Finally!  A ride to Saratoga and a cuppicake 😀  The heat finally broke (for a day) and it was as good a day as any for a really long ride.

We decided to go early as storms were possible in the afternoon.  I packed a lunch and we set off!

My buddy 3>

It was cloudy and in the 70s, which felt so good after all this heat and humidity!

However, it did start to rain on us for part of the ride.  Weather.com – ‘expect dry conditions for the next 6 hours’ – my ass!  😡

We took river road for the first time this year.  I love this ride because there are hardly any cars and it is a very pretty ride.

Around mile 11 we stopped for a snack:

We booked into Saratoga at 14 miles per hour.  Woo Hoo!  It’s so much easier to ride when it isn’t hot.

We arrived at mile 23.5 and decided to eat lunch at Congress Park.  There was an art festival going on while we were there.

John got a bagel, but I had decided to pack a lunch for myself:

I wanted a cupcake for a treat, so that is why I packed my lunch.  After eating, we walked around the art show and then downtown.  City art this year is ballet slippers.  Large painted shoes all over town.

This one is all pink, sponsored by a store called the Pink Paddock:

Then it was cupcake time!  We went to the Bread Basket.

It started to rain again at this time.  Ugh!  We sat out in the mist outside since there was nowhere to sit inside.  You can see our wet table. Our cupcakes.

Mine was the big one!  Red velvet 😀  Yummers!  I call the cupcakes at the Bread Basket gut bombs, because they are.  I was very full after eating this.

We decided to head on home in case more rain was going to head our way.  Wouldn’t you know the sun came out?  We stopped so I could put on sunscreen.

This town is called Bacon Hill.  I love this person’s garden, too  – and I told them last year when we biked by it!

The river is still being dredged of the PCBs and the crews were working on Saturday:

It’s gong to be a looooong project.

 

Home!

Total miles:  51.7

Saddle time:  3 hours 40 minutes

Average speed:  14 mph

Top speed:  31.2!

Calories burn:  1641

We stopped at a farm stand a half mile from home because I spied some blueberries!  The woman asked if I wanted a bag.  I certainly wasn’t going to let a pint of blueberries roll around in my bike bag LOL!

Pixie hadn’t moved for our entire ride, sleeping in the dishwasher.

 

These berries were delicious, too!

Well-deserved post ride refuel of a protein shake:

 

There is no way I could eat an extra 1600 calories, so it was just a few mini meals for the evening to make a dent into the deficit.

Now the heat and humidity is making a return for the week.

 

Hope all of you had a great weekend as well!

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    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!

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. 

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 

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

The weather this weekend was absolutely fabulous!  We knew that meant a bike  ride on Saturday – aka the Stuff part of Stuff and Cram weekend.

After lunch, we decided to head on down to Saratoga and partake in a cuppicake!

I was excited for a long ride:

John is all pumped up as well:

Grrrrrr…..

Temps were supposed to get into the mid 70s during the day. It was a little cooler to start, but we stopped around mile 8 to shed jackets just before the hill portion.

Hills are just around the bend.  We passed by the alpacas again. Say cheese!

I wasn’t feeling the hills today.  Not tired, per se, but no speed on the hills, which is pretty unusual.

We took a break around mile 15:

All the rain this year has made for late color.  Trees are just starting to turn.

We brought along the perfect ride fuel –

It’s baaa-aack!   My favorite candy!  And the Brach’s brand please – the best candy corn out there.

We arrived to the Bread Basket at mile 23.

It was so nice out the we got our cupcakes to go and went across the street to Congress Park.

John had a coconut cream cupcake.  I had a pumpkin spice.  His was bigger  – boooo!

Someone noticed us eating.

He came right over to our feet.  We did not feed him, but he obviously has been fed before.

The carousel was quite busy today.

Check out the beautiful sky.  It was soooooo nice today.

We then headed back home.  Days are shorter now, which means no dallying in the afternoon.

Around mile 30, my back was starting to bother me and flaring up my sciatica.  Luckily John had some ibuprofen.  We stopped by this horse farm so I could take a couple.

Saratoga is horse country.

We ended up taking some extra breaks today for pictures and for my back.  It took 4 miles for the ibuprofen to kick in and I felt much better.  We stopped for a bit of refreshment at mile 35.

This was slushy and cold because it had been in the freezer.  Icy cold coconut water is the best!  I enjoy this route so much.  It has so many beautiful views and I think by next weekend the colors will be beautiful.

You never know what farm animals will be out and about, and these guys were new:

There were 2 and they looked like twins  😀  This was around mile 43?

John and I were both started to get a little tired at this point.  We haven’t been able to bike as much with the rainy weather and the shorter days.  We pressed on and finished out 51 miles today!

Running doesn’t make me smile like this.  Even wiped out I was having a great time!

Ride stats:

Total miles: 51.2 miles

Ride time:  3 hours 45 minutes

Top speed: 31.6 mph

Average speed: 13.6 mph

Calories burned: 1586

I was surprised at the average speed with how many stops we took and just feeling slower in general.  It felt so good to get out in the sun today.  I love fall rides so much!

Pink picture of the day! Roses at the Bread Basket.

Come back tomorrow for a Fright Fest recap!

Hooray for cupcakes!  That was the plan for Saturday.  I spent the morning puttering in the garden, which is always nice.  Very little traffic on the road, so it was nice and quiet!

I enjoyed some nice custard oats for breakfast with coconut butter and marmalade!

After lunch, it was time to head on down for a ride.  We took our new favorite way to go by the river.  This is also farm country.

This farm is around mile 10 or so.  They have a llama

And some sheep:

So cute.  The sheep were wearing blankets, although I am not sure why because the temps were starting to soar.  It was a hot and humid day.  I was totally soaked by the time we reached Saratoga at mile 23:

I was sticky with sunscreen, too, so I brought along these:

I am glad because it felt really good to clean off!

It was time for Cupcake Lab.  I wanted 2 things today.  The first was a pistachio french macaron:

Must recreate these at home. And for the cuppicake?  Raspberry:

Also had a big ice coffee, which was a little disappointing because it was on the weak side, which is unusual for here.  Don’t you love this flower that was at our table?

It’s called Celosia, or cockscomb.  The only flower that looks like a brain.

We were ready to get our sweat back on after walking around a bit so we saddled up and hit the road.

More animals! Alpacas:

More sheep:

We took a break around mile 36 for a rest and snack:

If you look in the distance in this picture, you can see the Green Mountains of Vermont.  It’s a little hazy from heat and humidity, though.

More farms.  Did not stop near the dairy farms because they were Stanky!  Then there was this one:

We took a long way around to get a few more miles, but we were starting to get tired.  It is almost hard to imagine I did about twice this distance in July in one day.

Ride stats:

Total distance: 52.4 miles

Ride time:  3 hours 54 minutes

Average speed: 13.4 mph

Top speed:  25.1 mph

Calories burned: 1612

All in all a good ride!

I am putting this post up today since I know you all enjoy my ride recaps.  I will do the birthday shenanigans post on Monday.

We decided on a later start for the ride since it was just going to be a cupcake ride.  I figured we could eat lunch at home and then I would have an excuse to get 2 cupcakes 😀

Breakfast was banana custard oats topped with coconut butter and peach jam.

What a yummy breakfast!

I had a chance to putter around the garden for a while and practice my guitar.  Normally we are on the road by this time, so it was nice to have quiet morning.

We ate lunch.  I added more carbs to fuel the ride.  This sandwich is on homemade sourdough.

Then we suited up to head out.  I got my bike out only to find ANOTHER FLAT TIRE!!  😡  (@#*!$@#).  At this point, I really was ready to go lay down in traffic.

I took a cue from what the guys in the shop did and pulled the whole tire off.  We marked the tube location, found the hole, and checked the tire.  Sure enough, I found a hole in the tire with a shard of rock embedded in it.  The path we were on last night had some fresh cinder put down, so I imagine that is where it came from.  I put a scab on the inside of the tire and we put in a new tube.  All was well.  Here I am trying to be enthusiastic before starting.

Other than that, it was a fantastic day to ride!  Perfect temperature.  It was sunny and I used my new sunscreen.  No burn today

We took a quick stop at mile 11, where I slugged water and decided to have a date.  It’s all green and pretty now.

Here is mile 15 at a traffic light.

Note the light is green.  I was taking pictures and we almost missed the light!

We had a bit of tail wind and arrived in Saratoga with a pace of 13.8 miles per hour.  Nice!  It was time for the Lab!  I ordered a guatemalen coffee and eyed the case.

Then I saw these – french macarons!  I new I had to get one of those with my cupcake.

The cupcake was uber fresh and Almond Joy.  Delicious!  I love the buttercream here.

My macaron was pistachio.

This was seriously one of the best cookies I have ever eaten!  I don’t know if it was the 21 miles I had just ridden or the fact that it was pistachio (which I love) or what.  Maybe all of the above?  I think it probably was a bit chewier than a macaron normally is, but I really liked it.

I am making these for Christmas!

We headed on out to home.  There was a bit of a head wind, but it wasn’t enough to make me whine, so it probably wasn’t all that much.  I got my second wind at mile 30 and I was raring to go!  We usually stop at mile 30, but kept on going.  Took a new route coming home.  It goes through farm country and very beautiful.  We stopped at mile 33 for these pictures and some coconut water.

The rest of the ride was nice and relaxing.  At mile 42, I peeled off from John and went for a longer ride.  He headed home.  I wanted to round up to 50.  I rode on the path.  We don’t always ride on this part of the path, but it sure is pretty right now.  It is on the canal and the logging companies used to float trees down the river.

Very green right now.

I hit home right about 50 miles.  Good timing!

Ride stats:

Miles: 50

Ride time: 3 hours 42 minutes (not including breaks)

Average speed: 13.5 mph

Top speed 25.1 mph

Calories burned: 1456

This 50 miles was soooooo much better than last week’s 51 miles.  My legs feel good.  I am not quite ready for 100 miles, but I have a good base going on now.

I will see you all on the other side of 42 to 43!

Question:  Have you ever had a french macaron?