So today I had the fortunate opportunity to ride with no time constraints. My wife took the kids down to the grandparents in the bay area for a few days during Spring Break. After I got them all packed up and sent them on their way, I ate some lunch then saddled up for a nice long ride. It's mostly the same route that I've done before but with a bit more climbing on some new roads that I've never been on before. The weather looked kinda sketchy, but the roads were dry. It was colder for late March due to the storms passing through. I put on more clothes than necessary, including my wind jacket, but I'm glad I did. As I got up into the hills of Auburn, the temperature really dropped. I was constantly zipping and unzipping my wind jacket and jersey all day to regulate my temp. In the end it all worked out great. I think what I need it one of those ultralight compact rain shells that you can stuff in a jersey pocket. Then if it does start to rain, you can pull it out and put it on.
Overall a great route. Not sure I'll ride on the new roads again. Joeger Rd, Dry Creek Rd and Bowman Rd all have a decent amount of traffic on them. Also I notice that riding during the week there just seems to be a lot more cars on the road in general. Guess that makes sense, and why we most often ride early on the weekends when most people are still in bed or at church.
Let me just say that riding almost 60 miles by yourself it a lot harder that riding 60 miles in a group. There is no hiding from the wind and there is no drafting. By about mile 50, my legs were cooked. I just shut it down at that point and tried to spin my way home.
Now I've had a nice hot shower, a recovery drink, and a super carne asada burrito from Rudy's. Life is good. I will sleep well tonight!
Below is my Garmin Connect map and details from the ride. I was a bit irritated with my Garmin Edge 500 today. As I got to the top of Baxter Grade I tried to hit the lap button to mark a lap so that I could later see how fast (or slow..) I just did the climb. The unit wasn't responding and seemed to have just crashed. I pulled over and after pushing a few buttons at the same time it rebooted and started working again. Looks like there is a firmware update that I need to install, so I hope that fixes it.
