My Most Recent Ride 2010 (Part III of the series)

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Tailwinds are awesome! Makes the recumbent grin even bigger.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Went to Young's Dairy to day and then Yellow Springs and then to Xenia and back home got home about 9:40 left at 9:40 a.m or somewhere about that time. Had fun SUN burnt and sore going to eat, shower and go to bed.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

If I understand correctly, you were out on the road for 12 hours? Don't know how many miles or average speed, but being out for that long is excellent training. Good for you.

I stopped to talk with a man smoking a cigarette sitting on a bench along the trail. His gray, matted hair contrasted with his loose, dark, wrinkled skin.

After a few minutes he leaned over on his cane and in a low raspy voice said, "Yep, never been sick a day. Just the normal aches and pains."

I asked him how old he was.

He said, "28."


Don't smoke and wear more sunscreen.

Dave

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Don't know either my computer got trashed when I bent my fork. Haven't replaced it yet. Was going to but had to get a bottle cage for my Polar Bottle.Oh they make the best bike bottles ever. I'm not just saying that because they are my cross state sponsor either. Man I wish I could find a chase car driver for that. Thinking of just doing a City To City record. Instead of a cross state. That seems to be more economical than to try for the Cross State Record with out enough sponsors.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Don't need a 'puter. Trace your route on MapQuest or whatever and let it tell you how far. Distance divided by total hours gives you average mph.

How about South Point to Ashtabula for City to City training? Small town to small town via other small towns...

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I've never done a ride report on our club's annual 100,000 Meter T-Shirt Ride, and since I didn't take any pictures for a ride report this year, I guess this write-up will have to substitute.


I'd characterize the route as 'flat with occasional rolling hills.' It's timed to correspond to the first weekend after school gets out, so that the host school will be empty. This year's ride was held June 12th.


The weatherman started the week predicting nice weather; but as the week progressed, rain crept into the forecast. Luckily, the chance actually decreased again by Friday, so that as of Saturday morning it was 30% chance of isolated thunderstorms, and nothing severe. Since the ride is an extremely reasonable $15 and includes lunch at the end, I figured I had nothing to lose by going for it!


After registering and meeting up with Chris, a.k.a. Lowracer1, the two of us headed out at about 8:10. Many riders had started earlier, some as early as 7:00; so there were lots of them in front of us. I like that! The weather was a humid 75F, with a 6-10 mph breeze from the WNW. That didn't hurt anybody too much, since aside from a few miles at the start, the first half of the ride runs almost straight east. Tailwind! Chris and I, both on NoComs, started knocking them down, passing bike after bike after bike... you get the idea. Passing speeds ran in the upper 20s to 30 mph, and in between we cruised at 23-25 mph. The roads were still wet in several places, so there were a few storms running around.


The first rest stop was at 17 miles. It took a while to cool down. It's not the heat, it's the humidity! I had a cookie and some lemonade. A couple of people wanted to check out the NoComs after being passed so decisively. After that, we hit the road again.


A few miles down the road, we came upon a group of recumbent-riding friends and slowed to talk. We must have slowed too much because a pack of roadies caught us. Goodbye friends, hello roadies! After about 5 miles, it was apparent they were only going to do 20 mph, which isn't all that impressive for a big group on flat ground. So, the first hill that came along to split them up, we passed them and continued on.


We hit rest stop #2 in the town of Byron, at mile 35. I went into the neighboring party store and got a sport drink. The roadies pulled in, filled their bottles and were gone within 3 minutes. Our stop was more like 15-20 minutes. Again, we wern't leaving until we cooled off. The temp was into the 80s, which certainly wasn't dangerous, but the humidity was just high enough to be uncomfortable at stops.


The next stretch had some nice curves and small hills, and best of all, some shade! But, it was headwind. That didn't seem to slow us down too much – we were doing 22 instead of 24, but it seemed to be slowing the upright riders a bit more. Just before reaching rest stop #3, we passed 4 of the roadies from the big group. Flat tire! Bummer!


Rest stop 3 was short. I wasn't too much of a sweaty mess. Chris needed to shake his feet out to get rid of some hotfoot. Once he was OK, we started the final leg


I noticed that we were running out of bikes to pass. Maybe we should have waited longer to start? As we got within 10 miles of the end, we came onto roads that I normally do on evening rides; and with familiarity comes a very good idea of how to pace those last miles. I led; and the closer we got, the faster we went, until we did the last couple of miles at 27-28 mph. Right at the end, Chris squirted past me and turned into the school parking lot first. Total time wasn't too bad, at 3:40. Average speed was lower than I would have guessed, at 20.6 mph.


Lunch was catered by the Laingsburg Police Dept: hamburgers & chips, chicken sandwiches, lasagna, and salads. I had one of everything. I also nabbed one of last year's unsold T-shirts for $5.


Did I say I didn't take pics? Well, I did take a few , plus a video or two. Not enough for a good ride report, though. Here's one video clip. Notice how being so low makes it look like I'm going fast!

http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e135/blazingpedals/Bike Rides/T-Shirt Ride/?action=view&current=T-ShirtRide.mp4

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

From the video it looks like you had a nice cruise. I sure wish we had such clean and quiet roads !! No chip seal and well maintained... By the way, does your total time for the ride include the time at rest stops?

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Total time, including rest stops, was something like 3:40.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I was also wondering what video camera you guys use?

Surfing the web the other day I came across the following camera at one 'bent web shop for $199. I have no idea as to the quality.

I does sound like fun to film segments of a ride though.

http://www.boomerbentsandbikes.com/index.php/go-pro-video-cameras/hd-hero-naked-camera.html

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I use the Tachyon XC Micro. Can't say I'm entirely happy with it, though. I'm still experimenting with settings, but for now it keeps turning itself off after 3-6 minutes, for no reason I can tell. And the sound capability goes beyond sucky. Other helmet cams that seem to be popular are the VHolder CountourHD and the Oregon Scientific ATC2K. There are plenty more out there on the market, too.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Two words: Vibration Reduction, VR

VR technology is the second greatest thing to happen to photography in decades (the greatest is digital media). All my cameras have it. Helps keep the person viewing a video clip from getting motion sick.

Dave

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Hi all,

Well, my husband conned me into riding again. The man knows how miserable I've been not being able to ride as well as he knows my weaknesses. He offered to drop me off somewhere new on his way to work with the promise that any time after 3 hours at work, he would be able to come get me.

New territory with new churches and rune stones? I decided to see if the knee thing was a fluke.

I had a great ride, my knee felt fine when I reached the end of it at 26-ish miles.

This morning though, I'm limping around and eating pain meds like candy.

Blogged with photos as well as histories and translations where I could find them.

Terii
P.S. Hubby is highly resistant to me even altering the trike for him or my SIL's husband to use. *eye roll*

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I am glad that you are riding again. I was really concerned about you there. Will we get to see any of these new pics???

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Full ride details and photos at:

www.terii.wordpress.com

Terii

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Wow, I really liked reading that. I love the runes. You definitely live in a beautiful place.