More Spring Training

Editorial Note: I wrote this on April 26 but never posted it, so here it is delayed...
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Hi all!

Nancy and I continued our training yesterday with a 17 mile ride around the river drives in Philly. We made a short pit stop at the Azalea Garden on the grounds of the Philly Art Museum. As a result, we decided that our theme for this year's training blog will be plants and flowers we see on our rides (to counter balance all the shots of everyone eating snacks along their rides last year!).

So, in keeping with that, here is a photo of one of the beds at the Azalea Garden. The azaleas weren't quite in bloom but the beds had lovely plantings of bulbs and other attractive annuals and perennials.

My first Boston ride

Well... I took a break from visiting mom in the hospital by doing a fairly short ride from Prescott Street to Harvard U. and back. I did not really know where I was going to go since I wasn't sure where there were paths and where the roads were ok to ride on. But it worked out pretty well.

There is a nice path along the Charles which I discovered the other morning at the end of Abermarle Rd. I took that into Watertown Square and then crossed over to Nonantum Road and rode by the skating rink (brings back memories!) That path was fine but then got very busy. Luckily as I was crossing some street near Harvard, I discovered that Memorial Dr. was closed to cars part of the way. So I crossed over to Cambridge and rode to the end of where it was closed.

Then I turned around and headed back but decided not to go the way I came. The paths were just too busy so I figured Greenough Blvd. wouldn't be very trafficy. It wasn't and it turned out that there was a bike lane from the Arsenal mall (whatever that road is behind there) all the way back to Watertown Square.

It was only 15 miles or so that I did but I was glad to be back on a bike. Also was very glad for my new white bike shirt (thanks Marge!) which was nice and cool!

Tomorrow I'm planning to ride over to the hospital to see mom since I bought a cheapo backpack at Target this afternoon. I scoped out a route that avoids West Newton on my last trip over there.

Holy Hills Batman!

Hi all,

Well, most of our training so far has been flat (unless you count the giant hill we have to go up to get home from most rides). So today I decided I needed to mix in some hills. It was a short ride - only 8.69 mi but I felt good that my average speed was still 11.5 even with some a number of decent hills. I guess the good thing about going uphill is that generally you get to go downhill too! Need to get my brakes checked though!

If you check out my ride on MapItPronto disregard the steep dip around mile 2 - it must calculate the elevation based on the topography of the land and not the actual road. There's a bridge that goes over this ravine.

Anyone planning to come down to Philly for Memorial Day weekend? We would love to see yuze gize!

Unphotoshopped nerd.

Ok. My first official training photos.--

No photoshopping, no trick angles.

Just pure cyclo-nerd.

BTW, how's ev'body doing?

Nancy and Ellie's training progress

Today we did our longest ride so far - 34.8 miles on the Schuylkill River Trail. A few weeks ago we did 25 miles or so of the same trail. The trail is a Rails to Trails trail so it's pretty flat but given that we live up on the ridge above the river, any ride for us pretty much involves a steep climb on the way home.

Nancy's getting used to her new bike. This was her second ride on it - we did a shorter ride last evening in the Wissahickon (The Wissa-what?? I don't know... it sounds weird!). She was definitely happier today on the paved surface. Most of the time we averaged about 12 mph or a little more. The early part of the trail, however (pictured above) is not paved but gravelly so we had to slow down going through there. Also on the way back from where we turned around, we had a lot of wind coming at us (plus being more tired) so that slowed us a little.

It's hard to see on this map, but we went almost to Valley Forge Nat'l. Park before we turned around. The orange arrows are our starting point and turning around point.

So, although we're pretty tired, we seem to be able to stand upright and walk (for the most part, anyway!). A little arnica and some Recovery Rub should help a lot!

Oh, by the way, no, we didn't ride up the steep hill to get back to our house - we walked it, which was tough enough!

Sarah & Hoot we hope your party was a lot of fun!

Training for inclement weather

Hi everyone! I read on the Memory Ride's website that last year "Torrential downpours and tornado threats didn't dampen the spirits of Memory Ride participants."

So, I thought perhaps I should do some training to take this into consideration. Here's a picture of my ride from yesterday.

I found that the pointy hat was a good addition to my riding gear.