Snow from yesterday is melting on the streets. Temp is in the High 20' to low 30's. I'll be leaving in a few minutes. Hope to get in around 20 miles.

That is a flat-out beauty.

Great job!

Did 11.3 miles this morning under sunny but fridgid conditions. 19* at the start of the ride and 21* when I pulled up the driveway. First ever ride in sub 20* temp manageble ride as long as you dress well with layers of clothing. Fingers were numb and frozen so I turned back home and grabbed an old pair of wool socks which I fashioned like a mitten over my full finger insulated gloves. Helped kept my fingers warm but it was my toes later that felt cold and frozen. I don't ride in this kind of weather and my usual start of cycling season is mid to late March. New experience to me and I am looking for more ride time despite the cold weather as long as there's no ice and snow on the pavement.

One hour on the rollers today. I was a bad boy and skipped the resistance and core exercises. A guy from my cycling team, is also a race car driver, and I stopped my workout to watch him during the first two hours of the Rolex 24 hr race on Speed TV. Watching car racing requires drinking beer and I didn't want to mix crunches, pullups and bicep curls together.

nice ride today
 

Did about 6 miles today on the Trek 7200. Wanted to do more but tight schedule held me back.

Weather was beautiful here in AZ today, sunny high 60's low 70's slight breeze. Just the nicest day out there. Hope to get in some more tomorrow.

In the twenties today but Sunny! Rode about 10 miles and it felt good. Much easier for me to get to breathing hard on a short, non-intense ride than on a longer 'ride' on the trainer.

56 miles on my Al Single. Felt every pebble on the road (compared to a steel tandem), but a great ride nonetheless. Temps in the mid or upper-50's.

17 miles, on rail-trails, thru city park, round about the town with the wife, not even 40F, filtered sunshine, although it did finally get sunny as we headed home and made the days supposed high temp of 42F from 3-4PM. Stopped at a little corner store for a piece of homemade choc. cake, YUM! 203 miles for the month of Jan. on the "frankenbrid", a LOT more miles/hours on the trainer, hope it start's going the other way soon! :notamused:

Belated Birthday Metric. Well, almost.

I had planned for a birthday Metric to celebrate #62 back on Jan 10th, with a nice open house birthday bash in the back yard. Unfortunately the Arctic Express made an unscheduled stop in So. Fla. for a few weeks, and well, everyone wimped out. Including me. When you are used to riding in 90 deg weather with 95+% humidity, 40 something is pretty uncomfortable.

So I been planning on a reschedule, but if you have been following the saga of my grandson, you know I've been a little distracted. Celebrating 62 yrs and riding a bike seems so frivilous when he is struggling to make it to 7.

Anyway, this week the prez of the bike club sent out a notice that we were invited to join the Boca Bike club for their Sat AM ride. I mapped out a route, and it was 14.2 mi to the Boca start point. The other wimps decided to drive, but I sucked it up, rose at 5 AM and rode at 6 to Boca. I arrived at 6:40, 2nd on the scene.

The Boca club is quite a bit bigger than our group, so they had 4 full ride classes. I opted for the 21-24 mph group. We did a spiffy 27 mi, and I only dropped when they sprinted the last 2 miles. The old ticker just got going a little too fast.

After a very pleasant breakfast at the local deli, I was facing a 15.4 mi ride home. The reason for the difference is that I hopped a ride to the deli with a girl from the club who drove.

THe ride home was the worst part of the entire ride. I was heading south most of the way, into the teeth of a 13 mph breeze. And being solo, it was all up to me.

None the less, I got home just fine, but I didn't set any speed records.

Belated Birthday Metric. Well, almost.

I had planned for a birthday Metric to celebrate #62 back on Jan 10th, with a nice open house birthday bash in the back yard. Unfortunately the Arctic Express made an unscheduled stop in So. Fla. for a few weeks, and well, everyone wimped out. Including me. When you are used to riding in 90 deg weather with 95+% humidity, 40 something is pretty uncomfortable.

So I been planning on a reschedule, but if you have been following the saga of my grandson, you know I've been a little distracted. Celebrating 62 yrs and riding a bike seems so frivilous when he is struggling to make it to 7.

Anyway, this week the prez of the bike club sent out a notice that we were invited to join the Boca Bike club for their Sat AM ride. I mapped out a route, and it was 14.2 mi to the Boca start point. The other wimps decided to drive, but I sucked it up, rose at 5 AM and rode at 6 to Boca. I arrived at 6:40, 2nd on the scene.

The Boca club is quite a bit bigger than our group, so they had 4 full ride classes. I opted for the 21-24 mph group. We did a spiffy 27 mi, and I only dropped when they sprinted the last 2 miles. The old ticker just got going a little too fast.

After a very pleasant breakfast at the local deli, I was facing a 15.4 mi ride home. The reason for the difference is that I hopped a ride to the deli with a girl from the club who drove.

THe ride home was the worst part of the entire ride. I was heading south most of the way, into the teeth of a 13 mph breeze. And being solo, it was all up to me.

None the less, I got home just fine, but I didn't set any speed records.

Between the rain and kitchen remodel project I almost missed out this weekend. Finally got out this afternoon for a short 15 miles. It was very windy so I stayed in a development trying to let the houses help block the wind.
On non biking note, I could have bought both of the nice bikes I rode last week for less than I spent on cabinets today.

I did another reconnaissance ride for the club's April Fools routes today. There was a part of the century route that I had never ridden and I needed to make sure it was OK. I mapped a 50 mile ride that took in the unexplored part and some more familiar territory. It was a beautiful day. Mid 40s at the noon start, only warming to 50, but light wind and bright and sunny. The manager of the LBS I use and his girlfriend joined me for the first 12.5 miles before they turned back. She had some stuff to do this afternoon and was unsure of being able to do a long ride since she has been mostly MTB riding lately. I should have known it was a setup. As soon as we hit the big hills, she took off and left me in the dust. I was "chicked" bigtime! :o

I pressed on after they turned back and found that the new section was smooth and scenic with little traffic. Just right for the ride route. I stopped for a snack at 21 miles in the tiny town of Toomsboro. It was once a happening place in the boom days of the kaolin industry, but those days are long gone and it is practically a ghost town now. The building I stopped at, the Swampland Opera House was once a popular country and gospel music hall. I played there a couple of times with my first band back in the mid 70s during a brief revival of the music hall. Sad to see the place so empty now.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2682/...1f6dfed67b.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/...9b1e8f3049.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/...b7da8c8461.jpghttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2736/...3f3e491e14.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4005/...a95781963a.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/...e5b15afc58.jpghttp://farm5.static.flickr.com/4051/...ff4be7d374.jpg

BUMMER no ride today
 

Another perfect day to ride here in AZ, but alas it was not to be!

Got waylaid by the hall bathroom toilet. Had a small leak that by the third flush of the morning turned into a out to be bigger leak. Ended up taking the better part of the day to pull the tank, gut it, and rebuild it. Man how I hate working on toilets. Water closets, toilets, loos, or whatever you call it have been around for how many years now? You'd think by now they could build a toilet that doesn't crap out (pardon the pun) every year.

I hate it when I miss a daily ride. Even 2 or 3 miles around the area right now is enough to make me happy as long as I get in some ride time. I find it a great way to burn off stress and have some quiet time for myself away from broken toilets and other daily pains in the butt, or from a stressful day at work.

Oh well, ride tomorrow when I get home. Looks to be a beautiful day again and should be a nice sunset.

Carl

Saturday: Cgallagh, bff and I rode the racing bikes 35+ miles, with plenty of pacelining and sprinting by those two.

Sunday: 55 miles with Cgallagh, bff, and various racers. I needed a recovery ride and the first 25 mi. were not such, so I was dropped. Chris waited for me so we could do the most brutal climb together. We left the group and did our own ride. I was happy with the mileage given how beat-up I felt. Like yesterday, today's weather was so perfect it was hard to complain about it. 65* in January? Yeah, I'll take it.

I keep trying to un-wuss myself and ride when it's cold. Today I'm going to try it, since the snow and ice are off the roads, it is supposed to be sunny like yesterday, and I don't have time to drive up and cross country ski, which is my real passion at the moment. We have the most snow since I moved here 10 years ago--we got some of that California storm 10 days ago. 4 feet of snow at my favorite xc ski area, 12 miles from my house. I went there yesterday and had a blast.

I took my first ride of the year along the Chicago Lakefront yesterday. I also rode my new-to-me 1987 Trek 400D Elance, this will become my commuter & wet roads bike as soon as I install fenders. Sunny weather with temps in the twenties made for great riding. Multiple layers kept me comfortable, but I felt like the Michelin man and the pace was slower than just a few months ago;

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/l...Jan2010016.jpg

Between the rain and the cold, I hadn't ridden since last Wednesday, so I didn't let 27 degrees and freezing fog stop me from riding to work this morning. It's supposed to be in the low 50's this afternoon for the return ride home.

It's February already, and a quick look at my journal tells me that January was colder than usual, and that I don't like riding in cold weather. I rode just 322 miles in January. That's the fewest miles I've ridden in a calendar month since April, 2008. I had a better excuse then; I was finishing up three rounds of chemo. Did I mention that I don't like riding in the cold?

Thanks! It rides nice, too. :)

Did 25.5 today with temps around 27* and 30*. Nice day and a little sunny but forecast for tonight is snow.

Snow on the MUT from a storm on Saturday forced me onto the road today. I only did about 12 miles, but it is better than nothing and I got a start on some February miles. 35F and light breeze, full sun... very pleasant riding. Wife took some pics before I left the house, but she said I was out of focus...(I've been out of focus for years).

Pete

I rode the entire two hour trainer class tonight that included several minutes of out of the saddle riding. I have some work to do to catch up to my riding buddies who are in the class but with two months of the classes left I will have time.

Perfect weather, the bike was rolling fast and then pfffffft! Something sliced the back tire and tube. Green slime went everywhere. Nice walk home.

I'm currently a "Recreational Rider", VERY slowly trying to work my way up to being a old, slow "Touring Rider", so when I say I did my "Training Ride", it's not like you guys that race or do the serious LD "timed" events. Still I have one ride that I don't dawdle around, it's up several hills and even the parts of rail-trail are up hill grades. That's the ride I did today, 17.8 miles in 1.5 hrs. and lot's of uphill. The windchill temp. was 32F, partly sunny with a 13mph steady wind. I can't afford the trick gps/bike computer combo's a lot of you have but I do ride in Colorado Springs, CO. which is at 6,000ft.+ a little more, so I'm happy with my ride today! :)

Two trainer days in a row.

I think I'm going to lose my mind.