Month: April 2014 (Page 1 of 3)

We had fabulous weather this weekend for riding. The rides in the mornings started off in the high 50sF and temps climbed well into the mid 60F range. That meant no leg warmers and only a short sleeve jersey with arm warmers. It was perfect. There were certain parts of each ride where it got a little breezy so a wind vest might have helped but thankfully they were short-lived.

In total I did just under 60 miles of riding over the weekend. Saturdays ride was an even 30 miles with lots of climbing! The original cue sheet said about 1800′ but all the Garmin devices were reporting 2800′ by the end of the ride. To the legs it felt more like the later.  Sundays ride was with a slower group so it was a much more social 28 miles with few climbs. It was a good time and to make things interesting some of us stronger riders would start at the back and make our way though the pack and play catch up with each other until the next regroup. A couple of us probably would have logged some additional miles at the end of the group ride because we were all so amped but it was late in the day so we called it quits. There is always next weekend.

I was able to review/try some new products while I was out on the rides as well. These include 2 items from my April Bike Loot box; eLoad Endurance Sports Drink and Upfront Nutty Granola which I already posted a review of. The other items I was able to try were the new Performance Ultra SL Bib Shorts and the Ultra Short Sleeve Jersey. I hope to get my thoughts up about my experience with them later this week.

Just a word about safety as I saw a lot of boneheaded moves by both drivers AND cyclists this weekend. I thought I was going to have to jump into first responder mode a couple of times because I thought for sure a collision was going to happen right in front of me. The first was an older rider making a left turn. Except he was riding on the right, never signaled his intention to the car approaching from behind, he cut out in front of them causing them to take evasive action just missing the rider. The second was a rider starting from a standstill perpendicular to the direction of travel (on a road with zero shoulder), which meant they basically pedaled into the lane of traffic before turning the proper direction.  What is worse is both these riders were just totally oblivious to the oncoming traffic, they had complete tunnel vision which can be a recipe for disaster. Ride smart, ride safely, signal when turning and don’t run lights or stop signs.