A ride to Blue Diamond Nevada

Living in Southern Nevada, the riding season seems to be year round except for 2 things - the heat and the wind.  SO far this summer the heat hasn't been as unbearable as it has been in previous years, provided you can get out and ride early enough in the day.  The wind hasn't been a major factor this year either.

Saturday, was even more pleasant than usual for this time of year.  We've been in the midst of some monsoonal flows for the past 4 weeks or so.  This has introduced some humidity, which is unusual for us.  That humidity has also been known to spawn some clouds and even a bit of rain.  Saturday it was clouds which kept the heat of the day down.

Since the clouds were covering the blazing sun, my procrastination Saturday morning didn't have an adverse effect on my ride.  When I rolled out about 11:30, it was only in the low 80's with a 5 to 10 mph NNW wind.

I had decided to depart my house and head out Blue Diamond road to the west.  When I got to the intersection with Highway 159, I decided to follow that towards the town of Blue Diamond.

My objective for the day was to ride an hour away from home, then turn around and head back to home.  Now the interesting thing about this ride is that I am climbing the whole way on the outbound leg.  This has a great benefit in that once I reach the turnaround point, its all downhill back to my house.

I started off with an easy gear and decided to try something a bit different.  Normally I try to crank away at a fairly low cadence and fairly high gear.  This time I decided to start on my middle ring instead of my big ring, and try to keep my cadence up in easier gears just to see how well it went.  The verdict is it went fairly well.  I wasn't nearly as tired in my legs when I got to the turn around, but I was feeling it in the conditioning department as I'm not used to turning high cadence.

Of course the head wind, light as it was helped to keep me cool and slowed me a slight bit as well.

As I approached the one hour mark of the ride I noticed that I was a bit over 8 miles from the house.  Now I was doing some quick math in my head and realized that if I could get past 8.6 miles or so, then I would be covering the distance for the upcoming Viva Bike Vegas ride.  So I went just past the one hour mark to get the distance I wanted and turned around for the glorious downhill ride home.

I do truly appreciate the gravity assist I get on the declines, slight as they might be.  Understand that I'm riding a hybrid with a fairly upright riding position.  This is important because the wind resistance does tend to limit my speed.  I tried to tuck down a bit on some of the steeper downhill sections and managed to get over 28 mph.  It seemed that tucking in gained me 1 to 2 mph just rolling along.  My hour long trip to the turnaround was only 27 minutes or so to get back home.  I even did my second best time from Highway 159 to Fort Apache Rd. according to Strava.

It was a beautiful day to be on the bike and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hope you are able to get out there and ride you bike!

May Ride #12

I had been planning a longer ride this morning and I actually got to execute the plan.  I got the bike ready and rolled away at 8:40 or so.  There was little wind, bright sunshine and temps in the 70's - a glorious day for a ride.

I headed out Blue Diamond road with a slight tailwind.  I was feeling fairly strong and I just spun away.  I made it out to the Gypsum mine in 35 minutes.  Made it to Bonnie Springs in just under an hour.  I continued on to Spring Mountain ranch.  It was a hair over 10 miles from my house to here.  I stopped and drank some powerade and decided that was far enough for the day.

Truth be told, I was feeling a bit saddle sore and decided it as prudent to head home.  I turned and started back down towards home.  The effort of riding uphill on the way out was rewarded with the lovely downhill ride on the way home.

I was coasting and floating down the road towards home and it was wonderful.

When I got home I uploaded the data from my Garmin to the various sites including Strava, where I learned I had set a personal best.  I hadn't been trying, but having everything working well and not mechanical issues allowed this to happen.

Wonderful, unremarkable ride

Got on my steed and headed out on Blue Diamond towards Red Rock. Noticed right away how awesome my ride felt.  The new tires and wheels gave a smooth and stable ride.  The gatorskins had noticeably less rolling resistence.

Funny but it was a great ride primarily because nothing remarkable happened.  The winds were in the 10 MPH neighborhood the sun was shining and temps in the low 70's.

The above picture shows the road looking towards Red Rock by Blue Diamond.

Yesterday I did a quick 10 laps around the block as a test to gauge what the 100 Miles Of Nowhere was going to take.  The 10 laps netted 4.71 miles which means it will be 212 laps to hit the 100 miles on June 1.

Before that, though I have the Tour De Cure coming up on Saturday.  30 miles with 1960 feet of climbing.  It will be a challenge, but I'll do it.  Join me in fighting Diabetes by making a donation on my page.

Thank you.

A Saturday Ride, With Wind!

I had been planning on getting a few miles in this weekend.  I had obligations yesterday which precluded a morning ride, so I figured this morning would be a great time for a ride.  I had thought of surpassing last weekends 20 miles.  Last night I checked the weather and the forecast for the morning was for light winds in the 5 to 10 mile an hour range, temps in the low 70's and sun.

So I got ready to head out this morning a little after 8:00 and imagine my surprise when I heard some strong wind gusts.  I didn't think much of it.  I checked my spokes, put air in my tires, put on my helmet and set out.  The gusts weren't bad heading up my street.  I made the turn out onto Blue Diamond and the true nature of the wind hit me.  It seems stating about 8:00 the winds kicked up to 20 mph sustained and gusts up intot he 30's from the SSW and I was pedaling West.  Right into the wind.

I decided to just keep the cranks turning for a bit and see what happened.  After 30 minutes I took a break, checked my Garmin and saw that I had only gone about 4 miles.  I rested for a minute then got back to it.  I made it to the junction with HWY 159 almost 15 minutes later.  I was done.  I was tired of fighting the wind and it was time for the pay off - downhill with the wind.  I made the turn and didn't really have to pedal most of the way back.

Looking at the Garmin record of the ride, I made it back in under 10 minutes and hit 31.4 mph - all without pedaling!  It sure helped the average speed for the ride. :)