Whew.

I had to get back on the horse after the horse lost it’s rear wheel last time I rode it. So, I opted for the wedgie bike this time, and let me tell you, shoving a seat back up your ass really doesn’t feel as good as I remember. And I didn’t remember it feeling too good.

I created this route originally on MapMyRide, and imported it as a course into the GPS. Sadly, because I didn’t go the exact same route at the beginning, it kept telling me how far away I was from like the second point in my course. There must be a way to say, “hey, tell me how far to the closest point, not the one way back where I started.” Didn’t want to fiddle with it on the ride though, I wanted to ride.

The good news was that on the map view, I got to see my course, so it would show me when I needed to turn, which was useful because I went a few places I hadn’t been before. One thing that I didn’t pay attention to on MapMyRide was the fact that I had to pedal over FUCKING AWBREY BUTTE. I wasn’t expecting that. There was a fairly short distance that was at a higher grade than I ever remember going before. Pain.  [note: the GPS shows me grade.  13% on that patch.  Yep, that beats short term my highest grade.]

At any rate, it’s a good thing I didn’t use the recumbent, because it’s pretty unstable under 6mph, and I was going up that sucker at around 3mph. After the end of the steep, it just kept going up. Got some nice speed on the way down…33 was the max, and that’s probably pretty close to my all time max. I’m not so much with the speed.

One change I need to make. The goggles are very nearly airtight, which just completely gums them up when I get hot. They came with something that converts from the strap to the regular glasses-esque earpieces. I’ve put them on, and it seems like it holds it slightly away from my face, so we’ll see how that works next time. May go for a shorter ride tomorrow just to get on the ‘bent this week.

Oh, and I sooooo need to figure out how to get rid of all of those stop signs on the route. I actually stopped twice on the route, not the 50 or so stops it shows. So, more manual reading…