Fought a bitter wind from the West today. Felt like the four horsemen were riding in and I had to show them it wasn’t time yet. Hadn’t really thought of riding out till I jumped in my pool and relaxed a good bit. After treading around for a few minutes I got the bug to ride and since I had just spent some dough on new equipment there was no good reason not to go. So I donned the new Pearl Izumi Bib Shorts, Descent Jersey, and Bell helmet (first cycling clothing purchases in over 10 years!) and rolled on out on my trusty carbon/aluminum steed.

As soon as I hooked the right out of my sub division and headed west the wind was in my face like a long winded argument that you didn’t necessarily want to get into, but once you are you grin cause you know you got it licked. I am not an overly spiritual man but there are things that I like to give meaning to that isn’t necessarily scientifically verifiable, either that or I just like to make shit up. One of these beliefs is that Wind has a personality and sometimes you get the same ones and a lot of the time they change up. Sometimes they change up in the middle of a ride. Todays ride was an angry wind. It was shifting all over; mostly it came from the West but some times a bit North or South just like someone throwing a tantrum: you got a decent idea of where its coming from, but there are a lot of curve balls that you weren’t expecting. My new suit felt like armor and this angry wind was getting cut to shreds as I sliced up Alma School towards Guadalupe and I knew I had it licked.

My methods for choosing a route vary a lot. Today I opted for Extension Road north to Rio Solado Pkwy west into Tempe. I had done this with a Sat group ride a few weeks earlier and it was a good time. I knew that once I turned onto Rio it was going to be a full on grudge match with this angry shifting bastard of a wind but I am good at lying to myself and distracting my mind with thoughts about life and the day I had, etc. When I made the left onto Rio it came on full force and I backed my gears way down to keep the RPM’s high. Its a nice downhill into Tempe so I felt good.

However once I hit the 101 underpass things changed. First of all my friend the sun said hasta for another day and secondly my other friend, mr.downhill, changed to flat land. I championed the cause and gave a futile laugh as this bastard wind thought it had me licked. On I charged through to Mill Ave where I flipped Windy the bird and took a left south through the shops on Mill and over to College for a nice sprint back into Chandler.

From there the ride was a spinfest. I met up with a few other riders and we had fun trying to make each other puke by maxing out at 30mph through the neighborhoods of south Tempe. Got some funny looks from people walking their dogs and a few cars were caught off guard trying to cut in front of us. Got in at about 8pm for a 1 hour 37 minute 27 mile ride.

Here is the map of the route, calling it the Rio 27, very original.

I think I will go for another ride tomorrow, suckas!

Went for my first ride with the Phoenix Metro Bike Club today and its was well worth the 3 hours of my Saturday morning. The group meets at Kiwanis Park in Tempe, AZ at 7:30am which is at Guadalupe and All American Way. Since that is only 9 miles from my house so I rode over for a warm up. Its about 55F in the morning here now so it was a bit chilly.

Turnout was low according to some but we rolled out with about 30 riders and headed east on Guadalupe going back towards my house. We moved along pretty well ar about 21mph with only a few stoplights breaking things up. It was my first time riding in a pack in over 13 years but it came back to me easily enough.

I felt great up till mile 26 and we started on the four different climbs all around the Papagos. These made me realize that i had a ways to go before I was back into good riding shape. I am now at 106 miles for the season and I was always told that you have to get 500 out of the way before you start up a training program. In 2 weeks I will have the 500+ out of the way and start figuring out some sort of program so that I can power up all of these climbs and then keep going for another 50 miles.

Here is a map of the route.

This is the PRBC website.

get google maps link for kiwanis park