Despite the rain/snow (slop) that was falling last night, I had high hopes for a good bike ride today. Happily, my hoping was rewarded. By the time I finally got out of the house at 2:00, the clouds were bright enough to require sunglasses and the road was dry. My goal today was to up my mileage by riding out to 10 mile, a round trip of 16 miles from the end of Wood Way.
It was a good day to ride. I maintained a steady pace of 12 miles per hour (not especially fast, but good for me, especially since I've only been riding a week), and finished 16.5 miles in exactly an hour an a half, including a several minute stop at my turn-around point. By the time I got out there, I was feeling like I could have kept going, but I decided not to overdo it. I was pleased that I passed the same skinny cycling couple going both directions (they turned around at the same place I did), but to be honest, they were riding mountain bikes and so were probably slower than they'd normally have been.
Here's a photo of Madeleine planted in the snow at our turn-around point.
I checked the Bhutan itinerary I was sent. Most of our days are 20 - 25 miles or so, with a couple having options over 30 miles. Not bad mileage, but it will be the Himalayas after all. I'm gasping just thinking about it. We'll also be riding mountain bikes, so I decided the next level of my training should be to swap out Madeleine and her skinny tires for Pali and her knobby ones. I'll lock out the front suspension so I don't waste energy there, and pump up the tires as much as I can to decrease road resistance, but riding Pali will still be a shock to my legs, I'm sure. It won't help that I'll also be trading my clipless pedals (ironically, the ones I clip my shoes into) for platform pedals, but in an effort to be protective of my shoulder, that's what I'm going to use in Bhutan. It will also drive me crazy that I don't have a bike computer on Pali, yet, so I won't know exactly how fast I'm going or how far. I may have to dig out my GPS!
As always after I start riding in the spring, I'm already feeling better about my chances of not dying on the tour. I'll let you know if the good feelings continue with Pali!