Milestone

This weekend was a great weekend to ride. I haven't posted in a while, so I'll fill you in on what's been going on. I had to get new tires because my old ones were squaring off. I ended up buying Hutchinson Fusion 2 Kevlar tires. They've got blue sidewalls so they match my bike. They're also pretty fast and I like them a lot. The only downside to them, was that they are extremely difficult to get on, but worth it.

Friday I want to the beach with my fiance. I was hesitant to take a day off of riding because I hadn't lost much weight during the week. I love her a lot, though, so we went and enjoyed ourselves for the day. We got home, showered, and went to a local fair. It was a fun day, but not conducive to my cycling goals or my weight loss... we had dinner out.

On Saturday, I went for two bike rides. My first ride was about 22 miles with my brother, friend, and my brother's neighbor. My friend said that he wanted to climb what we refer to as "the wall." Now, to be clear, it is NOT "the wall" that most people know of in Manayunk. This "wall" is harder and longer. I was told it goes up about 380 feet in 8/10 of a mile. I'm not sure of the percentage grade, but I know it was REALLY hard. I made it about 2/3 of the way up, then had to get off my bike and walk for a little bit because I felt like I was going to throw up. It was terrible. The ride got a little better towards the end, though. Later in the evening, I went for a ride with my fiance. We took a nice half hour ride, just 8 miles, but it was nice to get back on the bike with her. We went on a path so no cars, and because it was so late, not many people. Our only problem was the bugs. Gross. The big news from this short ride, was that it put me over 1000 miles for the summer! ALRIGHT! I want to get to 2000 by the end of the year.

So today, Sunday, I woke up and weighed 240lbs. I'm going to jinx myself, I know, but after today's ride, I am assuming I will see 230-something in the morning tomorrow. When we set out today, same group as yesterday, I assumed we were going to do a 20-25 mile ride. I wanted to go do the fast hill again where I got up to 49.1mph a week or two ago, so we did. We had to work for it, though. When I got there, I was sort of spent, so I couldn't kick as hard to get my speed up. I only ended up going 48.4mph. Oh well. We finished that hill and then talked about what we wanted to do. My brother's neighbor asked if we could do 30 miles, so that's what we set out to do. We stopped at a convenience store for water and then went toward a local bike path. By the time we got home, we'd racked up over 40 miles! Great, ride though. I'm hoping it helps with the weight loss plateau I've had this week. Here are my stats for today:

Time: 2 hours, 27 minutes, 27secs
Distance: 40.95 miles
Avg Speed: 16.6mph
Max Speed: 48.4mph