Nice Hills!

We had a nice little 26 mile ride yesterday, just Ken & I. It was hotter out than we expected - we later saw a bank sign that stated it was 87 degrees out - but it was still mighty fine out. We started our ride and headed up the first dreaded hill. Dreaded not so much because of it's size, but because we only ever ride up it completely cold - we are never warmed up before climbing the hill. About 30 seconds into the ride, we hear behind us "PMC, PMC" (we were wearing our jerseys), an lo and behold, here's Howie from the Nashoba Valley Pedalers. He tries to give us a card for the club, to which we sheepishly reply "we're already members" (we are - not a lie). And he asks "why aren't you riding with us, then?" Ahhh... peer pressure. Maybe we will someday. But fitting our weekend rides into someone else's schedule takes a little too much effort for us. It also seems silly to drive our bikes to a meeting spot just to ride by our house later in the day, and still have to go pick up the car. Besides, we had volunteer work to do yesterday morning, and we never quite know when we'll get home from that.

The first hill wasn't so bad, actually. Maybe its the new bike. But it was just easy, and Ken seemed to think so too - he caught up fairly quickly on the down hill. After getting into Harvard, we had to stop and stretch. I hate stopping for any reason, even to stretch, but I'm trying to take it easy on the shoulder, as I rather like using my right arm (I think my left arm actually belongs to someone else - or, someone else controls it for me, and they do a poor job). It kind of helped. Down the hill from Harvard center on our way to Littleton, I hit 39.8 MPH on my bike - this is the first time I really "get down" on my bike - into the drops, making as small of wind sail as possible. It was a long enough descent that I could play around with head position and elbow alignments and listen to the changes in the wind going by - the quieter, the more wedge shaped (at least by my figuring, which may be a complete lie). Needless to say, it was quite fun.

We stopped to stretch again in Littleton. At this point, I'm feeling like a complete Ninny for having to stretch all the time, but it was getting hard to turn my head to the left (which is where the traffic is). Back on the bike, back up the hill. It's a longish climb (compartively for this area) out of Littleton back into Harvard. But then again, ANY route into Harvard involves a climb. At any rate, when we stopped in Littleton, we were at 241 feet above sea level. When we were "up" in Harvard, we were at about 612 feet or so. It wasn't steep, but it goes on awhile.

We did, however, enjoy a lovely long down hill for what seemed like miles at Mile 16 (Stow Rd). The speed limit on this road is 25 MPH. I was going 28/29 MPH for a good long time (mentally yelling "Wheeeee!" the whole time). The beginning of this downhill is a 10% grade, then it levels off to 2% or 3% after a half-mile. Over all, the descent lasts about 2.5 miles. Not bad for these parts. I did, however, get passed by an inpatient SUV driver while I was going 5 MPH over the speed limit. So if I was speeding, how fast must that woman have been going to pass me on that narrow, winding road? I do believe I yelled "dumbass" at her. She deserved it.

It was a good ride, and the rest of it was more or less uneventful. Eventually I gave up on stretching, and just wanted to get home as fast as possible. So we picked it up after the final 2 hills. Every time I find a 25 MPH speed limit, it seems like a personal challenge (I hate rules). I did finally figure out how to comfortably sprint in the drops - a new skill for me - when Ken blew my doors off on a town line sprint (I didn't SEE it, and thus didn't know we were sprinting for it). I almost caught him - at 30MPH on a flat. Sprinting. In the drops. I'm sure there is a style rule against that. But hey- it seemed to work well.

1094 kcals burned in 1.75 hours. Not bad. I think Ken burned some 1500 kcals.