Roody

At this point I can only walk a couple blocks, stopping to rest occasionally. My immediate goal is to be able to use the bus again. I will start a monitored exercise/rehab class soon.

Machka 

Saturday -- 37.43 km with 612 metres of climbing.

We opted to do a shortish, hilly route from home today ... shortish, because rain was threatening, and in fact, it's pouring now ... hilly, in order to get in a bit of a workout.



We didn't stop for photos, this time ... but the route was on this road ...




And this was some of the scenery ...

Shagbark

Yesterday, I used my bike trailer and mountain bike to haul about 50 pounds of books to the local library. It felt good to donate the books and get some exercise. Today, I did my weekly grocery shopping.

no1mad 

Walked my usual ~2 mile route, though don't know how many more times I'll be walking it.

My wife's work schedule is changing and looks like we'll be able to go hit the gym/pool M-Th.

2manybikes

94.20 miles today. (Monday).

Roody

How come you didn't just go for the century? You were so close...

2manybikes

This spring I'm adding distance by about 10% each long ride. Last weeks long ride was 83. That keeps me from feeling too tired at the end. Also it was 11:00 pm, it takes me a long time to wind down enough to go to sleep after a long ride.

Machka 

Machka 

Good stuff!

Machka 

We're doing something similar ... slowly but surely increasing.

2manybikes

Machka 

That said ... the blast of winter we've just had has put the weekend plans on hold. We're trying to figure out a Plan B.

2manybikes

Aha !! The situation is now reversed, I am getting good riding weather while you begin your winter!

But seriously, I hope your winter is nothing like mine was.

Machka 

We've had quite a dump of snow above about 300 metres of elevation. We're at about 50 metres where we live, so there's no snow here, but it is snowy where we were planning to cycle on Saturday and definitely very snowy where we were planning to hike on Sunday ... so snowy it is highly likely they've closed the track. They have definitely closed the road near the track.

Down here it is just cold, windy, and rainy.

But we didn't get a summer (the great "summer-that-never-was" this year) and this seems early. I was hoping for a nice long moderately warm autumn. No such luck!


The Mercury (newspaper)'s gallery of photos from today ...
Snowfall across Tasmania | News Pictures and Photos | The Mercury

Roody

Then your next ride should beat 100 miles. This is amazing progress. "Slow but steady wins the race."

2manybikes

I don't stop riding in the winter, the effort can be "almost" the same as the warm weather, but, I'm traveling so slow that the miles are a lot less.
So, don't be too amazed. Although it was a low mileage winter compared to any that I can remember since 1978.

enigmaT120

Do you cross-country ski? I love doing that, though mine are just the old skinny ones that are really hard to turn. I like it better than snow shoeing.

Machka 

I do cross-country ski. But I had to get rid of my skis when I moved to Australia ... just couldn't get them to fit. However, I was able to bring my snowshoes.

Zedoo

Ice cream and first sunburn of the year.

no1mad 

I went for a walk and looked for any houses for lease/sale. Got no idea of how long or far, but I don't think it was more than an hour.

Roody

Such sweet pain!

MikeRides

35 mile rail trail ride with my kid today. Stopped for a burger and a sundae at a quaint village diner. I paid the bill, and proceeded to walk out when an older couple approached us - the gentleman put his hand on my shoulder, slipped me a $20 bill and said "God bless you, my son." I flipped out on him, and said "First, I'm not your son, and second I don't need your charity!" Then his wife looked at my kid and back at me and said "You two are homeless, right?" Un-freaking-believable, I said in a stern voice, "Look at us lady, how many hobos have you seen wearing cycling jerseys and shorts?" No response as they moved quickly into the diner. Apparently even with the rail trail being less than 500ft away, these locals had never seen a bicyclist before. I wonder what they think of touring cyclists or backpackers. .

But hey, the ride was nice and the burger/ice cream combo was perfect on this warm May day. Guess that's all that counts in the long run.

Roody

So you flipped out on them when they thought they were helping a poor person? I bet you were totally embarrassed! What did you do to apologize?

Machka 

I think that's hilarious!

I must say, never in all my cycling days has anyone ever assumed I was homeless.

Machka 

Sunday -- 41.03 km with 764 metres of climbing ... a 1.86 ride. Lots of climbing!!

From home, we immediately climbed, and climbed ... a meandering route to the top of a lovely, fun road which mostly descends to Margate.

Then we hung a right and climbed the 9 km to Sandfly. There are a couple very short downhills and a couple small sections that are almost flattish, but mostly it is a 9 km climb. And as we got closer to the top, the temperature dropped. It was noticeably cooler up there.

We continued on up and up past Longley until we finally reached the very top of route. And then it was a long, long descent back into our suburb. A bit of that descent was gravel, but that's OK. The difficult part of the descent was that it was cold!! My hands and feet were blocks of ice by the time we got to the bottom and started climbing again on the last bit of the route to home. In fact, I was glad of the last bit of climbing because it gave me a chance to warm up a little.

The warmest temp on the ride was about 13C and it dropped to 10C by the time we finished. I think it was even cooler than that up near the top of the route, and I should have been wearing toe covers!!

We also had waves of light rain/drizzle come over plus winds gusting to about 45 km/h to add to the chill factor.


View from somewhere near the top, looking down on our suburb. We live down there somewhere. Yes, it is raining off to the right ... it was also raining on me just then too.


In our front yard ...