July 4th Ride

I wanted to do something different over the long holiday weekend so July 4th featured a one-way ride to the family cottage on Buzzard's Bay in Fairhaven. Of course, the ride would have to wait until after the Arnold Mills July 4th Parade (also known as the Horribles Parade). We started bringing the kids to this parade last year with several other families...it's not the Bristol Parade but it's still a pretty good time for a parade with easy to obtain seating! Anyway, I was thinking the parade started at 10 but it didn't start until 11 and we didn't get home until just before 1:00, so I got a real late start on this ride which essentially took a chunk out of the middle of the day. But it was fun anyway. The plan was for the rest of the family to get there before me with my change of clothes.

I figured on 3 hours of riding and ended up at 3 hrs- 3 min despite a wrong turn in Berkley that added about 3 miles to the ride. The ride was actually quite easy given that I essentially had at least a partial tail wind from the west to northwest over most of the distance.

Ride stats: 53.7 miles at 17.6 mph.

The cookout and fireworks afterward seemed more enjoyable this year!

Unexpected Tempo Ride

This was the week I planned to turn it up a few notches with some serious riding, but glitches in the plan hit early. With Friday off from work extending the holiday weekend and my Tues/Thur kid-carting obligations absent for a week, I figured I'd ride every day except Wednesday...including joining the PHAT ride on Tuesday night and the Bikeworks TT on Thursday. Of course Tuesday was a terrific night for riding given the horrible weather we've been experiencing, but as luck would have it, I couldn't leave work early (just on time!)...so no PHAT ride. Plus when I got home, although there was time for a short ride, I just felt tired and hungry and non motivated...so no ride at all. And the night before I found out there would be no TT in Rehoboth this week. It's an 8 miler.

Then the rain came and came and came and....well you all know about the lousy weather that never seems to end.

So tonight's ride was unexpected for two reasons:

1. First, it pretty much rained here all day and hard...and it was raining when I left Boston...and my wife reported very wet roads and huge puddles. So I figured another ride missed due to the crappy weather system that has parked itself in various locations in the Northeast for just about the entire month of June. But after I got home and had a good meal, the roads were clearly drying and I just needed to get out on the bike for a short ride. Damp conditions were not going to stop me.
2. Secondly, I hate wet rides of any type so I simply resigned myself to a "going through the motions" type of ride. But after the first 5 miles of spinning I unexpectedly picked up the tempo without really trying. That's when I realized how strong my legs were feeling so I picked it up some more to a level I thought I MIGHT be able to sustain for the rest of the ride (by now an 18 mile ride had been decided!).

Lo and behold...I ended up doing 18.25 mostly dry miles in 58 minutes...an 18.9 mph pace! And that's with one decent size hill and a somewhat slow first 5 miles. Now I don't feel bad about there not being a TT on Thursday. Sometimes the best rides are totally unexpected.

Next up: a one-way approx. 50 mile ride to the family cottage in Fairhaven on the 4th...well, that is after Friday's ride.