DrPete 

I'd come to enjoy Mukluk's weekly "Sunday Ride" threads and was disappointed to be sippin' my coffee before my ride this morning with nowhere to tell about it, so here we are.

Today's our usual team ride, but it will be the first ride back on the road for friend/teammate Joel, who went down hard in a race last weekend. I'm glad he's made a quick recovery, and I'm glad I have an excuse to take it easy today after a hard ride yesterday.

Here in DC the sun is shining, there's not a cloud in the sky, and the forecast calls for 72 degrees.

Have a great ride, everyone!

Lecterman

It's raining here....you suck

Have fun, maybe it will clear up for me this afternoon

HDWound

I think I'll ride back to Home Depot again. 90 miles away. Nothing like shopping in spandex with a bunch of rednecks to get a few laughs. It's either ride my bike, or install the small porch the wife wants in the backyard. I think I'll ride my bike.

Yesterday I pulled up to the Garden Center, got off my bike, and told a worker (who saw me prop my bike up), I want 72 of those paving stones. He gave me a funny look and asked, You want those delivered? I said, Nah I live out of town, I'll just take them with me. He starts to laugh and says - you're kidding right? I smile and turn to point to the wife's SUV that just pulled into the parking lot and tell him I'm making her haul them home. We both laugh. I'm sure he thought - guy in spandex + shopping at home depot = nut. One plus, - having cycling shoes on gave me an excuse not to help load the paving stones.

Maybe today I'll pick up the sand that I forgot to get yesterday.

BillyD

Yes, definitely a good day for a ride. Should be in the mid-60s today, partly sunny, day off . . .
What's not to like?

daytonian

I have road race in 2 hours.

blonduathlongrl

good luck!!!,
please let us know how it went, didnt you also race last sunday? how did that go???
you need to start making racing threads!!

8Lives

Gotta share, even though it was a Saturday ride. Temp in the mid- 70's, 50 miles, 4,500 feet of climbing. And the best part was that in a 3 hour 7 minute ride I was stopped for a total of 17 seconds. Granted I caught a couple of the few lights on the route. But it always amazes me since I live in an urban area.

In fact, had I turned left at one point and added an out and back it could have been 70-75 miles with only 17 seconds stopped. Not bad for living in the middle of 8 million people.

Will G

Knocked out a very pleasant 40 miles. Temps in the middle 70s with a nice breeze out of the east. Crossed the Brazos River twice and enjoyed climbing a few hills along the way. Encounter one big ugly "redneck special" pit bull terrier looking dog that ran me down while I was motoring about 24mph. The dog must have hit some threshold such as lactate or heart rate as I started working up to mine to beat the pure pursuit curve being employed by the dog. The dog got within a few feet and started to drop off the pace at about 26mph. A big scary looking dog is a great motivator to do those intervals you hate to do.

ekimeno

No one turned up for today's group ride except for one of the slow guys from last week. Was tempted to tell him that it wasn't worth the effort today (then go for a solo ride), but didn't have the heart. Ended up riding 72km (44-miles) with him, just taking it as easy. When we split I still had 12km (8-miles) to go home and picked up a very fast rider for the last leg. Avg speed over the this distance was around 36-40kph - and that was through busy traffic! Despite the overall slowness of the day, at least I got a nice bit of pain towards the end.

I'm going to stop riding with my regular Sunday club group if low numbers and generally slow pace continues. I'm really losing out on proper training and can't afford it with less than 10 weeks before a big 120-mile event...I need to find a consistent group that offers a challenge.

velomedieval

A nice, quick 30-miler with Mike_Like_Bike today with a bit of hilly goodness. At one point, we were approaching a little climb, with a steep forested slope on the right and low, wide meadow to the left. Mike was in front and stopped suddenly when a deer came bounding out of the woody slope and ran across the road right in front of him to the meadow. Then another followed suit, then a third. They ran for a good quarter mile before they all stopped and stared at us. When we were sure there wasn't another deer who had been dropped off the back, we continued. Lots of wee little cows, lambs, and pigs out and an interesting selection of roadkill (and the requisite swarms of turkey vultures to keep the roads tidy). It was a good ride and I wish I had taken a camera. It's gorgeous here today-- sunny and in the upper seventies-- worthy of a much longer ride and more hills, but we both have other commitments today and had to cut it short.

DrPete 

Well, that's the last time Joel gets any sympathy from me... "Yeah, we'll just see how it goes today," he says.

There was a great turnout for the ride, with a good 20-30 team members and a good number of new riders from around town. Joel and I took a couple teammates on the easier, more social ride so he could take it easy if he needed to. Turns out he didn't.

After some easy riding out past the Mall and Georgetown, we got out on MacArthur Blvd, where the ride breaks off into a hardcore group and a more casual, learn-to-ride-in a paceline group. I was taking the pull at the front of the group, and see Joel attack up my left side. I guess we're going, I thought. We give chase and it quickly turns into a 25-30mph paceline until we turn up to the climb.

Now Joel is quite the breakaway artist and an excellent climber, but I was hoping that recent injury would keep him in check a bit. Wrong. We rode the steady climb up Goldsboro Rd with Joel leading and me sucking wheel and working hard to hang on, as per usual. I did manage to make him hurt a little bit on the short rollers at the top of the climb with some hard efforts, but we both knew who was hurting more at the top of that climb. The ride then turned in to Bethesda at our regrouping point, a great coffee shop in downtown. We grabbed some Espresso while we waited for everyone to come in and kept going. The remainder of the ride was mostly flat, with some good fast paceline work and a quick detour up Ross Drive, where Joel dropped me again to take the hill sprint. Good news is that we both put the hurt on the rest of the pack, which is an accomplishment for my non-climber self.

It was great to see that my teammate's form was pretty unaffected by the crash, because he's off to a great start this season. I think he needs one more top 5 finish and he'll be ready to cat up to 3. He's a real class act and a lot of fun to ride with.

Good friends, good weather, good riding--a perfect day on the bike.

The stats:

Time 2:16:55 Distance 39.8 miles
TSS 185.9, IF 0.909
Normalized Power 273, VI 1.48

cris2fur

https://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=901130

new max speed: 58.3 mph! scary...not going to do that again.

Lecterman

What kind of climbing Pete? You guys have some good hills down there?

mollusk

After a hard ride on Friday and a moderate ride yesterday I wanted an easy 50+ mile ride today. After cooking pancakes for the family and my riding partner we took off under blues skies with temperatures in the upper 60's F. There was a little bit of smoke in the air, probably being blown down from Georgia where they have been having wildfires.

The route that we were going on is pretty much the upper half of the Horse Farm Hundred ride that the local cycling club puts on every Fall. Heading out of town on Hawthorne Road (Divided four lane with a wide, paved shoulder) there was a guy on an MTB headed the wrong way right at us. Weird. When we made the turn to head toward Evinston we greeted two riders headed the other way. At Evinston we deviated from the Horse Farm route and took the road heading west to US 441. I hadn't been on that road in over 20 years and it is very picturesque. Next we headed left on US 441 down to Dungarvin Road and back on the Harse Farm route. Dungarvin is a local favorite with riders as it has the closest thing we have to hills. We saw another small group of riders headed the other way just about the time we passed under I-75.

Instead of making the turn toward Flemington as the century route goes we continued on to County Road 329 and turned north. We saw a group of four or five tandems headed the other way and a solo rider about a quarter mile behind them. As we approached Micaonpy we again saw the two riders that we had seen much earlier. A quick stop in Micaonpy to replenish the water bottles and we headed up CR 234 (Angle Road) toward the Hawthorne Trail.

On a glorious Sunday morning the Hawthorne Trail will not be conducive to fast riding with families out for rides, but that didn't matter today. In fact we had already ridden 45 miles without food and we were both starting to feel the low blood sugar effects. A super easy spin back into town was not a bad way to finish the ride.

Just after getting on the Trail a group of riders from a LBS that I occasionally ride with was going the other way. I think that I need to get back in contact with them and find out what their ride schedule is like this season.

DrPete 

Nothing that you New Englanders would be impressed with. The long climbs are pretty gradual, but the rollers are quite entertaining. Nothing big, though.

chipcom 

Went on our first 'night ride on the towpath' of the year last night. My LBS, Century Cycles, sponsors them every year, about once a month spring through fall, as a nice 'recreational' ride of about 15-30 miles on the Ohio & Erie Towpath. So I was on my SS, Cheri on her xcross, and her 16yr old Brian was on his Trek hybrid with platform pedals for his first ride of the year. Brian used to ride with me a lot a couple years ago, doing an MS150 and a century with me...but since then he seems to have discovered girls and hasn't been riding with me much, even after I bought him a brand new road bike.

The ride was nice...seemed to me that about 50+ people came out for the ride, some with their young kids. The pace is pretty easy for the most part, and we stop at key points along the way to let everyone catch up. We did about a 16mph pace going out the first 11 miles...considering there were still peds and such on the trail, and had settled into about the same pace coming back until Kevin, one of the guys from Century in Peninsula, blew past us on an EXTRACYCLE he had just built from a Diamondback MTB! As I watched his blinkie fade away ahead of us I just couldn't resist - I told Cheri I'd see her back at the shop and took off after him...for the last 7 miles or so is was hammertime (in Fred-on-a-MUP terms) - doing 18-21mph on the towpath, in the dark! I was impressed that he could keep up that pace on that xtracycle...them skinny little legs of his were a pumping away faster than mine...and I was doing about 90-100rpm in my only gear of 42/16. I caught his wheel about a mile from the end...then passed him on a slight incline with only a quarter mile to go...sprint time!!! Well, almost sprint time...at 70ish gear inches I could only get these old legs pumping so fast - he caught me and we finished side-by-side - I'D HAVE TRADED MY KINGDOM FOR A HIGHER GEAR! - pwnd by an Xtracycle.

Here's the kicker...I could tell that there was someone else on my wheel the entire time, I could see the headlight. I thought it was another BF member, Moose, who works out of Century's Medina store, who was riding with us on his fixie. To my surprise, it wasn't...it was Brian! Not bad for a kid who hasn't been on a bike in months, hammering a Trek hybird on platform pedals over 7 miles at 18-21mph. Turns out Moose was back riding in with Cheri...gonna have to watch that guy. It was nice to finally meet you Moose.

It's beautiful here today...soon as I put together this new rottotiller, I'm off for a ride on the road bike.

Lecterman

Well, I just moved here from Texas in November, so I am not yet used to the hills.

My 33 mile ride yesterday had 1600 ft of climbing, which is 3x the climbing I was used to on a similar ride in Texas.

I was surprised to average 18 mph, even though I am a clydesdale. I guess it can only get better.

blonduathlongrl

that sounds nice , never did one of those.
I took the day off and it's OK, it's pooring outside and Im tired.
I have a new riding partner, I picked someone who is way stronger then I so he could push me to get faster before my race next month.
I had to lead him the whole time yesterday for 35 miles and it was windy as heck! I just refused to go behind him, Im scared of getting used to drafting and as you know there is no drafting in my races.
so anyway, I feel beat today!!!but I think Im getting stronger

Mukluk

Hi gang, well I actually didn't drop the ball. I was just too on top of things!!! I drank too much wine last night- red wine though so that's good for one's health right? Anyway I must say I was a tad tipsy as it were. I went to bed and woke up at about 4 am and drank another bottle of wine... just kidding, had two diet canada dry sodas-guess I was a tad dehydrated. I then posted the "your sunday ride" thread but somehow I guess is just got lost. At least I think I did. At any rate glad that Dr. Pete saved the day!!!

blonduathlongrl

I was looking for your thread too this morning! you post it huh?

DrPete 

Glad I could help.

Are you sure you didn't "post" it to Microsoft word or something in your, um, state?

Mukluk

Uhm, I guess I only dreamt it because I can't find it on search. Oh no, makes me wonder what else I think I'm doing that I'm not...or doing that I think I'm not doing...I don't want to think about this much more. Better have some more wine.

gcl8a

We had the Nordøst Fyn Rundt today, which is one of those 'not a race, but everyone races anyway' deals, so I had a truly Fredelicious time pretending to be Lance Armstrong, or I guess it's Mikael Rasmussen over here. 110k of the finest Danish countryside, fields ablaze in yellow rapseed, lovely blue skies and sea, temperature around 17C, winds not too bad ('only' 10-15 mph). I hung with the fast guys up front, placed well in the meaningless sprint (I knew the last 10k better than the Danes), and drank really lousy Danish beer afterwards.

Livet er godt. (life is good)

aham23

weather has been off the charts great here in chicagoland this weekend. the wind is crazy in the afternoons, but if you got out early like i did you could avoid most of it. i headed out both days around 8am and put in 45 Saturday and 35 today. despite my late start to my season things are feeling good when on the bike.

Saturday Ride

Sunday Ride

later.

Terex

Great day in Central NJ on Saturday, not nearly as nice today. Saturday, seven of us rode from Hunterdon County across the river into Bucks County, PA. Never ending hills - 66 miles and 5,800 ft climbing. Needed to stay close to home today, so rode backyard hills, 26 mi, 2100 ft of climbing. Next weekend I hope to put two tough days back-to-back as the weather gets better and I (hopefully) start to get in a couple of rides mid-week in place of spinning. Plan to keep Pilates going 2-3 x per week. I think it's really starting to pay off on the long climbs. Our club does a little pacelining, but it's mostly about the climbs.