Weekend Rides

[Tandem Rider]

It's been unseasonably warm here in the Midwest so I've been taking advantage of it. The horrible trainer is still put away. Got out for 3.5 hours today, 50 degrees and misty/damp, a little slice of Belgium. Had my first flat in a while, picked up a shard of glass about an hour into the ride. Did about 2-2.5 hours on gravels, not too sloppy, couple short patches, less than 100 yards, but now I need to clean the bike. Better to clean the bike than ride the dreaded trainer. Did I mention how much I hate the trainer?


I need to cut some weight so I just had a couple slices of toast and a cup of coffee before the ride, nothing but water in the bottle. It ended being the kind of ride where you eat a little plain bread and a couple soft boiled eggs when you get back and just stand in the shower because that's all you have left. It's the kind of ride I needed to do.

So who else got out?

[Cicli]

Its nice here in Chicago. Took the mountain bike out for 37 miles on the river trail. Not too many people out. Really a nice ride.

[MattTuck]

Ummm, I've spent the last 2 weeks at a hotel in Islip, NY for a project that is ending this week. I worked most of the day and then rode the trainer, because it was dark. I wish I could be taking advantage of this nice weather...

I watched GW 2015. Those dudes looked more miserable riding outside than I felt riding inside. It's all relative.

[ofcounsel]

I got out and rode 64 miles this morning, from Anaheim(Angel Stadium/ARTIC train station) to Oceanside, CA. Our ride ended at the Stone Brewery tasting room for IPAs and lunch (Tremont Street Bar and Grill is across the street and delivers to the tasting room). Stone's Sorry, Not Sorry is excellent! After beers and lunch, we hopped on the Metrolink train and it took us right back to Anaheim! A great ride. If you are in the LA/Orange County area, you should give this route a try.

https://www.strava.com/activities/449094594

[protorio]

I did about 30 miles in a limited time frame - but I looked at a couple of properties in the nearby hills in east San Diego county. One of them was having an estate sale, so I got to check the whole thing out. A Weir Bros. adobe structure.

Estate sale official joked about my Boxer randonneuse, that he'll take the first $1000 for it while I looked around. I shrugged.

[kramnnim]

Up to the low 70's here in NC... :hello:

[Schmed]

Snowy and high 20s today in Denver.

So I did two rides :p

First one - 1/2" on the ground, good traction on the mtb trail. Not too many souls out there. Snowing. Decide to add about 6 miles since I wasn't too cold and things were going well. 2 hours and a good workout.

Get home, eat a big burrito, hop in the shower, plan to warm up. My 12 year old bangs on the bathroom door "Mr. XXXXX is here and says he's going riding".

Hop out of the shower, put back on my biking clothes, go back out for ride with my buddy, followed by a stop at the local brewpub. Snow is now 4" deep and quite a bit tougher going on the relatively steep local ride.

Now, I'm beat. :o

[kmla320]

61 Degrees in Ridgefield today,30 on the Pegoretti.Mountain bike tomorrow!

[JAGI410]

Where's my damn snow?
http://i1035.photobucket.com/albums/a434/JAGI410/4E2FB965-7BC8-4174-B363-316F785D246D_zpstjkrxxad.jpg (http://s1035.photobucket.com/user/JAGI410/media/4E2FB965-7BC8-4174-B363-316F785D246D_zpstjkrxxad.jpg.html)

[Schmed]

Is that a Wednesday? Send it here. We have snow.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j192/schmed123/snow%20-%201_zpswzew0dw2.jpg

[JAGI410]

Yes it's a Wednesday and look at all that great snow you have! We had a few inches last week but it's all melted away. More in the forecast thankfully!

[livingminimal]

By Southern California standards, we are into our "cold" times earlier than usual, with temps when starting a ride at 6am-7am can be around 40.
Did 20 miles yesterday in a cedar jersey and my new T6 3/4 thermal bibs. Perfectly toasty. Hoping the wife got me the Richard Sachs winter cap to deal with more of our El Nino-esque polar conditions. Hoping to get out for a Metric today or something shorter with some climbing.

[ofcounsel]

By Southern California standards, we are into our "cold" times earlier than usual, with temps when starting a ride at 6am-7am can be around 40.
Did 20 miles yesterday in a cedar jersey and my new T6 3/4 thermal bibs. Perfectly toasty. Hoping the wife got me the Richard Sachs winter cap to deal with more of our El Nino-esque polar conditions. Hoping to get out for a Metric today or something shorter with some climbing.

Yep, I did a short MTB ride in Orange County this morning starting a bit before 8:00, and it was 45 degrees. It warmed up quite nicely though. It was in the low 60's by the time we were done.

[Tandem Rider]

Got out again today for an hour. Steady rain but I needed to spin the legs out so I went for a recovery ride anyway. No pressure on the pedals, just moving along, didn't even take the computer with me. Sometimes it's better that way. Got home an made pancakes from scratch, thankyous all around from the kids. A most excellent start to the day.

I hope everyone's was just as good.

[OtayBW]

Got in a hilly 50 yesterday and a moderately hilly 50 today. Really warm temps today - just bib shorts with long sleeve shirt!

[oliver1850]

Glad to hear you are riding Chris. I haven't had a decent ride since our local gravel ride in Sept. shortly before harvest. Since then have been tied up with house remuddling projects. Big ride for me this weekend was 4 miles at midnight to retrieve the truck and trailer I hauled a lathe on earlier in the week. Still nice to be riding with comfortable temps in mid December. I was thinking about the winter of '89 - I think we had ten days in December when it never got above 0, and the low was -24.

[benb]

Went on a really excellent local ride here yesterday morning out of Ride Studio Cafe, had a fantastic time.

I find it is a "gravel bike ride"/"mixed terrain ride" that doesn't want to admit that it's really a mountain bike ride. I rode my mountain bike yesterday, much more fun than the previous time I went 2 weeks ago on my all city space horse. Most folks on the ride were riding drop bar bikes, it was hysterical cause at one point we met up at a trail head with a New England Mountain bike Association group. We later came across them on the trail and they gave everyone on a drop bar bike a hard time.

Just a fantastic good time though.. lots of technically challenging stuff, easy pace on the less technical stuff and on the road and plenty of stops to keep the group together when it gets technical. Really nice group of riders.

I hadn't taken my mountain bike out in a long time.. I've done a lot of work to tune it up the past month and get it working well and it performed flawlessly. I changed the position after a recent fit and that was amazing as well.. no pain other than a little pounding in my hands on the really rough stuff, and the bike felt like I could take any line I wanted at any time, never spun my rear wheel or pulled an unintentional wheelie once. So nice, and it is so hard to not have a huge grin on your face when you're used to tip toeing over something on a drop bar bike and then you just jump right over it on the mountain bike.

The weather was really, really nice. Dry trail conditions. I had gone on this ride 2 weeks before and it was like 35 degrees with ice on the wooden bridges in the woods and stuff and it was a really treacherous ride.

[cdn_bacon]

managed a 4 degree rainy messy cold 60k and loved every minute of it. Nice cup of tea and a hot shower washed the cold away. was great to get out.