Machka 

Happy American Thanksgiving! Have you been cycling to work off your turkey dinners? Whether you're in the US or not, tell us about your cycling this weekend, and the week surrounding it. Who did you ride with? Where did you go?

wipekitty

Thursday: Windy, sunny, not that cold - 42F. I got in 26.3 miles with 1,750 feet elevation.

Friday: Super nice day: not much wind, highs in the low 60s!!! I had big plans to go on a 40+ mile ride. Plans changed: apparently work has really been kicking my butt the last month, and when I woke up, the clock said 2PM. Ugh. I had some coffee and got in a quick one right before sunset - 18.8 miles, 1,391 feet elevation. First ride in shorts since...I cannot remember!

Machka 

Saturday -- Today we cycled the Intercity 50 ... 50 km permanent with a time limit of 3 hours and 20 min. We completed it in 2 hours 36 min.

The first 20 km of the ride was good with a great tailwind, although we could see what we were heading into. Thunder and lighting ... very, very frightening me! And a whole lot of rain!! But it was warm and the wind was good.

I see that 7.2 mm of rain fell in an hour between 2:30 and 3:30. All of it fell on us, and specifically into my shoes. I saw a whale on the way to work earlier in the week (yes, seriously! my bus goes past a beach where there are occasionally dolphins, but on that day, there was a whale). My shoes were so heavy by the end of the ride, I'm sure that whale was swimming around in one of them and maybe a pod of dolphins in the other!!

Machka 

Nov 18 - 162.3 km cycling (507 min) ... November Century!!
Nov 19 - 3.2 km walking (40 min)
Nov 20 - 7.1 km walking (88 min)
Nov 21 - 7.6 km walking (95 min) + 10 flights of stairs (8 min)
Nov 22 - 10.9 km walking (136 min) + 10 flights of stairs (8 min)
Nov 23 - 11 km walking (137 min) + 12 flights of stairs (9 min)
Nov 24 - 7.6 km walking (95 min) + 14 flights of stairs (11 min)
Nov 25 - 50 km cycling (148 min) + 1.6 km walking (20 min)

**That's 49 km walking this week ... longest week of walking I've done since I started keeping track January 1, 2015.**

2017 Monthly November
Walking Distance (km): 133.8
Walking Time (min): 1638.8
Cycling Distance (km): 246.8
Cycling Time (min): 763.9
Stairs Climbed Number: 170.0
Stairs Climbed Time (min): 136.0
Other Distance: 1.6
Other Time: 10.0

Totals
Total Distance (km): 382.2
Total Distance (miles): 237.5
Total Time (min): 2548.7
Total Time (hr): 42:28:42

Jakedatc

Sat: Secret Squirrel CX race. unsanctioned race which makes the course a bit interesting. Was almost the same course as last year so that helped a lot. 75 guys in the Novice race usually 4/5. I used the first half of each lap to use roadie power to pedal the long flat and a few hills, make up as many spots then survive the second half of the lap that was more technical woods riding and run ups.
This downhill drop was a lot more comfortable this year with more mtn biking

roccobike

I grabbed my old Giant OCR-C and did 26 miles today. Nothing special. I want to see if I can continue to ride through the winter. My goal is three rides per week and at least 50 miles total. Very modest, but I want it to be achievable. I hate riding during winter so I set a goal that can be reached. Many of these rides will be on MTBs and fire trails.

wipekitty

Saturday: Met up with a small group for a chill trail ride - sunny, low 40s F. I got in 21.2 miles, but only 308 ft. elevation!

We hit some newly installed paved trails and did a bit on the unpaved trail. The 700x28 Conti Tour Ride tires I put on my single speed did surprisingly well, even on the bits with dirt, leaves, and small branches. I finally remembered how to dress properly for such temperatures, just in time for it to start getting cold(er)!

caloso

Thanksgiving Ride on Thursday. Friday off. River Ride World Championships this morning.

atwl77

Saturday: Did not ride, had a bunch of appointments and chores to perform.


Sunday: Rode at a relatively hilly sportive. The ride began with a 5km rolling start where everyone was supposed to follow the lead vehicle, but despite this we still had a bunch of people racing within the pack trying to get to the front. Fortunately there were no crashes (that I was aware of) and I remained somewhat within the middle of the peloton until the actual start.


Despite knowing the toughness of the route, the peloton sped ahead and even at 35-40km/h I had trouble keeping up with the pack. I know I could have hung back and rode at my own pace, but the speed was exhilarating; after all, I could not ever maintain such speeds riding solo at my current level of fitness.


I stopped at the peak of the first hill to wait for some friends and regroup, and also to catch a bit of breath, so the speeding peloton went on ahead and it was slow riding in small groups of stragglers after this. We enjoyed about 20km of rolling terrain after descending from the first hill. Then the killer climbs began. These weren't as long as the first hill, but we had things like 5km of continuous 6+ %, and almost 1km of 10% grades, nearly back-to-back and I could see that the initial high pace had taken its toll on a lot of riders, who either suffered from cramps or were walking their way up the climbs. Fortunately this sportive was well-organized and there were medic and water stations every 20km along the route.


I nearly cramped also on one continuous 10% climb (at least that's what my Garmin reported), but fortunately I felt the symptoms of an impending cramp before it actually happened, so I got off the bike to do a bit of stretching exercises to deal with the problem.


In all, a pretty satisfying ride. It wasn't a long route, and the total elevation isn't actually that much, but the steepness of some of the climbs made up for it. It wasn't my best in terms of overall time, and that will be reflected on the e-cert (whenever that's ready) -- I spent a lot of time riding slowly or stopped at water stations to wait for friends -- but then again I wasn't here to race so I'm not too bothered about it.


Moving Time: 4:40:07
Overall Time: 5:19:37
Distance: 114.2km
Avg Speed: 24.5km/h
Max Speed: 64.4km/h
Elevation Gain: 1,193m

Machka 

Sunday -- Today was a rainy day. Rowan worked the early part of the day and was fortunately able to work around the shower after shower after shower that came over while he was out there.

We debated briefly about going for a bicycle ride, but the rain just kept coming, heavier and more steadily. We rode in a downpour yesterday, so weren't keen on riding in another downpour today. We debated briefly about going to the gym, but he just felt tired. This was Day 7 in a row on the job for him, with no days off in sight, so he opted to nap and I rode my trainer instead.

1 hour on the trainer, doing "Commercial Intervals" to UK's Escape to the Country. Plus about 10 minutes of weight lifting ... I've got to do more of that, and I know I'm going to feel a bit stiff tomorrow.


And the project I'm working on these days is route creation/adjustment for long distance cycling events. I've completed 1 route, submitted it, and it has been officially posted. I've got another one ready to go and am working on a third. I'll submit those two together because they're modifications of existing routes. I don't know if any of you have worked with Ride with GPS ... it's a decent program, but has some absolutely hair pulling "features". Every time I think that something should take me half an hour to do ends up taking about 2 hours!!

deacon mark

Well the sciatic nerve got acting up over past few weeks running mostly. Today it was 29 degrees but no wind at all and I rode 52 miles started in the dark and made it 9 am Mass. Have to go back a preach for the 11:30 and then 5:30 Mass. Other than my feet going almost completely numb cold it was really nice I could have easily done more but other duties call.

Funny thing is that if there is no wind it can be really cold and you are fine. I wear a Gore Bike Jacket with polypro underneath and lined gloves with wool outside, other than the feet freezing I am ok. Funny thing is sitting on the bike is ok for the sciatic never better than a chair.

kbarch

Since I had a house guest who doesn't ride, I played tour guide Wednesday-Saturday and didn't get any riding in until today.

It was an OK ride. Quite breezy, but not too unfavorable, and not too cold. Did see a couple of old riding mates out - they passed and I hung on with them for a little while, then I saw them again later after I'd stopped for a coffee and they had turned around.

The bothersome part was the way my ankle seemed to be acting up. My knees have been bothering me lately, too. I'm getting old

42 miles, 2700' and only two silvers and a bronze, despite best efforts to take advantage of tailwinds.

arizonamed

Did a 47 mile hilly loop yesterday, then 50 flat and wet miles today. I recently added the PDW fenders to my CAAD10 and was glad to have them today. My hands and feet were soaked and cold for about the last 2 hours of the ride, and my lenses on my clear glasses fogged up, but there is something extra satisfying about completing a long workout in bad weather. I tell myself I'm really tough... in reality I was just playing with my favorite toy.

Bob Ross

Spent seven days in a row cycling in Tucson AZ. Here's a pic from last Friday's ride, in Saguaro National Park East:




Today, back home, I rode up and back NYC>Alpine, NJ along the west side of the Hudson River. Considerably colder than last week!

woodcraft

Turkey ride on Thursday morning- ~25 mile 3,600' dirt local tradition. Only ~700 folks this year.

Get a few nods for being on CX bike. Had to wait along the way for my 40 yr old son.


Saturday did an individual time trial to the bakery & back- 39 miles.

Pretty happy with the numbers, cheated & caught a ride for a few miles with a fast group, & tailwind out/headwind back.

Inspired to try again on a calmer day to try & hit the magic ave. speed number.

jamesdak 

It's been a bad month for me. Injuries, sickness, snow, etc.

But I got out both days this weekend, finally...

Saturday - Took out the Schwinn Prologue TT for another fit shakedown. Made the long drive to Antelope Island and rode on the causeway that runs across the Great Salt Lake. It's perfectly flat but was windy unfortunately. Did just a down and back route with a total of 10.2 miles. First leg out I stayed on the bullhorns and didn't really push the pace. I've been having problems with my right calf so I wanted to warm it up good. On the return leg I got onto the aero bars for about a mile but they just don't fit right. I've got to swap in the more adjustable Profile Design set and sort things out. But anyway, return leg was much faster as I cranked it up to max effort. HR over 170 for all 5 miles, not really a good thing.

Sunday - Stuck with the Patriotic Red, White, and Blue theme and took out the Schwinn PDG Series bike for a little over 25 miles. The bike was eager to go today and I managed a 19.4 mph avg on the ride.

The two Schwinn brothers used this weekend.

atwl77

One thing I found out that later made my route-building less annoying was, RWGPS cares whether you click on the left or right side of the road. It makes it trickier if you're dragging an existing control point, or if you're zoomed too far out that its hard to tell which side of the road you're working on.

Machka 

I've found that it only cares if there is a dual carriageway. If it is one of the narrow, quiet roads around here, out-and-backs layer right on top of each other, and unless you move one layer off the other, it is very difficult to get at the bottom layer to add route instructions or whatever.

But where I'm having bigger difficulties is that, despite the fact that the cycling infrastructure has been in existence for years and years, Google maps (which is what RWGPS is based on) does not recognise any of it. So in one place, I've got cyclist riding the wrong way down a road with the instructions that they need to get up on the cycling path and not ride on the road.

atwl77

Yeah, if layers are overlapping it is a pain to work with them. But my original point was about the way the routing handles left and right sides; if you ride on the left hand side of the road and click on a road on the right hand side, the routing can add unexpected turns or u-turns to get over to that other side of the road.

Yeah, it's a Google problem. In my country, cycling routes are completely unsupported. A problem unique to my locality is that we often use the motorcycle lanes that run alongside fast, 3-lane highways but Google/RWGPS completely doesn't recognize them. So anytime I need to plot a route on these lanes, I need to manually draw paths which you can imagine is a bit of a pain in the behind.

canklecat

26 miles Thursday evening to work off thanksgiving dinner.
37 miles Friday, mostly casual group ride.
Needed a rest day Saturday, mostly sore muscles from a new workout routine.
45 miles Sunday evening, pushing hard the first 15 and set several new PRs. Casual pace the rest of the way with friends.

Intended to ride a standard century this weekend but didn't have time. Seems to work out better if I don't plan on it and just keep going for as long as I feel like riding. That's how my metric centuries happened -- not really setting a specific goal, just riding until the miles ticked by.

bikecrate

I went for a Thanksgiving morning ride for 40 miles to Picnic and Davis Is. Weather report was wrong. I was expecting a break in the rain, but instead got soaked as it lightly rained the whole time. Black Friday I went kayaking. It was more challenging than I thought. The river was low and, I think due to possible hurricane effects, there were many sunken logs and overhanging branches over the river. So it was a "switched on" paddling adventure. Also cool and rainy didn't help. Saturday I went to Upper Tampa Bay trail for 40 miles. Beautiful weather. Sunday I was totally pooped out from the holidays and my back was killing me. I slept in and skipped the bike ride.