Meandering May Metric

When I saw the sun shining this morning, I was determined to get a long ride in to make up for the lack of miles this week due to rain and feeling somewhat ill!

At the outset, I figured I'd go for the century distance, but it would be pokey given that I'd be riding on the Island and the fair weather traffic is picking up. It was more pokey than I'd anticipated for this time of year! I probably should have just done loops around Middletown, but I ventured into Newport and that's where I couldn't maintain any sort of momentum due to slow downs/stops at every intersection, slow downs and detours for road repairs/mowing and just having to ride along at the speed of the traffic flow.

All that didn't really effect my spirits though. After so much rain and being cooped up it felt good to spend all the time I could outside. I even stopped briefly at Brenton Point to gaze down at the waves breaking over the small beach below.

A view across the Bay.

And my bike, looking out to sea.

I had no appetite today and ate nothing until after my ride (and not much then). I was parched though and drank plenty of water and one bottle of Nuun. Fortunately as it was a relaxed, solo effort I didn't have to worry about bonking and being a drag for a partner.

May Metric Stats
63.09 miles
4:16 hours
14.8 mph average
2,721 elevation gain

Only 7 more to do!!

Jeff's 1000 Days and A Weekly Wrap Up

I'm so happy to have like minded company here in blogland when it comes to spending on cycling! I do try to keep it in check a little, but also feel like there's no time like the present when it comes to fitness items that contribute to good health and happiness. If I'm being completely honest, I was pretty much tallying up the expenses to see if I could readily justify buying some more things from my cycling wish list, or Jeff's.

Speaking of Jeff, I've been tracking his mileage too, so some of you might be interested to know that in the same 1000 day period as I posted for me, Jeff rode 333 days, exactly 1/3! He rode 7,129.67 miles. He's spent the same as me…we have to keep it fair around here.

Today's ride was a tough one as we'd expected a summery day and instead had fog, wind and low 50's F for temps! In this pic Jeff pushes into the headwind as his jacket billows out even though it's so fitted.

And, a little further along, on the bridge, there wasn't much of a view. There were a lot of other cyclists out, probably expecting better weather too. In fact, there was a cyclist coming towards us in this picture, but you can only barely see his head and shoulders over the guardrail.

My knees are still bothering me, so I was especially glad I'd pulled on the tights at the last minute. My joints were even chilled through those, so I can imagine the torture bare knees would have been!

The sun actually did burn through the fog at the end of our ride, maybe tomorrow will be a bit nicer? I'm planning to bike the short loop followed by more yard work.

It was a light-ish week of riding, 5 days/101.10 miles. Weather and knees didn't really want to cooperate, but it's still plenty of riding for maintenance.

Local Shop Ride

Jeff ate a bug today, so I think that means it's truly spring now! I'm glad I have managed to postpone my first bug swallowing of the season! The weather was fairly warm, sunny and windy and we went to Village Bicycle for a group ride. Ribuck met up with us there.

As you can see from the map, we could call this the 'butterfly ride'. It annoys me when I forget to turn the Garmin on at the very start of rides, but I did remember before we got too far. The red/end pin shows the more precise location of the shop.

Riders sorted out into different speed zones in the first few miles and Jeff, Ribuck and I ended up in a group of 10 for most of the ride. This was a really good bit! On the 'train' to Horseneck Beach with a tailwind!

We did 36.51 miles at 16.3 mph average.


I've been riding on my own or with people I know well lately and I found it a little hard to get comfortable riding with strangers again. I was frustrated with the amount of yo-yoing I did off the back for awhile. I'd be on a wheel and hit a pothole or something and get nervous and drop back and then have to work to bridge back, again and again. Eventually, I got it together and did better, particularly if I was on Jeff or Ribuck.

At one point in the ride we had a bunch of wild turkeys cross the road in front of us! It was nice to see the views in sunlight for a change rather than shrouded in fog and clouds. I struggled with a bit of a mechanical for a ways when my chain got stuck in the big ring. When I finally got it free with some awful cracking and popping sounds, everything seemed to be rattling, but after some shifting up and down it got sorted out again. Ribuck had an encounter with another gray pickup truck and a flat when we were nearly back to the shop! Not sure what is with the trucks going for him lately, he's a good, predictable rider!

It's been a great weekend of biking with 2 fun group rides totaling more than 70 miles! I'm looking forward to catching up with the blog reading to see what everyone else was up to =)

Weekly Miles and a Group Ride

It was kind of a rainy week and I didn't feel like wrestling my trainer tire back onto my road bike, so I had 3 days off! I still did 3 cx rides and 1 group road ride for a total of 106.46 miles.

The rain cleared out and we had an overcast, windy morning for the Saturday group ride. Seven started out together though we broke into groups of 5 and 2 in Little Compton.

I could have ridden sweep like this all day!!

The elevation profile. We can find some hard flats here on the coast!

And the speed profile, 15.8 mph average.

The only downside of the ride? Worms. Guess who cleaned both bikes? Well, to be fair Jeff did go to the dump in trade for me cleaning bikes. But, ewwwww...here's my rear brake...I'll leave the condition of the down tube to your imagination!

The weather is supposed to be even better tomorrow and we hope to do a local shop ride then, if I can get up after being out late tonight!

Group Ride to Wrap Up Week

I thought today was the nicest day of the week and luckily Jeff and I had plans to meet up with a couple of friends, Ed and ribuck. We did a popular Tiverton route of 30.34 miles at 16.8 mph average.




For the week, I did 5 rides/130.35 miles. I'm still taking the cx bike out most as the roads are sketchy in places with sand and potholes, so 3 cx rides and 2 roadie rides.

End of a Week

Today was the second outside ride of the year on my road bike. It is feeling good from its last tuneup and has a fresh set of tires on it.

Jeff and I did 55.22 miles at 15.8 mph average on many of the same roads as last weekend's long ride, but we didn't go as far and varied it a little.This was a farm we passed today.

For the week, I did 5 rides/147.72 miles. Four on the cross bike and 1 on the road bike. This was the first week of the year with no trainer time!

March Metric +

I left the Island for this one--OMG! There are 3 bridges off the Island, but somehow people here get this mentality that it's burdensome to leave. I didn't think I'd get as irrational as that, but it's happened!

On Thursday and Friday, when it looked like the weather for Saturday would be sunny and high 30's/low 40'sF, Jeff and I started thinking of possibly doing the ride for the Metric Century a Month Challenge. We decided to start in Tiverton, ride south through Little Compton to Sakonnet Point shown here:

From there we rode East through farmland and little villages to Horseneck Beach and accidentally did the loop into the wind...aargh!!

We crossed the Westport River on this drawbridge:

And continued through Westport past the historical town farm:

We planned our ride to go past Village Bicycle so we could stop and say hello, pick up a spare tube and get tickets for the owner's Race Across America Fund Raiser Dinner. It's a very friendly shop! We only stopped briefly as we didn't want to stiffen up. We still had some ground to cover to get back to the starting point.

Here's how it looks on the map:

And the elevation profile:

I felt just OK for the ride as I was on the edge of being cold for a lot of it even though I've ridden in much worse. Some of the roads were so bumpy, it wore me down and made me achy (for the locals, I'm referring mainly to Peckham Road!). My feet were either cold or a little numb, so it got interesting putting a foot down at intersections, like when the foot's asleep and you're not quite sure it will hold you up. It wasn't pain, just sort of nagging discomfort.

March Metric + Stats
Road bikes (first outside ride of '09!)
68.35 miles
4:30 hours
15.2 mph average
fuel, egg muffin thing from drive thru on way to ride, 2 bottles of Gatorade in my fav flavors at the moment, tropical mango and strawberry orange

Now, only 9 more to go ;)

PS. Today's ride wrapped up a week, so I'll report the weekly stats as well. I rode 4 days outside/138.43 miles and 2 days inside/30.44 miles, a total of 168.87 miles.

Ninja Jeff

In these pics, we were just heading out on our ride to meet Lynn and the temp was about 26F. As this was Jeff's coldest ride this season, I think he was in shock at this point!

The bright sun helps make you feel good despite the cold and we warmed up as we pedaled. This is a view I love along the bird sanctuary land where you can see a bit of 3rd Beach straight ahead and the sea out by 2nd Beach all along the horizon to the right.

The wind was from the west, which is my preferred direction for local rides. It somehow doesn't hurt as much as the other directions! We did 41.03 miles in all.

We have a stretch of 40+ degree days in the forecast and it is such a relief! I don't even mind the chance of rain, I'm just so happy for the warm up!

Seaweed Slog

Jeff and I took the road bikes out today and ran into Lynn by chance and the 3 of us rode out Ocean Drive and back. A storm had blown through in the night and it was still windy and the sea was wild looking. There were a lot of wave watchers at Brenton Point.

The sea had tossed lots of small rocks and seaweed onto the road along one stretch and we opted to carry our bikes to keep them out of the salt and slimy seaweed.

Just one more shot of the sea as I carried my bike over my shoulder.

We did 41.84 miles today. I'm looking forward to meeting Lynn for a ride tomorrow. Having company really helps to motivate me!

(I know I'm a little silly for logging all my miles, but it is one way I keep motivated. I started keeping track on July 25, 2006 and today crossed 10,000 miles!)

Traffic Jam!

On my return trip on Ocean Drive today, a swan was trundling along one of the traffic lanes, with no apparent interest in going back to the marsh! Feeling vulnerable with only my bike to put between me and it, I still paused to get a pic and see if my presence would scare it off the road to safety. Having once been attacked by a swan, I didn't feel up to making any shooing motions at it!
It wasn't deterred by my being there and continued along the road, eventually causing a bit of a traffic jam! Someone braver than me got out of a car and waved their arms and clapped at it. After a few minutes of that, the swan finally left the road!

It was a solo ride for me today: 40 miles in the chilly 40's with a relentless wind. This little hill was my friend today, being just about my only shelter from the wind during my entire ride! After the steady whoosh of wind in my ears, a little silence as I climbed was so refreshing.

I added a list in my sidebar for the 30/30 challenge showing the day and number of miles which I will update daily, so you can check my progress even if I don't do an entire post.

Sunday Group Ride

Jeff and I joined friends for a 42.86 mile road ride today. The pic shows Jeff out front in his new jacket, ribuck97 and Lynn as we pedaled up Bellevue Ave.

Out on Ocean Ave, I spotted this white tailed deer and had to stop for a pic.

Lynn had a flat near the end of the ride, but was able to change the tube like a bike mechanic!

Pace Line of 3

I hadn't tried to take motion shots with the camphone before, but I tried it out on today's ride. It worked pretty well, my biggest problem was trying to keep my gloved fingers out of the picture! I cropped this one!

Jeff and I joined a ride buddy and did 41.35 miles. The pic shows Jeff and our friend plowing into the wind around Brenton Point.

Jeff was happy to get in 82 miles with me over the weekend since he's not getting out much during the week now. I got a good start on my weekly miles!

And, after the cold ride...low 40's at best...we made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup! Perfect recovery food!

Rainy Rest Day

It's raining today and I'm having a day off the bike, just my second this month! It's good timing for a rest day as I have a group ride tomorrow that I'd like to feel fresh for.

I did 40 miles in the good weather yesterday and just wanted to post a couple of pretty ocean pictures from my ride. I had to go very slowly at Brenton Point to pick my way through seaweed, rocks and other debris that had been thrown onto the road in the last storm, so I figured I might as well stop and get a couple of shots.

I like this one! I got the timing right and caught the splash as the wave hit the rock.

Well, now I'm going to catch up with the chores, so I'm free to bike when the weather is fine again!

Another 'Bonus' Day

Today was originally forecast to be rainy, but the storm blew through in the night and the sun and temps in the 60's pulled me outside and onto the bike. So much for a real rest day, but I figured I could take it easy on the bike and keep it to 20 miles.

Every time I go out in shorts this time of year I say 'this is probably the last time 'til spring', while secretly hoping for some more bonus days. I didn't really need the jacket today. Looking at this picture, I can see I should get my own rather than using one of Jeff's. The sleeves are ridiculous looking (and probably slow me down with all that wind drag!).

Jeff, looking like it's summertime, except for the long sleeved jersey.

Just a shot of the surf as I rolled on past.

I hesitate to write this for fear of jinxing things, but the forecast for this week is looking rather nice, apart from Tuesday. Could there be more bonus days on the way? I'll do a couple solo rides, a group ride and at least one with my newest ride buddy. Jeff will get to do the group ride and at least one other, so he can keep his legs feeling happy too.

Mid-Week Rides

I'm coping with temps in the 40's for now. I keep telling myself that in a month or two I'll be wishing for 40's!

Yesterday was quite raw with low, gray clouds hiding the sun. It even sprinkled and showered on me a little, but the wind was blowing so hard, I was air dried before the rain could dampen my clothes! I was glad I'd ridden, but was happy to be home at the end of 20 miles.

Today was much nicer with the sun shining. I can take the cold and wind so much better if I can feel that sun on me! A chance encounter with a friend to ride with also kept my spirits high. I was feeling good when I got home at the end of 40 miles.

I saw a little critter carrying lunch home at one point on today's ride. I had to shoot into the sun, so you'll have to look closely to see the little mink with some kind of mouse. It was cute as it loped along beside me. I couldn't believe it hung around while I stopped and got the camera out, but it paused to look at me a couple of times.

I have plans to meet a friend for tomorrow's ride. Then, it's the weekend and Jeff and I will meet up with the same friend on Saturday. The forecast for Sunday and into next week is looking pretty wet, so there may be a rest day coming up!

Beautiful Morning Ride

Temps of about 60F and a very light breeze of 8-11mph made it a perfect morning for an easy effort 40 mile spin. Just a couple of camphone pics, but even they show how pretty and blue the sea was today.

A ship making it's way out of Narragansett Bay.

I guess those clouds are bringing some rain from the west. There has already been a brief shower since I got home.

Downpour!

Fast moving clouds blew in during my ride, forcing me to cut it short. I had a tough slog home, soaked, blinded, and pedaling through standing water, trying to remember where the potholes and things are!

When there was some lightning, I stopped briefly to call about a ride, couldn't get through to anyone and just took a quick pic and got back to pedaling again. Fortunately there wasn't much lightning after all.

It amazed me how people in cars can't seem to resist yelling out their windows things like 'Nice day for it!' and 'Great ride!' And one car load rolled close alongside me for a ways asking for extensive directions as I pedaled blindly though standing water! I'm still not sure if they were genuinely lost or just trying to torture me!

Despite all that, parts of it were actually kind of fun...guess that makes me nuts ;)

Jamestown Ride

Riding toward the Beavertail lighthouse today with Jeff and a friend.

The blimp flew right over us at one point and I managed to hold the camera over my head and get a shot!

Here's a better view from a few minutes later.

Don't you love new pavement? This is 'Hamilton' looking ready for the Jamestown Classic this fall. Hopefully they'll pave the north end of the island now...

Well, some new pavement is good anyway! I just wish I wasn't always going *uphill* on this stretch.

I got carried away and made a little video today which you can see on YouTube if you like.