Did You Ride Today?

[Mr. Beanz]

Been loving the night life. And doing 400 miles per month over the last year trying to keep in the saddle.

Little weekend video. 45 on Sat and 31 with Gina on Sunday. Hot 91 degrees!

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View: https://youtu.be/0T6nIrMcBng

 

[jhuskey]

Been loving the night life. And doing 400 miles per month over the last year trying to keep in the saddle.

Little weekend video. 45 on Sat and 31 with Gina on Sunday. Hot 91 degrees!

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Good to see you are still kicking. Hot here also.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Saturday, 46 miles with my bud Joaquin. Average 17.5 mph. Not bad for a windy day and 90 degrees. Joaquin is exactly 100 pounds less than me, much shorter so it's hard to get a good draft. We take 1 mile turns at the front. He finished really strong today.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

A solo 23 last night up San Dimas Cyn. Pretty creepy ride. Thought there would be more people but only saw 2 cars. Got up and out just before it got dark and sure glad I didn't have a flat. Creepy feeling thinking about a lion jumping on your back while making a repair. So glad it didn't get dark till I got back down to the bottom. The rest of the ride, the final 10 or so was in the darkness. Sure love riding in the night. So cool and refreshing. Haven't ridden up that canyon in 15 years. Not worth the descent. Broken up pavement, too many pot holes. Only 40 yards or so of smooth pavement. The rest was crud.

Nice ride up though, see the road coming up from the left.

Only smooth section of the ride

Stop to take a selfie really quick. Plenty of high banks around and so trying to hurry before a lion jumps on my back and chews out my neckbone ha ha ha!

Little break at a park near the end of the ride. Cool little park but looking for a better stop. This one has a ton of roaches and bugs around the water fountain. Can't seem to get myself to refill here. Plus, the other park is about 3/4 through my ride and a very nice new water fountain set up. Very clean stainless steel system. Which would you rather drink ha ha ha!?

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Another 23 solo miles last night. I saw the old group go by that I used to ride with. They were 30 minutes ahead on the start, about 15 of them. I got ready to go, stopped at a park midway to refill the bottles then almost caught them by the time I finished my ride, about a mile before their finish. I don't ride with them any longer as most will suck wheel the entire ride without sharing the load. Better off by myself. I saw that last night, again!

My gator mask and beanie thingy sure got soaked on last night's ride. Usually not much sweat on night rides but it was warm last night. The daytime high was 96. Only 81 average but sure seemed warmer than that.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

43 miles with my buddy Joaquin at 17.6 average speed.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Nice ride with Gina on Sunday. Took it easy because she had problems with the heat this week. Been freaking hot so I kept the pace down on the 31 miler.

Then last night, Tuesday, I did a solo evening ride. 21 miles. Ran across this road last week so thought I'd try it last night. This road is only 1/3 of a mile but has grades of 17,18, and 20 % tops to punish me in a fun kind of way ha ha ha! The average is only 10.7 % but that's enough. I survived and set a better speed than my skinny friend on strava so I'm good.

This was my face after the climb.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Been riding more local and avoiding the bike trail with the crazy cost of gas around here lately, $4.50.

Rode with a friend Sandra on Thursday. 24 miles around local foothills.

Then Saturday, I hit the foothills and mountains for a 30 miler with 2500 ft gain. Crazy hot, 102 degrees when I got to the base of the mountain. Rode up 4 miles up the mtn road at 6%. That was good enough figuring I had almost 20 miles to get home back through the foothills. Didn't want to fatigue too much with the heat but surprisingly, I felt pretty good throughout.

A little warm starting up the mountain.

Giving my little friend a rest in the shade before heading back down.

The first 1/2 or so of the mtn road. Like this all the way up.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Trying to keep my 400 mile per month trend going. Doing well over the last year, hitting at least 400 every month.

30 mile planned trail ride with Gina but she said she could do 35, ok let's go for it!

High of 95 degrees and average 89. Pretty warm but Gina handled the heat pretty well. Nice easy recovery ride for me and keeping the pace down so Gina doesn't get affected by the sun too much. She said the sunlight affects her more than the temps themselves. But she did very well.

Near the end letting her do her own pace so she doesn't overheat. The coast was 14 miles back so it gets pretty warm in these parts.

Right at the end of the ride. The lean over catch your breath and get out of the sun shot ha ha ha! But something abot a sweaty back on a woman looks nice to me.

She sits in the shade while I rack up the bikes. Just a few short minutes and she's smiling and feeling good.

 

[cyclintom]

Trying to keep my 400 mile per month trend going. Doing well over the last year, hitting at least 400 every month.

30 mile planned trail ride with Gina but she said she could do 35, ok let's go for it!

High of 95 degrees and average 89. Pretty warm but Gina handled the heat pretty well. Nice easy recovery ride for me and keeping the pace down so Gina doesn't get affected by the sun too much. She said the sunlight affects her more than the temps themselves. But she did very well.

Near the end letting her do her own pace so she doesn't overheat. The coast was 14 miles back so it gets pretty warm in these parts.

View attachment 5101


Right at the end of the ride. The lean over catch your breath and get out of the sun shot ha ha ha! But something abot a sweaty back on a woman looks nice to me.


View attachment 5102

She sits in the shade while I rack up the bikes. Just a few short minutes and she's smiling and feeling good.

View attachment 5103

Why does that look like Phoenix?

 

[cyclintom]

I was looking at just one of my Garmin stats and was rather impressed. In the last 12 months I have done 4,700 miles and 248,000 feet of climbing. The calories burned is off the charts but I didn't lose any weight this year since all of my rides were no longer than 30 miles or so. Perhaps those numbers are saved on Garmin site and all of my mileage on any of my Garmin's go into it?

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Why does that look like Phoenix?

This is California. Santa Ana River Trail. Pretty hot out here lately so prolly why you were thinking AZ.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

One of the report features of Garmin Connect. Love the little graphs. I copied and pasted side by side for this image. 2 different reports for the record.

But this time 2020 last year I was not doing as well but ended up with 4,010 miles. Only a couple of 400 mile months.

This year I have 7 month around 400 and 2 at 500. So feeling good about being more consistent this year. Maybe just maybe, I can get to 5000. Jan to January though. These charts are Sept to Aug, mid year.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Thursday local 33 mile ride with a couple friends.

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View: https://youtu.be/KeRNSkWHrbc

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Thursday evening rides with 1700 ft of gain with Sandra and Tony.

I've known Tony since I was 13, got me into cycling when I was about 32. Now at 58, I've known this guy for 45 years. High school buddies. So he rides where I go.

Sandra and I are the outcasts from the cycling group I rode with last year. Ride leader went wussy on me when I mentioned that some other riders wanted to do a little more climbing and maybe longer miles on weeknight rides. He go really defensive and started *****ing about everything. Typical human defense mechanism when one feels inferior or threatened. Some said I should have taken over the group. Nah, not for me, too many diva type riders in the club. Not one to cater to wimpy riders, including the ride leader ha ha ha!

So we are the outcasts, yeah, the ones that go out and do it! Sandra puts her heart into her riding. So I hear her gasping for air at times, are you OK? Shall we slow down a bit? NO, that is the way I ride! COOL!!! So no need to baby a rider. She is the one who wanted to ride with me out of all the others in the group. A few talked about riding with me but when it came down to it, I think they feel more secure with themselves sitting in a group of 25 piddling around town. Nice thoughts of increasing the effort but too much work for them.

So the typical group ride was 23 with 800 ft of gain if lucky. We are doing 30 miles with 1700 ft for now and looking to increase it little by little. So I respect Sandra as a rider, having the balls to get out there with us and just DO IT like Nike says ha ha ha!

So we did the ride, mixing in new roads with some gain into the old group ride and riding variations of local roads. The group still doing the same ride week after week for 15 years. OK, I was getting bored after 2 months. Got to mix it up a little.

So a nice sweet ride last night. Tony is a pretty good climber and Sandra tries hard so we make a good group. I'm guessing we'll have more riders soon. Not that I am looking for that but word gets around that some are bored with the old group rides. We'll see.

I think Sandra is awesome because she tries hard, does well and doesn't expect to be babied like some of the other women of the group. If I say we're going up this hill, she'll say ok and ask for more ha ha ha!

Heading out!

I sure look happy on my bike!

Tony Sagan. Ok, not really with the Sagan.

Sandra after the ride. Sweating like crazy but loving it!

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Nice solo 32 miler today 1,837 ft gain. Exploring new roads today but encountered a couple I might not want to ride again. One section of a road in the foothills was super narrow. I let a few cars go by before going for it. About 200 yards and a 2.8 percent grade. I kicked butt across not wanting to have a car behind me while I take the lane. Of course a couple cars pull up behind me but only 30 more yards as the road widens a bit so I move to the side to let the driver behind me go. He stays there and blocks traffic for me. Nice, I really appreciate the good guys that help keep me alive. After the straight narrow section, he makes a right when the road really widens. Of course I give him the much appreciated thank you wave! But hey, us 250 pound guys can really move on a 3% grade when we have to ha ha ha!

Nice view looking down on the valley

Almost done. Love the better bike lanes around here.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Nice easy ride with Gina on the trail at 16.2 average speed. Nice to get out of the hills for a bit ha ha ha! Gina rode really strong, made it look easy and happy about that, was easy on me for some recovery.


Starting out easy to work the kinks out of these old legs.

Gina was looking really happy today!

Asked her to strike a pose, this is what came out ha ha ha!

 

[cyclintom]

I did z Thursday Ride yesterday. Just 1600 feet of climbing and 38 miles. The saddle is **** and am waiting for a new one. Average moving speed was 10.6 mph according to the Garmin. Now on a flat ride my averages are usually around 11.5 and I simply cannot understand how people are reporting 18 and 20 mph averages. Even on my rides that are wide open and on which I hit almost no traffic lights, I cannot get over 12 mph at the very best and that is with doing 15 mph on the clock most of the way. On a metric where I finished far up in the pack (simply because I don't stop long at rest stops) my average was in the 11's. So I just don't know where people are getting their numbers.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

I did z Thursday Ride yesterday. Just 1600 feet of climbing and 38 miles. The saddle is **** and am waiting for a new one. Average moving speed was 10.6 mph according to the Garmin. Now on a flat ride my averages are usually around 11.5 and I simply cannot understand how people are reporting 18 and 20 mph averages. Even on my rides that are wide open and on which I hit almost no traffic lights, I cannot get over 12 mph at the very best and that is with doing 15 mph on the clock most of the way. On a metric where I finished far up in the pack (simply because I don't stop long at rest stops) my average was in the 11's. So I just don't know where people are getting their numbers.

So do you think we lie about our speeds?

Here is my fastest ride on the bike trail. Fairly flat only 700 ft. No stops with 2 guys picking up a few here and there that held on for a bit then dropped off.

So here is a little proof for the non believers

3 of us 44 miles at 19.2 average speed. 5 years ago, at age 53 and I was riding an old 18 year old bike from 1998.

One of my favorite videos that goes along with this ride.

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View: https://youtu.be/LvqcXcVFa0A

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Here is another from January, 7 months ago.

Same trail but with a bigger group. I think I lead about 50% of the time, shows in the later video with the big group behind me. Ended up dropping all but 4 riders out of 20+ (?)

The trail and across Pacific Coast Hwy with stops and all.

66 miles at 18.2 average speed.

The video that goes along with this one.

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View: https://youtu.be/kq3GvfPPOzA