NealH and I rode from town to the top of Waterrock Knob on the BRP this morning. 40 miles and 4000' of climbing in 2:57 ride time. We had a nice relaxing pace today. Beautiful day for a ride today. Perfect really.

Weekend totals were 103 miles and 8500' of climbing in 6:47 ride time.

30.6 miles under the sun. Had a late start with temp already in the low 80's and stopped riding with 88* after I almost consumed all my water and gatorade.

30+ miles from Hallwood to Chincoteague and back with my daughter on her birthday celebration ride. The weather was fantastic, the company priceless.

81% humidity 69 degrees and overcast when I left after the watching the Giro.It was looking like it could rain anytime. 47 miles later I am home. It was a good ride too, some hills and wind to keep me working.
It never rained and the sun did poke out from time to time.

First ride of the year in only a S/S jersey. Brilliant sun- nice temp and only a 5MPH tail/head wind. Only problem was that it was only 22 miles as I took out one of my neighbours for his first "Distance" ride. It was slow aswell.

42 miles as a recovery ride after 91 yesterday.
A bit of wind, but a nice route.

I did 8.5 miles. Sunny, Temp 90 degrees, Humidity 74%, wind 5-6 mph. My rear tire was going soft. I've had a slow leak since I got it back from the shop two weeks ago. My Ave speed was 9.1, total time was 1 hour. My Ave HR was 98. VO2 Max was 50. I'm wondering if statin drugs are sapping strenght from my leg muscles. I was getting a lot of leg cramps after taking statins but my Cartiologist told me to take COQ10 and that stopped the cramps. No traffic at all today (Sunday) so I didn't have to dodge trucks. The quietness was wonderful. It was hot though. It was all zone 1 today.

Had a busy day with stuff not related to bikes. Got home about 5PM, took off for a 9 mile jaunt around town. Nothing special, just some undirected exercise.

We had a great training ride today just north of the city.5 of us who are riding together in the RTCC in June.Attachment 152163

My plans to get an early start riding today to avoid the 90+ afternoon heat turned into a lazy morning around the house, eating breakfast, drinking coffee and watching the Sunday news shows, so I decided to make this ride a test of my heat tolerance. BRAG is coming up in two weeks and I can count on at least a few days of very hot riding. Leaving at 12:30 at 85 degrees for a 50 mile ride should give me a good indication of how well I can handle the heat. Last year I had a bad day on a long ride on a hot day and ended up cutting the week short.

I headed out from Coopers along familiar roads through Brown's Crossing and on to Haddock, where I made my first store stop at 17 miles. My first water bottle was empty so I stopped for a quart of Gatorade and finished eating the Clif bar I had started on the road. Then I headed toward Coopers via the recently resurfaced Bowen Hill Road.

A few miles later I was not too keen on riding the mile of busy highway to get to the road I had planned, so I decided to try the dirt road just across the highway which goes to the same place. The long chainstays, steel frame and 28mm tires on my Salsa Casseroll handled the well groomed dirt road, scattered with tiny gravel, with no problems. I thought the metal fenders might have made a lot of racket, but they were nearly silent. Slightly wider tires would have allowed me to have more confidence to ride a little faster. I'm thinking the new Salsa Vaya with 38mm tires would make for a great dirt road bomber. ;)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3374/...82812f9d_o.jpg

The next store stop was at 35 miles in Ivey where a quart of water filled my empty bottle and topped off the other. I sucked down a Hammer gel, reapplied sunscreen and headed home via Mt. Pleasant. I finished with 51 miles feeling tired but not exhausted. I kept a moderate pace of around 14 mph throughout the ride. No dropoff in the final few miles tells me my fueling, pacing and hydration must have been about right. The beer I had with supper tasted fantastic.:)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/...03ca37ea_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/...b2e6e10b_o.jpg

I was also testing my new Shimano SPD sandals today. They did seem to help keep my feet cool during the hot ride. They never felt flimsy as I pedaled, but I did have some very mild soreness developing near the end of the ride in my right foot. Loosening the toe strap a little seemed to relieve it, so it may not be as noticeable in the future. I think they will be good for BRAG, great for shorter rides and maybe not my choice for a century.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/...64d847a1_o.jpg

I guess I'll be ready for a week of fun and good riding on BRAG in two weeks. :D
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/34319187

Didn't your mother ever tell you not to ride with no hands?

Just got anther pic from the ride Friday up to see the race.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u...OC20100051.jpg

One of many things she told me that I should have listened to. :lol:

Sunday I got to go on the Monticello Solano Century, which is put on by redrider and cgallagh's club. It's a really beautiful ride ('sorry, I never think to take pictures anymore because the one's in my head are always better than any that I can ever capture via camera), and this time of year the temps are just about perfect, unlike last summer when there was a redrider ride that just about did me in, ahem. ;) I'm down for the Crater Lake Century later in summer before my kids go back to school so I wanted to be sure these guys are committed before plunking down the $$ for reg, etc. I had the younger son on the tandem with me and the older one rode his half bike, and we also went with a family friend who convinced us to do this ride with him. The route follows bits and pieces of the Davis Double, AToC, and Foxy's Fall Century for those in Northern Cal familiar with these rides and race. So everyone knows that the worst times for tandems are the climbs which is generally true, but the course yesterday was generally tandem friendly, 'tho we only saw ~3 other tandems out there. The climbs were bearable and not overly long and considering my stoker doesn't ride near as much as his brother, I have to attribute our climbing ability to youth as it never felt like the back end of the tandem was dead. The best part for us was the descent off Cardiac which is not that long maybe ~3 miles long I can't remember anymore, but with good sight lines we could let the bike run w/o braking for corners which is worth the price of any prior climbing to get to that point. The 13 mile run back to the finish down Pleasants Valley was another high spot. W/o other tandems to draft, we were pretty much riding our own pace, which as it turns out was just fast enough to be picking off singles along the way. On one of the turns in the road I took a look back and I could see about 5-6 singles riding our wheel, and I'd forgotten what it was like to be on a tandem going "fast."
The support and food on this ride is excellent, so kudos to the Monticello Cycling Club for putting on a fine ride.

30 miles and I changed a few things to get in two hills about 1/2 mile long at about 8%. I want to start doing more hills to get legs ready for the mountains at Skyline Dr in Va. if I go.

I rode twice. 30.7 miles in the morning, then 30.6 miles in the evening and mowed the lawn in between. Retirement is good. :thumb:

Nice, easy 24 mile ride with a couple of guys from work. One was riding for the first time in several weeks and we kept the pace slow. Crawled up some pretty good hills in super low gears. Seemed almost too easy. Nice for a change of pace.

Got out this morning for an easy 27 mile ride along the river valley with my daughter's gym coach. If she can work out her saddle issues (needs a new one that fits better) she is ready to step up the mileage. I see 40 relatively flat miles on the horizon soon. We're working on reaching 20 miles in the mountains too.

She is a good example of how to begin road biking correctly. Easy, and gradually increasing the distance, and learning the ins and outs of road cycling (and the bike). I've often thought the reason some people, especially wives of cyclists, taper off or even give it up is because they push or get pushed too hard and too quickly. It needs to be easy and sociable for a good number of months.

Wussed out and didn't ride to work today because of a slight chance of storms. No rain, of course.
So...........got out this evening and rode 13.5 miles at 18.4mph. Which is just about a 'New Track Record!' for me. (The Indy 500 is this week)

Got in 43 miles today. After a 4 mile warm up did 20.4 mph for 7 minutes, spun 2 min, sprint to 25.2 mph for a short distance, repeated 7 more times, each time was slower than the previous time. On the way back fought 15 to 20 mph headwind in the big ring. Good workout, felt good.

58 miles, flat with only 1250 ft of climbing, yesterday evening with two teammates. We all were doing an extended Z3 ride and took pulls based on keeping our HR up or down to match the purpose of the ride. It was our first hot day at 84 degrees which made for a little suffering. Our average for the complete ride was 20.5

After work when I left it was 93 degrees so I went out and did 36 miles. It wasn't too bad to be honest, I guess the two days rest helped. I could have had another bottle though as the one emptied pretty close to the end after I rationed as I was riding.
No Redheads spotted.

47 miles. Rode twice today. In the morning did 26 and in the evening 21. Average speed 14 on my own and 15 with the group.

Thursday after work - regular club MTB ride. 13 miles of mixed singletrack and doubletrack on a hot afternoon left me sweaty and tired and ready for some grub and a cold one.