Sucking is not riding my bikes enough. Today was a 90km excursion on the Saanich Peninsula. I suppose anyone who looks a this blog might be thinking, “oh god another Saanich road ride posting.” Well too bad, it’s my friggin blog I’ll do what I want. From a riding perspective, this was a little different route-wise compared to my earlier rides this year; a figure-eight of sorts. I kind of liked it. Of course this might also have something to do with the fact that despite my sucking as of late, I still managed to put in one of my faster rides this year — a bit over 30km/h including traffic stops etc. More importantly, there were those moments along the way where I felt like I was going pretty well.
I didn’t eat any food on this ride and towards the end I was feeling the effects. Once back at the shack, I probably did a bit too much eating (raisins and chocolate chips; left-over Thai food; veggie and refried bean wraps; cookies by Michelle — supposedly not bad; and some other stuff that I have apparently forgotten about). Next time must remember food for ride.
Oh yeah, today was Milan – San Remo (Wikipedia), a 300km road bike race in Italy. I watched the last 60km on the interwebs and thought it was pretty cool. I have payed a bit more attention to this race this year for a couple reasons: 1) our trip to Europe last fall has led me to be a bit more interested in things that go on there; and 2) I am signed up for Seattle to Portland in July, which is 320km long. 300km is a really long ride and I have only a rough idea how long it might take me (I was thinking along the lines of 10-11 hours). Thanks to Milan – San Remo, I now see that some humans are capable of doing 300km in about 7 hours — holy sh*t that’s fast; about 100km every 2h20m. Far from being at the level of those guys, I will continue to hope for 10-11 hours.
GPS Data: 93km – 3h05m – 30.2km/h – GPS Route
A 90km road bike ride on the Saanich Peninsula near Victoria, BC.
Sidney waterfront looking south. It wasn't quite as warm today as the forecast predicted, but it was not too shabby and was my first ride of the year in shorts instead of tights.
