It's amazing to me that I spent the better part of two months working my way to a certain point, only to take a ten day vacation and be back to, what feels like, square one. Given I did get a little sick on my trip to Costa Rica and Panama, but I thought I would be better off than I am. C'est la vie.
The good to come out of this is that I now feel like I have to push myself. Before, I was stalled at doing a 20-35 mile flat rides at an average speed of 15mph (18-22mph until you have to slow down for other riders). Now I feel like I have to push myself to be comfortable doing a 50 mile ride in a month. So to prepare for a 75 mile ride, I'm going to do a 50 mile ride a month before hand. It's added a nice dose of urgency that I didn't have before, and it's one hell of a motivator.
I also decided that I'm terrible at climbs.
My normal rides are Bridgeport to either the Art Museum (35 miles, 45 if we ride from Betzwood), Audubon (20 miles) or Valley Forge (19 Miles). The Art Museum ride has a few hills, but nothing long enough to count as a climb. The Audubon Loop has a hill that reaches 9% at the top, and is a quarter mile long, but is otherwise flat. Valley Forge has three hills that when done one after the other are challenging, but only wouldn't be any worse than the Audubon hill. So the main thing that started to stand out to me is that I don't really have any climbs on the rides I go on. So my goal for the next few weeks is to go out and find roads that go up and last longer than a quarter mile. They don't need to be destroyers, but I want a challenge. As it stands, I hate climbing more than I love anything else, so if I can find a twisty road with a 5-8% grade that goes on for two or three miles in over developed, suburban Philadelphia, I'll be stoked.
I'm also in the market for a a small point and shoot camera so I can take snap shots while riding and have some fancy pictures to go along with all these silly words. Something tells me I wouldn't enjoy lugging around my SLR on rides.
One last note...
BOO RICARDO RICCO! BOOOOOOO!
3 comments:
JongaJong!!! Why does it say that this is from June 18th? I would bike ride but it costs way too much for this black guy. I'm glad you've found a new love. Unfortunately it takes away from our coop times on PS3 and 360. But as long as it makes you have fun and ride like the wind!
Thanks Homey. If you want to start riding, we can find something in your budget. And it hasn't taken away from my ps3/360 time. my 360 is a paper weight and I just haven't bought Civ yet.
I had a hard enough time bringing my SLR around Disney World. The last day, it stayed in the safe in the hotel room rather then coming to Epcot. Figures I could have had the pretty picture spots the one day I didn't have my camera :(
Also - I'm too lazy to use anything but my LJ. So you can deeeeal.
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