painful enough ...

Using Strava to figure out how many rides I have not blogged about is painful enough that I think my New Year's resolution is to blog in a timely fashion.
Yeah. That'll work.

4 Jan rode 12.9 miles with Red Leader (ride #358 / #159)
6 Jan rode 9.7 miles to and from the library solo (ride #359)
11 Jan rode 22.7 flat miles on the American River Trail with Red Leader (ride #360 / #160)
Today (15 Jan) rode 21 hilly miles solo (ride #361)

So. Strava says I burned about 900 calories on my ride, which is a good thing since I ate rather a lot of chicken salad after my ride. Yum!
1,300 feet of climbing. That's not much for many people, and I'm super slow. My average speed was 8.2 mph. So it took about  2 1/2 hours to do that ride. Which is fine by me. My top speed was 24.8mph. But I'm much more physically tired than after our usual ride, which means I have not been increasing in fitness riding just with Red Leader. He dislikes hills even more than I do!

UnderArmour finally got their act together and sells a long sleeved high-viz shirt in their Heat Gear line. It even has a zip neck! I wear a men's medium in this loose-fitting shirt. I stopped at Sports Authority this morning to buy one. It was somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees F on the ride, I started off with a windbreaker over the shirt, but soon ditched that. Climbing hills keeps me plenty warm.
I also tried out a pair of work gloves from Home Depot on this ride. They have reflective fingertips, and bright orange and yellow backs. I felt very visible with them. They got a bit sweaty by the end of the ride, but I have famously sweaty hands.

I took the time to adjust my brakes - much better stopping power now.

Here's a screen shot of my ride's map and elevation profile from Strava.

Ta ta for now

Trike polo

#357 / #158

Finally, after what seems like 40 days and 40 nights of rain for California and work-stuff for Red Leader, we got out!

I was moving very slowly, having overdone it (apparently) yesterday. So I invented a new game. There are very large pinecones littering the trail. I roll by one, jigging my front wheel as I go by (at a slow speed) shooting the poor pine cone into the weeds.
Fun!

And that's all I have to say today. Happy Holidays!

Short days

Wednesday, 12 November

#356 / #157

We only went 10 miles today. It is hard to figure out how to ride on a weekday afternoon when the darn sun goes down at 4:45pm. Red Leader just takes a few hours off of work and we go.

We rode from the parking garage in Folsom out to Nimbus Flats and back. Nothing special, but we could tell that we had ridden hard on Sunday!

I debated starting out in a jacket, but decided to just wear shirtsleeves. I was fairly chilly for the first few miles, then I warmed right up. But I was glad to put the jacket on when we were done with our ride. It maybe time to find a long sleeves high-viz shirt.

Probably Sunday this weekend.

Cashing in

9 Nov

#355 / #157

The fruits of my plotting were to incorporate the Johnny Cash trail (Folsom, CA) into our ride today.

New bike trail up to the new Johnny Cash overcrossing. Pretty cool!

We went on Oak Ave trail between Blue Ravine and Natomas St, rode the couple hundred feet on the shoulder to the new center median left turn green painted "bike box" that allows bike and ped traffic to make its way across busy Natomas Rd.

Then it was up over the new overcrossing and down the other side of Folsom Crossing. We'd planned to continue up to Beale's Point, but Red Leader decided that he didn't want to get his heart rate up over 165 anymore times that day.

No worries!

I took us back to the Raley's parking lot via the horrible crossings of the rail-trail that parallels Folsom Blvd. Will use the riverside bike trail next time! I think it would have been about 20 miles if we had gone to Beals and used the riverside bike path.

This is our route with some elevation info (screenshot from Strava - I give up on Google Maps - used to be good for making routes, now stinks like a three day old roadkill skunk).

Birthday ride

5 Nov

#354 / #156

Neither Red Leader nor I were up to riding my age this year, so we declared it "Ladies' Choice" and I chose to ride around Lake Natomas. So we did!

It was perfect weather and a great birthday ride. On the way home, I persuaded RL to drive on East Natomas so I could see if the new path leading up to the new overcrossing was open. It was! So I started plotting ...

Walloping along

Sunday, 2 November

#353 / #155

Red Leader and I finally managed to get out the door for a ride. Cool, sunny, unexpectedly windy.

Strava let me down, recording 3.8 miles of my 19 mile ride. And I was even trying for a PR on the Enchanted Forest segment. I don't play the personal record game, but sometimes I just can't resist. So I have no idea if I was even near my previous best time.

Oh well.

Saw a deer, RL saw a coyote, and lots of squirrels.

A trio of trike riders, and we saw two more as we were driving up to the Sunrise Rec area.

And that's about all I can remember from the ride.

CU

Singin' in the Rain

#352
Saturday, October 25

I had intended to meet up with the TARTAR riders (organized through bentrideronline) for the 10am ride from Rancho Cordova to Folsom.

The ride's official route is RC to F and back, but I hate riding on a full stomach, and I'd rather ride earlier than later given the chance, so I usually ride from Folsom to the ride start, then do the 1st half of the official ride, hitting the important part of the ride, lunch, with the crowd.

Well, it is raining today. And windy. And I managed to start out when the rain started, and then became a brief downpour. So I got soaked. Which I was actually dressed for. BUT - my plan would have me standing around in a parking lot for who knows how long, waiting for the group to get rolling, getting colder and colder and colder. As long as I'm moving, I can be soaked through and stay warm (wool). But once I stop .....

I have never gotten hypothermia and I don't plan on starting now.

So I turned around after about 3.5 miles and went back to Folsom, changed into the dry shirt from the car, and ate my breakfast at Karen's Bakery Cafe. Yum!

I've got to say, that I got more nods and smiles and hellos then I ever have on a Sat morning ride. The community of nutters running and riding in the rain are friendly folk. Maybe they were just relieved to see someone else out exercising in the rain. I know I was.

The rain brings out all the wonderful smells of the woodland - mostly pine, but all lovely.

I have a huge heap of soaked bike clothes, my bike is covered in mud and tossed up tree-bits. It sure is nice to be inside right now. And as I write this, the sun is shining! Aaaaargh!