rogerstg

Did a normal 25 today and will ride a 30 club ride tomorrow. Temp is in the high 40s and I almost passed on today's ride; then I realized that in a couple months I'll be thankful to be able to ride on a day in the 40's.

Nachoman

Some true posing yesterday. Eleven miles on the tandem with the wife. We pedaled out to breakfast.

rangerdavid

I got in about 34 miles today. 20 on Thanksgiving day. Nothing on black friday, but I didnt do any shopping either. fun weekend though.......

DonDenver

Wife and I also avoided BF with a metric cen. A perfect day riding in Denver btw...I was in summer kit...I have yet to wax the skis ;-)

Red Lanterne

Did about 30 miles in western mass today, mixed hills and rollers ascended 2200'.
Winds sustained at 25mph with gusts up to 40-50mph. It was to sunny to pass up getting out.
Good times!

Shinjiboy

been putting off my bike rides further and further, but i do want to get in some miles tomorrow.

-bike to the lbs
-bike to alum rock, climb some hills and then shoot back down

forecast: sunny with low winds

NathanC

80km work club ride through the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Very nice.

Machka 

Sunday: 100 miles.

I'll write more later ... I've got to hobble off to work now.

Daytrip

Did 55 on Sunday. Pure joy. Beautiful weather for biking here in CNY--temps in the high 40s, sunny.

Tequila Joe

It snowed so the roads are very icy. A friend came over and we did one hour on our trainers to a CTS DVD.

ILUVUK

Rode 41 miles with a friend on Saturday. Was the first time I've been on my bike since 11/1. It felt great. low to mid-50s in the afternoon....damn nice for Iowa in late November!

Machka 

You've been doing a lot of riding!!

Machka 

OK ... here's the story ........

When we decided to ride the 165 km distance, I think we were still on something of a "high" from completing the 100 km distance on the Pyrenees Magic. I think we also counted on getting a lot more cycling in than we did between the two events.

As it happened, it poured buckets on the one weekend in between the two rides, so we didn't get out for a ride ... and I started a job that has me standing all day long, putting my back into a great deal of pain, three days before the event.

So with that background we got ready for the Bellarine 165. I was looking forward to this event, not so much for the event itself, but because it would be my first century since May, and it was along the coast of the Bellarine Peninsula within sight of the ocean. Beautiful! I had also ridden basically the same route, but the other direction, in 2004 at the start of the Great Southern. Only I remember none of it because it was dark by then ... so I wanted to see where I'd ridden.

We set off about 5 minutes later than the rest of the riders from Eastern Park in Geelong, but that doesn't bother us because we tend to hang off the back anyway. And it gave me a chance to work on my cue sheet skills. I'm not used to following a cue sheet.

The ride to the first control was pretty good. There were a few hills, but nothing unmanagable. But we didn't have much time to spare when we got there. The ride to the next control was lovely. It was all along the ocean (the bay) which I really enjoyed. It was, however, windy ... so while it was flat, there was the challenge of the wind. And then it poured on us just before the second control. Nevertheless, we made it there with 45 minutes to spare.

Not long after the second control Rowan flatted. There was a lot of broken glass on the course so that wasn't too much of a surprise. But it did eat into our time.

I pulled a lot in this section because I don't mind the wind ... and the wind was steadily increasing. Rowan isn't so fond of wind. I was distracted by the gorgeous scenery ... the ocean was a beautiful dark blue and turquoise colour, and crashed into the beach with large white waves. It was great!!

By about 115 km, I was starting to tire, and my back and right leg started to cramp up and become rather painful. But I still felt fairly strong. However, as we turned out of Bells Beach, we were faced with a massive climb. I couldn't do it. Neither could Rowan. He is usually a much stronger climber than me (he does better on the hills and I do better in the wind), but both his legs cramped badly, and we both ended up walking. We walked a few more hills after that too.

All that walking ate into our time quite a bit, and with 2 km to go to the third control, we were out of time. So we took a shortcut to a main road ... a road we suspected (correctly) was flatter than some of the others in the area. We also had a great tailwind.

At the first gas station we came to, we stopped for a traditional favourite of long distance cyclists ... potato chips and coke! Unfortunately as I set off again, I had a flat front tire. We kept pumping my tire up every 3 or 4 km for the rest of the ride. I still need to fix that tire.

Revived by the calories, liquid, and salt we carried on hoping to connect up with the route again, but missed it and had to backtrack to find it. This added a bit to our distance, and when we pulled back into Eastern Park, we were almost at a century distance. Down the road and back, and we finished a century ... 161 km (100 miles)!! And it only took us ..... 11 hours!!!

It was a century even though it wasn't the one we set out to do. But we learned a few things ... we are both out of shape!! We need to do a lot more riding before tackling a distance like that again. I also need to do a lot more work on my core. And we could both stand to lose a bit more weight. We also need to pay more attention to hydration and electrolyte consumption. Both of us cramped quite a bit, more than we should have, and that might have been prevented by consuming more liquid and electrolytes. So it was a re-learning experience.

The Bellarine Photos in this set are from that ride:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/1430288...266839/detail/

aggarcia

Saturday 11/28/09 - Rode 40 miles with a friend who just got a new Felt. Weather was 55 to start and warmed up to 65 by the time the ride finished. It was nice cycling weather. We ran into several packs of riders all enjoying the weather and day.