Machka 

When Sydney, my oldest female cat, passed away in 2003, I rode a century (100 miles) in her memory. When Sabre, my diabetic male cat, passed away 3 months ago I wanted to do the same thing. It took a while, but I have finally done it, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking of him as I rode.

It rained overnight and I was a bit concerned that it would continue to rain this morning, but the sky was clearing as we set off. My father and I met Willi and Dan at Tim Hortons and we all set off together. Willi and Dan were doing my 300K brevet route, I was aiming for a century, and my father was out for a shorter ride. Willi and Dan sped off shortly after the start - they were on the clock and needed to make their controls in time. My father and I rode more or less together to Sylvan Lake when my father headed for home.

I continued on, and despite the fact that I took a shortcut, I arrived at the Eckville control only about 5 minutes before Willi and Dan got there. Last week there was no wind to speak of. This week there was wind ... and it was slowing me down!

Willi and I rode together for a few minutes after the Eckville control, and then he caught up to Dan and they disappeared in the distance. I hope they did all right on the rest of the 300K.

Meanwhile I was slogging up the hills toward Leslieville ... but I knew that when I reached the top of the last hill, the view is definitely worth it! You can see the whole valley spread out around, with the mountains in the distance. It's beautiful ... the pictures don't really do it justice.

A short time later I was in Leslieville. I like the Leslieville store ... it's more than just a small-town grocery store or convenience store. They've got some good stuff in there! I had an orange pop and a delicious, and fairly large butter tart square. Mmmmmm!

I had been watching the clouds, and keeping my eye on two storm cells forming between me and home. Shortly after I got back onto Hwy 11, heading for home, the most distant storm cell sent out a billowy white arm toward me. It started to rain as I rolled into the parking lot of a school, and just as I got under shelter it started to hail. I waited for the hail to pass, and then set off, but the closer storm got me and soaked me. It was like they were hunting me down!! They grouped together and grew into a large thunderhead that followed me back to Red Deer.

I got into Red Deer with 17 km to go. Unfortunately the wind really kicked up because of the incoming storm, so I spent the last hour or so trying to make up 17 km by riding back and forth, and round and round ... often being blown about by the wind, and trying to dodge the rain.

I was exhausted when I got in. This is the first century I've done since November, and the longest ride by far since November. I've gotten out of practice!!

The pictures of this ride are the last 9 in this set:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/1430288...7617519339243/


How was your Saturday ride? Are you planning a ride for Mother's Day?

dsotm

66 miles today with 3.7k climbing. Started out cloudy, but turned into a perfect bluebird day. May ride tomorrow, but probably a shorter ride.

Lucky07

Riding with the kids while the wife spends the Mother's Day weekend Puerto Rico with her gal pals.

tntyz

Lousy weather on Saturday. Today will be spent pampering my wife who deserves it greatly.

rollin

^^

Great weather today, spent the day pampering my wife who also deserves it greatly.

(She's only been a mother for 3 weeks )

mike868y

Rode to and from work saturday, total of about 52 miles. Was supposed to do a group ride today, but I slept in my contacts last night and was in no condition to drive, as my eyes are killing me. So I'm chilling out and watching the giro. I plan on washing my bike a little later and maybe putting in a few easy miles.

Hammertoe

Saturday - 4 x 10 min threshold hillclimb intervals with a 20 min low cadence muscular endurance finish...

Sunday - 6:30 AM start for a one hour ride with a 30 minute upper Tempo effort...




8:00 AM breakfast in bed for the wife...




8:30 paged to work, all plans ruined and now I will have a ****ty rest of the day...

hammy56

Off the front with the A group...26-30 m/h for a while...shelled after a little stomach cramp. Back to the B group which was better than expected. 25-27 m/h for a while with a 36 mph sprint at the end. 55 miles total I think. Beer is good.

enjoi07

saturday- mount soledad repeats- set a PR of 16min up the 3.5 mile climb. took me 24min the first time!

sunday-tbd

Black Shuck

Friday I did a 70km recovery ride after my first club ride on Thursday. Today I did 162km, just under 6 hours. Hellish headwind part of the wan, and I'm fat and slow either way. Pics here if anyone cares to see, tourist is Belgian on his way to Nordkap. (edit Sent mom a SMS about halfway :-) (edit 2, it's Sunday here already)

mushwars

I would be out on a ride right now, but I only have a schrader pump

Jakedatc

Sat: 46mi with decent cloudy weather.

Sun: watched Giro.. gusts to 45mph so no riding

Kleh

Yesterday I spent on homework, to and from the bathroom, and playing with my daughter.

Today I'll spend a few hours at work.



I sprained my ankle last week . Just as the weather is getting really nice in Washington too!

cuda2k

60 miles on Saturday, avg speed was somewhere around 17mph. We had a few extended rough patches of road that ate into our average and then I did a couple of slow laps around the parking lot when we got back to finally tick over the 60mi mark (arrived with 59.5mi), so my computer showed 16.8 when I stopped at my truck finally. I really wasn't planning to do 60mi when we left, the ride I was on typically does 48-52 miles, especially this time of year. However the regular ride leader was out, and the back up had to lead another ride because their leader was MIA. So that left is with to "co-leaders", one of whom often leads a "long" version of our ride for 60-70 miles. The whole ride the route was being decided by committee pretty much, and thus the extra miles were decided upon "on the fly". Probably my longest ride of the year, probably the longest since mid fall last year actually. Felt good at the end of the ride, but the miles caught up with me by the afternoon. Didn't take care of my post-ride nutrition needs as well as I should have for such a long ride.

RideCO

Long weekend for me, 4 days instead of 3 and real nice weather.

Friday was 2x20s.

Saturday was 52 miles with 4800ft

Today was odd, I planned a flat recovery ride, but mid-day I found myself in the mountains and decided to try about 90 mins of recovery effort, being I had my bike and gear with me. Did 20 miles with 1800ft of "climbing". Managed to stay in recovery zone even up the 12% section. Super-easy day in the mountains.

Usually I feel really good the day after a recovery ride so I am looking forward to 70 miles or so tomorrow.

mrardo

Around 90 miles both Saturday and Sunday not real windy like it has been every weekend lately. In the mid 90's, I had 2 bottles and a camelpac and ran out of water both days.

mascher

I did my longest ride of the year so far, ~60 miles from South Philly to West Chester and back. I'm learning that resting, pacing and eating thing to prevent hitting the wall and turning into a slow imbecile.

One quick little stop was some dried fruit and nuts, but I knew I was going to maw something in W. Chester and elected for some pizza place with a dumb name because it would be fastest, and a carb bomb with some fat. Discovered this pizza which either was invented by cyclists or is a spinoff of that xzibit meme:



That is a slice of pizza with baked ziti on it. It sucked, but it worked - no bonk and I'm feeling good. Also discovered that some Coke as a pick-me-up is shockingly effective

And feeling great that while I was told it was visible even in early April, I have a full on, no-turning-back farmer's tan at the short and jersey sleeve line. Makes me feel like I'm a person who rides a bicycle for serious.

*edit* also high-fiving myself because I just mapped my actual route - I missed a turn 40 miles in, and as a lifetime non-driver, I only know the 'burbs and counties from places I've already ridden, so when I hit a road I knew I followed it because I knew I would hit the W. Chester Pike and from there I could just take Springfield to Southwest Philly and home.

That wrong turn netted me three extra miles and now I get to say I've done a metric century this year, and had a click to spare.

Which of course ain't saying much around here, since Machka goes out for a litre of milk and decides to just go to Vegreville and back on the way.

Mr.jon

I went out for a nice 40 mile planed ride, beautiful day out. Made a wrong turn, got a flat, had to call my mom to bail me out. I rode on the flat to find some sort of meet up place and ended up in the ghetto of NC. Can you say awkward?

kayakdiver

30 friday....30 saturday... 25 today. was kinda lazy this weekend. rides friday and saturday i did on the touring bike. combined 60 lbs of bike and panniers. today was roadie time with some intervals and hill climbing. weather in the pacific northwest held all weekend!

East Hill

Hurrah, yes it did! Only the normal commute on Saturday, but went in with my husband to his workplace today and rode home from there. Through downtown Seattle, across the floating bridge, down to Renton to access the CRT, through Maple Valley to home. I rode on Soos Creek MUP for about 3 miles--it was jammed with pedestrians . 'Twas all right, it allowed me to take the last few miles to home at an easy pace.

Then I went and mowed the lawns, and did some strimming and weeding. An excellent day, overall .

East Hill

KiddSisko

40ish mile ride in the Santa Monica Mnts. Midway I met up with umd and we climbed Piuma together, descended Fernwood (fast roller coaster), then grabbed a meal at a roadside cafe. Sorry, make that bistro, where we each downed 3 glasses of lemonade-water, heavy on the ice. Temps were in the high 70's for most of the day, skies were blue, but fighting through a haze/smoke/fog mix for most of the ride, the smoke from the Santa Barbara fires that caused umd and his wife to evacuate and spend the weekend in my turf. Maybe 2500 feet of total climbing for me. Probably double that for umd. Of course.

Rob P.

Saturday I had a good ride with my friend who has decided to become a road cycllist instead of a mtn biker only. He just bought a new Orbea Opal with Campy Record everything. We followed one of my training routes up a couple of short but stiff hills to see if he needed to change the crankset to a compact or not. No problems with either legs or bikes. 24 miles on Saturday.

Went for a rambling ride today (Sunday) along the beach. Saw lots of wildlife. One line of what had to be 30 pelicans in a row acting like albatrosses floating along just above the breakers. They'd get to the end of that roller and arc up and over to the next one. It looked cool and like it was being done in slo-motion when in reality they were moving at about 15 MPH without moving a wing feather.

Followed the coast up to Carpenteria where I decided to have a couple of muffins at the bakery. 2 muffins and one choc milk = $4.25. Minimum charge on the debit card is $5 so I had to buy a $0.85 cookie too. What the heck am I going to do with a cookie? Oh well, it's mom's day so I'll take the cookie home to her.

On the way home there were 4 separate pods of Pacific bottlenose dolphins playing in the surf along the beach. One pod was only about 30-40 feet offshore and were jumping and splashing. It was really cool to see them again for the first time this year.

42 miles today for a total of 66 for the weekend. Mom liked the cookie too.

Machka 

You know Vegreville??

Congrats on the metric! And pizza is indeed a great cycling food.

mascher

Heh, I'm a Canajun and I knew a guy from Vegreville, which to me is about as far north as you can go in North American and still have trees and Saabs. Just said since you mentioned Red Deer. I'm a Southern Ontario type who vivred le Quebec libre for a while though, I don't know about all those straight roads and mountains you got round your parts.

Machka 

Oh, you can go much further north than Vegreville and still have trees and Saabs! I spent 11 years up in the Peace Region (Grande Prairie area) ... 5 hours drive north of Edmonton. I still miss the sun up there in the summers ... long, long days.

I've been through Vegreville many times, but have never actually cycled there ... close, but not quite.

Here's Vegreville's claim to fame:


The giant pysanka: https://www.roadsideattractions.ca/egg.htm