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My first 50 mile ride of the year...

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My first 50 mile ride of the year...

Old 07-28-21, 07:35 PM
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zacster
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My first 50 mile ride of the year...

It was maybe a year ago when I was doing at least one 50 miler every week to keep the weekly miles over 100, and it wasn't that big a deal. This year though I just never got started with riding in the spring, never mind on the trainer in the winter. I did 35 miles on a ride last week and felt depleted afterwards so I thought that maybe 50 miles wasn't in the cards anymore. I'm 66 now and it is just harder to start working myself into shape. That said, even at 63 I was still kicking ass, stronger than ever, faster than ever and a better climber too. It went downhill pretty fast.

So my ride today was the 50 mile Tour de Brooklyn that I mapped out. You never leave the borough of Brooklyn, there is no doubling back anywhere, just a big circle. The first 25 miles are mostly on a mostly uninterrupted bike path along the Belt Parkway and I usually take that at a decent clip, I was doing a steady 23 on the firsts section and slowed it down to about 19 on the second part with the bridges. The rest of the ride is in the streets with bike lanes, a lot of stop and go for the traffic. At any point in the ride I can turn towards home and it is never more than 7 miles from where I am. It is the hub to the wheel's rim that I'm riding. At about 35 miles I got tempted but persevered and did the whole thing.

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Old 07-28-21, 07:54 PM
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Terrific! My normal routes are mostly two lane rural roads with a few busy city streets tossed into the mix. I just can’t fathom doing an urban route like that. The stop and start would drive me bonkers!
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Old 07-28-21, 08:06 PM
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Neat ride. There is some fine riding north of NYC on both sides of the Hudson. The bike riding upstate of NYC is beautiful.

It looks like the temps in central IA will drop into the 80 s this weekend so I’m hoping to knock out a 50 miler as well that will mainly be on a MUP with some gravel riding thrown in.
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Old 07-28-21, 10:03 PM
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Nice
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Old 07-28-21, 11:17 PM
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Cool route. I see that you rode a bit on Stillwell Avenue in Gravesend.

That road is named after my family, on my mom’s side. They were first settlers there. First white settlers, any way.
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Old 07-29-21, 07:23 AM
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Originally Posted by jppe
Terrific! My normal routes are mostly two lane rural roads with a few busy city streets tossed into the mix. I just can’t fathom doing an urban route like that. The stop and start would drive me bonkers!
Well, like I said, about half of it was on uninterrupted paths. The other half was on the streets. Most rides I do are going to be like that as I always need to ride the streets to get anywhere.
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Old 07-29-21, 07:27 AM
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Originally Posted by terrymorse
Cool route. I see that you rode a bit on Stillwell Avenue in Gravesend.

That road is named after my family, on my mom’s side. They were first settlers there. First white settlers, any way.
Yep. I went there to take a few photos for the subway buffs. The el that looks like it would be built all the way to Coney Island along Stillwell ends abruptly there and the tracks curve away to a different route.

Are any ancestors buried in Green-wood Cemetery? Most of the Brooklyn families are.
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Old 07-29-21, 07:33 AM
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Originally Posted by bikemig
Neat ride. There is some fine riding north of NYC on both sides of the Hudson. The bike riding upstate of NYC is beautiful.

It looks like the temps in central IA will drop into the 80 s this weekend so I’m hoping to knock out a 50 miler as well that will mainly be on a MUP with some gravel riding thrown in.
I've done plenty of riding upstate. It just isn't something I can do on a daily basis or on the spur of the moment. I need to get into better shape too since it is hillier. There is also a new loop you can do from the GWB up through NJ back into NYS and across the new Cuomo/Tappan Zee bridge and down on the rail trail. That ride is 50 miles but since it is 18 miles to the bridge from my house it would be a long day. Or I could drive or take the subway.
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Old 07-29-21, 03:13 PM
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Originally Posted by zacster
Are any ancestors buried in Green-wood Cemetery? Most of the Brooklyn families are.
Lots and lots of Stillwell cousins are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery. It's a big family.

My side of the family moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island around 1665 (Uncle Richard negotiated the purchase of Staten Island from the Indians), and they stayed there for the most part.

Thankfully, my parents moved to California.
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Old 07-30-21, 05:01 PM
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That is cool. A world apart from my routes!
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Old 07-31-21, 02:20 PM
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And to make the week complete I've put in 100 miles for the week, the first time this season. In past years that was the norm.
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Old 08-05-21, 06:33 AM
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Originally Posted by zacster
It was maybe a year ago when I was doing at least one 50 miler every week to keep the weekly miles over 100, and it wasn't that big a deal....
Nice job. I live at the edge of an Western urban area, with lots of access to rural and mountain roads, but I still enjoy an urban ride on MUPs fairly often. There's a route around Denver's paths that approaches a century loop. The paths follow newer beltway roads, and what we call rivers and creeks out here (you wouldn't recognize them as such).

You have a couple of years on me, and I try to follow the same routine--100 miles/week, with at least one 50 miler in there. That nearly doubled most weeks with COVID shutdowns. I'm also trying to keep up with the long-term goal of being able to ride my age in miles, just for fun without any training, so once a month or so I put in a 64+ miler. That's just to see how long I can do that, and have fun doing it.
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Old 08-27-21, 10:35 AM
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I deleted my prior response because I started getting youtube recommendations for videos for things I didn't need based on that reply. Sheesh, they are reading EVERYTHING!!! It is probably too late though to take it back.
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