horatio 

Started 1/1/15 with a token 1 mile ride. First real ride will have to wait for a weekend with reasonable weather. Then I'll do a local 15-20 miler.

rhm

Ah, well, I'm back from my ride, and (oh! man) was it brutal. Cold cold cold at 5 AM, though crisp and clear. Breakfast at a diner in Hampton Bays. Not long after that I was riding along and my rear wheel seized up. (!). I found the drive side cone out of adjustment; put that right and we rode on. Just before lunch, it happened again. This time, while I was futzing with the axle, TimmyT recognized that the free hub was lose and getting looser. That was a problem i had not even thought of before that point. But that most definitely was the problem. Anyone got a 10 mm Allen wrench? We didn't. But McGuyver to the rescue, we were on our way fifteen minutes later, problem fixed, but brutal headwinds. By the time we got home, we'd been out 11 hours 45 minutes. 105 miles. Uh, I think. Would someone please remind me why I do this?

irwin7638

Since it was around 20F with a 20-30mph wind today, I made a brave and glorious round trip to the grocery store 4 blocks away.

Marc

BluesDaddy

Hit up the local MTB trails on my Velo-Cheapo #1 to the tune of 3-ish miles. Temp was 23F starting out around 10:30 AM. Most of the snow is gone but there were some icy ruts that gave an "exciting" tram-line effect. My Shimano neoprene shoe covers bought for $1 in a bike shop close-out bin years ago kept my toes toasty.

Giacomo 1 

I would remind you of why you do this, if, I knew the answer!

Really tough day for a century. You have my eternal respect for taking on the challenge. Not only for riding it, but for wrenching in it to! Eeeesh!

RobbieTunes

Should have went to Wilson, 17 miles away....

Drove to Cary, unloaded, got ready, decided to skip the windbreaker. (mistake 1)
Got out the gloves, looked around, no one was wearing mittens, so I stuck with gloves (mistake 2)
I think I was the only one without shoe covers; left them home (mistake 3)

My partner and I lined up for the metric, his seat post was loose. We wait and roll off 10 minutes later.

After he decides the 31 would be a better shakedown cruise, I take off after the pack (mistake 4)

I'm fine at 16, I'm fine at 33, other than numb fingers, numb toes, and cold overall.
By 46.5, I'm a little shaky, but not in the legs. Vision is a bit blurry, so I pull over.
A cramping rider stops, and we agree to ride "normally" to the 48-mile mark, take inventory.
By this time, I'm on the small ring exclusively, which is never a good sign at this age.
By 48, limited to bars and sandwiches and water, I take stock: the next 14 miles will probably take over an hour. Not good to drag out a bad situation.
I pack it in, ass-kicked on day 1 of 2015. That's a good thing, something to think about in the next month.

I get home, and can't get Garmin to load on a Win 7 new laptop, Win 7 old laptop, Win XP machine. I go back to my last ride: Sept 14: 34.82 miles.
I deserved to feel bad, but 48 @ 16.7 is better than 31, is better than nothing; I'm sure I burned a few calories, and my company will match my fee to the diabetes folks.

I'm out of beer, so it's hot chocolate and early to bed. I'm getting older by the minute. Happy New Year. Nowhere to go but up.

pastorbobnlnh 

Joel,

Received your Map My Ride notification just before I left on my ride. Great motivation! Glad to see you made it out today. I need to meet you and bring my fat tired '85 Trek Antelope for a MTB ride. My nephew took me on my first MTB ride over Thanksgiving and it was a blast. I need a good guide.

Rudi, you and @TimmyT are beasts!

A century + out to the end of LI and back to your place is a real accomplishment which makes the rest of us look like rookies. Add on top of the distance, plus the wind, the mechanical issues, and I nominate you and TimmyT as the C&V Kings for the day! Bravo!

RiseAlways

Already did mine!,... my New Year's Day First Ride. Dang cold, but I layered up and got out,...did a 22 mile run, that ended up being quite full of hills! Still can't move,..and I got home at least 5 hrs ago!

pcb 

Rode a familiar almost-25mi flattish route through the Pascack Valley to the mighty Hudson River, in Piermont, NY. Blustery but sunny, stayed just around 32F from 2-4pm. The sun was already pretty low, so lotsa shade and long shadows. Bundled up pretty well, nothing froze and fell off, but my face did get a little rosy. Felt great on the way out, only realizing there had been a tailwind when I turned 'round into the headwind. T'weren't no century, but depending on the severity of Jan-Feb weather and my own lazy inclinations, there are years I don't make it to the river till March.

There's some ice and snow near the shore, in the shade, not nearly enough cold weather yet for ice on the river. I can remember, as a kid many decades ago, ice so thick from shore to shore that I used to wonder whether I could walk across.

Thankfully, unlike RobbieTunes, I am not out of beer...

Icy Creek


Icy Shore


Long Shadows


Rosy Cheeks

davester

I just did it! 3,700 foot ascent and descent of Mount Diablo. 26 miles RT. I could see the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the distance from the top. The descent was really cold...air temp just a little bit over freezing.

Doohickie

In the end, the wife lost. By 3 PM I was sitting in front of Facebook and BF looking at everyone's first ride of the year pics and decided I had to get my own in. The temp was almost up to 40, the ice in the trees had pretty much melted and the rain stopped. Roads were still wet but I was confident they weren't frozen, not even in patches. So I did a modest 10 miles. Although the rain had stopped, there was a lot of mist and moisture in the air and it was almost as if it was raining. I was chilled but exhilarated by the time I got home.

whatwolf

Good, quick ride today on some new-to-me trails. 13.5 mi and 1,350 feet of climbing on the SS MTB.

Lascauxcaveman 

I drove out to Bainbridge Island to meet none other than east coast C&V stalwart @noglider and his Mrs., visiting in-laws for the holidays.

Our original plan was to ride down to the ferry dock and take the boat over to Seattle and ride up to the Ballard Locks and back, but we got kind of a late start and delays dealing with mechanicals on Mrs Noglider's borrowed bike and I had to bail on the boat trip to make it back in time for New Year's Day dinner with my family, as promised.

Anyway, it was reasonably warm (40ish) most of the way, and I got a couple phone camera pix making my way back up island where I parked my car. Probably about 12 - 14 miles in the saddle, nice little jaunt up and down those country road hills.

Battle Point Park and water tower impressive new "field turf" soccer field off in the background & lots of little kids riding around on new Xmas bikes:


Gratuitous shot of one of B.I.'s scenic inlets; yes, it really is an island (and no, it doesn't actually tilt downhill to the right)


Agate Pass bridge, which connects B.I. to the mainland:


I took a very short respite on the drive home, Sandy Shore Lake, a place I've driven past a million times but never actually saw before today. There was just enough light left in the day to provide a nice reflective background for a classic old Grandis.


And I got home in time to prepare for my starving waifs a dinner consisting of a couple racks of lamb, wine roasted potatoes and a Caesar salad. Pretty good day, overall. God bless us, everyone.

pastorbobnlnh 

@rhm, thanks for starting this thread! It motivated me to go for a ride on the first day of 2015. Reading all the ride reports afterwards, was just as much fun.

So--- what are your C&V riding plans for 01-02-2015?

In my neck of the woods it is 30F (+8F from yesterday) with snow flurries wafting around. Perfect January riding weather!

rhm

I might possibly try to fix the axle that gave me so much trouble yesterday, but probably won't be riding much. I could, you know... just don't feel like it

sykerocker 

Best laid plans of mice and men, etc., etc., etc. Never did get the Raleigh Tourist out as planned. Spent the afternoon tearing down and fixing a coaster brake on a first generation Dahon folder I'd restored earlier this fall. Of course, once rebuilt, it had to be taken for a "short" test ride.

Which ended up as eight miles. Which, in my hilly, rural area, is definitely something the Dahon was not designed for. On the good side, I figure eight miles on that little bike is about the same amount of energy spent doing 12-15 miles on the Tourist. At least my racetrack bike is ready to go.

Giacomo 1 

Well, I did go out to the garage to look at my bikes, but none of them looked like they wanted to go out for a ride, so I cut them some slack and let them rest up for better weather...

TimmyT 

Thanks for the KOD nomination, PB. We certainly weren't going to get a KOM on Long Island.
@rhm's mechanical was one of the weirdest I've seen. I'm glad I was able to help because it was one of those problems where a second set of eyes is useful. The 10mm hollow bolt through the freehub unscrewed, seizing the bearings against the cone. This caused the axle to rotate the cone out against the lock nut, stripping the axle. He flipped the axle and rode the final 40 miles with no locknut against the cone, just the pressure of the skewer against a broken multitool that was acting as a spacer.

Really nice job, here, everyone. Those are some nice photos of New Year's rides.

Velocivixen

So I managed to pull my calf muscle big time......riding a bike! That was a few weeks ago. Went on a 9 mile easy ride a week ago and aggravated it some more. Needless to say, it's the 2nd already, and 26 degrees out and I have not ridden anywhere!

I may may just ride to say I did it, but it won't be anywhere near as exciting as some of your rides.

Happy New Year!

nlerner

I managed to noodle around with a couple of friends for a couple of hours yesterday. We had no real destination in mind, but ended up climbing lots of local hills to take in the views. It was an excellent start to the year.

greg3rd48 

I rode to work. 12 miles round trip.

jimmuller 

We took the tandem out for 32 miles today. Temps in the mid to upper 30's. Rode form home to Cambridge, picked up the Minuteman Bikeway out to Bedford with a small detour on part of my commute route. Took a roundabout way back into Lexington. The MM was empty.

Just outside Arlington Center where the MM continues westward after crossing Water St.,, remnants of the remains of the old RR track. More are on display in a little park in A.C itself. It looks like those rails haven't seen much traffic for quite a while.



A quick stop at the Lexington Visitors Center. It's all about perspective, isn't it?

northbend 

I met up with some friends and rode about 25 miles of easy single track and rail trails on new years day. Nice day..

Steve Whitlatch 

First ride of the New Year. It was not too cold but cold enough. This is at the trail along the Fox River in Carpentersville Il. A nice leisurely ride on vintage 1950`s French 531 steel. I had the trail to myself pretty much. I only passed 2 joggers.

Matariki

Sigh, my first ride in 2015 was a commute into my office. At least it was sunny on the way home.