jaxgtr

LOL.... yep, been there. In the early 2000's I was riding at night a lot of the time as my wife, a nurse working 12 hr shifts, would go to bed early, generally around the same time, my very young kids did. I generally would take off after they were down for the night, 8 to 9. Well one night I took off a little late, about 10:45, and I was at the farthest point out in my ride, about 9 miles and I got a flat. Grumble a little, walk to the next light, do the tube changing bit, and off I go, about a tenth of a mile, I flat again. Now I am ticked, check my tire better this time, I do not feel anything in it, put my last tube in, and head back..... like maybe 200 yards later, I flat again. I find a roofing tack in my tire. I look at the time on my computer and realize it is after midnight, I start walking, going about 1 mile and think, man, this is going to be a long walk in these road shoes. I contemplate the rath I am going to get if I call her, versus taking off my shoes and just walking home, as I did not have to work the next day. I start walking, but after a mile or so, I make the call, but continue walking. It was a very quiet ride except for the part when my 6 year old asked what I was doing riding so far away from home? I look at him and said, good question son, good question. It was frosty the next couple of days, but was almost 100 degrees out. I changed to just ride a 12 mile loop that was never more than roughly 2.5 miles from my house at any point after that and would do 2 or 3 loops.

jaxgtr

20 on the trainer with 2500 ft of climbing.

diphthong

(mostly) uninspiring 33-spot. a few steep pitches here and there.

Sierra_rider

31 miles and 4500' of gain. I took the new-to-me "climbing bike" that I built out, because I wanted to see how much I would notice the weight difference on a steep climb(1.6 miles at 12%.) It's much livelier than my "daily driver" disc bike...I got surprised with rain though and had fun with non-existent braking abilities. I got soaking wet and had to deal with 40°ish degree temps.

jaxgtr

Legs were not doing well today, felt like I had 50 lbs of additional weight on each leg, but still did 20 miles and 3500ft of climbing, really slow....

diphthong

36-spot. hit a few roads/climbs that i hadn't tackled in 15+ years. still very challenging...they were easier than i remembered but not because i was in great shape today.
it's because i was in great shape then and pushing harder than the lcd pedaling squares style/survival mode of today. c'est la vie. part of me is miffy that i was unable
to go faster. the other part of me is grateful that i'm still able to go up some of these grades-at whatever speed.

Sierra_rider

That's partly why I built the bike above. It's light, but it's mainly to have a bike to run dedicated mountain gearing in the summer(while having "normal" gearing on my other bike.) I ran a 11-40 mtb cassette on the back of my Endurace for the Death Ride this year and it was a game changer. I wouldn't want that gearing all the time, but it's handy when spending all day tackling the big Sierra climbs.

rsbob 

52 miles on a sunny cool day (50* in the sun) with 2000’ gain at 16.5 average. Felt thrashed after. Not enough fuel.

kevinkay

Cut it short at 7 miles at 6:30am because I wasn't properly dressed for the cold

SpeedyBlueBiker

Is this photo up on Redmond Ridge?

rsbob 

Yup at Trilogy. Good eye. Nothing like it in the whole area.

SpeedyBlueBiker

Did you climb up Novelty Hill Rd. east bound or west bound? I've come up eastbound off of Avondale Rd numerous times but have never gone the other direction.

rsbob 

I live in the Snoqualmie valley so came up past Carnation Farms, up Union Hill, then crossed over to Avondale and back the same way. When I lived in Redmond I would go up Avondale and Union all the time for hill climbs and go down to the valley on both roads too. I used to climb Avondale from the east, but traffic is just too bad these days so I only descend it these days because I can keep up with the cars.

SpeedyBlueBiker

Nice route! Yes, a lot more traffic in that area now. I really dislike riding on Avondale especially going northbound. Living on Education Hill, you're bound to ride by there sometime but I try to make it southbound if I have to.

rsbob 

Used to live in Cedar Ridge at the corner of 148th and Redmond Way back in my 30s. My nightly ride was up Education Hill, then down past the high school to Avondale and up Novelty or Union Hill through the valley and up and over Tolt Hill, down 202 toward Redmond but cut up to Ames Lake, then Union Hill back to Redmond. It was one heck of a workout.

Couldnt do that nightly now if I had to - unless it was VERY leisurely with no time limit.

ofajen

No ride today, just a one hour, easy run, but I did get my new Race King rear tire to seat properly by soapy water plus inflating to 80 psi. That’s a lot for a 26x2.20 tire rated to 58 psi, but the rated pressure wasn’t getting the job done.

Anyway, things look good for a ride tomorrow!

Ottk

Sierra_rider

A little shakedown ride on my brand-new XC bike, 2024 Santa Cruz Blur...just 16 miles and 2000' of climbing. This bike is going to be quick. It's longer travel than the typical XC bike and is kinda porky compared to my outgoing XC bike, but it really does a better job of putting the power down to the ground than my old bike.

rsbob 

Congrats. Sweet ride

Sierra_rider

Thanks. I wasn't sure if going with a 120mm XC bike was going to be a mistake, but after today's ride, I have zero regrets about this acquisition. I'm also enjoying the wireless shifting, I think the ability to rapid-fire shifts, will be an advantage in racing scenarios. Now I'm just eagerly waiting for the XC season to start up again.

AveCaesarAve

One mile exactly - but in the rain and at 5degC, so was not the most pleasant experience

jaxgtr

Ride is a ride.

jaxgtr

I had a life sucking work based training that I could not get out of for 4 hrs and a 1 hour break in the middle. , So I jump on Rouvy, pulled up Godfather and Godfather II. I got called on once, and someone asked if I had a fan running, I told them my AC was down and it was over 80 outside and the AC people would not be here until this afternoon.

I got in 37 miles and 5.7K feet of altitude gain rode through the break time and once I finished, oh hey, the AC people are here, I will be right back. Took a shower, got some food and then rejoined as they were wrapping up. Then they say, oh this was recorded, so if you want to review it later you can. I was like, yea I will check that out. uh pass.

rsbob 

Brilliant! Reminds me of my old work from home days.

rsbob 

Tried to knock off all the Scotland routes on ZWIFT with help of my fascinated 5 YO grandson. He was fascinated by the Ghosts (white pace partners) the animals and catching people. When someone blew by generating unreal watts, he was disappointed I could not ketchup. I told him old people are not quite as fast as young adults, which was a real puzzler.

Sierra_rider

I've been known to skip out on virtual meetings...I usually put opaque tape on my laptop camera and then claim that I'm having tech issues. It's totally believable, at least if I'm at home. I live out in BumF@&%$ Egypt, so everyone assumes that the Hooterville Phone Company is having bandwidth problems.