Missing you

 

When you finally come back to me, I'm going to be this happy!!! :-)

Slipping and sliding!

  

What a day!  Hopefully we can do it again sometime :-)

 

It was fun riding tandem on our exclusive track all the way on sledder's left, especially with the bump at the bottom that ejected me on our last trip down the hill.

Apple and Pear Cookies

Mountain Man

Chris Pic of the Week

Gosh, it must not taste very good! 

Jack Jack?

Muahahaha, obviously I saved this one. 

Cold weather riding

The OCD in me wishes we stood a little further to our left, so that we were centered in the gap between tree branches.

 

This was from my lonely ride last Friday.  Maybe we'll get lucky with a warm day the weekend of the ugly sweater party and be able to do the ride I did this day :-)

Guess it wasn't meant to be...

For me that is - now the Crosstrek is your car!

 

 Very nice :-)

Close, but....

No Cigar!

Again, I really liked the route - got to learn some roads I wasn't very familiar with and see some nice houses :-) but I definitely would avoid a couple things also.. like Farmington River Turnpike which turns out to be a dirt road :-O. 

 

Now that we have the bike computer on your road bike, I won't need to do this anymore, so this should be total miles on your bike prior to installing the bike computer. Few!

Rachel's road bike total mileage w/o computer:

131+30.9 = 162 miles

 

Anyhow, it was lucky that Mema was able to bail us out by picking us up with the truck in Riverton, so that you could make it in time to put a deposit down on your new car!  Good thing, because look how happy you are in it!

 

Look, this horse has a mustache!

Lake Congamond Loop

This was definitely one of the most difficult rides I've done so far... probably the most.  If we had time to slow down it wouldn't have felt so difficult towards the end, but unfortunately we didn't since we were late (per usual) to meet my siblings for the Hooker brewery tasting afterwards. 

For comparison.. these are the two other long rides we've done that were closest in total climbing:

The Summer Breeze Half Century (50 mi): 1,630 ft

Shires Marathon 2013 Course Out and Back (~55.5 mi): 1,750 ft

Climbs we haven't done, but also for comparison:

Mt. Washington Auto Road (7.6 mi): 4,618 ft

Mt. Greylock Auto Road (8.75 mi): ~2,700 ft

 

Look how happy you were at this point in the ride... after a huge downhill and then several miles of mostly-flat riding and good scenery :-)  It would have been nice to be able to spend a little more time at the lake, but at least we got a good picture of you and your bike!

Miles 7-25 were especially nice, I enjoyed riding on the back roads through Granby, Southwick and Suffield. It was such a nice day, and it was fun to see all the little houses, farms and just explore some back roads that I wouldn't normally use. I would even say that up until mile 35 it was nice because then we got another good downhill to the reservoir which was nice to look at while we crossed, but the last ~8 miles were pretty rough because they were all uphill, we were both completely drained, and there was no downhill to enjoy on the other side since my parent's house is at the top! 

That's a total of 10.16 miles of climbing, jumping jehosaphat!!

Anyhow, I really enjoyed the ride and I hope you did too. Thanks for joining me! Just think how much easier other rides will feel now, compared to this one :-)

 

Despite the difficulty, and having no time to spare inbetween getting home and leaving for the tour, we cleaned up pretty well and still had a fun time!

 

Also - just ftr... # of miles on your bike before installing bike computer:

From last post about mileage, 'skinny tyres': 32 miles

Minuteman path ride (Rachel only): 23 miles

Half-minuteman path ride: 12 miles

Fells reservation loop: 20 miles

Congamond loop: 44 miles

 

Total: 131 miles

 

^^^...let me know if I missed any here...^^^

 

Goal for next ride: Plan and execute an appropriate length ride based on our other plans afterwards (i.e. not underestimate how long it will take and be late for what we had planned to do later on), and also set a starting time for the ride and not miss it!  We're becoming notorious for both of these...

 

Oh, woah!!! :-O  Look what else Rocky can do!  No wonder he's so smart.

Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• butter and olive oil for cooking

Instructions:

1. Mix the spices together, and coat the chicken in the mix. 
2.  In a pan, heat up butter and olive oil on medium heat.
3. Add lime juice and saute the chicken for about 6 minutes on each side

Minuteman Bike Path

 

Middlesex Fells loop from Medford

The home-made cue sheets worked pretty well!

 

I noticed when mapping this route that I made one mistake - just before we got onto the bike path at the end, I wrote left on Swan Pl, when it was supposed to be a right.  Luckily it was a spot that we were already familiar with.  Few!  Anyhow, we ended up averaging 14.5mph for our first attempt at a road ride from your city living spot.  I'd say it was a good route, next time maybe we can modify it to go out more towards Lexington to see if we can find less-traveled roads out that way :-).

Exploring for new lunch spot!

Orders:

Chris - Grilled Chicken Caesar Wrap (Romano cheese, romaine and croutons with Caesar dressing)

Rachel - The Brady (Turkey, cheddar, tomato, red onion, bacon and 1000 Island dressing on grilled sourdough.)

Note to Rachel:  You liked my sandwich better!

Funny thing I noticed... you can place your order online here!

#tbt

Test drive bike ride

So on Saturday Mema test drove two Subaru's that Casey brought home from his dealership.  I biked from home to Casey's (and back) to check out the cars while they were there.  Here's the rundown...

 

2008 Subaru Impreza, Blue with white cloth interior, base model but with upgraded wheels (real rims, not like what I have on my car with hub caps over them), 38,000 miles ~$12,000 or $150/month for 60 months with $5,000 down.

Looks like this one, but with a small spoiler (kinda like mine, the little one above the back window):

 

 

2011 Subaru Impreza, White/Silver with black cloth interior, above base model (heated seats, bluetooth, etc.),  20,000 miles ~$16,000 or $250/month for 60 months with $5,000 down.  It's almost identical to Julie's...

Just like this one, but it didn't have the cross bars on it, although it did come with them (the blue one also comes with cross bars, but they weren't on either):

 

Ok, now that we're done with that, onto the stuff your really care about!  

 

The ride to Casey's and back ended up being 32.94 miles according to MMR.  To Casey's was just about 13 miles, and then the way home was 20.  The first part took ~45mins which ended up being 18.8mph average, and the way home took about 1 hr, 15mins which works out to be ~15.5 mph average.  It prolly woulda been a little slower had I not stopped at Casey's to see the cars, hang out and have a coffee... I guess you could argue that either way though.  Anyhow, my overall average was 16.85 according to my bike computer which was much better than I expected. :-)  But the MMR elevation graph is deceiving... the hills right after Casey's house felt much bigger than they look.  I knew they were gonna be bad though bc to go the way home I had chosen, I had to ride over West Hill (a really nice area).  Anyhow, it was perfect weather for a nice long ride so I was really happy.  Before the climb back up from Riverton (the level climb 3), I was a little unsure that I had it in me to keep my pace all the way home.

 

 

Hopefully we can get a few more good weather days for bike rides together before it starts snowing and the bikes go into hibernation!     

Popcorn Girl

Booking plane tickets for our ski trip with your brothers in March reminded me of these nice messages from you in the early days...

:)

Skinny tyres!

5.1 mile test ride - Benidorm to Collinsville & Back (10/26)

6.5 mile quickie before Halloween party - Home to Hartland Pond & Back (10/26)

20.5 mile Sunday eve ride - Home to Pleasant Valley & Back (10/27)

 

Total miles on Rachel's new bike, as of 10/27/13: 32.1 miles...

...she's a spring chicken!!

 

 Heading out on our first long ride together on our new bikes!

 

 

Map, elevation graph and stats of the 20 mile ride yesterday

 

This never made it on here since it happened during our period of inactivity.  Don't want my new bike to feel left out though!