Category Archives: bike riding

What’s in my bag?

Okay, just another couple days of heat and humidity and then a break, hopefully.  We get hot days here, but usually not so humid and I am a wilting flower  :mrgreen:

I was going to go for a ride this morning, but I couldn’t didn’t want to face the sweating under the helmet, so I just took a 2 mile walk instead before breakfast.

Tish asked more about the contents of my bike bag.  We each have a bag that attached to the back of the bike on a rack.  You can see those bags in this pic:

I can’t stand to wear a pack on my back while riding, so we loooove the Topeak bike rack system.  There are interchangeable components as well if we ever want to buy any of them.

The contents of the ride vary a bit depending on the length of the ride and where we are going.  For all rides short or long – this is what goes in the bag:

Phone/wallet, tube, pump, tire lifters.  Always have these (which I haven’t needed yet this season, knock on wood).

Longer rides get these things added to that:

Anti-chafe gel (I hardly ever use this, but you never know after 50 miles if you might want it.).   John also brings ibuprofen in a little jar in his bag.  Good to have on hand.

Bike lock – I hate carrying this lock because it is heavy, but when we stop for meals or walking, the bikes get locked up (not that a lock helped much in Montreal… ).

Sunscreen in my smaller container.

My hat for hiding my helmet head when we stop for meals/cupcakes/ice cream.  Gotta look pretty, don’t you know.

Various snacks like dried pineapple, dates, bars. Sometimes a whole lunch packed if that is on the agenda.

 

The good stuff:

 

Napkins are tucked in the side pocket as well, usually extras from when we have bagels, but you never know when you might use one at any other time.

All of this stuff makes the bag heavy – probably 5 pounds.  It is extra weight to lug along, but we don’t have a team car or sag wagon when we are out riding.

Something we ought to carry would be a tiny first aid kit or at least some band-aids.  I used to have a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer, but I cracked the bottle.

I normally just carry one water bottle and fill it up at stops, but when it is really hot or we are going out for a long time, I will bring the second just in case.  Yesterday I really needed it!

You do have to plan ahead for longer rides to think about water stops, potty stops, food stops, weather, timing (being back by dark later in the season).  It’s pretty second nature for us now and most of this stuff stays in my bag all the time.

Being prepared is a good thing 😀

Zim Smith trail and 72 miles

Saturday ride day!  John has been the route planner this year for our rides.  He suggested a 67 mile ride since we had done 62 last week.  Sounded good to me.  We had a nice relaxing breakfast and then headed out on our route.

Big loop-de-loop ride.  Packed up snacks, 2 water bottles (each), sunscreen, bike lock, tire repair stuff, etc.  I have to say, it really does make the bag heavy to have all this stuff, but thankfully it is on the back of the bike and not my shoulders!

Of course, one water bottle goes in the cage on my bike, but the other has to go in the bag.  I need a domestique to cart all this stuff for me.  We headed down to Saratoga and didn’t stop for a long time.  Almost thought about going all the 21ish miles without stopping, but then I didn’t want to bonk, so we stopped at mile 16 under what little shade we could find to have a snack.

This is along route 9 going south. Designated bike route with a wide shoulder.

It was very, very sunny – and warm!  We pedaled on down to Saratoga downtown. Mile 21.  John had a request for lunch.

Twist my arm… NOT!

That meant a good carby bagel for lunch!

We didn’t dawdle too long over lunch since we had a lot of miles planned for the day.  I put on more sunscreen and we headed back out. Our main reason for this route was to find the Zim Smith trail in Ballston Spa.  We went on this last year and it was a nice trail.  We found it around mile 30.

So much better than riding on roads.  It was actually quite uncrowded today, which was just fine by me!  Spring flowers blooming along the path.

Last year John got a flat on this path, but not today 😀

The trail crosses over the highway.  Glad we weren’t riding down there!

The Zim Smith trail is 8 miles long.  I was sad when we came up to this:

I also had a bit more to eat.

John decided we needed to find an ice cream place, and he knew of one that was not too far off of our planned route. Or so he said, anyway.  We needed to get into Mechanicsville.  It was going well until we came to some funky intersection with no stop signs or lights or street signs.  Right by this cool abandoned train station:

Couldn’t you imagine this all fixed up with a cafe and some cute gift shops in it?  It really is lovely.

It was time for a map check.  I had no idea where we were.

I am putting my trust in his mapping skills! I love when he says “If we find X street, we are golden.”  Big if LOL!

We did find find the street we needed and how could you not stop at an ice cream shop called Bubbles?  Mile  43.

They had hard frozen yogurt, which is not very common around here.  I got a couple scoops. One chocolate almond and one heath bar crunch.

The nice girl at the counter also filled up one of my water bottles and put ice in it!  I gave her a tip for that.  It was heaven to have ice water while riding.  I put a 3rd application of sunscreen on and we continued on.  This ice cream stop took us a little out of the way.  John said maybe a mile or 2.

The next chunk of riding was not very pleasant, I have to say.  There was a 6 mile stretch where the designated bike lane was torn up and we had to weave in and out of the car lane (where is is 55 mph).  Lori was so not a happy camper.  We tried to bike as fast as we could to get through that stretch.  Luckily it was not heavily traveled on a Saturday afternoon.  Never again on that road until it is paved!!

I was starting to get tired by this point.   We finally reached small town Schuylerville at mile 58.

That clunking sound?  That was me hitting a wall.  Looking at the mileage, it was going to be a bit more than a 67 miles ride.  Over 70, in fact.  I was hot and tired after that long stretch.   We drank water and had some more dried pineapple while resting, plus stretched the legs.

15 miles home, that was all we needed.  We just hit the road and kept pedaling.  I was afraid to stop because it would be hard to get started again LOL!  Going this way, the last 1/2 mile we had a choice of 3 different hills to go on.  Can’t avoid them like we can going a different way.  We both made it up the last climb.  If John hadn’t been in front of me, I probably would have stopped, but I figured if he was getting up the hill, I would.  Made it!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  72.2  (almost like running a marathon, thank you very much)

Average speed:  13 mph

Ride time: 5 hours 43 minutes

Calories burned 2100

We had protein drinks when we got home and the best shower ever!!

(my “that was a really long ride” face)

Doing this ride really solidified that I do *not* want to do another 100 mile day again.  I have done 2 and it takes so long and I don’t know what the point would be.  I like my 40-50 mile rides just fine.  😀

We went out for dinner and dessert after that.  I burned 3700 calories over the whole day and managed to take in about 3100, so I did pretty good as far as that goes.

Here is what the day looked like on my GoWear Fit.

Yeah, an active day LOL!

I hope this post comes through okay.  My blog is being upgraded to a new server, so hopefully that will solve some of the issues my blog has had lately.  If it goes down in the next day or 2, that is why.

Metric Century riding

Sunday was a day for riding.  We normally long ride on Saturday, but the weather forecast was iffy (turns out it would have been fine… go figure).  So, we decided to put in a lot of miles on Sunday.  We almost always bike to breakfast, but we also wanted to ride to Saratoga and then figured we would just do both 😀

We left the house around 7:40 a.m. or so to go to breakfast.  Nice and sunny.

You can also see the sorry state of our driveway as well.  We are just going to have it torn up and repaved instead of doing it ourselves.

We arrived at Coffee Planet and had a bagel with 2 cups of coffee and read the papers.

A nice relaxing breakfast.  We were putting in a lot of miles today, so there was a lot of relaxing going on.  We do things at our own pace.

John and I decided to pack a lunch and head down to Saratoga.  We had 11 miles of riding down at this point.

It was sunny, sunny, sunny today!  I slathered on the sunscreen.  Even with lots of sunscreen, I still get a little color, but it actually is light tan and not sunburn.  Not to mention a million and 1 freckles, which are supposed to be cute, but I am 44.

Here was mile 13 of the second leg (mile 24 overall).  Quick stop in the shade for a snack.  This is a dried banana.

Kind of looks like something you would see smooshed in the road, doesn’t it? It’s like fruit leather, only just banana with no added anything.  Talk about intense banana flavor!  I kind of liked this.  I do love dried fruit on rides because it doesn’t take up room in the tummy, but you get the fast carb hit.  I can’t stomach gels, so dried fruit works really well for me.

This part of the ride is farm land.  Really stinky today as well.  The farmers laid manure and had dragged it all over the road.  Whenever a car passed us, there was lots of manure dust.  Ever try to hold your breath while riding?  Doesn’t work very well.   😀

Lunch time in Saratoga at mile 34 on the day.  We stopped in Congress Park at the little stone tables.

My lunch, which was a cheesy quinoa (pintrest recipe!), plus a pear and coconut water.  (That’s a working carousel in the background).

My dining companion.

We also had other companions come by.

Too many people have been feeding these ducks (and heaven knows what they are feeding them).  They came right up to our feet.

Plus some babies!  So cute.

It felt good to rest and sit in the shade.  I was the sweat queen today.

After eating, we walked around town.  Thankful for this:

Downtown Saratoga is very beautiful.  Old buildings mixed in with new.  It is quite bustling now.

I saw these dresses in a window and loved them (the blue one the best).

I stopped in to see how much it was.  $378 for this dress – and it’s cotton!

It was time to use our Groupon for froyo!

Okay, I’ll take that off John’s leg and give you a closer look.

With 60 miles on the day, I got a lot of toppings 😳 I had 3 flavors of yogurt in there:  Cake batter, cookies and cream, red velvet cake.  My favorite topping was the cookie dough bites!

After sitting a spell, we headed on home.  I had put more sunscreen on because it was so bright and sunny.  I went through 3 bottles of water today on this trip and I ran out before we got home.  John gave me some of his as well.

This was around mile 42 ish?

Our usual stop point on the way home for some dried pineapple (and shade!!)  I think it was here that we decided to round up the miles from a 50 odd mile day to get up to 60 on the day.  We were both feeling strong.  No wind, which makes a *huge* difference in the ride.

The hills were much easier without the wind:

These calves were enjoying the sun as well.

We finished out the ride strong.

We ended up a little over due to the route we took.  Then John said we did a metric century today!  Woo Hoo!

Total Day Ride stats:

Total miles:  62.7

Riding time:  4 hours 44 minutes (total bike time)

Top speed:  31.7 – yay!!

Average speed:  13.2 mph

Calories burned:  1900 !!

Celebratory recovery drinks:

While I made these, John put on “We are the Champions” by Queen, which make me laugh out loud.  We are champs  :mrgreen:

Loaded up for dinner.  Burgers and lots of fruit.

I still need to consume a couple hundred more calories tonight. Such a problem to have.

Want to see what a day of riding 62 miles looks like?

That’s how you burn 1900 calories LOL!

Stop by for Monday night’s post.  It’s an anniversary post.

Tour de paths

This weekend was really hot and sunny!  I needed this:

The traffic has been bothering me on the bikes, particularly out in the afternoon, so John planned a ride that took advantage of the paths as much as possible.  Plus I wanted a more relaxing ride since it is a holiday weekend.

We decided on a ride to the lake because the crowds will really be coming soon.  Next week is the Elvis festival, which is kind of surreal if you are not a big Elvis fan.  Then the weekend after that is Americade where 10,000 motorcycles descend on Lake George – double no thank you!  The traffic gets horrendous then.  So, this weekend will be the last lake visit for a while.

We headed out after lunch.  We took the usual paths and then crossed over into Glens Falls to get back on the western canal trail (as John dubbed it).  It is part of the logging route.

None of this goes down the canal anymore, but it used to.

This was about 8 miles in.

We didn’t snack here, but just stopped in the shade for a bit.  It was really hot!

We wound around and back onto the path that goes to Lake George.  I was starting to get hungry at this point and we stopped around mile 18 so I could have a pear.

There is a little picnic area here, which we never stop at because  it is only a couple miles left to the lake, but I was afraid I was going to bonk after doing all those hills in the heat.

Another biker came and asked to join us in the shade and we got talking different bike routes in the area.  It was nice to chat with another cyclist!

After that nice rest, we headed the rest of the way to the lake.  Mile 21.  Gorgeous day.  A bit breeze, but full of people!  Eeeek!

It’s tourist season! We didn’t stay long, just enough to fill the water bottles and take a pit stop.  Too many people for us.  Hope everyone enjoys the beautiful Adirondack region.

The path began to fill up with all kinds of people as well, many of which did not know path etiquette.

We booked out of town. What was on our minds?  Ice cream!  One of our favorite stops.  Coopers Cave.   This was mile 30 and I decided I wanted a sundae!

I got a Mexican sundae, which has peanut butter sauce and chocolate fudge.  Way overloaded with whipped topping!  It made it look huge!

Nomph!!

It tasted so good after 30 miles.  We had a nice shady table to relax at.  We sat a little too long and I got a bit stiff.  Oops.

Then we only had 10 more miles to do.  Our goal was a 40 mile ride on the day.  Back on the paths!  It  was so nice not to deal with traffic on this part of the paths.  Usually, the paths closer to home are much less crowded than those by the lake.

Look who we found, too!

The babies are getting bigger.  Almost past the cute stage.The parents hissed at us as we rode by, so I stopped past them and used the zoom because I didn’t want to upset the parents.  Although, they were sitting on the edge of the path.

 

5 more miles of riding and we arrived home.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.3

Average speed 12 mph

Top speed 26.7 mph

Calories burned 1183 (although this is low, when you ride slow, the computer says less calories burned even if it is the same distance).

All in all a wonderful ride and no sunburn! As greasy as that sunscreen is, it really works very well.  I just don’t like that every bit of dirt and bug sticks to me  :mrgreen:

Ridin’ Route 4

Lots and lots of riding this weekend.  We did 3 rides.  2 shorter ones on Saturday and a long one on Sunday.  Which to share?  I guess it will be Sunday’s ride.  We never got down to Saratoga.  I actually was going to meet up with Diane Carbonell Saturday night in Saratoga and we didn’t want to bike down there and back and then to drive  down again at night.  So, we did 2 shorter rides around home totaling 30 miles.However, Diane got held up at her event and we couldn’t get together.

We decided to plan our longer ride for Sunday and leave bright and early because of the impending heat!  High of 86 forecast, which is a bit warm for me to bike for a prolonged period of time.  It was 59 degrees when we left the house at 7:45 a.m.  We headed on over to Coffee Planet for breakfast.  This was 6 miles from home.

Bright and sunny today!  I had a oat bagel with honey walnut cream cheese:

I love my Sunday bagel here.  It is so good and fresh!  It’s very filling, too.  After breakfast, we slathered on the sunscreen and continued on our ride.  We should have sat longer because my tummy was full to be riding for that long!  We went on the roads with bike lanes on them today and headed south.  We got to route 197, which I really don’t like riding on.  There is a fairly wide shoulder designated as a bike lane, but it is not always in good repair and the traffic goes by at 55 (or faster – speeders!!!).  Anyway, it is a pretty view.  We stopped around mile 13 or so and looked around.  This is higher up before you head down hill to the river.  You can see forever.

Back downtown and we headed down route 4 towards Schuylerville.  This is a fairly fast and flat ride with only a couple hills (the worst being at the very end).  We stopped at the original burial site for Jane McCrea, who I talked about a few rides ago.

There is a headstone here as well, but it is not for Jane.

He died at the same time as Jane.  Jane was originally buried here, but then her remains were moved a couple of times and now reside at the cemetery in the village of Fort Edward.  I need to remind myself to get some pictures of that.  Anyway, Tobias still remains here.  Nobody knows much about him.  If I remember correctly, the owner of the property asked that this site be preserved when they made the road and to not move his remains.  Not sure if he is some sort or relative or what.

Onward again.  my legs were feeling pretty good today.  I did a lifting workout on Saturday, plus we did 30 miles, so I actually was surprised how good my legs felt.

We took a break around mile 24 for a a snack at our usual stopping point.

Sunny and sweaty!

My hero:

Yesterday, I received a package from the Zone company.  They have new bars that are have less ingredients made with dates and nuts.  They are pretty much like a Larabar, only they have soy protein in them.  So, I brought one along for my snack.

It was chewy, but pretty tasty.  I could taste the soy protein in it.  I don’t eat a lot of soy, so I really noticed it.  I do like the stats on the bar and it is nice to get a little protein in, but not too much.   I got a couple other flavors to try as well.

After that rest, we kept going.  One thing about my sunscreen is that it is a cream (good because I don’t sweat it off), but the combo of that plus sweat and every gnat and fly that hit me stuck to me – my arms and legs! Ewwww!  You know it is hot when your forearms sweat.  It was only about 11 a.m., too.

Another 5 miles and we got to Schuylerville.  This is a small town (like there is any other type of town around here) outside of Saratoga.  We stopped on the bridge and there is a smaller river that feeds into the PCB Hudson river.  Pretty falls.  Mile 29.

I think there may be some hydro power here as well.

I could have jumped right into that cool water. Then we turned around to go home.  We found a new coffee shop in Schuylerville, so we will have to come back and try that.

I was definitely feeling the sun.  Hot!  So glad we were out earlier.  One thing about this bike route, it is exposed to the sky the whole way.

Greasy or not, my sunscreen works really well.  We took one last break at mile  36 for refreshment.

I had frozen this last night so it was slushy and deliciously cold!  Yay!  I was ready to finish out the ride.  One last bit of hill at the end by our house.  This is the hill I talked about conquering at some point this year and the one I avoid at all costs.  We decided to take it today.  I did not think I was going to make it up.  I told myself it was okay to stop and I figured I would just stop when my chain fell off from going too slow as I was in my very last gear.   :mrgreen:  Well, it never fell off and I huffed and puffed my way to the top.  I think I was going about 4 miles an hour.  Just about at falling over pace LOL!  So happy to have made it up that hill, but I was breathing really hard.  Then we arrived home and my legs were total jello and shaky.

Ride stats:

Total miles: 42.4

Top speed: 24.3 mph (no real big down hills)

Average speed:  13.2 mph

Calories burned: 1258

Final Hill: 0, Lori: 1

Ride all completed by 12:30 and avoiding the worst of the heat.  I love a 40 mile ride.  It is just enough to be a really good workout, but not so much that I am wiped out for the day.

Now, nothing but chillaxin’ for the rest of the day and staying cool!

Soggy Bagel Day and Cheesy Chickpeas

Never, ever trust weather.com.  They lie!  The forecast was for upper 50s and cloudy this morning with 0% chance of rain.  So, that meant biking for breakfast!  There was maybe a touch of mist while riding there, but the temps felt pretty good at 58.  We arrived to our destination and it started to rain while we were sitting inside! D’oh!

I did enjoy my bagel, though!

John had coffee cake, which you can see in the background.  They make awesome coffee cake at North Country Cafe.

It stopped raining mostly, so we headed home.  Then the mist began again and then rain.  It was a dreary and icky ride home!  I went slower because of splash back from my tires, slower braking times and then the car/truck blow back (yuck).

Soggy rider!

Hey, at least we got 12 miles in, right?  After a morning of work, I made up a quick lunch.  I sauteed some broccoli in coconut oil and added in ground turkey, 1/2 cup of white rice and some orange ginger sauce (LaChoy).

This came out to be a pretty tasty lunch!

I loved how the sun came out in the afternoon.  It was supposed to be cloudy all day, but then we already know how accurate the weather forecast was today  🙄

John presented me with my afternoon latte:

I had some cookie nibbles today as well.  John made up chocolate cookies for his poker game, so we taste tested the deformed ones.  Yum!  John is quite the baker.

I made up a thrown together dinner tonight that actually tasted quite good.  I had a few cans of things in the pantry that I wanted to use, so I came up with Cheesy Chickpeas!  I know it sounds weird, but it came out really tasty.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon of oil (I used macadamia)
  • 1 clove of finely minced garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • black pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
  • 2 tablespoons of diced green chilies
  • One 15 oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • 2 oz of shredded cheese (I used cheddar).

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil.  Then add in the cumin seeds and cook until they sizzle (just a couple minutes).  Add in the garlic, chickpeas, tomato paste, green chilies, salt and pepper.  Cook this mixture for about 5 minutes over medium heat.  I might add as an aside that just stopping the recipe here is actually really tasty.

Add in the half cup of water and bring to a simmer for several minutes.  Slowly stir in the cheese  so that it has a chance to melt.  Don’t go using any fat free cheese here; you want it to melt.  When the cheese is melted, serve and enjoy!

I loved this.  I was kind of like a southwestern-ish style chickpea.  I had mine with some mango on the side.

The whole batch is about 955 calories, so divide as you wish. I ate about half as this was my entree for dinner.

Tomorrow is more new lifting moves and I am excited!  I get to do one of my very favorite moves – the stiff-legged deadlift!

Question:  What is your favorite way to eat chickpeas?

50 miles and Bonsai

Saturday ride time!!  John planned out our route for the day.

This was about a 50 mile loop.  We headed out at about 10:30 as we thought we would go out for lunch in Saratoga.  Temps of about 60 predicted. There was a tailwind on the way down there and we were booking!  We took our first stop at mile 11, which is at the peak of some hills.

It was a nice day.  I was a bit chilly to start with.  I just had on my YMX Yellowman shirt and my jacket.

However, I was sweaty at this point.   😀

We headed back out and zoomed on down to Saratoga.  Hills are easy with a tailwind!

We got to Saratoga around mile 21 or so with an average speed of 14.3 mph!  We ate at Elizabeth’s Table, which is a reincarnation of the Cupcake Lab, which moved.

Not so much focus on cupcakes, though.  They do focus on local products, which is neat. I got an Irish Breakfast burrito, which had egg, potato, cheese and corned beef hash!

Yum!  I had a biking appetite for this.  Early on in miles, I get really hungry.  When  the mileage gets up there, I lose my appetite.

After lunch, we walked around Saratoga and saw a sign for a free Bonsai show.  It was a display of the local Bonsai groups (which is actually pronounced “bone-say”.  I have always said it wrong).  It was neat!

This one was cool:

We got to vote on our favorites.  I chose this one:

I also liked this one:

After we went through this exhibit, it was cuppicake time!  We hit up Bettie’s. I got a Cosmopolitan.  It is a cranberry cupcake with lime buttercream.

Intense!  I don’t think I would get this one again, but it certainly was flavorful.  And full of artificial color goodness  :mrgreen:   This is a regular size cupcake, which seemed kind of small to me.  I think they make them smaller now.  John got a jumbo German Chocolate and lopped off a hunk for me to eat.  We also had a visit from my sisters and the nieces, who live down here.

Niece noshing on cupcake:

We had to leave shortly thereafter as we had about 2.5 hours of riding ahead of us.  We took a longer route home than to get there.  About a mile and a half out, I noticed the the strap to John’s bike bag was dangling and we pulled over to fix that.  Then I though I would check and see if mine was doing that and I noted that my bike bag was not on the back of my bike!!  I realized that I left it on the bench next to where the bikes were parked when I was getting my helmet and gloves on.  Cue panic!!!  I tried to turn around fast and ended up toppling right over.  At least it was onto someone’s lawn and not asphalt.  John was still upright, so he took off back to where we had parked the bikes.  I got myself righted around and I hit every. single. red. light.  Ugh!    I was almost there and John was on his way back to me with my bag.  Thank goodness.  If we had been anywhere else, that bag would have been long gone.  It had my camera, wallet, phone, keys – all that good stuff in there.  I would have been very sad if it was missing.  Phew.

Of course, all of that meant adding over 2 miles onto our trip, which was already long enough LOL!  Did I mention we were now heading into a headwind?  If not, consider it mentioned.  My legs were feeling quite good, though.  We just kept churning out the miles.   We stopped at mile 36 for snacks:

I had 2 dates.  These are the big medjool dates that are about 65 calories each.

It is a very pretty view on this part of the ride.

I took the lead to let John draft.  He is always much faster at the start of our ride and I am much faster at the end of the ride.  It was brutal into the wind, though, I have to say.  When we hit the downhill portion where we normally hit 30+ miles per hour, we only managed 23!  That was how hard the wind was blowing.  You can see that downhill in the map above.  We reach the river level at the bottom of that downhill.

Phew!

At about mile 45, we came back up that climb and knew we were getting close to finishing up.  My thigh was aching a fair amount.  I have to say that is really so frustrating to have that issue.  There is no solution for it, either.  Booo to permanent injuries.

Here is the top of the hill:

This is the bike route, but it is a very busy road and I don’t like to ride on it, so we just cross over it (we are at an intersection) and take a left at that light.

It takes us out of the way, but we avoid a hill and the traffic – even though it adds several miles to the trip!  Finally home!

Ride stats:

Miles:  51.8  (thank you Lori forgetting her bike bag… )

Average speed:  13.1 mph

Ride time:  3 hours 50 minutes

Calories burned:  1600

Immediately after we got inside, I made protein recovery drinks for us.  Almond milk, unflavored whey protein, chocolate syrup:

These were good!  John doesn’t do recovery drinks, but I had him drink one this time because of the length of the ride.

I also noted my leg:

Chain grease from when I fell over.  I look like a noob!  LOL

After long rides, we like to walk so as not to stiffen up, so we walked up the street for a couple slices of pizza and did a nice 1 mile recovery walk.  Check out my windburn!

I hope the spring winds settle down soon.  I mentioned to John about how much more I hated riding in wind more than doing hills and his answer was “Well, hills have to end, the wind doesn’t”  – so true!

Biking for pizza!

How was your weekend?  We had a nice weekend.  Still pretty cool around here, but we got on the bikes anyway  😀  On Saturday, the temps got to about 52, so we decided to leave much later in the day so it could get as warm as possible.  We chose to bike for for dinner instead.

It was not too windy, which was nice for a change! First ride where it wasn’t horribly windy this season.  We booked around for 15 miles before we even stopped.  We did a long loop around and ended up on the canal trail.

We hardly ever go over here, which is a shame because it is a nice path.  It’s just not very long and it doesn’t really lead to a destination. This is by the dam.  Logs used to be transported on this – and you do go past a log holding area on the path.

It’s very pretty.

My snack:

I really like this flavor, I have to say.

John is checking our map route here.  After this point is new riding for us.

Still pretty chilly, but I think I got a little sunburned on my face.  Possibly wind burn as the breeze started to pick up.

I am wearing 3 layers.

Around this bend is a new road.

Right after we got going again around this bend, we hit a big hill.  This next section was all new biking territory for us, so we didn’t know quite what to expect.  I had worked out in the morning thinking that we were only doing 30 miles and they were supposed to be fairly flat miles.  Ooops.  That was a tough hill, but we made it up.  Good thing I had the snack right before we started!

One thing I don’t necessarily care for when doing new routes is the not knowing.  For part of this ride, it felt like we were biking to nowhere (not true) and I started to feel some anxiety about that.  I think it was because we were on a road with a more narrow shoulder and I don’t feel as comfortable riding on those kind of roads.

We finally hit a road I knew and then I felt a lot better.  We ended up right by the YMCA – where I used to go before it got to be $50 a month (I pay $99 a year for my current gym).  We found a trail.

It’s a mile loop. Almost thought about biking it, but it wasn’t paved and we didn’t know much about it.  Not having mountain bikes and my tires are quite narrow (25 mm), so not chancing that.  We definitely want to come back and walk around this some time.

It was getting sort of near dinner time, so we decided to head on the way to our scheduled dinner stop.  At mile 26, we hit East End Eatery.  I started with a side salad.

Then meals came!  I got a pizza wrap with hot peppers inside.

John got a stromboli – doesn’t that look good?

Yum!  We haven’t eaten dinner out in a couple weeks.  John only ate half his stromboli.  I ate my whole wrap  :mrgreen:

Then it was 5 miles home with full tummies.

31  – almost 32 miles.  Nice ride!  I will be glad when the weather cooperates and I can get regular rides during the week and not just long rides on the weekend.

Sunday ended up too windy to ride. Booo…  It was sunny and 50, but gusts were into the 20s.  Too windy for me.  We walked for 3 miles and even that was not all that fun into the wind.

So, we did a lot of work around the house.  I got the rest of the windows cleaned (just squeaking those in this month), worked on a kitty barrier for my indoor seedlings:

and grocery shopping/meal idea planning for the week.

Looks so sunny out.  Pretty chilly, though.  Overnight low in the 20s! The weather is going to be warming up now. This week I will be riding!  I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of April.  Need to do my wrap up.

Cupcake ride and a little history

I know you were all just waiting for the first cupcake ride of the year, right?  I know I was!  Let’s roll!

Saturday was actually nice temperature wise, but windy.  We decided to go for an afternoon snack right after lunch, so I started to stockpile some calories before going.

Here is our out and back route:

Some nice hills in there.  This was a long ride for early in the season and I didn’t get much in this week except 12 miles on Friday.  Not the ideal way to bump up mileage, but I was willing to pay the price.

We were ready to go!

This particular way we head down to Saratoga is not any of the bike paths, but just along the river and a nice quiet set of roads for 18 miles.  It’s farm land, too.

We live in a very historic area and there are a lot of markers all around.  Ready for a history lesson?

Here is the house of John Mcrae that stands from the 1700s:

His official signage:

John’s sister, Jane, plays an important part of history around here.  And that sign is incorrect (thank you 1938 Dept of Education). Jane was actually not killed by Indians, but by ‘friendly’ fire of Americans.  She was on her way to meet her fiance – a loyalist and being ‘escorted’ by Indians.  Her brother John and Jane’s fiance (David Jones) were friends, but then taking sides separated them between Patriots an Loyalists.  The sad thing is, David Jones never, ever married.  The whole story is quite fascinating.  My mother and I listened to a talk on Jane last fall.

Anyway, back to the ride.  There was quite a stiff wind on the way there.  It was a very tough ride.  Not to mention it is early spring and all the farms laid out the manure fertilizer. Pe-eww!  Plus, the wind was blowing stiff and practically jamming that smell up my nose.  Yuck.  We got through the toughest part of the hills and stopped at mile 11.5 for a break.

Plus some dried pineapple.  Good instant energy. Then it was continuing on. We slogged on through the wind.  Did I mention it was windy?  This spring has been so windy!  I was so ready to be off the bike at mile 23.5.  I actually was wondering how we were going to get all the way back!  With the wind, it took us exactly 2 hours to get there, which is much slower than usual.

I was also so ready for my cuppicake(s)!.  We made a food round up.  First stopped at Bettie’s to pick up the cupcakes.

It was bargain day. First we had $1 off coupon, and then we read Bettie’s facebook page, which states the phrase of the day, which if you are among the first 25 people to say it to them, you get a free mini cupcake.  They call it an ‘A’ cupcake, which I think stands for ‘appetizer’.

Chocolate peanut butter.  We wanted lattes to go with the cuppies, so we headed to Saratoga Coffee Traders and got drinks.  My spread:

It’s nice most places don’t seem to mind if you have other food with you.  I guess as long as you buy something there, it’s fine.  My other cupcake was fluffernutter!  It was a white cupcake with fluff filling and peanut butter icing.   OMG!  Yum!!!!!  You can almost see the edge of John’s cupcake, which was a coconut cream and super good.

After eating, we walked around to let the cupcakes settle and get the legs limbered up.  We walked through the park.

There are going to be baby ducklings soon and cuteness will abound.

Then it was time to start heading back.  It was a little stiff at first, but my legs loosened up some and we had a tailwind!  Yay!  That made riding much faster.  Plus, for whatever reason, I had my usual getting stronger as the ride goes on kind of thing. My sit bones were starting to hurt, though. A wee bit of chafing going on.  😳

I shed my outer jacket at mile 31 and took a picture of John.  He just wanted to be a goober for the picture.

Good thing I love him so much.  My leg was starting to bother me a bit at this  point.  It’s weird that numbness will return to my calf a bit where I used to have it. My knee has always remained a bit numb, but the calf got better.  On long rides, it comes back.  My back was actually doing pretty good.

Mile 35 and another pit stop for dates and pineapple.

We just came from the left there.  As we got closer to home, the wind started to shift a bit and was coming more from the side.  Booo.  At about mile 42, I was really wanting to be home.  Then about 2.5 miles from home, we got stopped by a train!

Not an Amtrak either, but a freight train.  One of those times where I kind of wanted to rest, but was a little unsure about actually stopping because I was afraid it would hurt to get started again.  Not much choice here, though.  :mrgreen:

Made it home. Even up the last 1/2 mile climb, which is a bear after 46.5 miles.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but using my granny gear I did.

Phew!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  47.25

Average speed 12.6 mph

Top speed 33.2 mph

Calories burned: 1400 (probably closer to 1600, but that is the general computer tally).

Interesting note, it took us 2 hours to get down there and 1 hour and 45 minutes to get back. That’s the difference wind makes.

I got inside and fueled up right away with a protein drink of almond milk, unsweetened whey protein, strawberries and cinnamon.

Not hungry, but I needed the calories.  I really could not get myself to eat much after the ride, but then we decided to walk up the street for a cone in the evening.  The walk was good active recovery to help work on the legs and keep them from being too stiff.

My cone? Cake batter with sprinkles!  I couldn’t quite finish all of it, but I did some serious damage to it  :mrgreen:

I slept 8.5 hours Saturday night, too.  I was zonked!

Friday hills

Welcome to the weekend!

** I know some of you read the blog with a comment RSS.  There seems to be something with the server my blog is on, so you are getting some old feed.  I can’t do anything about that, so my advice would be to unsubscribe from the feed and either just add the blog feed or add it back in later (but don’t forget about me!).  I am hoping it will settle down shortly.  **

Anyway, we are starting to cool down weather wise.  Summer was short lived  :mrgreen:

I made up pumpkin oats for breakfast.

 

After working for a while and because it is Friday, John and I took a break to go out riding this morning!  Yay! Bright sun this morning – makes my dimples look like ravines.

We decided to do a little hill work.  This is not *the* hill I will be working on, but it is a good one nonetheless.

It has 2 parts – the first downhill here, then it flattens a little before going down again around the corner.  It’s maybe a half mile hill.  We went down the hill and then rode it back up.  It wasn’t too bad.  I made it up without stopping, but I could certainly do with repeating this hill in my rotation as well.  Of course, it was only a few miles into the ride, so that helped.

Oh, and way off the distance? That’s Vermont. The Green Mountains.

We both feel in pretty decent bike shape, although now cold weather is coming back in again!  We did 11.5 miles today.

I had a protein drink and some clementines when we got back.  Not pictured because you all know what that looks like.

Of course, this all meant I have to work some tonight to make up, but it was totally worth it!  We may not be able to ride this weekend if the rain moves in.

Lunch = protein!

Turkey burger.

Typical Fridayitis around here.  I had a hard time sitting in my chair and doing work today.  I was productive during the time I did work, but still…

I was glad for the latte break:

John wanted pizza for dinner, but decided to save a meal out for this weekend and made up clam strips and brussel sprouts.

I am not sure what it is about brussel sprouts, but they make me very full, which is why I didn’t have fruit with dinner.  Broccoli doesn’t do that, so not sure what that is all about.

I have fruit and nuts planned for my evening snack tonight and more of Downton Abbey season 2!  Nothing too exciting tonight.  Have a great weekend!

Question: Any good plans this weekend?