48.5mph!!

So this weekend marked the last chance I had to get a few more miles in before the actual ride next weekend. I took Good Friday off from work and went for a ride in the morning by myself. I started at Lake Walter E. Long and did a 28.6 mile loop. Before I left, I checked the weather because I was afraid it might be too windy. But when weather.com says 10-12mph I figured I'd be safe....not so much. It was pretty dang windy and I checked the weather afterward, and lo and behold, the weather man had underestimated by about 100%!! How can you be wrong by so much so often and still get paid?? I wish my job was like that!

Saturday morning I met up with some friends and did a 39.3 mile loop from the Arboretum out to Mansfield Dam and back. On the way back on the 2222 downhill, my computer says I hit a max speed of 48.5mph!! That's a new world record (for me)!

Those two rides this weekend bring my total training mileage up to 543 miles! I think I'm actually ready...

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You're Beautiful To Watch!

That's what one girl told me after I blew by her on a long climb!! Well, maybe I should be a little more descriptive...she was probably a 60 year old grandma, but hey!, how often do you hear that from anyone?

Since my last post, I've gotten in another 92 miles. I came back to Austin one weekend and met up with Don for a ride with the Austin Flyers. Thank God I chose the short 35 mile ride because the long 50 mile ride turned into about 73 miles total!!

Oh yeah, Southwest Airlines was a day late with my bag with all my cycling equipment in it. So I had to borrow equipment from Don and I used some old red soccer socks with the toes cut off as knee warmers....it was a tad bit cold that day. I looked like a cycling bum with my piecemealed outfit for the morning...wish I had a picture of that one! That's 475 miles down....and a lot more to go.

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The Dam Ride

So I've had two more rides with the NM Velo Sport group. They are much more advanced riders than I am, so it's always a challenge...which is good. I forces me to get better every time. Last Saturday I did about 45 miles with them, and then another 15 on Sunday. With the mountains just east of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande River running north and south through the city, going east and west is either grinding uphill and flying downhill and going north or south is somewhat flat. Today, I just got back from a 53 mile ride (The Dam Ride) with the group...and I still left the group early...I think they ride about 70 each Saturday and then another 50 on Sunday. We went north through Bernalillo and then west a few miles on Hwy 550, then north again on James Dam Road/Tamaya Blvd. There was no traffic on this road, some long easy climbs, and some great downhill stretches too. On the way back, the group (about 16 riders) was probably going around 35mph all packed together. It's a little nerve wrenching to be moving that fast with someone's back tire about 18" from your front tire and someone's handlebars about 6" from yours too! The views of the Sandia Mountains were amazing from the tops of the climbs. I'm hoping to get out tomorrow for about 20 more miles.

But with 60 miles last weekend and the 53 miles today, I'm up to a total of 383 training miles. The MS 150 is now only about a month away, but with 383 miles on my tires, I think I'll be doing pretty good.

To see the route, copy and paste the link below!
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/nm/albuquerque/611123766901313915

Urban Road Warrior

Since my last post, I went downtown again with Nate. I parked way north and rode about 8 miles south to his house. I'm sure I look funny wearing my work clothes, one pant leg rolled way up to keep it out of the bike chain, and bundled up to stay warm. Nate was too whiny about the cold to ride into downtown. So we drove instead. But I still had to ride 8 miles back north at 10:30pm to get to my truck. That was another 16 miles of training.

The following Wendesday, Don Bergman and I went on a for real night ride out east and south of Pflugerville. The whole round trip was another 16 miles. Don had a head light, rear flasher light, and multi colored Christmas lights wrapped around his bike frame. Being the mechanical engineer he is, he wired it to a battery pack that he keeps in his bike bag....I felt like I was riding with a runaway Christmas tree!! He's still in much better shape than me too...

Since then, I've been crazy busy with work. At the moment, I'm working in Albuquerque for the next three weeks before going back to Austin. I found a group called NM Velo Sport here that rides on Saturday mornings. They just happen to start the ride every week from a coffee shop about 3 blocks from my apartment! We rode into downtown Albuquerque and stopped at the Embassy Suites. There was some event going on, and another 150+ riders were waiting in the parking lot. That was really cool...riding with a large mass of people really takes traffic out of the equation. They were all pretty good riders and heading north out of Albuquerque, I couldn't keep up anymore. I broke off and worked my way back to the apartment. The whole thing was about 2.5 hours and 36 miles. I'm looking forward to the next ride I can do with them!

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/nm/albuquerque/378126174334

You can check out the ride with the link above. Now I've trained a total of 270 miles, only 730 to go!

Downtown Derby!

So I got out last Wednesday with a friend of mine for a ride around downtown Austin. We started at his house and mostly took trails and sidewalks to get downtown. I couldn't believe how many people were out and about around Town Lake at 6:45pm in the evening. It was practically dark and the trails were PACKED with people running and getting in my way! We ended up coming out of the trails onto Barton Springs and kinda rode with traffic for a while. One rather large truck made sure we knew he wasn't happy with us taking up the right hand lane, so Nate made sure to let him know he was #1. A right onto Congress and up a hill and we came to Doc's Motorworks which had $2 canned Mexican beers and $1 tacos for the night. Too many tacos later we were back on the bikes heading home. I ended up with about 17 miles that evening...which is good since I was out of town the following weekend and didn't get any riding in. I broke the 200 mile threshold and now have ONLY 798 more miles left to make my 1000 mile goal.

Click here to view my fundraising page and support me on the ride!

Finally!! Nice Weather.

So we finally had some good weather this weekend. I rode on both Saturday and Sunday! Saturday, I met up with some of the other members of the NI Cycling Team. My buddy Nate came along with me so I would know at least one person. That ride was my first one with the new pedals I got this past week. They are the type of pedals that lock your feet to the bike. So when you stop, you have to twist your foot to get it off the pedal, otherwise you just kind of tip over and then lay on the ground completely unable to get up since your feet are still stuck to the pedals. So yes, my new pedals took some getting used to, and at one point, I ended up laying on the ground wondering how in the world I was supposed to get up. A nice guy came over and just pulled me and the bike up all at once. Luckily, the only thing hurt was my pride, considering all the cute women that were around.

Day 2 on the new pedals was a much better day. Don, Jillian, and I went for a 25 mile ride out near Lake Pflugerville. It was a little breezy, but going with the wind, at one point I was able to maintain 30mph without much effort. Overall, I really like the pedals. The hills are much easier to climb when you can pull up on the pedals as well as push. This weekend amounted to 40 more miles of training! I've attached a picture from the ride on Sunday.



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I got a new bike!!

I'm a little behind on my posts. It's been almost a month since my last one and a lot has happened since then. Christmas has come and gone, and thanks to Katelyn, I am very well accessorized now. I got a jersey, some riding gloves, riding socks, and some energy supplements for the longer rides. Thanks to everything being red and black, I'm representing Tech well out here.

I started out the New Year with a 9am ride with my friend Don. We rode about 25 miles on the various county roads east of Pflugerville.

Using all of my Christmas money and then some, I finally bought my own bike. No longer am I riding a medium size woman's bike. I've got my own 2008 GT GTR Series 3. When I got on it for the first time, I didn't realize how differently a properly size bike was going to feel. I bought it this past Wednesday and finally got to ride it today. I rode about 11 miles and must have seen about 20 other riders out this afternoon. Even with the wind, people are making good use of the nice weekend weather.

With the last two rides, I'm now up to 145 training miles and only 855 to go.