Your Ride Reports - July 2022
 

If you are new to posting on this thread, or if you are new to cycling, we welcome you! If you are returning from a previous thread, we welcome you, too.

This thread is for anyone who rides a bicycle ... or unicycle, tricycle, tandem, etc.

Are you an experienced road cyclist? Do you bike to work? Do you pull your children to the park? Do you ride weekends? Do you spin at home or in the gym? Is Zwift your thing? Do you race crits, ironman, or centuries? Touring? Audax/Randonneuring?
Or are you just starting out and remembering how much fun you had biking when you were a kid?

There are no set challenges - this is a mixed-ability / mixed-experience / everyone welcome group.

Just pick the target that you would like to achieve this month and post updates throughout the month as you work toward your target. We love seeing photos of your rides and hearing all about them.

Share your accomplishments with us. :)


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Saturday --

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Today, Rowan and I cycled the longest ride we've done since prior to his accident: 73 km.

We were planning to do this ride about a month ago, but the weather was awful that weekend - a blast of winter! So we put it off till this weekend.

The start for this particular ride is 150 km away (just over 2 hours' drive) and about halfway there, we drove into thick fog. I hoped that the start town would be out of the fog, but no such luck.

We got there early, had a muffin and got ready to go. Still foggy. Thickly foggy.

The fog made for a challenging start. We couldn't see the contours of the land so it was hard to know how to pace ourselves on climbs and we were taking the descents a little slower. I didn't want a wallaby or sheep to leap out in front of us all of a sudden. I kept willing the sun to shine harder and burn off the fog.

Finally, about 24 km into the ride, the fog lifted and we could see. The ride turned and became hilly for the next 12 km or so, but it was a beautiful section with forest on either side of the road, and even more beautiful when we could see the mountains as we came out of the forest (see photo above).

We had a decent section of relatively flat and then at 58 km, the last set of climbs began. I had spent 2.5 hours in the garden yesterday and my hamstrings were killing me by this point. It was hard to put any power into my climbing. At last, with 3 km to go, the route was downhill to the finish.

It was about 1C (with a "feels like" temp of -3C) when we started. It reached 8.4C (with a "feels like" temp of 7C) toward the end of the ride. My feet were blocks of ice most of the way around.

There wasn't much wind at all ... calmest I think I've ever seen it. In fact, in the beginning, I kind of wished for a little bit of wind to blow the fog away.

Although the ride was tiring, and my legs are feeling it, I enjoyed the ride and the countryside. I love being out in the middle of nowhere in nature with almost no one around. :)


After the 2 hour drive home, Rhody wanted to go out for a walk in the cold and dark. I took him out for a little while but my legs weren't keen on walking and it was freezing out there.


Distance: 73.05km
Elevation: 441m
Moving Time: 4:10:25
Elapsed Time: 4:48:43
Speed: Avg: 17.5km/h | Max: 39.1km/h
Calories: 1,206

315km in 5 rides this long Canada Day weekend. Beautiful weather here. Legs need a well deserved break now.

I took a week off in the Ocala Nat Forest for the July 4th holiday. Got in 5 bikes rides. Cookie cutter summer weather. Wind out of the south around 3 mph and warm. The terrain was the usual mix of paved and unpaved forest roads. The only bad day I had was due to a flat and I could not get my thru axle to come out of the hub. I think the grit and bumps got it stuck. Had to call to be rescued. Got it out at home and greased it. About 200 miles for the week.

I've taken a few after work 27 mile Davis Is. rides as well when in Tampa.

Did some riding around south Tampa this past weekend. Similar rides each day for 40 miles each. Also, did my after work 27 miles Tuesday and will again this Thursday.

Nice one! Where was this? Up in the midlands somewhere?

Yep! Start/Finish at Campbell Town. :)

Closed out the month pretty well. Two weekends ago I was in the Ocala Nat Forest. Only got in one ride on Sunday. Lost my bottle cap along the way and added a couple more miles looking for it. 44 miles total. I got in two rides this past weekend in Tampa. Same general Davis/Picnic Is. route. Varied it by reversing on Sunday. 40 miles each day. I have done some after work rides both weeks. Dang hot. It has been triple digit heat index.

440 miles for July. 33 total rides. Moving time 23hours 40mins.

Well, Thursday July 28 I rode RAMROD on my single, only 151 miles and ~8,000' this year due to a road washout. It was really hot and I had a hard time on the 3500' pass climb in the sun. Today, we led a group ride up to a low local pass on our tandem, very scenic, only did 40 miles and 1500' but we have a relatively hard day hike (for us) tomorrow, so didn't want to do any more, nope. Noticeable that we haven't done enough strength work in the gym this year. Blame it on fear of Covid. Or maybe being weaker is worse than having Covid for 10 days? I wonder how being an active endurance athlete changes the risk of long Covid for geezers?

Making good progress on that Eddington Number! I hadn't planned on a longer ride, but the weather and traffic were agreeable and I just kept pedaling.

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