Two Great Rides This Weekend

Two great rides this weekend, two HARD rides, and 100+ total miles for the weekend! Saturday I met up with Pyzahl for his pre-Early Bird Saturday hill ride. He changed the start time to 8:00am, which is fine with me. I was the only other rider to show up so it was just the two of us. Weather might have also been a factor in the low turnout as it seemed to be threatening to rain. We had a nice ride through the morning fog. There was practically no wind which made it easy to maintain a nice brisk pace.
Here is Pyzahl's GPS track.

Sunday I went out to Manorville for the Early Birds. We went North this week with a slightly revised finish due to construction on Route 51. Nice turnout of riders (about 15 of us, I think). Most of the racing guys were in Central Park for the last of the spring race series. Next week should be interesting when they start showing up for the Early Birds again. We got a few brief periods of drizzle which had no effect on the ride itself but was a little bit of a let down since I just cleaned the bike yesterday afternoon. :-(

All-in-all, a great workout. Now I remember why I drive all the way out to Manorville to do this ride. Will post pictures and/or route track is Pyzahl posts them.

Spring has (finally) Sprung

Great waether this weekend and two really nice rides, as a result!
Saturday did 40 miles solo down Round Swamp Road and the LIE service road.
Awesome ride with the Early Birds this morning. We did the south route, once again, and had a nice strong group. A couple of quick stops for a mechanical and a flat, plus the usual 7-11 stop. Got reaquainted with a couple of riders I hadn't seen since the end of the birds rides last year.
I hope this weather continues for a while.
Also took a nice family bike ride to Cedar Creek and back with Linda and Tina. The park was FULL of bikes! Can't wait for the bike path to open.

Pyzahl's Saturday AM Ride

Did Pyzahl's hilly ride from Rocky Point this morning. Strong group of about 10-11 riders. We battled some strong headwind on the return leg of the loop. Got dropped on the last set of hills but I coasted in only about 30 seconds behind the rest of the group.

Here are some pictures of the ride, courtesy of Pyzahl (thanks Percy!):

Riders chatting at the start (my back is to the camera).

Jeff, Mark, Joe, and I at the halfway point, Iron Pier Beach State Park.

The group at Iron Pier.

More of the group.

Pyzahl tracked the ride with his GPS, here is a link to the Motionbased track.

I'm not sure how many more times I will make it to this ride. Its really a great ride but the traffic heading back home was insane. Perhaps the start time will get pushed up in the future.

Back to the Early Birds

Seeing as there were no ill effects from yesterday's group ride, I decided to go for it by joining the Early Birds this morning. Had a nice size group (12-15, or so). Nice pace. Most of the super-strong guys were not there (racing today, I think) so there weren't many crazy attacks. I'm starting to remember how nice it is to recover in a paceline on a group ride, compared to a solo ride where there is really no place to hide from the wind.
Next weekend is Easter and we will be upstate so I won't make it to the Birds ride, but I hope to start getting out there on a more regular basis. Looks like work will be the main obstacle.
Pyzahl was on the ride again and took pictures. So, once again, if he posts them I will put some links in the blog. TTFN!