dgasmd

Well, go out the door this morning by 7 AM for a long ride. Never mind I was supposed to be out the door by 6AM, but OK. Planned for a 110 mile ride, but I was not very hopeful to finish it since the weather was supposed to be very very hot today. Indeed it was. By 9 AM, it was already in the high 80's and by 11 AM it was in the mid 90's. I kept up with the drinking and eating well for a change, but I was amazed at how much more I seemed to require to drink. Not only that, but I kept getting my head and neck sprayed with water to help me cool down. Well, that only worked for so long until it got really hot. By mile 75, I knew I was not going to make it back home in one piece, so I decided to call my team car and have them pick me up at a gas station that was at mile 85. Interestingly, my legs felt pretty darn good. I was not exhausted, but I sure as heck was going into heat stroke. I could not get myself cool enough regardless of the amount of water I kept pouring on me. I stopped a couple of times and even hosed myself down, which helped very much for just about 45 sec.

Despite everything, I did enjoy the ride. At least the first 75 miles. Gorgeous day, but one certainly to be enjoyed better by the pool or in the boat, which is where I am headed now.

How was your sunday ride?

Impoliticus

Mine was pretty good. Only 22 miles, but it's crazy hot here in Phoenix. Can't wait for the winter.

MandyMax

I just joined a cycling club and did my first club ride this morning. 31 miles. I've only ridden alone, so I couldn't belive how fast we could go with the draft. A cool experience.

McTufferton

My ride was great... 55 miles. A perfect mix of flat and huge climbs (midwest "huge climbs" mind you). 80 degrees and sunny. No humidity, no wind. PERFECT day to ride.

The weather in St. Louis this summer has been amazing. 85 degree high temps in August is unheard-of.

kensuf

5 hours with 2.5 hours of pretty solid intensity. I blew myself up spectacularly in the last two miles trying to detach the remainder of the people on the ride.

RazorWind

Easy 35 miles with a screaming 13.5mph average. I really did try to go faster, but the route was new to me, and as it turns out, there's a stop sign every 1000 feet inside the city, or worse, a stop light that makes no indication as to whether or not it detects you, so you spend 5 minutes standing there waiting for it to turn before getting impatient and waddling over and using the pedestrian crossing button.

Reynolds 

122km, LSD.

sojourn

42 miles.....great weather conditions but took it easy......caught a head cold two days ago and just played it safe and put in base miles.......

HWS

Repeated yesterdays metric.

Flak

Raced an olympic distance tri after a century yesterday....owe!

Then rode the course again after the race. So, 2x25 i suppose....the first one being hard, second one easy.

bostongarden

A delightful moderately paced solo ride of 30 miles in KC...just hanging out after 2 hard days on Friday and Saturday.

joshandlauri

13 slow miles with the wife.

Flak

I can't wait to get mine to do this!

rbart4506

A nice 50km recovery ride with my wife into Burlington....

Argh! tomorrow is the first day back to work after 2 weeks of vacation...

joshandlauri

I got the wife to ride about everyday the last 3 weeks, she's even looking at road bikes and wants to do the tt hill climb I just did next year, its great.

CaboWabo

Went for a solo 35 mile ride. Had a whopping 140ft of elevation change, no wind, and managed a 18.3mph avg. Only my third 30+ mile ride...ever, lol. Some how last week in a group ride I only managed 17.5, but today I killed that. I focused on conserving energy early and taking time to warm up, then got into a nice pace. I felt like I could run the pace all day, but anything more and I would have been over doing it.

Only downfall was in the last 4-5 miles. A guy on a time trials bike turned on to the road half a mile ahead and I broke that good pace I had set for myself. Went down hill and then back up, felt great, started setting a 21mph pace, caught him and passed on the next downhill and that's where I messed up. I actually used more energy than I thought on the flats and actually going downhill. By the time it started going back up again my legs were saying "Nope"...only managed 10mph up the hill and even when I hit the flats 15-16 mph was difficult. I managed to get back into the 16-17 mph range and 19 every now and then, but my legs were basically done.

Had I kept MY pace I might have finished strong and had energy for a sprint at the end. Being a newb I have a lot to learn, especially since I would like to race and today taught me a good lesson, lol.

mollusk

Went out with my usual Sunday group for 57 miles. I haven't been doing enough FTP related training lately so today I took a lot of long and hard pulls at the front. I tried one sprint, but my legs were toasted.

After lunch my youngest and I rode to his school and back, about 5 miles. School starts tomorrow and we wanted to make sure that everything is OK on the route. He is looking forward to getting to ride home alone this year (7th grade).

dgasmd

My oldest starts first grade tomorrow too. He has been telling me for months already that he wants to ride his bike to school, which is 8 miles from the house on a very busy street. Of course, he is out of his mind thinking he, who doesn't even play alone outside the house yet in a gated community, is going to ride anywhere alone

I've been telling him that maybe when he can ride 8 miles we may ride there together and back one day. He is already able to do 6 miles, so god knows he is probably going to be wanting me to bike there with him by wed!!

roadiejorge 

I've been feeling pretty spend the last few days so today I had to make a concerted effort to go for a ride, but the gorgeous morning was enough to get me out. My legs just weren't into it so I only managed 31 out of the 50 miles I had originally planned to do.

D.J.M.

40-50 km total... didn't ride with a charged up Garmin today.

Most of it on completely new road surface in the middle of nowhere. We passed through a firing range I spent a bit of time in during my year in the air force.
The road leads to a brand new water treatment facility out in the middle of beautiful mountains and hills. Fortunately a long stretch is also blocked for cars.. not that too many drive up to the gate anyway.

Clear skies and very comfortable temperature.

Pretty hilly ride, and to spice things up me and a mate sprinted up a few of the climbs. Pretty good fun imo, but it was poor for the restitution we had planned.

Here's a picture of the area from when we had some fun at the firing range. No firing today though!


(not my insignia!)




And here's a couple iPhone snapshots from today




Smooth surface!

TeddyKGB

My ride was great. A 19 mile ride in 102 degree weather. It was really hot but I made my best time and I'm happy about that. I actually had a unique experience today on my ride. I was finishing a long climb and a guy was turning out of his apartment complex and he saw me riding. He rolled down his window and told me to keep up the good work. Not only that, but he drove around me and went in front of me and drove slowly so I could draft him up the remainder of the hill (it is not a busy road and I only had .5 mile left...). Still, it was an incredibly cool thing to do. Too bad all people can't be like that.

mollusk

Both of my boys are regular bike commuters to school and have been since kindergarten on training wheels. It helps a lot that there is a "rail trail" bike path that starts close to our house that takes them all the way to their school. And it is only about a 2.5 mile ride each way and it's on my way to work. Couple that with after school programs and it has worked out well for all of us. The only bad thing is that they won't ride in the rain. That has led to some sprints home at the end of the day to get a vehicle to double back and pick them up.

Teaching your kids early on that bikes are a viable option for getting yourself around is a very good thing. We make it a point in our house that getting new bikes is never a present, but instead it is just a part of life. You get them when you need them, like new shoes.

Added in edit:

Congrats on having a child really interested in cycling. Tell me what it is like.

Hunt-man

A 50 mile loop from Portland to Vancouver and back. It was relatively easy and only a few minor hills. Nice break for my sore knee. I've been running getting ready for cross season. I don't know if the running tweaked my knee or the insane amount of hills I did earlier in the week....

green814

Rode in the Assenmacher 100, though my distance was only 38 miles total. I just don't have a ton of time for riding, so this was enough for me. Average was a little slower as there was 9 of us total. GREAT WEATHER.

This was the first long ride on the Giant TCR I got from Patrick07 also! Loving it!

Chris

audioslavery

Climbed all the way up to the peak of Glendora Mountain Road during my first month of cycling. (1200-3400 ft)
Im super duper sore but so damn stoked that I made it to the top in a reasonable time.
Thats definitely a gem ride in SoCal
26 Miles in all, 13 climbing 13 coming home.
I was in the granny gear but damn I'm still out of it
Cycling rocks!