Tagged: ride report

Red bike on the Blue Ridge Parkway

First cold weather ride of the season

I’ll chalk it up to the cold, as we got off to a slow start, with both of our ride leaders claiming mechanicals in the first 5 miles. While Kent just suffered a chain drop, Alan had to fight with a flat and a loose cassette that continued to nag him the rest of the ride. I’ve e-mailed him the link to the Stein Hypercracker so that he’ll never have a...

Lauren with the red Trek

First try for a fast century

Summary: 103 miles of GREAT roads. About 10 miles of chipseal, but not really bad stuff. About 10 miles of chipseal, but the SHOULDER wasn’t chipsealed… Take note, Texas counties! Leave the shoulder alone, and the bikes will ride on it! I was also impressed with the smooth transition from the chipsealed surface to the shoulder. You should do this ride next year! There were probably 50 riders total… and at...

Motobecane Ti mountain bike

Sunday bloody Sunday

Amanda started out the day by verifying that gravity was still functioning properly. It was. No damage done to body or bike save a little elbow scrape. We enjoyed a casual cruise on the northward leg. Cranked things up a bit heading east through the golf course up to the dump. Amanda seemed to really enjoy heading north on Lake Forest with a tailwind. Can’t say that I blame her. We...

Fuji at rest on a cold winter's day in Dallas

One. Five. Zero.

Started out from the house and took the long way up to Indy & Legacy, so I already had 13 miles before we launched at 8. First things first… WOW! That 55 ring makes Trish FLY!!! She did a fabulous job pulling us up the hills after lunch! Enjoyed the experience of dropping my chain the FIRST time I shifted to the small ring… Made a quick adjustment and didn’t have...

Titanium Motobecane mountain bike in repose

200 kilometers

El Cid led out the Sunday morning M&M crew at what can only be called an enthusiastic pace. At the rest stop, my Garmin was showing an average speed of 18.2. Flying, we were. From the rest stop, the sane folks proceeded back to the bagel shop. Marko Polo, Todd, Mike Emmons and I proceeded on a different journey across vast stretches of chip seal bound for Farmersville and lunch at...

Lauren with the red Trek

Hotter’n Hell? Nope. Hot as? Probably.

Couldn’t find a good enough reason to trek to Wichita Falls for the annual roasting of 10,000 plus cyclists, but I did manage to find a century from my usual Saturday morning group ride. Wow. Slower moving speed, but a new PR overall time of 7 hours 35 minutes makes me pretty happy. Thanks to Todd and Beth (not her real name) for a fantastic day on fantastic roads touring the...

Fuji at rest on a cold winter's day in Dallas

One weekend, two centuries

What a beating… Yesterday’s metric century was totally painless, though. Pretty cool to log 164 miles in two days in any case! Things started off great with a plan to ride down to Sunnyvale so that we’d be outbound into the wind and have a tailwind on the return. I started to worry when I kept seeing Mark up at the front leading, as we were going at a decent clip with...

Fuji at rest on a cold winter's day in Dallas

A great way to spend a Saturday morning

Fabulous ride! Fabulous day! We came out of the gate flying, nearly 18 mph average to the break point. Once again, the Branch break point was a cluster 7v(# with a few 2-intendees getting swept into the 1s and a number of 1s nearly getting left at the church. A group of 4 got stuck at the light crossing 380 at Bridgefarmer. Kent, I, Jeff, Smurfette, Kai and 4 people I...

Titanium Motobecane mountain bike in repose

The sorts of crazy things

So… here’s the sort of thing that goes through the mind of the sort of person who rides 100 miles on a 95 degree day in north Texas… Great ride! Got a *##(*$( flat, but that’s better than I’ve been doing lately… Don, Renee & Mark rode the century option. David fired up the excuse generator and mumbled something about his kid and the park… Jeff Frye (who I’m blaming for...

Cycling injury

The light at the end of the tunnel isn’t always a freight train

I’d begun to think I’d upset the balance of Karma. Strangest because I thought I’d taken care of that when I found a lady’s day planner sitting in the middle of the right-hand lane of McDermott Drive last week. I figured I’d scored a few thousand points in my favor. Boy, was I wrong… That very afternoon, I suffered two flats. But, that was only after Dave was unable to join...