Category Archives: bike riding

Fishing and riding!

It was an outdoor weekend! Even though Saturday’s weather wasn’t really all that great, I went fishing with my sister and one of the nieces. We were down in Albany on the Hudson river.

It was a little gloomy and a bit chilly, but it was fun.

All of the gear – my sister is prepared:

We were fishing for striped bass, which have just moved into the area for the season.

My pole set up and waiting (or my borrowed pole, I should say):

It’s been many years since I have fished and there are things that I’ve forgotten, like not unlocking the reel when the line is taut.

Oopsie! This is called a bird nest, by the way LOL. I did manage to unknot it without have to cut the line, though.

We had snacks to eat:

Some big barges went by, too. They were neat.

One thing I wish I could have gotten a picture of was a bald eagle catching a fish. That was very cool! It wouldn’t have shown up well on my phone, plus I just wanted to watch it.

We didn’t end up catching anything. None of the other anglers around is did either. Oh well. Now that I have my license for the year, we will go out again.

Sunday was a gorgeous day and it was back to the usual!

John and I took a roundabout way to the lake to get in more miles. Still building the endurance. Plus hills:

This is an easy one. I don’t stop to take pictures on the steep ones or I’ll never get going again 😀

There were a lot of people out today. Everyone was enjoying the great weather. The lake was very pretty as usual and we were happy campers!

Return of the dried pineapple snack!

It was chilly and windy at the lake, so we didn’t stay long. It was a good ride and we’re almost ready for a cupcake ride. We ended up with 28 miles today, longest ride of the year.

Calories burned for me really are only about 900 for this ride. I don’t know how to change Map My Ride to burn less.

There was a well deserved treat afterwards:

Yes indeed, I reward myself with food!

We live in such a great area for being outdoors. It makes getting through winter worth it 😀

Cookie and horses

Saturday was a perfect riding day. Sunny, not too hot and not very windy. After lunch, we headed on down to Saratoga. The ride pretty much looked like this the whole way down:

Other than a jerk driver at one spot, it was an uneventful ride. The race track is open in Saratoga, which means lots more people! At least during the day more people are at the track. The downtown area gets very crowded with night life.

Enjoy some photos:

These are the ballet shoes around town. A few years ago, it was horses and there are still some around, like this one:

Lots of sidewalk sales and such. Most of the clothes weren’t really my style and the ones that were pretty much were not in my budget (which is thrift LOL ).

We arrived at our destination, which was Putnam’s market.

Wine in a can? I’m not a wine drinker, but that seems a bit low brow to me 😀

Putnam’s is a specialty food store with a deli and bakery in it.

It was a really hard decision to pick out what i wanted, but I actually had to get a cookie instead of a cupcake because the Ginger Lemon Passion cookie was soooo good the last time I had it. So that’s what I got. Soft ginger cookie with a lemon buttercream.

I love this cookie. Love it! Not to mention how good stuff tastes after riding 20 miles! Never fear, though, John had the cupcake. This is the chocolate Bavarian cheesecake one:

Deliciously dense and rich. Saturday was also national cheesecake day – so it was appropriate!

I was sad when my cookie was gone, but John bought another one so he could have it at night and he shared it with me <3

We did a little more strolling while I picked up some pokemon.

Super pink limo!

It’s not a Mary Kay limo, but striking nonetheless. The driver stopped to have a cigarette, but I didn’t check to see if it was pink.

Then we stumbled on a new store called Tea and Honey. What a great find! They have tons of teas with sampling along with a room full of many kinds of honey for tasting.

Very cool. Check out these honey bowls made out of beeswax:

So intricate and beautiful! I would love to take my in-laws to this place as they love honey things.

It was pretty cloudy, so we started heading back to the bikes. Then we came upon another horse. Real this time:

This picture doesn’t do justice to how massive he is. I knew it was some sort of draft horse, but wasn’t sure what kind. I asked the officer and he said it was a percheron. This horse weighs 2200 pounds! That is a lot of horse. He was gentle, though, and I gave him some pats.

It actually started to sprinkle a bit and so we booked it out of there since we were 20 miles from home! The sprinkling stopped about 3 miles later, so we were good. We only stopped once on the way home, though.

Good ride! Another 40 miles in the books.

40 miles done. We are in good bike shape now. I have to say I am really noticing my recent weight loss with riding. It just feels easier and I do notice the saddle differently.

It’s going to be a busy week. I am covering for John’s business at the beginning of the week while he is out of town and trying to hold down the fort on my work. At least I won’t get bored!

Path riding and macarons

The warm sticky weather continues around here. Rain was predicted to start Saturday afternoon, so we decided to head out early for our ride. That meant no cupcake, but oh well 😀

We headed towards the lake after a swing by the post office. It’s nice to be able to take small packages there by bike. We really live in a great location.

Then it was path time:

Just about to the nice shady part. We stopped by a little memorial:

There is a bench here as well. Unfortunately, this young woman committed suicide and this memorial is to raise awareness for suicide and that you are not alone.

The path was pretty busy. Lots of tourists. That means you can’t really zoom down like you might otherwise because some people don’t understand path and trail rules.

On to the lake. It would be a good day to take a dip. Even though it was still morning, it was pretty warm.

We sat in the shade and relaxed a bit.

Our bikes took a rest, too.

We scrapped our original planned route because of the heat and sun and went out on one of our old routes towards our previous house. This path is mostly gravel and there was a patch were it was really loose and thick:

That’s fishtail land, so we walked over that bit.

It’s really a beautiful path, though.

Hot and sweaty, but happy riding.

You can see John in my glasses! Hi John!

We ended up with 30 miles, which was a decent ride.

John had been out of town at the end of the week and brought home some treats, so that was what I had in place of a cuppie. These are macarons and delicious!

A little small, though. About the size of a peppermint patty. I had these with an icy latte.

We had huge storms come through later in the day, which brought much needed rain. It cleared up later and we were able to walk downtown for a Saturday night out.

Very good weekend overall.

Celebrating 48!

It was birthday weekend. We love doing birthdays up around here 😀 Please enjoy my self-indulgent post.

I wasn’t totally sure about biking my age in miles like I usually do and it actually wasn’t in my plan, but as you know, plans can change.

We went riding early Saturday making a stop along the way at a garden center (of course!). This is Toadflax.

There are multiple greenhouses you can go into as well.

I could spend forever in there, but I was geting hungry! We rode back to town and hit up Spot coffee for a snack:

On a whim, we decided to bike further and by the time we got home, we had already done 32 miles. I thought, you know – it’s only another 16 miles. That’s not even 1.5 hours of riding. It was still early, so I ate lunch, put on more sunscreen and headed back out. John stayed behind to get working on my cake 😀

I made quick work of the remaining 16 miles and my legs felt great! I could go a lot farther, for sure. I almost am thinking about doing 100 miles again, but then I remember how exhausting that is, and how it takes all day long.

Woo Hoo!

I don’t look a day over 47!

Since the plan was for cake party on Sunday (my actual birthday), dinner out was had Saturday night since I didn’t want to eat a dinner and have cake on the same day. We went to Druthers Brewery in Saratoga. Delicous beer: I highly recommend the Scottish-style 80.

And Buffalo chicken mac and cheese because birthday and 48 miles 😀

I had to bring some home. This looks smaller in the picture than it was in real life.

Sunday was a really rainy day, which is why the riding happened on Saturday. John made the most delicious cake. White cake (doctored box mix) with a salted caramel frosting drizzled with caramel.

This was delicious! It was almost like a spreadable praline. Yummy.

Pressies:

And yes, we serve cake on mismatched plates because we are classy like that.

Wonderful gifts, too.

Fairy garden items from my in-laws, gift certificates to garden centers — including Toadflax!, lacy shawl, lots of camera gear. These are my cool new polarized glasses with bling for riding when it is cloudy, but bright – or I can use them in the car for night driving.

They are actually a blue color, which doesn’t come through.

Cake!!

A very good weekend. And thank you to all that have been wishing on Facebook!

Hot riding!

In memory of our fallen who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us.

We had a fairly low key weekend here. There were Memorial Day observances and parades.

At our old house, we lived on the main street so all parades went by our house and we could watch them from the front porch. Kind of miss that. This parade was maybe a mile from the house? So not far and easy enough to bike to.

The weather here in the northeast has been hot. Sizzling hot! We were in the 40s a couple weeks ago with chilling winds and temps hit 90 this weekend and humid, breaking records for late May. We are definitely not acclimated to those kinds of temperatures. Not that I like it that hot anyway, but I melt terribly in the heat.

For Saturday’s ride, that meant leaving early in the morning so we wouldn’t be out in the hot part of the day. I was slathered up with sunscreen and wearing my Road ID!

The plan was for Saratoga. The ride down was pleasant, although getting a bit warm and I was sweating like crazy from the start.

We took a break at one of our usual spots and instead of seeing forest, we see this:

There was a for sale sign out at the road side. Someone decided to clear this lot and put it for sale. Ugh. Trees used to be up to where that green is in the front of the photo and looked more like the other side of the road:

Boo.

This was a dried pineapple snack stop.

You can see my glowing pink shirt reflected in my handle bars 😀

We rolled into Saratoga at around 10:30 a.m. We normally ride after lunch and have an afternoon cupcake, so this early ride sort of threw that schedule out the window. We picked up drinks at Uncommon Grounds and then went to Putnam’s Market, which is a neat store with all kinds of foodie stuff in it.

There is a deli section, a cheese room and a wonderful bakery section. John decided he wanted a cupcake anyway, so that’s what he got. I picked up a treat to take home and eat later, but I brought along a Zone bar for energy to eat then. This is paired with my 24 ounce latte – gotta replenish those fluids, right?

We didn’t dilly dally much because of the heat. John handles the heat way better than I do. For as much time as I spend outdoors, I don’t actually like being in the direct sunlight. I am certainly not a person that will lay on the beach soaking up rays. My skin is too sensitive.

Anyway, we had a mishap on the way home. We were on a straight away section of road about 10 miles from home, which is pretty easy riding. Just above our heads in front of us, a vulture was floating on an air current. It was so, so cool to see that, only John got distracted a little bit too much. I heard his tire crunch gravel, which I thought was him stopping, and I looked in my mirror just in time to see John toppling over into the ditch! I flew back around just as he was moving around, so that was a relief. A motorist stopped to make sure he was okay, since they saw him fall. At least the ditch was grass covered, so that prevented serious injury. He had some scrapes and bumps, but otherwise okay. Thank goodness. We carry a mini first aid kit with us (always be prepared) and he got taped up as best as possible and we continued home. Guess that vulture had plans for a meal when he saw us.

That incident kept us out in the sun a little longer than we would have liked and the last 6-7 miles I was really hot and kind of tired. Heat and humidity saps so much energy, at least for me.

We were home by a bit past 12:30. It was pretty darned hot! John showered and we got him bandaged more appropriately. It was strange to be done with our ride so early in the day, but I had my treat to have later!

This was a ginger cookie with lemon buttercream. Can you believe my cookie made it home fine in the heat? I thought I was going to have a cookie swimming in a pool of butter when I got home, but it was fine and didn’t even get smooshed in my bag. I did try to pack it carefully on its plate in a bag.

This cookie was delicious! It was a soft cookie with bits of crystalized ginger in it. Yummers. I gave John a bite and I think he was a little sorry that he didn’t save his treat for later 🙂

We got tons of rain last night and combined with the heat, flowers are a poppin’!

Here is my rhododendron:

Pretty, isn’t it?

At least Monday was a light work day, so I got more time outdoors and a good weekend over all.

Lake ride!

Last day of March! Just in time to have cold and snowy weather coming in for April. WTF, Spring? Quit it!

Anyway, there have been connection issues with work and my VPN for the past few days- which is how I remotely connect into the office. It’s been up and down and after going down yet again this morning, I said screw it and went for a ride hoping they would get it straightened out while I was out. I knew there wouldn’t be riding this weekend with rain and snow coming in, so I decided to head on down all the way to the lake for the first time this year. The last time I tried riding there, the trail was closed 2 miles from the lake, but it’s open now.

This was one of those rides where my Accuweather app was saying rain in 90 minutes when I left the house, so I was playing ‘beat the rain’ for this ride. Although, I will say it really should be not-so-Accuweather since they seem to be wrong a lot. Arrival at the lake in the late morning:

It was fairly breeze out, so I was surprised to see the lake looking this calm. Here is one of the unused beaches:

Much too cold for swimming, but there was somebody trying to flyfish out in the lake. That must have been cold, even in waders.

I had a snack for sustenance:

All too soon it’s going to get busy and crowded with tourists at the lake, so it’s nice to enjoy the quiet:

I have a new bike seat, too. I wore my other one out and the brace broke on it. It’s different than my old seat and hits in different spots, but it’s pretty comfortable – as comfortable as bike seats get anyway.

I checked the app and it said rain in 45 minutes, which meant I shouldn’t dilly dally and I headed home. It never did rain 😀

20 miles done. My hill legs feel pretty good. I think the short off season helped with that and getting a decent amount of riding in March. I will definitely be ready for Saratoga rides in April, barring crappy weather for the month (JINX!). I biked about 165 miles in March compared to 0 miles in March 2015.

I saw this meme on Pinterest and it just seemed like me, right down to the pink jacket!

Good thing I rode 20 miles because we went out to dinner tonight:

I hardly ever eat burgers anymore unless we go out and this one was tasty! I probably could do with another 20 miles of riding…

Running update

So, I’ve been progressing in the running department. Now the runs are mostly the same. 5 minute warm up, 25 minutes of jogging and cool down. It hasn’t been a problem doing the runs, although I am quite slow. On Sunday, it was too cold to bike for breakfast, but I figured I could jog there since it was about the distance I needed to cover for my workout time — about 2- 2.5 miles . John took the car, which was good so that I didn’t have to get home jogging or walking. LOL! Anyway, as I was plodding along, I was thinking that I wasn’t enjoying it very much. Or at all, really. I kept thinking that I wished I were biking or, at the very least, done with the running.

My insomnia has been rearing its head lately as well and last night after I got back out of bed and sat thinking while playing a video game at 2 am, I was mulling over running. I just don’t like it and I don’t think I want to spend the time doing something I don’t like. Running never makes my face look like this:

Biking does that. I have been weather watching to see what days I could coordinate the running program with weather conducible to riding and I would rather just not fit that in and sort of dreading the run program days.

It sort of feels like a failure to stop running, which I know isn’t true, but that feeling is there – just being honest. You know that feeling like you are supposed to be doing something. So many people run and do yoga and meditate and I don’t do those things. I bike, which is not necessarily as women-centric a sport and I feel a little left out sometimes by not joining in the yoga or the running thing with the cool kids. Heck – I don’t even like the yoga pants on their own without the yoga!

I guess this means I will hang up the running shoes until another couple years go by and I get the itch again — or maybe that won’t happen at all. Meanwhile, I’ll just stick with what I love and the dorky outfits that entails:

It’s almost cupcake ride season anyway!

Solo riding

Daylight savings – ugh! No matter which way it goes, it messes me up for a while. At least it’s lighter out later now. More spring like 😀

Painting has begun in the exercise room. We went with one shade lighter on the green than the samples and I really like it. I don’t know how well this picture shows the color.

The room is in shambles and Pixie was underfoot.

John calls her my shadow.

We had a great weather weekend. I went out for a solo ride on Saturday (as John was gone) and took the Rebel with me for pics. I wanted to see how far I could get to Lake George if the paths were clear of snow and ice. The temps were in the mid 50s when I went out. This is the time of year when you can see things you ordinarily don’t. We pass by Round Pond all the time on our way to Lake George, but the foliage covers it up. This time of year you can see it:

There was a fair number of people on the path. Everyone was happy and friendly, too! Must be the weather. The bike path was clear and dry for a long time. I was starting to get my mind set to being able to make it to the LG Baking Company for a treat 😀

Climbing hills – my first hill ride of the season and my legs felt it. No matter what you do in the off season, you get deconditioned to hills. I made it up the steepest part without needing to stop, although I was going really slow.

After this, the climbing is more gentle until you get 2 miles from the lake. Then you rocket down for 2 miles into town. Only when I got the top, I saw this.

So, all that climbing and I missed my downhill reward:

And my treat. I thought about getting around the barrier because the trail is never closed to cyclists – and actually I have never seen this barrier before, but then I wasn’t sure what lay beyond that. If any part of the path was still going to be icy and snowy, it would be this last bit in the forested area. So, I played it safe and turned around. At least I got to go back down the other way.

I stopped on the way down for pictures – since I obviously won’t stop on the way up LOL! You can see some remains of snow here.

The little stream bed over the edge had a lot of run off.

This is usually a much smaller stream.

Some happy cyclists taking a break:

The marsh all wide open. There were a lot of red winged blackbirds staking claims here.

Not a terribly long ride, but a good one for early spring:

My legs felt pretty good, although tired from the hills. I need to be riding that route a lot more so we can gear up for the 40 mile cupcakes rides!

Happy rider!

We were out again on Sunday riding as well (along with C25K training – tired legs tonight). Here is Pixie wishing us a good ride as we were getting ready to leave:

Either wishing us a good ride or just enjoying the sun 🙂

Riding!

Last weekend was such an unpredictable weather weekend that we didn’t do our usual long ride, so I was looking forward to Saturday!

It was a mostly cloudy day and temps in the upper 70s, so a good day for riding. There was a bit of breeze, but it was coming from the east, making it a crosswind which didn’t really affect the riding. There is no path on the way to Saratoga, just road riding, so not terribly exciting for pictures.

We stopped around mile 9 or so? for a little rest and snack:

Yummy, yummy dried pineapple!

Tick and poison ivy country, right here…

We hit up Saratoga at mile 20 and checked out the Bread Basket for the first time in at least a year.

They have good cupcakes – or gut bombs as we like to call them. These are big suckers.

Mine was peanut butter. It was filled with peanut butter mousse and topped with peanut butter frosting and ganache. John had a Boston Cream. So yummy! Especially after 20 miles of riding. Today was opening day for the Saratoga Race Track, so hardly anyone was downtown since they were all at the track. That was quite nice, I have to say.

After eating, we walked over to Congress Park and looked around. There is a section with a sundial surrounded by Pan and the Maenads:

Pan is a wee bit creepy:

We didn’t spend too long here and headed home, well-fueled by cupcakes! We booked home. This is around mile 32 or so on the day. It’s at the top of a small hill and overlooks a long way.

Riders!

It was feeling a little humid and I was glad for the cloud cover. Our arrival home:

Ride stats:

Total miles: 41.5

Average speed: 13.4 mph

Top speed 26.6 mph

Saddle time: 3 hours 6 minutes

Calories burned: 1452.

It was a good ride. We are in good shape for the season and these rides feel pretty easy, even with the hills. I really pushed on the one big long hill on the way home to see if I could accelerate on the climb, which I actually was able to do! I think watching the Tour de France influences my riding LOL!

Speaking of le Tour, it was very good this year. I was rooting for Nairo Quintana and if there was one more day in the mountains, I think he would have won. He will win in the future, that is for sure.

Funniest quote of the tour came from Geraint Thomas. There was one stage where he just had a really bad day and went down in the standings because he just didn’t have enough energy to keep up. After the race he said “Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail. Today I was a cheapie little Ikea nail.” I think we have all been there.

A shed and 49 miles!

We have shed! Once John got the base built (2 xs and plywood), it was time to assemble the shed. It really didn’t take that long, surprisingly. It’s a Rubbermaid shed made of vinyl and snaps together, and then several hundred screws. 🙄 We put the walls up Friday evening:

Then finished it Saturday morning.

This went together surprisingly fast. It doesn’t look level in the picture, but the ground slopes, so it actually is level 😀 We had to dig out around the base to level it.

Now we are starting to fill it with stuff! We are going to put in some shelving and pegboard for hanging as well.

Happy, happy! Then comes the reward of riding for a cupcake! We left right after lunch. The plan was to go our old River road route to Saratoga.. John said he thought it would be just a little bit longer than where we leave from now (20 miles). Mistake 1 was not checking that for sure…

This is a beautiful road for scenery. The temps were in the mid to upper 70s, which was nice, but the winds were brutal on the way down. Head wind all the way. I felt a little tired right from the get go. Ever have those days where you start exercising and just know right away it isn’t going to be your best?

Farm country. We stopped at the very top after a climbing for a snack. This is where we realized it was going to be a longer ride than expected. Where we would normally be mile wise at this point was quite a bit farther.

No choice but to keep going!

We took another stretch break here, which was around mile 19.

We were planning the trip down to be around 21 miles or so, but when we were here, we knew it was another 7 miles to go! I was starting to get cranky with the wind and an unexpected extra 40 minutes to the ride down.

Finally! 28 miles later and we got to Saratoga. Good thing it wasn’t a super hot day. That was the saving grace on not bonking. We both ran out of water. I had coconut water as well, but I had frozen it the night before and it was still rock solid LOL!

I was sooooo ready for my cuppie. This is a vanilla sundae cupcake. With a chocolate fudge filling.

Plus the biggest iced coffee they had, which I sucked down 😀

The good thing was that headwind on the way down meant a great tailwind on the way home! We went home our usual way. With the tailwind, it was like dropping an instant 10 pounds!

Not many pictures on the way home. It was later in the day and we just booked our way home. Stopping around mile 38 for some now thawed refreshment:

I was feeling a lot happier with cupcake energy and a tail wind

Boom:

I was almost tempted to ride around for another half mile, but we were pretty tired by this point. Longest ride of the year to date! I am at about mile 830 on the year now.

Ride stats:

Total miles: 49.4

Saddle time: 3 hours 42 minutes

Average speed: 13.2 mph

Top speed: 25.4 mph

Calories burned: 1730

That was quite the ride! Note to self: Always double check the mileage for a new route 😀 It’s amazing how much easier the ride home was. Wind makes such a difference.

Finding Radiance

Trying to live a fit life loving food, cycling, gardening and everything in between!