Cycle on a Windy Day
April 15th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
(Cycle)
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The wind was steady at 25 MPH, and gusting at 32 MPH. It would hit me every time I crested the hill, which was about 23 times. I want to list some things I was happy with about this ride, and some things that irritated me, if only for the sake of looking back later to see how things have changed. I’ll start with the negative, so that I can end on a good note.
Negatives:
- People standing or casually walking and not moving to one side so I had to go up on the grass repeatedly. One woman even stood there, right in the middle of the trail, staring at me and smoking a cigarette. I’m wondering if perhaps cyclists aren’t supposed to be on the trail and just on the road? But still…
- The phone rang during my workout, and I had to stop on the uphill. I would have ignored it, but I use it for GPS recording and so I had to make sure I was still timing/recording my workout. I suppose that’s a reason to consider getting a Garmin.
- I’m irked by the way my bike shifts gears. At first I thought it was just me, because I was moving up or down more than one gear at a time, but I’m starting to think it’s the bike’s fault as I’ve done my best to move only one gear at a time. I hate when the pedal lurches forward as I’m trying to make it up a hill, and every now and then it decides to shift itself up or down on it’s own. Grrrrr.
Positives:
- I’m getting faster. Even though this still was a pretty slow pace, it’s better than last time, and might have really been even faster considering I had to slow down often when other people were on the trail and when I stopped to check my phone, and because I didn’t start or stop the GPS at the same time I started/stopped cycling, so it also recorded some idle time.
- Cycling is becoming less and less tiring both cardiovascular-wise and leg muscle-wise. I wonder how much all this will improve over the next month.
To Ponder:
- I covered more feet of ascent today than there are in the whole bike leg in the duathlon I’m eyeballing. However, mine were all in little spurts of less than 50 ft of ascent at a time, 3 per mile. In the duathlon course, it’s 3 loops with one little hill and one long hill (about a mile) than climbs 100 ft each loop. I don’t know how the little short hills will compare to the long hills. I’m hoping that I will convince my husband to head out to the park where the duathlon takes place with me this weekend so I can give the loop at least one shot and see what I think.
- I still wish I had some kind of cage or something on my bike pedals.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 04/15/2008
- Time: 16:00:00
- Total Time: 00:43:12.00
- Distance: 7.52 miles
- Average Speed: 10.44 mph
- Max Speed: 19 mph
- Ascent: 698 ft
- Descent: 702 ft
