Saratoga Ride!

Riding, riding, riding!  It was a biking weekend, that’s for sure.  I had barely any work on Friday – so I ended up with a much needed 3-day weekend!  Friday we went out riding and I ended up with a broken chain. That is really very uncommon to totally break a chain, but leave it to me.  Once we got the bike home, John was able to repair the chain, so all is well now.

Saturday was the usual long ride day.  We decided to head to Saratoga.  It was really a gorgeous day, sunny and in the 70s.  It was windy, however, and that is really the riding condition that I dislike the most.  Going to Saratoga is all road riding as there are no paths going down there.

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Lots of sunshine today! River Road is really such a pretty route to take down.  It gets hardly any traffic, which is wonderful in itself, but it has some really great scenery.

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This is farm country.  I took this picture as this llama was just going away.  He did not want his picture taken!

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At mile 20, we stopped for a shade break and a snack:

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Dried pineapple and mini chocolate bars.  I was getting a little hungry. We each had a protein bar right before we left the house, but that didn’t last long.

I think these are wild daisies?

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It was only about 7 miles to go to get to lunch, so we moved on out.  We got to Saratoga and stopped at The Local to eat. I was hangry by this time!

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They serve a lot of locally sourced products, which is nice.  I decided to get a breakfast burrito.  I almost got a sandwich with fries, but I didn’t feel like getting anything greasy.

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I didn’t eat the beans. Why serve beans with a breakfast burrito that has eggs, potato and cheese? 

Anyway, a couple doors down from The Local was a bike shop.

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We stopped here after lunch so I could buy a few spare chain links in case my chain ever gives me problems again.  Do you ever buy something you think will just be a few bucks and you are shocked at the price?  That would be me. I bought 4 links. They are half an inch, if that. Anyway, 4 links cost $20!! Not sure how much that would make a whole chain.  Anyway, I need to treat those links like gold.

We biked back into the downtown area and walked around the shops – and then you know what time it was!!

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Now, this was a big cupcake. This picture doesn’t really show how big it is. Normally I get the smaller size and John and I will split another one and 1.5 of the smaller cuppies is still smaller than this single bigger one.  I was feeling still somewhat hungry and my burrito wasn’t that big – so I went for the big one.  Note to self – no matter how long the ride, don’t get the big one.  It was delicious, though.  Cookie dough – it had a ball of cookie dough at the bottom of the cuppie!

By this time, it was after 3:30 and time to head home, although I was really full LOL. I was a little concerned that my cupcake might revisit, but it stayed down.

This is when the wind really started to take a toll. Usually around here the wind will be at our backs for one way and headwind the other.  That’s fine.  The wind this day was a cross wind and a changing wind, so you hardly ever got a break.  It was relentless. Plus it would get gusty.  It’s hard having wind push you from the side because it can knock you over if you aren’t paying attention. Then it would suddenly change and be right in your face. Phew!

We ended up back at the Wildlife Preserve again for a break on the way home.  This would be a fun trail to hike some day.

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Again, this is really such a pretty ride.

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Here is a peak point of the ride.

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We were swapping the lead so that one person could draft and the other would take the brunt of the wind. On a windy day, drafting can really help save energy, but we still stopped a few more times than usual. Not to mention this ended up being a really long ride. This was around mile 48 or so?

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Then no more pictures. I was really starting to drag.  Normally in a ride I gain strength as the ride goes on and I finish really strong, but the wind just plum wore me out!  Not to mention I got a stinger in my shoulder blade. Do you ever get those? Ugh.

The last 5 miles or so, I really hit the wall and John told me to just stay behind him and he let me draft the rest of the way home. Now that is an awesome husband!

Finally home!

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Ride stats:

Total miles: 57.4

Average speed: 13.1 mph

Top speed: 31.2 mph – downhill, baby!

Saddle time:  4 hours 28 minutes

Calories burned: 1477

Calories burned probably higher than that considering the wind, but what are you going to do? It’s just an estimate anyway.  This was a tough ride, but a pretty one.

We did our usual 20 mile breakfast ride on Sunday, which is good to do after a long ride to keep from being too stiff. All these miles helped put a dent in my 400 mile goal for the month. Only 285 miles to go!

17 thoughts on “Saratoga Ride!

  1. Tami@NutmegNotebook

    What a great bike ride! Drafting makes such a huge difference – I really don’t like riding against the wind – it’s so tiring. I have found that I need to eat light when out bike riding – if I eat a big lunch mid way I start to feel nauseous when we resume our bike ride. I don’t think I could eat the sweet treat during the ride but I sure would love it at the end!

    1. Lori Post author

      I can’t eat too light when biking or I don’t have enough energy to get through the ride. We keep dried fruit and protein bars on hand normally for fast energy that doesn’t take up much space in the bag.

      I don’t like riding when full, though.

  2. Kim

    Wow – y’all got in a lot of biking this weekend!!! Your breakfast burrito looks tasty!!
    Sweet of John to brave the wind those last few miles:)

    1. Lori Post author

      It was a bike binge, that’s for sure LOL! Rest day on Monday. I am lucky to have John be my wind break 😀

  3. Shelley B

    OOF, the wind. It’s zero fun to run in, as well. What a major biking weekend you and John had – now it feels like summer, seeing you ride so much! 🙂

  4. debby

    Oh how fun! That’s funny, I was thinking “it would be so nice if John would draft for her.” And what do you know–he did! What a guy!

    Cupcake love–what a wonderful idea with the cookie dough!

    1. Lori Post author

      Usually I am the really strong one at the end of a long ride, so it made it hard for me to just stay in the back. My ego gets in the way a lot of times 😀

  5. Fran

    Wow what a great ride. I love it so much when my blogger friends post pics of the area where they live or in your case ride. I love seeing where you live.
    I’m so impressed with how long and how far you both ride.

    Another great ride in the books, I enjoyed it as always.

    1. Lori Post author

      It was a long ride, but at least we don’t do all 57 miles in one shot. That would be really tiring and not as much fun as with all our stops!

  6. Helen

    Dang that was a long ride in the wind! I generally don’t like running in the wind although I don’t mind it as much in the summer (winter wind just sucks lol!). The burrito looks yummy. I’m sure they served beans because burrito = mexican = beans of some sort.

  7. Joanne

    We were so lucky to have such nice weather all three days! Ted and I went for a ride along the canal trail. When you can get away from traffic, it’s so much more relaxing to ride.

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