Archive for August, 2006
Three Lakes and a River
This club ride is one of the most scenic on the circuit. John, Kyle and I wanted to do more than just the nearly 40 this ride provides, so we go up early, carpooled north to exit 24 and started at 8am. Kyle led us on a southern loop for 30 some miles. We then followed an old cue Kyle found of the actual club ride. ‘Course we were nearly an hour early finishing our bonus miles, so decided to ditch the group and just do the ride ourselves. Good idea, since the last couple miles had us riding in an steadily increasing sprinkle. The drive home was through a very soaking downpour at times–not that we felt it safe and warm inside the family truckster. Well, OK, John’s bike up on the roof got soaked, but it’s a trooper and put up with it with nary a whimper.
Riding in Rochester
A couple weeks ago Steph and I went out to Rochester to see Baby Jeffrey. Oh yeah, and Brian and Danielle. And, uh, Liane. Yeah, that’s it, I think. Anyway, Brian and I went for a ride in his neck o’ the woods and I got a tast of riding Western NY style.
His terrain is very flat. The roads aren’t too bad. I was surprised at how much suburban sprawl there was. About a quarter of the ride was on the crushed gravel bike path along the canal. That’s a beautiful bike path, we’ll have to take Steph out there sometime.
Ride profile. Total feet climbed: 630′.
The next day was Darien Lake day. Yay! Water slides!
It was a beautiful day and everyone had the idea to go to DL. The lines for the rides were interminable! I ended up going on only two water slides and the ferris wheel. Still the slides were top-notch, so they were worth the wait. After we had dinner together (Brian, Dani, Jeffrey, Liane, Steph and I) we said our goodbyes and headed for the parking lot to start our long (-er than usual) drive home from a point midway between Rochester and Buffalo. Just as soon as we left the gates, I realized I left my keys in Liane’s backpack. Dohh! Back in we go and hope that they did in fact head over to the Superman ride like Brian said they might. Luckily we zeroed in on Dani and the baby carriage immediately and retrieved the all-to-necessary keys.
OBX Century
(Note: this post has been languishing in my Drafts folder for quite some time and I finally got it out. It’s out of order chronologically, but I’ll fix that in a while.)
I had the pleasure of completing my second solo century in the beautiful Outer Banks islands of North Carolina.
The weather was a little unsettled in the beginning of the week and I had to wait until Thursday before the wind returned to normal, from the southwest. The course was an utterly simple one of following NC-12 south to the end, turning around and returning on the same (and only) road.
The first half of the ride was completed in 3 hours 19 minutes. The second half in a stupendous 2 hours 6 minutes. My heart rate average was nearly the same for the two legs, perhaps a tad higher on the return leg.
The UFOs are pretty bold in Cape Hatteras–parking like this out in broad daylight.
Here is the elevation profile (keep in mind the max on the vertical axis is LESS THAN 30′):
The Cape Hatteras lighthouse, about 25 miles south of our rental house: (I think I look like I have Bob Roll teeth in this photo.) (And… forgive the crappy cell phone camera photos.)
The Ocracoke lighthouse close to the turnaround point of the ride:
An example of the road:
I can’t wait to do this again next year!
