Machka 

Tell us about some of your cycling highlights in April and/or for the first third of the year.

Machka 

There have been several this month.

-- 1000 km month, for the second month in a row! In fact we finished up with 1112 km

-- 3000 km first third. That's a good start to the year.

-- we cycled a 300 km + a 200 km randonnee on the Easter weekend. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull that off, but we had been training for it ... and did it!

-- in completing the events above, we also completed our 4th century in the CAM (Century-A-Month) Challenge.

-- our 6th Petite Year Round Randonneur ride, a 100 km permanent.

-- On April 29, 1990, I started cycling "seriously" and specifically, I started logging all my cycling distances. Yes, I have kept track of every single kilometre I have cycled since April 29, 1990. On that day, I rode 2 miles and had to take a break at the end of the first mile because it was that difficult. I've built up strength since then!

-- my 1-year anniversary as an Australian citizen!


April Activities
Walking Distance (km): 70.4
Walking Time (min): 880.0
Cycling Distance (km): 1111.5
Cycling Time (min): 3684.3
Stairs Climbed Number: 52.0
Stairs Climbed Time (min): 41.6

Totals
Total Distance (km): 1181.9
Total Distance (miles): 734.4
Total Time (min): 4605.9
Total Time (hr): 76:45:55


Looking forward to May!! The plan is that May will be strength and speed month. Gotta get better at climbing hills and faster on the randonnees.

FeltF2Tarmac

I think for myself getting in a ride longer than 25 miles was a big deal. It's been a long time since my neck injury but clocking a 49 mile ride and not suffering at any point during or after was a sign of progress. I hope to get in some serious miles this summer but always taking the side of caution. Just getting on the bike is a big deal but riding distance is really fun for me.

bruce19

Yesterday was a highlight in a strange way. Went out on a club B ride. It was a 36 mi. course with about 2000 ft of climbing. I woke up at 1 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I really didn't want to ride. I was pretty tired. But, I went. At about mile 25 we had climbed about 1400 ft. and stopped at the town hall in my town. At that point I had spent my time off the back of the main group on climbs by about 200 ft. There were two other riders with me. Didn't feel bad but had little power. At the town hall I was averaging 14.2 mph. As I said a lot of climbing. After the break we started to head for mostly level and downhill part of the ride. But, I could feel that I had no energy so I abandoned and just rode home adding a very slow 3 miles to my ride. Got home around noon and went to bed. Woke up at 4 PM. Given the circumstances I think I did well enough. Also made the right decision.

silverado8405

217 miles this month, one 55 mile ride and a handful of 20-40 mile rides. Given a wet/cold spring I thought it was a good start.

jeffreythree

355 miles with 22 hours of riding for my April. I don't have any exciting tales or interesting rides other than riding my age on my birthday and met all but one of my cycling goals.

gsindela

New bike. Got my seat. Regularly taking 15 mile rides at about 15 mph. New trainer on the way for those rainy days. Things are rolling (pardon the pun).

DrIsotope

After breaking my right hand and spending almost 7 full weeks without riding a bike outdoors, I popped a few Motrin, put on the old padded gloves, and managed to get back on the road on April 13, my first actual ride since March 3. The intervening 6 weeks were occupied only with Zwifting, which at least kept me sane and kept my legs from getting as noodly as my right arm.

Managed to finish the Strava Climbing Challenge in just 14 rides-- 28,071ft of vertical, or an average of 2,005ft per ride. My seventh trip up the mountain, a 5,300ft day, was my favorite trip up the hill. Perfect weather, a 26 mile long descent, and jelly legs for 2 full days afterward.

GlennR

400 miles in April and 1000 miles since 01/01/17.

Its been a good winter for me.

f4rrest

Which mountain?

valygrl

I just looked, because of this thread, and I rode 999 miles in April. Maybe i need to go ride around the block?

But the real highlight, and the reason for so many miles, was that I went to Mallorca for a cycling holiday. It was amazing.

DrIsotope

Highway 38 to Valley of the Falls, ending at the Vivian Creek Trailhead at ~6,000ft elev., about halfway to the proper summit of Mt. San Gorgonio. The stretch that is Valley of the Falls is pretty gnarly-- it picks up about 1,500ft in just under 4 miles, and there's a stretch of half a mile or so of +10%. Two and a half hours to get up there, less than 40 minutes to get back down.

B. Carfree

April was amazing because I was actually kind-of, sort-of back on the bike again. After decades of most months seeing me ride at least 1000 miles, I found myself off the bike far too much in 2016. The year started with pneumonia and ended with another respiratory tract infection that I honestly thought could kill me (and did kill a couple of acquaintances). In the middle were a bunch of non-cycling family-emergency type of trips that kept me off my bikes.

In mid-February 2017 I finally felt like I was well enough to look at rebuilding my health. Step one was to get on the scale and see what several months of inactivity had wrought. Wow! 212 pounds is a lot of stuff. I took some steps to control the input and started working on the output side a week later. A week into April found me back at 180 pounds (hey, only 10 more to go) and about 10% fat. (After wanting one for a quarter-century, I finally purchased one of those body-fat analysis scales. Fun toy.)

The rides have been extraordinarily short. I had to resort to riding rollers a bunch since I didn't feel up to riding in the rain with temperatures in the high 30's/low'40's F and this Spring we have had nothing but rain. On the last Saturday of April, my wife and I finally rode out to the coast range for what we used to consider a short loop but is now a long ride for us of 83 miles.

Ah! It's great to be alive again. Hopefully May will see us able to do some 300 km rides. After missing out much of last summer's riding, I feel a real need to make that up this year. Summer riding in the coast hills of Oregon are something to not be missed.

Ghazmh

735 miles this month
1860 for 2017

dcmac

500 miles for April, 1420 miles since 1/1/17, 4000 miles past YTD.

dksix

I ended with almost 220 miles for the month, was fighting a cold/sick for part of a week and we had bad weather for about a 10 day period that I didn't ride at all.

Today was a highlight, one of my best rides to date. I met a friend for a ride we do several times throughout summer but it was the first time we had ridden this year, in fact first time I'd seen him since we rode last summer. The ride is through a mountain park area, a road that runs along a creek until it flows into the river. Then a gravel road follows along side the river into the town of Hot Springs NC. For a short time the Appalachian Trail comes out of the mountains and hikers have to cross the river on the bridge coming out of the town.

We stopped to talk to people 3 or 4 times during the 25 miles (1150' of elevation gain) which ended up taking almost 2 1/2 hours but it was great fun. Crossing the river bridge we met a hiker who we stopped to talk to. He planning to hike the whole AT which is about 2200 miles and will take ~6 months. Really cool guy, just heading back onto the trail after resupplying and spending the night in town. At one of the intersections 3 dual sport riders were stopped looking at maps, we ended up talking to those guys for quiet awhile. My buddy told them about some other options to connect trails (he knows the mountain trails well) that's not on maps. We stopped to take pictures once and some near by campers walked over to chat for a few.

Just all and all an excellent ride, maybe I ride solo too much.

vinuneuro

@Machka I always love reading your cycling background and current long rides. It's inspirational.

Heathpack 

Pics or it didn't happen.

MikeRides

Rode my first imperial century (half supported) on Saturday, April 29th. Won't be my last either.

Machka 

Good job everyone!!


Thank you. It's nice to be getting back into it again.

kbarch

April was good, but the first quarter, not so much. April had 588 miles (12% improvement over last year), and essentially tied second most elevation in a month at 27,600' (most - nearly 60k' - was in a month that included a cycling vacation, which I expect to improve upon this month). First quarter was a slower start than I'd hoped for - little more than 200 miles each month, with March distance 45% below last year and elevation 62% below!

Highlight has probably been the chance encounters with friends and acquaintances - impromptu rides, or just being out on the road and running into them, riding together for a bit, enjoying a break together, etc. Oh, and finally signing up for Citibike! So much more fun than riding the subway around town! It's also made for a record-crushing 54 rides in the month of April, and lots more kudos earned.

Nice! - But half supported; how does that work? Only enough water and bananas for half of the participants?

MikeRides

The first 50 miles was part of a annual charity ride complete with a SAG crew and stocked rest stops, after the ride was over I took a 30-ish minute break at the finish line then headed out to do last year's 50 mile route, solo.

caloso

Went to the DR to visit my aunt. Took my bike and stole a bunch of RdM's. https://www.strava.com/activities/938970268#22957314397

f4rrest

Looks like you were hardly trying too.

2manybikes

April 534 miles. Six rides.