Wednesday, November 5, 2008

One More Ride

Today may have been the last nice day for '08. Rain moves in tomorrow, and the possibility for snow flurries this weekend. So I knew I was riding into work again today. But I decided to take the roadie this time. I was hoping that, after two trips on the Moab, the Fuji would feel effortless, which it did not, mostly due to some pretty gnarly head winds on the way home.

Since I was on the Fuji today, I had to stay on the streets instead of the bike path I've been going on and on about over the past couple of days. This is not quite as peaceful, but the distance is a bit shorter, and I never noticed until today what good drafting partners cars make! When your fighting a head wind and 10 or 15 cars go whizzing by at 45 and 50 mph, you seriously do get pulled right along with the dried leaves. I found myself looking forward to the next batch of cars coming up in my mirror.

I Can't believe I got to ride in short sleeves and shorts in November.

This trip put the bike computer at 360 miles. Figure in the two trips I made on the Moab last Friday and Monday, and one other mtb trip to work a couple weeks ago, and that puts my at right around 420 miles on bikes since I started this blog late this summer. I kind of hoped my speeds would be up a little more by now, and I'd feel a little stronger, but I'm getting there. I need to start working on some other exercises for the rest of the ol' bod over the winter, and I think I'll look into a trainer, just to continue working my lungs and heart a bit as well as just keeping my butt used to being in the saddle. I have some more ideas about how I'd like to adjust my positioning on the bike for next season.

A friend of mine has gotten into the hobby a bit more this year too, and he'd like to join me on this goal of riding at least 1 century in '09. We've decided to start with some shorter charity rides at the beginning of the year, just to get a feel for how these supported rides all work, and then progress to a century ride somewhere around the middle of summer and into early fall. The more the better I say. We'll be reaching some new goals and hopefully contributing to some worthy causes along the way.
  • 19.59 miles
  • 1' 17"
  • 15.9 mph avg.
  • 25.6 mph max.

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