Bicycling Author Shares Experiences

Bringing you up-to-date statistically: still on schedule with the weight, managed 305 miles in a month that included lots of poor weather plus the weekend of races and time trialing, only three rides in the kitchen and three tt practices. These last were important, but don't add a lot of miles. On a good note, another short ride was my "hill" ride of 19 miles. But it includes eight climbs and is quite strenuous. I will now be doing this once a week.

Yesterday I intended to do a long ride. Funny how when you are not in a routine everything seems to take longer. It took a half an hour to get my act together and leave the driveway. Two minutes and less than half a mile later I did a U-turn and came home. No, I hadn't forgotten anything. The wind was about 25mph out of the north and even though I had on tights and windbreaker, it didn't feel good and I packed it in. Dang! That would have made the mileage look a little better.

So I rode out this morning, feeling smooth and powerful. Duh! Just about anybody with a 25mph wind at their back will feel good. Well, this time the wind came out of the south. I still had tights and windbreaker. The difference in days is mainly my 60 mile ride goes 15 miles north to start, then 15 miles east, turn around 15 miles west, then 15 miles south (generally). Today I could get three-quarters the route completed before having to face the wind. A pleasant ride, albeit slower than normal. I saw one other cyclist and only a couple of cars.