I was off for a week in NYC1, which meant an extended time off the bike. Since I'll be going on yet another week (FL this time) without a bike, I thought I'd sneak in a 40 miler on my one day home.
1Why did I not bike in allegedly bike-friendly NY? "Hey they got bike lanes, didn't you hear?" All it took to confirm my "yeah right" attitude was the cab ride to the bus stop on the return home. Dude turned left through a parallel bike lane, with a biker about 3 feet away. Never looked. Biker was smart and assumed the driver was going to decapitate him. Smart biker. NYC biking and me will happen... just not for a while.
So, the morning came early... like it usually does... only with a lot less light than I've been used to. I guess that sunrise time thing the weather guy does2 isn't full of lies. I left about 6:30 and decided to go past my usual Great Falls destination and push for a total of 40. Rather than be smart and break at MM20, I decided to turn around and break at Great Falls, which meant a longer than usual opening 25 miles. I think that's about as long as I would normally like to go on a ride of 40+ miles before a break. Totally doable, but I suspect it would wear me out later in the day to not pace the miles more.
2Explain to me, why the weather people - trained meteorologists at best - are somehow responsible for reporting sunrise, tides, and even less relevant to their trade... meteor showers? They all do... coast to coast. I've never understood why. Is astronomy a required minor in weather school, or are is a universal truism that weather nerds dig heavenly objects?
I hit some weather about midway back from the Falls... nothing crazy, just some light rain. Honestly, the cooler temperatures are a welcome relief from the month of July, so the rain was fine by me. I washed some of the C&O grime off the bike afterwards and briefly considered getting some new gears installed while in FL. After a quick spin, I decided it's time to suck it up and try some hill training before I hack up the bike with lower gears. If that's a no go, I'll make the changes.
So, the plan is to do some gym-based biking while at the conference. No, I won't bore you with mileage of my biking there...
Miles this trip: 40.1
Total miles trained: 1113.5
