zacster

Today, when it was still below 40 here in NYC, I decided to take a longer ride on my new bike. I've only been on it 4 times so far with all the snow we've had here, but since the roads were dry this weekend I went yesterday to Prospect Park, and today I wanted to get 35-40 miles in.

When I left the sun was somewhat hidden but still visible. I decided to go to Central Park, which will give me about 35 miles if I do a full loop, but the thing I notice as I'm riding, first through Prospect Park and then out on the street is that I'm the only person out on a bike. It was a little cold, but I've been in colder and encountered others.

I get to Central Park using my usual route and go in, Christo's Gates are still up in the south part, and I start pressing a little harder. I pick up a couple of other riders separately on bikes that are about equal to my Kuota (a Litespeed and an Opera) and we ride around. Both riders I say hi to, "nice bike" etc... trying to be friendly, neither could be bothered to even acknowledge me, not even a nod (another pet peeve that I've seen people here complain about), but both picked up my wheel without saying anything. One of them I see even overlaps my wheel as he's riding, I eventually signal him to stay back. I eventually drop both of them, but at this point I'm realizing that I overdid it and my legs have had it. I know that I should be taking it easy at this point in the year, but once you get going its hard to keep it down. I decide to do one more loop, another 6 miles and then head back, but after I get to the furthest point and go down the west side of the park I see I'm struggling, I don't have any juice or power bars or anything because this was just an early season quick spin, so I did the worst thing and I stopped at a store for some fresh OJ, at which point I got cold. I then decided to take the west side bike trail back down to the Brooklyn Bridge, but as soon as I get past the last building before the river I feel the one thing I really hate - a strong headwind coming off the cold Hudson, a wind I didn't feel on the streets or in the park. It felt like icicles and at this point I feel totally defeated so I go for my final option - the subway.

All in all I'd say it was a crappy day of riding, but I did get out to ride and it still beats working.

cazzooo

Real simple: East Coast and the rest of America are **** weather, California rocks.

RedHairedScot

Austin: all the warm with less rain.

Of course, I actually enjoy 90+ days and I own stock in sunscreen manufacturers, but other than that -- great. (Despite the recent habit of raining ONLY ON THE WEEKENDS for the past 2 months.)

ZackJones

zacster: Look on the bright side, at least you didn't crash or have a flat .

B10Cycle

So yesterday, I'm planning on a longer ride: 35 to maybe 50 miles. The weather is nice for once, high of ~55. I'm pumping up my tire before I leave and I hadn't put an unusually hig pressure in, but the tube blows. I throw on my last spare tube and decide that I'm going for the ride anyway. So I start going and at some point I decide I'll make this a full 50 miler, so I'll turn around at 25 miles. I'm feeling great so I keep going to turn around at 30 miles.

I wasn't worried about speed, just mileage, so I felt great that my average speed was pretty high without me hammering or anything on the way out. I turn around and boom, strong headwind. So I'm working my way back in a strong headwind. I miss a turn and take an ~10 mile detour. At ~45 miles my right quad starts cramping. I stretch, eat the one granola bar I brought, and drink some water (Which I stupidly did not bring enough of). The wind is still blowing in my face and the hills on the way back are killing me. I started to just feel like crap. I had enough water for the 35-50 miler I was planning on, but at about 55 or 60 miles I ran out of that. I finally rolled my way home after 67.09 miles. That whooped my butt. I only had a vague idea of where I was going and since I had used my last tube earlier I was praying toGod to not blow a flat. I would have been screwed, I was in the country and, for a while, the woods. At one point I sweat I heard the theme from Deliverance. Last night my legs felt like crap, but surprisingly, they feel alright today. I was proud of my self for making it that far, but next time I need to be a bit better prepared.

Hipcycler

Classic case of the mind way ahead of the body.
Sooooo tempting to do too much those first few times out this time of year in crap climates like ours.

But heck....you were out there....better than the trainer!