Category Archives: Cycling

Cycling

Test drive bike ride

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So on Saturday Mema test drove two Subaru’s that Casey brought home from his dealership.  I biked from home to Casey’s (and back) to check out the cars while they were there.  Here’s the rundown…
 
2008 Subaru Impreza, Blue with white cloth interior, base model but with upgraded wheels (real rims, not like what I have on my car with hub caps over them), 38,000 miles ~$12,000 or $150/month for 60 months with $5,000 down.
Looks like this one, but with a small spoiler (kinda like mine, the little one above the back window):
 
 
2011 Subaru Impreza, White/Silver with black cloth interior, above base model (heated seats, bluetooth, etc.),  20,000 miles ~$16,000 or $250/month for 60 months with $5,000 down.  It’s almost identical to Julie’s…
Just like this one, but it didn’t have the cross bars on it, although it did come with them (the blue one also comes with cross bars, but they weren’t on either):
 

Ok, now that we’re done with that, onto the stuff your really care about!  
 
The ride to Casey’s and back ended up being 32.94 miles according to MMR.  To Casey’s was just about 13 miles, and then the way home was 20.  The first part took ~45mins which ended up being 18.8mph average, and the way home took about 1 hr, 15mins which works out to be ~15.5 mph average.  It prolly woulda been a little slower had I not stopped at Casey’s to see the cars, hang out and have a coffee… I guess you could argue that either way though.  Anyhow, my overall average was 16.85 according to my bike computer which was much better than I expected. 🙂  But the MMR elevation graph is deceiving… the hills right after Casey’s house felt much bigger than they look.  I knew they were gonna be bad though bc to go the way home I had chosen, I had to ride over West Hill (a really nice area).  Anyhow, it was perfect weather for a nice long ride so I was really happy.  Before the climb back up from Riverton (the level climb 3), I was a little unsure that I had it in me to keep my pace all the way home.
 
 
Hopefully we can get a few more good weather days for bike rides together before it starts snowing and the bikes go into hibernation!     
Cycling

Skinny tyres!

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5.1 mile test ride – Benidorm to Collinsville & Back (10/26)
6.5 mile quickie before Halloween party – Home to Hartland Pond & Back (10/26)
20.5 mile Sunday eve ride – Home to Pleasant Valley & Back (10/27)
Total miles on Rachel’s new bike, as of 10/27/13: 32.1 miles…
…she’s a spring chicken!!
 Heading out on our first long ride together on our new bikes!
Map, elevation graph and stats of the 20 mile ride yesterday

This never made it on here since it happened during our period of inactivity.  Don’t want my new bike to feel left out though!

Cycling, Hiking

Seven Sisters Ridgeline Hike

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Riding from the West end to the East end of the Seven Sisters section of the M+M trail
(Metacomet-Monadnock).  What a beaut!
Locking our steads up at the Notch visitors center in Amherst, MA.  Pictured before using toilet-paperless outhouse :-O.  From here, we started at the trailhead across the street at the foot of Bear Mt.
 
Doing tricks on the same tree and taking advantage of the gorillapod.  Looks like one of us was a little more trusting in our ability to execute this trick without falling off!
Sitting pretty on the same downed tree.
 Us doing our signature poses at one of the many view points along the hike.
Notice how they’re side by side and you didn’t have to do it for me.  Guess you were right, you don’t need to change the HTML to make them go side by side.
Cool monument for a military plane that crashed Mt. Holyoke in 1944.
To our surprise, we stumbled upon Barstow’s dairy farm and store at the beginning of our hike.  This is overlooking part of the farm and the store, with the Connecticut river meandering in the background.
 Topo view of the ridge line, and roads that we biked in order to get from the end to the beginning.  Overall, it was a really nice hike.  The tallest peak is only 1010′, but over the course of the 6 mile hike you gain about 2500′.  I wasn’t expecting to be sore the next day because it’s such little mountains, but sure enough I was!
Cycling

‘Children of the Corn’ Bike Ride

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This ride got its name from the other Chris – because the whole thing is through farmland, which is great scenery, but smelly and buggy at times.  You’ll notice though… no hills!  It was crazy how flat it was, which is great (and makes me super spoiled for when I come home and try to ride far), but it was a long time to keep your butt on the seat regardless.  Overall a really nice ride (I always say this), and it taught me the importance of having lights with you if you think there’s any chance you might get caught in the dark!
 
Also, this ride capped off my first week of 100+ miles.  Cross country training…. 😉

 
I’m looking forward to your return from Montana so that we can do some more riding together (among other things of course) !!.  It’d be a lot of fun to plan a couple rides of 30-50 miles (w/ stops for snacks and whatnot), and then maybe another charity ride if we can find one that fits well into our schedules :-).
Cycling

The usual PA bike ride with a bump

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Chris Morse really didn’t like this hill… it was pretty funny, because it had several ‘false peaks’ so he was like, “if this isnt the top up here, we need to turn around!”  It was steep, but nothing out of the ordinary really, he’s just a bit of a baby when it comes to hills I think.  Anyhow, it was another good one.  If you ever wanna come back to PA, I’ll take you on it!! 🙂