Next Season

It's been a while. I guess I should post something. Perhaps it's a bit premature, but I'm getting pretty fired up about the 2010 race season already. My team is now registered for the Lyle Pearson 200 in June and I'm talking about getting into spin classes for some conditioning.

But my fear is that I'll be forsaking some good riding (or at least not enjoying it as much as I could) through the winter. Thanks to my friend Bruce, my friends and I have been getting out for rides every weekend and lucking out with some dandy weather so far. Okay the space bar on this keyboard is sticking and it's driving me nuts. This post is over.

Veterans' Day Ride

Now that I've got a bit more stuff installed on my new laptop, I can post a new entry for the Vets' Day ride I took yesterday. Speaking of that, to any & all veterans tuning in, happy Veterans' Day wishes (belated) and thanks (as always) to you for your dedication and sacrifices.

My own service to veterans this year was a bike ride with a salty old sailor. Mike & I went for a fifty-miler. Down into the Snake River Canyon, past Map Rock (stopping for a look), back up near Marsing, and then around Lake Lowell before rolling back into Nampa. We got rained on just a little and dealt with more wind than we'd have liked, but all in all it was a great fall ride.

Mike is tantalizingly close to his own goal for the year. After our fifty on Wednesday, he's just twenty or thirty miles shy of 3000. We've got another ride on Saturday, so barring a catastrophe he'll make his goal then if not before. Awesome job Mike!

Goodbye October

Yesterday was the inaugural ride of the group ride that has yet to be named but is all about riding through the winter. We've kinda decided to start at one of Nampa's coffee shops and ride to a coffee shop in one of the neighboring towns - plenty of opportunities to get warm! This was all Bruce Wiley's idea - and what a great one! A quick search of Google Maps around Kuna a couple nights ago yielded the Trellis Bistro. We were fairly pleased - I'm sure that we'll end up there again this winter.

Mike flatted on the way back, and that ended up being just what the doctor ordered. Most of the riders decided to keep on riding and leave Mike, Trevor, and me behind to catch up after fixing

the flat. So we fixed it and got jamming again - kept it above 20MPH for pretty much the rest of the ride. Got stopped by a train just before catching the lead group, and ended up having to work hard to catch up again before rolling back into the barn.

Mike & I were chatting on the way to Kuna when Mike mentioned that he was over 400 miles for October. "Excellent!" I said, "That's farther than I've ridden this month by a long shot." He expressed his doubt at this, so after returning home I took a look at Cyclistats for a resolution. Well heck, I'm over 500 miles for October! That's actually more miles than I rode in July! And

compare that to the 82 miles from last October - holy shnikies! So that's cool. And I'm now past 4900 miles on the year. 5000 is pretty much a sure thing now (I'll hopefully have that by next weekend), and my ultimate goal of 5300 is well within sight. If November is as good to me a October, then I'll have it before the month is out.