Tag Archives: biking

47 miles to yogurt!

Saturday was the most beautiful day for a ride.  Just gorgeous!  We took a pretty relaxed approach to the day, as one should for a weekend.  Breakfast was a banana bread breakfast pudding.  I am so liking these!  Plus some cafe au lait.

John then planned out our route.  We decided to go a different way down and hug the river, which was a great idea (that means less steep hills).  It was beautiful.  Most of the first part of the ride went right along the river.  I think I found where I want to move to. Better ask for another raise…  😀

In part of the Hudson, there is an island and somebody has a house on it.  They built a little covered bridge to get there.

I would love to have a covered bridge at the entrance of my driveway!  I am so jealous.

Want to live here?

Indeed.

At mile 11, we stopped for snacks.

My favorite – dates!

If you look close, you can see my black moustache.  Smarty me fiddled with my chain and I propped it up with the gloved part of my hand to keep my fingers from getting dirty.  Well, during the ride I proceeded to wipe sweat off my lip with my gloves and smeared chain grease on it each time.  Good thing John was with me and told me or I would have gone around town that way. 🙄

There was hardly any traffic for the first 18 miles or so and I was loving that.  We both agreed this was our new favorite way to Saratoga.

We arrived downtown at mile 23.5. Since I am in the midst of the no grain challenge, we had to think about where to eat.  Stopped at Esperanto.

But then I got waylaid by this sign and it’s creepiness and had to take a picture.

Esperanto has different dishes from all cuisines.  Most of them had some sort of wheat or rice base.  I decided on the coconut chicken curry.   I asked for them to hold the rice.

They seemed to feel I needed some grain with it, because while they left out the rice, they put some tortilla chips on the side LOL.  I gave those to John.  This was really tasty.  It had carrots, potatoes, and chicken in a coconut curry sauce.  The picture doesn’t look so good, but it sure tasted good!

We strolled downtown for a while doing some window shopping.  In Saratoga, window shopping is about all we can afford.  Cute jacket on sale that was still $100 after being marked down 50%.  Then there are the places I am just not sure about:

😯

We stopped in at a glass studio where one of John’s poker buddies has his stuff.  He is a glass artist and does some beautiful work.

Then it was time for dessert!  I had a coupon to try Plum Dandy.  This is one of those build your own yogurt places.  I have never been to one before.

Here is half of the topping bar.  The chocolate and sprinkles and candy were on the other side.

My yogurt was cake batter flavor and I topped it with strawberries, fresh blueberries, toasted coconut and little yogurt and passion fruit pearls.

Those were like the big tapioca pearls, only they had a liquid center when you bit into them.  I kind of liked them – very different.  My biggest beef? Only 1 size bowl and it is so big that you want to fill it up with yogurt.  It was really hard not to do that.  We still spent $10 for 2 yogurts.

John got all kinds of chocolate stuff, addict that he is.

Yogurt fueled to go on, we headed home the same way.  The only busy part was getting out of town and for a few miles down the main road.  Then it was back to peace and quiet and farms:

We stopped at mile 39 for my other favorite ride fuel:

This was right on the bank of the river at someone’s boat launch.

My buddy 😛

The only thing I don’t like about going this way is the last 1/2 mile to our house.  It’s a steep hill and a tough slog, especially after already doing 46 miles, but we made it!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  46.8 (eh… 47)

Average speed:  14 mph

Top speed 31.5 – woohoo!

Calories burned:  1504

This was such an awesome day!  I immediately came in and had a protein drink and another date before showering.

I do have a hard time eating after ride days and tend to really nibble, but here is what I had.  Dinner was carbs and fat (it’s what I wanted):

Teddie crunchy peanut butter is my favorite!

Then I had a latte at home later with some cashews to get my calories up.

This is where I would normally be eating cereal and chocolate.  I am not avoiding chocolate or anything, I was just craving salt as I sweated profusely on this ride.  It’s really important to listen to what your body wants when you expend a lot of energy.

I just thought you might like to see what I do eat after a ride refueling carbs without grains!

July Wrap Up and 44 mile cupcake ride

Since today is the last day of July, it is time for the monthly wrap up of my goals, so you have to read through that before you get to cupcakes 😀

Here are my goals and how I did last month.

  • Stretching –I was supposed to stretch 3 times a week.  I give myself a C on this one.  I just forget!  I can’t believe how hard it is to remember to do stretching, because it does feel good.
  • 400 miles on my bike – Not only did I do 400 miles, but I did 505!  I was shocked.  I did not ride every single day, either.  It helped doing an 88 mile day and a 100 mile day, though.  I did ride in the rain a little (88 mile day), but I did not ride a lot when it was super hot.
  • No caffeine for a week. I did it!  It actually wasn’t that bad.  I found also that it did not have much of an effect on me other than feeling a little tired the first couple days.  This is not an experiment I will do again any time soon, though.
  • Walking 3 times during the day – I did okay with this.  Some days I just walked twice because I either forgot 😳  or it was too durn hot to go out in the afternoon.  This is something I need to stick with doing.

A decent month.  I do find that I get overly ensconced in work and forget the walking, which I really need to work on.  On the scale front – no budgie. That stops now. I’ll talk about that with a little tough love tomorrow.

Now on to the part you all are waiting for – the ride!  John was feeling pretty well and up for a long ride, so we decided to go. It was just a gorgeous day on Saturday.  A little warm, but that’s okay.  A little windy, too – not so okay, but what are you going to do, right?

Kelly asked whether we take our bikes somewhere first to ride.  The answer is no.  We start every ride from home and either go north or south.  The only time we took our bikes was for the farm tour ride a couple weeks ago.

We decided to head down to Saratoga after lunch for a cupcake ride. We rode a nice tailwind on the way down.  After 11 miles, we took a water break. I puffy heart my insulated camelbak!

Hooray for shade!  I love this side road because there is hardly any traffic and it is nice and shaded.

It is right near a state park, too.

Then we booked on down to Saratoga for another 11 miles.  It went so fast because of the tailwind.  Not to mention I was rocking out the pace making.  My legs felt awesome with 2 days rest.  I told John I was kicking ass and taking names today!  Average speed of 14.5 miles per hour on the way down.

At mile 22, we reached the Bread  Basket:

It’s a cute little place.

They sell a lot of bread (you think?)

And cupcakes.  I had a carrot cake one with a big iced coffee:

It’s so cute!

It was a gut bomb, though. Very dense carrot cake. The frosting was cream cheese frosting, but that was not overly sweet, which is a good thing.

After eating that, we crossed the street to walk around Congress Park.  They have an old carousel that you can ride:

The park has kind of a Greek and Roman theme to it.

Lots of fountains and marble.

This statue was part of a Palladian circle or something like that.  It’s supposed to be Pan.

I find him mildly creepy and I think I might have nightmares after writing this post.

There also was an abundance of cuteness:

Seems like a late clutch for ducklings, but so cute!

I just wanted to pick the up and cuddle them, but I don’t think the mother would have been too happy with that!

That let our cupcakes settle some and it was time to head back.  This was into the wind for most of the ride back.  My legs were feeling so good that I took up most of the front riding.  We stopped at mile 34 for a breather.

And some refreshment!

I was pretty hot by this point, too.  That extra work of going against the wind and being in the sun, plus warm temps.  Phew!  We then booked the rest of the way home.  Still managed a really good pace for the ride home, wind and all.  Rest days do so much for leg strength, they really do!  So take them. 😀

Sweaty lady:

No sunburn thanks to liberal slathering of sunscreen a couple of times.

Ride stats:

Total miles: 44.8

Ride time: 3 hours 10 minutes

Average speed: 14.1 mph

25.4 top speed

Calories burned: 1420

Cupcakes consumed: 1 large.

After the ride – beautiful cold seltzer water!

Don’t you just want to dive into that glass?

Question:  How was your July?

Tour de Farm – 35 miles

Sunday was the Tour de Farm Ride!

There were 2 rides to choose from, a 15 mile and a 35 mile. Of course, you know what I registered us for!  The ride is basically to raise funds to support land conservation and agriculture.

Since we had to be there at 8:30 – that meant no bagel day today (we did that yesterday).  Instead, I fueled up with banana custard oats.  Pretty standard fare for pre ride.

Then we drove to Hand Melon Farm where the race was to start.  This farm is 100 years old.  Also blueberry picking there, but I picked 5 pounds yesterday or I would have gotten more!

There were probably 200 riders today.  I don’t know the split between the 2 distances, but I think the majority actually did the longer ride.

They had a bike safety check spot where they made sure you had brakes and air in your tire.  That was nice!

Many different sizes and ages of people.  I felt a little nervous for some reason.

The pre ride talk said that we would probably naturally end up in 3 groups – a slower group, medium group, and fast group.  It was also emphasized that it was not a race and to not ride aggressive 😯

…. not aggressive…

Here we are lined up.  John and I figured we would be in the middle group, so we lined up in the middle.  A good mix of bikes.  Mostly road, I think, but a fair amount of hybrids.

Then we headed out. The ride started together, then all the riders separated as we found our pace.  John and I were riding at our normal pace, averaging about 14 mph for the first section.  We ended up with no one around!  Guess we don’t fit into any average ride group, even though we tend to do the same pace.  Interesting.  Leave it to us.

The ride started out hilly right away.  One steep descent near the beginning and I hit 34.1 mph!  Holy cow that was scary.  I kept thinking of all the crashes in the Tour de France this week.  Not the best thing to be doing.

We actually missed the first farm visit.  The person waving us on said “The 35 mile ride keeps going” and other riders turned right.  We thought that meant the shorter ride. Well, it turns out the ride kept going *unless* you wanted to visit the heifer facility, which would have been neat to see.  They are employing green agricultural technology.

It was quite sunny out and warm.  I had my 50 SPF sunscreen on, and I meant to reapply it at the first stop, but I forgot.  We had a hill climb to get to the next rest stop, which was at mile 18 at the Saratoga Battlefield.

A park ranger there talked about the history of this spot, which was a turning point in the American Revolution.  They fed us snacks and water here.  Some sort of seed cake, which was almost like a granola bar with no oats.  It was tasty!

You can see why this area was a good spot for a command post because it sits on a hill and you can see down all around.

I also talked with a woman named Alison there who had the same exact bike as me!  A Fuji Absolute.  I told her she had a nice bike :mrgreen:  She also bought hers at the same place I bought mine!  Turns out she lives like a half mile from us, too.  Small world.  Maybe we can go biking some time.

Then it was on for another 11 miles or so.  The roads were surprisingly uncrowded by cars, which was really nice for riding.  Again, John and I were mostly by ourselves.  I was hoping to try some drafting in a group, but either the people were slower than I wanted to go or faster.  Oh well.

The next stop was the Sword Surrender site.  This followed the Battle at Saratoga where British General Burgoyne surrendered his sword to American General Gates, which was around mile 30.

Note picture below of said event.

Yes, this picture was at the rest stop 😀

They are planning on making  a historical site here, in its planning stages.

We were fed water and cucumbers here from one of the local farms.

They were refreshing!  Although not proper ride fuel, so I had some of this:

Gorgeous day, right?

Then it was the last stretch home.  We were still doing about 13.8 mph average speed, even with hills, so I was pleased about that.  Then it was the final couple of miles and a monster hill.

Remember how I went down that hill earlier at 34.1 mph?  Well, we had to get up a hill just like that on the return.  It was ghastly.  Truly ghastly.  I kept dropping gear after gear until I was in 1, I think, then all of the sudden my pedals started spinning really fast because my chain fell off!  I was going really slow, too, so I almost fell over and it scared me.  That was almost half way up the hill.  No telling if I would have actually made it to the top without stopping, but probably.

I took the picture while I was stopped because it was pretty.

I should have taken a picture of the hill, duh.

The hard part? Restarting on a hill!  Ugh!  Then I had a bump in my chain (which is why I think it fell off), so I couldn’t use the lower gears and had to power up the hill in a gear that was too high.  Now that was a challenge! Phew!  I was glad to see the farm again at mile 35. Yay – finished!


Schwetty.  John too:

And glad to see they had the picnic lunch set up!

Check out this spread!  Have you ever seen post event food like this?

Normally it is homemade cookies, or bagels and bananas.  Not so here.  We had a catered picnic lunch with local beef hamburgers on wheat buns and corn on the cob with compound butter.  3 different kinds of salads.

I got the potato salad that had dill and I think a little mustard and capers!  Have you ever had a post race meal with capers?? Fancy!

So good.

Not to mention fresh made lemonade with ginger, which tasted amazing (probably because I was dehydrated).

Another nice touch? Local crafted pilsner!

I am such a light weight anymore.  I used to be able to drink 5 or 6 beers a night with no problem.  Now? 8 ounces and I felt it.

Ice Cream Man in Greenwich also provided us with dessert.  This ice cream was just made this morning – mint with fudge swirl.

Fan-freaking-tastic!

We even got t-shirts, too! Mine is almost long enough to be a mini dress, too.

Maybe a micro mini. This is a medium.  Vanity sizing anyone??

Ride stats:

Distance: 35 miles (just shy actually)

Ride Time: 2 hours 36 minutes

Average speed: 13.5 mph

Top speed:  34.1  (Eeeeeeeeee!!!)

Calories burned: 1094 (probably on the low side with those hills).

And the best news?? No flat tires for either of us! Woo Hoo!!!!

100-mile ride. AKA I am a centurian again!

Finished!  My summer goal complete.  No peloton, no lead out train, just me in my own private break away doing 100 miles.

Let’s ride, shall we?  I was up early to get an early start on the ride.  I did my standard fuel of banana custard oats with jam and coconut butter.

What a pretty day, right?  One of the reasons I chose to go for it today.  Since John has decided he didn’t need to do 100 miles again this year (smart guy), not to mention that his bike is out of commission right now,  I just wanted to finish it out.  I packed up my bike bag and got ready to roll.

I left at 8:00 a.m.

Went north first and it was a good start other than a pretty stiff head wind, which was going to annoy me a few times today.  I passed through farm country:

Moo!

Hi Bessie, thanks for the milk and butter 😀

The traffic was heavier than I would have liked, and this road is 55 mph.  Most of the time there is a really wide shoulder, but I got to where it was more narrow.  It was starting to bother me.  I stopped at mile 17 for a pear.

This road looks peaceful, but the traffic was heavy.  I think a lot of people were going up to Whitehall to launch their boats.

The road got curvier up ahead, and I decided to turn around since the traffic was bothering me.  I was extra conscious of safety today being out by myself.

At mile 25, I stopped for another fruit fillup and to text John with my whereabouts.

Red plum!

I was making good time and feeling strong in the morning. Mile 35 was time for some more fuel. Approximately 5 miles from home.

I wanted more frequent smaller 100-200 calorie fuel ups today as that seems to be what works the best.  I ate 2 medjool dates here.

I rolled in to home for a lunch stop at mile 40.5.  Average speed for the first 40 miles was 13.6 mph. I could have eaten out, but figured I would just go home.  This was Heritage Days weekend and look what was going by the house just as I got home.

Parade!  They must have known I was doing 100 miles.  How nice of them 😀 I love bagpipes.

After chugging a bunch of water, I made a quick lunch.  Baked potato with laughing cow and ground pork with BBQ sauce – and my 4th serving of fruit for the day.

It felt good to get a real meal in.  Snacks are good and all, but sometimes you just want more.  I also had a couple handfuls of cashews.  I was home for about 45 minutes or so, then I headed back out after a 2nd application of sunscreen. Now I had the tailwind, and that was nice!  I was noticing the hills a bit in my quads at this point.  I stopped at mile 51 for refreshment – halfway done:

Coconut water love. I need them to sponsor me.

It was feeling pretty warm today.  Even though the temps were in the low 80s, it was sunny with a capital S!  And it was around 1:30 during this time.  John was actually coming down to Saratoga on his scooter to meet me after giving me an hour head start.  He passed me after I had been on the road about an hour.  I was surprised to see him, but it was a nice surprise when he pulled off the side of the road in front of me.  I forgot to take his picture.  I felt secure knowing that he was only going to be a few miles in front of me.

I was really feeling good.  I felt well prepared for this ride and it was going by fast!  I was surprised at how far along I was by the time I arrived to cupcakes!  Mile 62.  John was already in town, so I texted him to let him know I was there and I got my snack.

I had a large iced coffee with a macaroon.  I definitely like the pistachio one better, but they were out.

Also on board – a peanut butter cupcake!  This was really good.  The frosting was not super sweet or really heavy like peanut butter frosting can be.

My body was loving the instant carb hit from these.  I think I had burned 1800 calories by this point or so.  I actually was a little sad when I finished these because I wasn’t ready to be done LOL.

This was maybe a half hour break or so?  I lathered up with sunscreen again. Then, John walked me out to the bike and said the most horrible thing to me.  He said “So everything okay and no flats?”  Nooooo!!!!  I knew he jinxed me.

I knew the next 20 miles were going to be really tough.  It was right into the headwind and I had already done 60 miles on the day.  And it was tough.  And then at mile 70, there was this:

Yep.  I noticed I was getting a bit of a shimmy while riding (and not in my hips…) and checked my tire.  Not completely flat, but really soft.  That meant a slow leak.  I had thought about trying to keep it pumped up and keep going, but then I decided to just change it.  Cause  I am a rockstar and don’t need anyone to do it for me!  I had 2 people stop and ask me if I needed help, both of which when I was pretty much done and just adjusting the chain.

Now – I can change my tube, but it does take me a while.  That was more what bothered me than anything else was losing about 25 minutes with all that messing around.  I had texted John to update him, but I didn’t need him to come rescue me.

Back on the road and I had to stop 5 miles later  at mile 75 for another dried fruit hit.  Pineapple and dates.

That 25 minute stop used up some of my calorie stores.  I love the dried fruit, although I probably consumed some chain grease as well because my hands were dirty.

My original plan was to not stop at home for the rest of the ride, but I wanted to get another spare tube and properly fill up this tire.  I have a Schwinn portable pump, which actually doesn’t work the best.  John has a Pocket Rocket pump (Yes, please commence to laugh and snicker, because I am always making jokes about it),which I meant to take, but forgot. So I swung by home.

This was mile 85.5. Home pit stop meant dropping my bike lock, saving about a pound in my bag, plus grabbing another coconut water!  And a pointless potty stop.  I was just sweating it out before anything got to my bladder today, and I drank *a lot*.

It was about 5:15 at this point.  I really needed some pep talk to get out there and finish. I knew it was just a little over an hour left.

I have to admit that I struggled for the next 10 miles.  I was tired in funny places, like my wrists and my shoulders.  My legs felt pretty good.  I was also mentally fatigued.  That is really the hardest thing on the long rides.  I was losing some sharpness.  I would hit bumps that normally I would miss because my reaction time was delayed. And the last bit seemed to go on for-ever!

I stopped at mile 95 at a real wall.  I got off the bike and ate this granola bar.

I really just wanted to be done.  I didn’t want to go any further, yet I was so close. And I wanted some real food!  I had seen  some candy in the road, something like M&Ms, and there was a thought to stop and eat it.  5-second rule, right? Only who knows how long it was there.  That set off a giggling fit, so I knew I was really tired 😯

My quads ached when I stopped riding, so that was impetus enough to keep going.  I was so close.  The next couple of miles seemed interminably long.  Then when I was 3 miles from home and on the last bit, I got energized again.  I started pedaling faster to get home.  I watched the odometer roll over 100 miles and with a half mile to go,  then I thought “Hmmmm…. I should just keep going a little more to make it 101 miles.”  Was I insane?? I think so.  Obviously I reeled it in and just stopped.

I made it!

That, my friends, is delirium.  So, so glad to be done.  It was tough.  I physically could have gone further, but I was toast mentally.  I started the day at 8 a.m. and finished at about 6:40 p.m.  Not bad, really, with breaks and a flat tire change.

Ride stats:

Distance:  100.6 miles (161 km)

Ride time:  7 hours 30 minutes

Average speed 13.4 mph

Top speed: 27.4 mph

Calories burned: 3100 😯 😯

I took the most fabulous shower and then we went out to dinner.

I do actually clean up fairly well:

Then we hit up Olive Garden for a bigass pasta dinner!  I told the server I wanted a lot of water and this is what he brought me:

He said I sounded really serious LOL!

After scarfing bread sticks and salad, I had a big plate of ravioli:

Then I came home and ate M&Ms while watching the Tour.

Yay – I am done!  It felt good, but after doing this twice – no more.  I don’t need to be riding 100 miles again.  40 to 50 miles is plenty long enough.

So much more I could say, but this post is long enough for now. Thanks for reading!

4 score and 8 miles of biking (AKA 88 miles)

Dang what a day.  This was a long tough ride!

The plan was for 80ish miles today.  We got up early and had a nice breakfast.  I decided to have some banana custard oats to fuel up.

Topped with Teddie peanut butter and strawberry jam.  I also had 1.5 cups of almond milk.  Approximately 500 calories before we left the house.

Packed up our bike bags to head out.  I brought along a granola bar, a pear, coconut water, dried pineapple, and one of my favorite ride snacks:

Dates!

We checked weather.com and the hourly forecast had 10% chance of rain.  It was a gorgeous morning when we set out.  At 10 miles, we stopped so I could take some pictures.

This was a side route we take, but normally going the other way, so this was fun to ride it in this direction.  I also had one of the above dates at this point. John had to fiddle with his tire as he either ran over a rock or stick and it made a bulge in his wheel.

We were making pretty good time.  We continued on for another 9 miles and stopped at mile 19 for a potty stop and a snack:

Anyone in NY will recognize Stewarts!  This is the convenience store you want to stop in if you have to use the restroom.  Always clean.  See what a gorgeous sky there was this morning? Too bad it didn’t last.  We passed through Saratoga and on to Ballston Spa, where John asked for a stop for a map check, which always makes me nervous.  He is the map planner for our rides.

We were trying to wind our way to the Zimm Smith mid county trail.  We hit at at about mile 30 and then stopped shortly thereafter for a snack.

Can I say that I adored this path?

We were on it for around 7 miles and it was awesome!

I was starting to get hungry at this point. We knew it was going to be around 40 miles to get to Clifton Park and all the food choices.  It ended up being 42 miles and I was about bonking at this point.  I should have stopped at mile 40 and had a date, because the last 2 miles was an upward climb! Of course with it being the holiday, some places were closed.  And the one pasta place we wanted to go to was gone.  So we went to Mocha Lisa’s, which is a place I haven’t been to in a while!

John happy with 42 miles:

I was feeling pretty good.

Mocha Lisa’s is a neat coffee shop with a lunch menu.

Lunch was a chicken and pesto panini with roasted red peppers and provolone.

Excellent!  I tried not to wolf it down.  After this, I had some more dried pineapple.  We filled up our water bottles and continued on.  We were going to loop up a different way, but we enjoyed that bike path so much that we backtracked to go back on it.  At mile 57, it was time for some coconut water.

We had stuck these in the freezer overnight and this was slushy cold and delicious!  I think coconut water might be an acquired taste for some – but I lurve it!

I saw these really cool wild lilies along this path.  Actually, there were tons of wildflowers and it was so pretty.

Of course, it cannot be an official ride without one of these 🙄  :

Ugh!  Actually, to be fair, this flat was a leaking patch.  I am not sure why John didn’t change out this tube with a new one before such a long ride.  You aren’t really supposed to ride on patched tires – they are just supposed to get you home.  Anyway, he put in a new tube and we headed out.

I started to have some chain problems around 60 miles.  Every 12 pedal revolutions and my chain would go ‘clunk’.  It was like a link was sticking or something.  We lubed up the chain, but it was weird for the rest of the ride periodically.

Mile 66 and we made it back to Saratoga.  Both cupcake places were closed for the holiday, but Saratoga Coffee Traders was open!

Giant iced coffee and a 7-layer bar.  I made sure to eat and drink this slowly so my stomach wouldn’t cramp up.

We also played a little coffee trivia game:

Yum!

Food tastes so good when you are working hard.  This was at about 4 hours of ride time by this point (not including breaks and lunch).

Sky was looking a little ominous as we left.

As we headed out, John got another flat.  Can you believe it?  We pumped up the tire and got to the nearest gas station.  We checked where the leak was in the new tube and I examined the tire and found this embedded in it:

It was like some tiny metal pin or something.  Good thing we found that because he had to use *my* spare tube and it would have gone flat as well.  So, we got that all fixed and continued on.

At mile 70, it started to rain.

Apparently 10% chance of rain really means 100% chance of rain.

Thanks weather.com…

After the rain lessened, we started going again and then it really started pouring!  This was at about 6 p.m., too.  We waited for about half an hour, but we knew that we had about 18 miles to go and were going to cut it a little close to get home in daylight.  We just sucked it up and kept riding.  We rode about 10 miles in rain.  Not fun.  My toes were squishing in water as I pedaled! I have to say, though, that I was feeling pretty good. My legs were strong and not really too tired at all.

At mile76, we stopped for a quick snack.  I probably wouldn’t have needed something if we didn’t have that half hour rain delay.

We stopped 1/3 of a mile from home to pick up some ice cream and then rode the last bit home.

Ride stats:

Miles:  88.7

Ride time (excluding stops and breaks) 6 hours 40 minutes

Average speed 13.2 mph

Calories burned: 2745

If we hadn’t had a rain delay, we could have just done 100 miles, and we had thought about it earlier until we had the tire issues and the rain.  If only there was an hour of daylight left to finish it out.  John may not do 100 miles with me, but I am ready to finish that task and get back to normal riding.

Pixie was happy to see us and check out my shake.

After the best shower EVER!!, we are now watching more biking:

Time to eat some leftover pizza and a few more carbs tonight.

Hope you all had a happy 4th!

Solo ride and duo ride for 63 miles!

Saturday is long ride day.  I puttered around waiting to eat for a while.  Saturday mornings are so nice and quiet!  When I got around to breakfast, I filled up with some banana custard oats.

John decided he didn’t want a really long ride today as he was feeling tired, so I decided to take a solo ride before we went out together.

I wound around town and the paths.  My legs felt so awesome!  I took a complete rest day on Friday and it really did make a big difference.  I went around the Feeder Canal.

Didn’t want to lean too far here!

Just to show all isn’t beauteous path that I ride – I do go in traffic.  Main road.

Not much traffic on a Saturday morning, though.  This has a nice wide shoulder.  Not all of the roads do.

Then I was back on some of the path.

I really like this section.

It is one of my favorites.

The canal is really high right now, too.

I pulled back into home at mile 15.6. I was cruising along, too!  I did an average of 13.5 miles per hour, which with all the stops and stuff I was pretty happy with.  John decided he was ready to go, but then we thought we would wait until after lunch.  I didn’t want to eat lunch out and then have a cupcake.

So we dined on leftover calzone John brought back from his poker game last night.  Hello carbs!!!

Nom, nom!

John and I then headed out for our longer ride.  No pictures of the first 22 miles because we didn’t stop at all!  We really cranked out that ride.  I swear I should always do a 15 mile warm up ride before a longer one. My legs felt awesome!  We arrived in Saratoga at mile 22/37 ready for a carb hit.

Check out this amazing mansion:

Could you imagine living here??

We averaged 14.1 miles per hour on the way to Saratoga! I was psyched at that speed – even with the headwind on the way there.

Of course, you know what is coming!

S’mores cupcake!

I wanted to see how close I could get to the cupcake with my lens.

Pretty close.  My finger bumped the frosting :mrgreen:

We then walked around town a little bit.  There was a new soap store in town.

Very nice inside.  I wasn’t bowled over by anything, but I bought a bar to help out a fellow soaper!

Then it was time to head home.  I was still feeling really good.  Even the hills seemed easy.  We crested the last of the big hills and took a break.  This was mile 47 on the day.

Can you see the rolling hills?

That a bit of a tough section.

Then we rocked out the rest of the ride.  The Saratoga portion, which is about 44 miles, we did 14.3 miles per hour average.  Fastest trip yet! After eating some fruit and a little cereal, we did go out to the cafe for a snack at night.  I had a plan that if I did a long ride, I could have this.

John and I shared (although I ate more of it).  Chocolate so dark light cannot escape its surface.

Nice evening of relaxing and resting up the legs.

Honestly, I could have better food choices on these long ride days.  Oh well.  I really enjoyed it!

I couldn’t bear to walk to the cafe after 60 miles, so we actually biked there and back!  Just for a couple extra miles.

Daily total:

63.5 miles

Ride time: 4 hours 39 minutes (not including time off bike)

Average speed on the day 14.1 mph!  Yeah!

Top speed: 27.7 mph

Calories burned: 2034.

Feeling great.  We are going to do another 1 or 2 long rides and then do the 100 miler.

Happy Father’s Day to my dad and all the poppas out there!

More flat tires!

Just a quick miscellaneous post today as I am swamped with stuff to do.

I just had to share Bagel Wednesday, though!

Check out the temperature this morning when we arrived.

It actually popped up a degree while I was getting my camera out.  The overnight low was in the upper 40s 😯

I had a delicious wheat bagel with maple walnut cream cheese today.  I don’t normally like sweetened cream cheese, but I do love the maple goodness!

We biked home and 2 miles from home, would you know – another flat!  WTF?!!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

What is going on with that!  That is 5 flat tires since April, 4 of them occurring in the past couple of weeks.  We got that changed with our last tube and finished out the ride, but that put me behind for the day.  John spent part of the day with the new ultimate patch kit for our tubes.  It is a permanent patch and better than the scabs.  I may have to get a thicker tire or something, but it is less than a year old!

Sigh…. My forehead wrinkle has gone from a wrinkle, to a divot, to now a crevasse.

Regarding the run last night.  We ran the whole 1.25 miles on the way there.  Or jogged, rather.  It was okay.  A little uncomfortable and I wasn’t really loving it all that much.

We enjoyed our coffee and walked some of the way home, then jogged for the last little over 1/2 mile home.  So about 1-3/4 miles of jogging.

Today, my left thigh is tight and stiff, but no knee pain.  So that is good.  I am not sure where I will take this from here, if anywhere.  Just thought I would update you all.

Gotta run!  Things to do, people to see, places to go and all that stuff.

Double Dip Ride and ammonites

No long bike rides to report this weekend.  It was pretty rainy on both days, but we did manage to sneak in a ride this morning to breakfast.  It was sort of misty out, but we decided to just go while it wasn’t actually pouring!  We met my mom at the new cafe for breakfast:

The place seems to be doing okay.  The prices are pretty low. 3 coffees, 2 bagels, and 1 muffin = $8.43.  😯

We biked a roundabout way home.  The paths were too wet to be on, so we stayed on the roads.   Such a big difference in speed going on asphalt without having to stop so much.  Very little traffic, too.  My favorite time to ride is Sunday morning when the roads are clear for the most part (except near churches).  Total distance 13.6 miles – average speed 13.8 mph!  Awesome!

Lunch time came pretty quick.  I had to be careful pulling a can out of the pantry.  Hmmmm… which one is mine?

As you see, I made the correct choice (or did I??).  Lunch on the porch just as some rain was arriving.

Chilly today, too. Temps only hit the mid 60s.  This weekend was the LARAC arts festival.  My mom and I decided to go rain or shine.  Shopping takes precedence over weather!  I made up a latte to go to bring with me.

Have latte, will travel.

It was raining when we first got there.

I wish I could show more pictures of the booths, but most don’t want you to take pictures.  This is the biggest art show of the year up here and there are some incredibly talented people.

We did see this little guy, though, who wanted his picture taken.  One of the vendors had him.  8 weeks old and exuding cuteness out of every pore!

I managed to avoid the candied nuts – go me!  I had a couple samples of things, but didn’t buy any food.  No long bike rides to burn off the calories today. I purchased a couple Christmas gifts. Hooray for starting early!  Now as long as I don’t misplace them between now and December…

I also got myself a couple items.  I am actually pretty frugal (my sister says cheap), but I do buy things when they really strike me.  2 things did that today.

One was a suncatcher type.  This picture doesn’t do it justice.

It is made of brass and copper.  I am not sure if I am going to hang it outside or inside yet.  The thing I love about this picture?  We built the pantry so people wouldn’t have to see all our food.  Then I go and leave the door open on it.

And then I bought this pendant for myself.

I loved it when I laid eyes on it. It is an ammonite fossil.  I have laughingly been calling it my Mennonite because I was having trouble remembering the name. :mrgreen:

I love fossils and natural things, and I loved how this was wrapped to have little ‘tentacles’.

I have always read to find a signature piece that you wear, and I think this will be mine.

Yay!

I came home and cooked a quick dinner after having a handful of these:

I ended up having fish at 2 meals.  Me, the non-fish lover! This was a breaded fish filet.

These strawberries were excellent, too.

The weather radar had cleared some, and I decided to go out for a quick solo spin to bump my miles up to 20.  Total miles biked today – 20.5! Not the big rides as of late, but better than none at all.

Yep, addicted.

50 mile cupcake 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 :mrgreen:

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?

51 miles, or 3 tires is not enough

51 miles – sure doesn’t look like 75 does it?

The day started pretty well.  I made some sourdough buckwheat pancakes to start the day.  Yes – piled high!  Went for the extra pancake to fuel up for a lot of miles.

Topped with sauteed apples. Why yes, it was tasty!

I was ready for the ride.  Fresh as a daisy!

Little did I know what kind of day was in store.

We booked on out keeping a good pace.  We did a water stop after 8 miles.

I love this rest stop.  It’s very scenic.

My bud:

We were going into a fairly brisk head wind here, and it started to sprinkle just a bit, but it didn’t last.  This next part of the ride was the hilliest part of our ride for the day.  After a while, I felt like I was really struggling up the hills.  It was very frustrating.  Thoughts running through my head were “Dammit – I am going to lose 10 pounds, this is ridiculous” and “Why is this so hard today?”  We got to the top of the hills and I was fairly annoyed.  I was starting to doubt about making 75 miles.  As we approached mile 15 and Greenwich, I realized that my back tire was flat.

Well, that explained the trouble I was having.  If you have never biked on a flat, it is like riding through sand and you work twice as hard.

I was annoyed at the flat, though.

That’s not radiance LOL!  See how sweaty, too?  That was a lot of work with those hills and it toasted my quads early in the ride.

Although, this was a perfect opportunity to get in a snack.

This pineapple was sooo good!

This was supposed to be a self-sealing tire with ‘goo’ in it, so we pumped it back up and started riding again.  At mile 20, the tire went flat again, and we decided to change to a totally new tire.  So much for self-sealing 🙄

Well, the new tire had a valve stem that was too big to fit into the hole in my rim.  Eeeeek!!  😯 😯  So, we couldn’t use that tire.  Big mistake not noticing that upon tire purchase. That left John’s spare, which was also patched.  Got that changed and kept going.

Things seemed pretty good and we rolled through rural Washington county.  Then it was lunch time! We had gone to Salem, but nothing was open on Sunday.  One reason we like biking on Saturdays is that everything is open.  Small towns are ghost towns on Sundays.

We did spy a place in the middle of nowhere at mile 31:

How can you go wrong with a place called Bob’s Lunch?  In the middle of nowhere:

Sign for the restrooms:

Pointing to behind the bushes?  Hmmmm…

Anyway, this place was cute and the food actually was good.  I had a scallop roll with some fries.  My body really wanted the salty fries.

I don’t know if people outside of New England know what a seafood roll is, but they can be lobster rolls, clam rolls, scallop rolls.  Just on a toasted bun.  Sometimes it is more of a salad, like with the lobster roll.  This was fun and tasty, although I could have done without the grease for lunch.  I loaded up on sunscreen for the second time and we headed out for Cambridge.  The idea was to get to Cambridge and double back some.

I really started to hit a wall around mile 38.  I was tired and lagging.  I stopped John and told him I didn’t want to go all the way to Cambridge.  So, we headed back.  I didn’t know I had a slow leak in this tire that was making it hard to pedal. With turning around, this would have made a 67 mile ride.

At mile 45, we stopped for a refresher:

The scenery is very pretty here.

It definitely feels far from home, though.  Looking down, we saw this tire had leaked air and was low on pressure.  Uh oh.  That was the last tire we had on us.  Who knew we would go through 3 tires?  We pumped this up to see how much further I could go.  Turns out it was just a couple more miles and then we took the tire off *again* to put new patches on it.

I just wanted to make it back to Greenwich and stop at the ice cream place 😀

I was feeling pretty fatigued, too.  At mile 51, we found Ice Cream Man (featured on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown).  We were each going to get a scoop, but John said “It’s only 50 cents to add a third scoop, let’s combine into one dish.”  Behold giant bowl of ice cream!

3 scoops.  More like 9!  We got chocolate cream pie (my favorite), almond joy, and coffee chip.  It was so good.  Ice Cream Man really makes the best stuff.  And this giant bowl was only $4.  Can you believe that?

So, we formulated a plan that I would continue biking, stopping to pump up the tire periodically every few miles and John would bike ahead going home.  He would then get the car and come back and pick me up wherever I ended up.  So, I pumped up the tire, which got very flat while we were eating ice cream, and we pulled out onto the road.  It went immediately flat again.  That was really frustrating!

So, the plan was to have John bike home, then come back and get me and I would just stay at the ice cream place.  That meant me sitting there for at least an hour and a half.  I said goodbye and got to sitting.

Then I texted my sister for a bit.

More boredom:

Then I called my mom and chatted with her. She offered to come get me so I wouldn’t have to wait as long.  Is she not the best mom ever??

While I waited for her, I was arranging sticks on the ground

And resisting any urge to get more ice cream just for something to do.

Then my savior arrived!

😀   I had texted John, so he knew he didn’t have to come back to get me.  I got to ride home in air conditioned comfort!  Thanks Mom!  John had only gotten home about 15 minutes before we arrived, so that did save me a *lot* of waiting.

John got in 67 miles and the best part of the ride – the big down hills and the tail wind.  Booo!  I did the hardest of all the miles, not to mention the extra work of the soft tires.

Ride Stats

Total miles:  51.18

Top speed:  32.4  (hills!!!)

Average speed 12.4 mph – not bad with the tire issues and wind

Calories burned 1550 – and I earned every one of those today.

I did get all happy and cleaned up, though:

You can’t keep me down long!  Now we are off to make some S’mores with my folks!