Morning Stats
Distance: 16.00 miles
Time: 01:00:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Fuji Sandblaster SX XC Mtn
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 7:30a – 60F, sunny, cool, moist air. Chipmunk index of 5.
Morning Ride
Notable things:
- Longest commute of the year: 16 miles. Not bad. Especially since I did it in 1 hour.
- Almost killed the 4th chipmunk I saw, or maybe I should say he tried to commit suicide under my tire. That sucked but we both made it out alive.
- Got to observe a wild turkey and her 7 – 10 kids trying to cross the road on Judson Ln. Luckily, Judson is a school zone and it’s very curvy, so people going down that way in the morning are dropping school kids off and being wary of things in the road. Last month, I helped a snapping turtle get across the same road in almost the same spot, so the locals must be used to wildlife crossing there.
- Muddy! Even trying to avoid the mud, I got pretty grody.
Looking forward to the ride home. I also noticed today that they finally approved my picture for my profile and my bike picture in my bikejournal.com profile. I laughed so hard when I saw the bike pic. Yes, I did submit that, but it was awesome to see it actually on the profile page next to the description of the sandblaster. I’ll replace it with a real pic some day.
Evening Stats
Distance: 16.00 miles
Time: 01:05:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Fuji Sandblaster SX XC Mtn
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 6P – 78F, sunny, light humidity. Chipmunk index of 1.
Evening Ride
I’m listening to Gonna Fly Now – you know, the training montage song from Rocky – because I cranked today. Average speed of 16mph on the way to work, and 14.8mph coming back??? On a what? A dirty old rusty mountain bike that makes noise and has a shifty crankshaft???? Ohhhhh snit. Oh, and what? Part of that was off road? Yeah, you know what’s up.
Man, what a totally excellent ride to cap off another crap day at work. But today’s ride was all about the ride. I didn’t think about work for a second of it. The major hurdle for me now is that hill as you leave Canton and head into New Hartford. That thing is just a monster to me. I watched a guy on a road bike stand up and crank up the whole thing. It looked like he didn’t lose a bit of speed. It was inspirational. So the bar has been set. I want to do that!
Well, I upped my mileage for the commute yesterday and today. Maybe next week I’ll try for the full commute on bike. Tomorrow I think I’ll take it easy and just go from New Hartford again, and I won’t watch my time closely. I need to give the legs a break. I’ve never done this much riding in my life, but I see how people become such avid cyclists. The endorphins and stuff firing off in your body is just exhilarating.
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