Longest Ride

Up early this morning and out the door to head out for my road bike ride for the day. I setup a new route to go on and it ended up being he longest to date. Even though it was just under 14 miles it was the longest road bike ride so far. Overall it was fairly easy and actually a really good ride, better than I thought it would be actually. There were a couple areas on the loop that had some of the long climbs and I thought for sure they would kick my ass.

In the end they were not that bad, the bigger problem was that my flutes and/or my sciatic was cramping up on the left side which meant that I had to ride side saddle for a few minutes until it went away and I was able to get back into the groove. I was worried because the area I was coming up to not only had a lot of traffic I needed to power through but I needed to climb as well.

In the long run I ended up being OK because the cramp went away and I was able to make it up the hill and onto the main highway. On the final run back to the house everything was great and I was able to get through the scariest part of the ride because there is no bike lane and the road is fairly narrow as it is. Anyway I made it and all was good making the final turn back to the house.

Back home I did a couple circles to cool down, unclipped and saved the ride on the Garmin 1000 - which worked awesome by the way. I am really happy that I made the decision to do the upgrade and go with that version. Overall I think it will be a great GPS and I will get a lot of use out of it.

If I had to point one negative it would be that the 1000 does not automatically link to Strava for uploads like I was able to do with the 810. I was still able to get the data and upload it into Strava and have it saved to my account. Hopefully there is an update at some point that will allow me to automatically upload. It's not that it's that difficult to do, but it's easier when it auto recognizes the device and imports the data.

I think I may get a cadence sensor for the road bike as well and use that to keep an eye on my cadence during rides. It's not like I am that crazy of a rider yet that needs all of that data, but I hear if you can keep tabs on this it can help you to improve your riding and avoid being in too high of a gear, peddling too fast and not getting the output to the tire and then to the road.

Anyway, it was a really fun ride and I felt so dam good afterward that it made me want to do another one today. I did not / have not of course and honestly probably will not at this point. It's already almost 7:30 PM so there is not enough daylight left to safely ride.

I think tomorrow I will go for a mountain bike ride as long as I can get my new disk brake pads put in tonight or first thing in the morning. The semi-metallic ones that I am running now are too friggin' noisy and heat up - well they all heat up if you are hard on them, but the metallic and semi-metallic seem to get really noisy also - just a hunch so far as I am definitely no expert on the matter. Still learning all of the bike stuff and there is a ton. My hope is that these will be quieter as everyone says they are. The only negative I have heard is that they are a little less powerful when you need to really get on the brakes. Should be good though, I will be more than happy if the noise stops.

Enough about that, I am sure that I will have more to write about tomorrow after the mountain bike ride. I think I am going to head up to Peavine again and try and navigate around those trails again. This is all assuming I wont be sore from today's ride and everything else cooperates!

BBQ

Tonight, well actually this afternoon we headed over to my dad and Cyndi's house for some tri-tip smoked BBQ and various salads - such as potato salad, fruit salad and melon balls, strawberries all soaked in a bath of rum. Oh and a couple slices of sourdough bread as well. You know, lots and lots of BBQ items that I for one look forward to when summer is here.

Once dinner was done and we were all sitting around it was time to pull out the Baskin Robins chocolate mint ice cream cake to celebrate both Father's Day last weekend and my dads birthday that just passed last week. It was really good and it was a good thing that I did the long ride today otherwise I would be screwed on my calorie intake between the BBQ food and dessert.

Anyway all said and done it was a lot of fun seeing everyone as always and a really good dinner. We were able to visit and hang out and play washers and that sort of thing. I did not play, but Cicely played several times and had a blast. Zoey was passed around to everyone and had a really good time as well visiting people and meeting others. We just had to keep an eye on Zoey because she was really checking out the cake everyone was eating and everyone wanted to give her a taste.

We had to keep an eye on that because we don't want her having sweets yet. We heard that if you start them out on things that are more sour, say spinach and veggies then work into the sweets later it works out really good and they will not be as picky of eaters. I dunno if that theory holds any water or not, but we figured it was worth a try. We want her to experience and enjoy everything life has to offer but at the same time not be one of those crazy picky eaters.

Fires Out

Alright that will have to do it for today. Time to get home and do some more kicking back and hanging out. I wanted to put my brakes on tonight but it may have to be tomorrow now. Between the week still catching up with me and me not sleeping as good as I would like I am beat.

Anyway awesome day all around and a great way to have ended the week.

Photo: Heated up the iPhone again recording video outside. Its interesting that it shuts off the service as well. Not the first time, prolly not the last....