet. After a few hours and a couple of crippling climbs with 6-10% avg. gradients, the weather was sunny and 18*.... Just my luck....

Here are a few of the climbs I did. It doesn't show the max % for the Varentberg, but the sign ahead of the climb says 16%, and the Muziekbos is definetely steeper. The Muziekbos is definetely my "favorite" for intervals.

Muziekbos (http://www.climbbybike.com/nl/beklimming.asp?col=Fortuinberg&qryMountainID=663)
Kluisberg (Mont de l'Enclus) (http://www.climbbybike.com/nl/beklimming.asp?Col=Kluisberg&qryMountainID=712)
Varentberg (http://www.climbbybike.com/nl/beklimming.asp?Col=Varentberg%20&qryMountainID=1136)

Had Erie county to myself except for my neighbor and some guy in a polka-dot jersey.
Excellent cycling weekend.

26 commuting miles yesterday
30 miles with the wifey on the tandem this mornin

31 on 6/2 and 37 in the "hills" with the juniors today. It's been a good couple of weeks for riding. Thinking about Danville RR Saturday.