get out of the kitchen!

Ride #84
Sunday, June 19th

20 miles in Folsom

One of the other ride leaders for the casual biking meetup group decided to put together a 20 mile ride in Folsom, mostly on bicycle paths and mostly including hills.

Windy!

I've decided to call it K's Crazy Cure (for excess  energy).

It was hot. At the end of our ride the wunderground.com said it was 86 degrees. And the wind was roaring today. I was quite distressed at one point to have an uphill AND a headwind! Bah!

The section from the top of the Folsom Lake Crossing to the river (you can see the big divot on the elevation profile below) is something I've always wanted to try, wondering just how fast I can merely coast down. Well, with a straight on 20mph headwind, it was a lousy 30.3 mph. I will try it again on a day with no wind.

By coming up the Folsom Crossing, we sort of cheated the famous Beals climb, since the 7% grade is downstream from the crossing. We at least got to fly down that grade, although since it is so curvy (and I've not been on it in a loooooong time) I felt I should brake most of the way.

I applied sunscreen three times today (we were out from 10:30 to 3pm, prime sun exposure time) and I don't seem to be as pink as I might sometimes be. Next time I'll take some baby wipes and wipe off the old sunscreen first. My shins looked like they had some kind of horrible skin condition with the way road grit and sunscreen combined to pill up.

I lost track of how many bottles of water I drank. I had my usual plastic one handed bite valve with me, and I refilled it from some metal bottles that I had encased in soggy cotton socks (evaporative cooling) so I had at least cool water to drink. I've had one electrolyte drink since I've come home and I think I need another one. I sweated so much today that when I dumped water over my head at the end of the ride I got an eye full of sweaty water from the stuff running off my scalp.

We picnicked at Beal's Point: I had a lovely turkey club sandwich and a big bottle of chocolate milk. I also ate salty nut and raisin mix along the way, as well as handing some of it out to one of the other riders.

A ride Tuesday, Saturday, then Tuesday again.