So, where did you ride OUTSIDE today?!
Share your 2023 stories, photos, and accomplishments from riding in the great outdoors 
Prior thread:
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Back lane up to a local village and back. Took a picture of this at the turn round point, which amused me given the workout I was doing.
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A gravel ride up to Kelty, Blairadam and Cleish for me then down to Saline and Newmills. Lol, the path I was following disappeared in the snow covered long grass/reeds/moss, before I eventually hit a stream which I followed through the woods. My feet were soaked though and I had to tread pretty carefully. The stream however, disappeared 90deg into the dark forest and there was no way through for a bike or a person tbh. But thankfully after scrambling up a steep bank just where the stream went 90deg I could see a faint glimpse of light.
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The first ride of the year always looks great as I set all sorts of year-to-date power and HR records for 2023. Since winter is gone – for now, at least – and spring(?) is here, I went for a ride on the road bike. I “false started” as I turned around after an initial rollout to downgrade my jacket (from a mid-weight to a lightly insulated windbreaker, though keeping my winter jersey underneath), my gloves, and remove my shoe covers due to the warmth (no lower than 50ºF / 10ºC).
The short ride was a loop for just over 14 miles, nearly 2300’ of climbing, and 75 minutes.
The roads were dry, though at places they were damp but not slick or wet, per se. I saw a good number of riders out enjoying the Jan 2 holiday here, mostly single riders. There were few cars, which was nice.
On the ascent:
Cruising the flat toward the climb back over to home:
This view at the start of the second descent is looking down the lake (Zürich is to the left), the same direction as the pic from the first ascent:
Looking back toward Zurich:
The in-laws (brother-, not parents, and his fam) left Saturday. The wife and daughter left 20min ago, or rather, departed for the airport to return to the US (versus “left” 
). The in-laws gave me a nice shirt:
(don’t come at me with your “Five Guys” stuff, In-N-Out rules… I could totally go for an animal-style burger right now.)
A happy and safe new year to all…
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Ha, I wear shorts at 10C, just shows it depends what temperatures you are acclimated to.
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Germany, easy 106k spin with up to 12 Celsius. 
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Habit Burger too 
The only chains I’ll get a burger at.
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Two levees along the Cosumnes River broke on Saturday night, about 4 miles due east of our house. Flooded Highway 99 and we made the national news with pics of cars under water:
High and dry here of course, we back up to the highest point in town (about 70 feet above sea level).
I spun the pedals a bit to take some pics, but decided it was a better idea to clean the house gutters and roof because we have a third atmospheric river headed our way later this week.
Pulled up Twitter to share some photos of what my local routes look like. Here is a road I ride on all the time, two abandoned cars and an emergency worker on jet ski:
extensive flooding all over, this same area flooded in 2017.
Nearly every one of my usual routes have portions of the road completely under water. Hoping all my ‘riding buddies’ (cows) are ok.
During the height of the storm on New Years Eve, I had a sump pump draining water from our pool, and the water level kept going up until it hit the decking.
Go big or go home!
I’ll take some pics from the bike tomorrow.
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Did 215k yesterday and 228k today. Plan was the entire C&O towpath in a day but after the first 50 miles took me nearly 6 hours due to lots of ice and poor detours, I bailed about 100km from home since my light was dead. Went back today by bike to where I left the trail and finished it off. My longest and third longest rides ever. Really want to do adventures by train again.
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My first contribution of the year:
On Jan 1st I did a shorter ride, with two shorter climbs. The first was around 20 minutes and the seconds around 14 minutes. I tried riding both at around sweetspot.
The route isn’t any spectacular and I had done it before, so didn’t really feel the need to take pictures.
After a rest day, I wanted to do the Teide again.
Climbing big volcanos on January 3rd has now become a tradition (2 years running), sort of…
The one on Tenerife is very different from the „Mauna“ ones though. Quite stubby in comparison 
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I went from the hotel to Los Cristianos, which took me significantly longer than I had anticipated, with loads of traffic and construction works on the way there.
Once arriving at the roundabout in Playa Americas, it’s a long, and beautiful way 
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The road gets a lot quieter in La Camelia (literally the Female Camel) when the you turn off the main road.
The climb is incredibly steady in gradient, with an average of 6.4% over its 33k length, and hardly any flat or down hill bids, but basically no 10% or more either.
The road is in really good condition, which makes riding up and down equally enjoyable. Also, today was an incredibly calm day for Tenerife, with hardly any wind ever.
Between Arona and Vilaflor, the land scape starts getting a little more lush than down on the coast and a set of really beautiful serpentines will carry you up for the next few kilometers.
I didn’t stop once on the climb, so I didn’t take pictures, but this should give a good idea:
The next landmark is Vilaflor, a very beautiful little village, that I understand is the highest proper village of the Canary Islands at around 1450m of elevation. On the last hairpin in Vilaflor, there is a famous Cafe, that serves local sweets. Really nice place that I have visited on a bus tour before. No time for stopping today!
The last 3rd to the top is by far the highlight of the entire climb, as corona Forestal now surrounds the roads, with green pines.
The pines are instrumental to Tenerife‘s water supply, with them „catching“ the water from the clouds, and letting it condense into the ground. Today was one of those days to see this in action, as it got super cloudy up here.
I had pretty good legs by now, after having suffered a little early on. I was racing my wheels off, but tried to maintain a low tempo speed throughout. My goal was 275W, which turned out to only be 268W, after this 2 hour climb ended more abruptly than I anticipated. I wanted to push the last k hard to at least get to 270W avg, but the Wahoo played me well here, and showed a final incline, that didn’t exist.
Well, 2:02:35 is the time, some 30min slower than the KOM, and a little slower than I would have wanted. If I had known I was this close to sub 2, I had pushed harder, but who‘s counting anyway?
I stopped after the first little decline to put my jacket and leg warmes on. It was sun 10C by now, and very very cloudy.
All the peaks were shy today.
So I went on, on the undulating road, to get to the point where I turned around last time. For the first few Kilometers, I could hardly see 20 meters in front of my bike, but that subsided a little lower down the mountain!
Despite the wet road, the descent was a lot more enjoyable than last time, with hardly any wind.
I also so Marciej Bodnar again, the Total Energies pro I had a little chat with the other day. He didn’t seem to recall me, as he was ripping up the mountain apparently doing intervals.
After 30ks of descending, the sun came out again, and the first palm trees were a good signal, that the windbreaker and legwarmers can be stored away again.
I can really recommend this side of Teide more than the other, with it offering a lot more variety in the road (the route I did a few days ago basically had 3 huge hairpins) and some really beautiful views… on a clearer day.
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In contrast to yesterday’s clear skies
today was forecast to be torrential with only a few dry hours in the morning. I doubted I would get any riding in. It looked brighter just south and a quick check of weather forecasts suggested it was drier along the coast. So an impromptu course along the costal path to Kinghorn was made. Annoyingly despite it being mild and feeling so (5deg C average) there was a lot of ice on the coastal path but at least it was dry.
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would love to see a picture of the most expensive bike lane!
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Next week
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After the big day yesterday, I felt surprisingly good today and wanted to put that to good use.
My idea was to take on the two local (3k or less from the hotel) at full speed.
I even stripped off the frame bag, so you know it’s serious
The climbs are St Juan to Guía de Isora (9.3k at 5.5%) and TF-465 climb (5.75k at 6.2%, and a great name).
Legs were really good and I was able to get a good power down. Not really what I think should be my max, but still happy with the results.
Also, I placed between some pretty big names. I know I am no where near their level, as I had to learn from other all out efforts, where Pinot is a cool 25% faster than I am, but it‘ still nice to see stuff like that 
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The weather was among the best of all the days I’ve been here so far, and that really speaks volumes. It was clear skies, with really good view of the Teide and Teno mountains:
I am already missing this place, without even having to leave yet.
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Did you empty the two water bottles? Or go full aero?
I really didn’t optimize much. No skin suit, half full bottles, didn’t look at all into weather.
Also, for flatter climbs like these, my pure climber really isn’t optimal. But who believes in aero anyway?
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I fkn love that trail/path! I like doing round trips from my apartment in DC out to Harper’s Ferry and back, 200km total. I was on a circa 2010 Cannondale 29er Fone Caffeine hardtail with continental race king 2.2s and butyl inner tubes with a lefty that has it’s damping and lockout both blown out. Just pulled the trigger on a Factor Ostro and I’m hoping the new equipment and TR training this winter will help improve my times. That is a trail where I would imagine that solo riding definitely benefits from aerobars. I would spend a lot of time holding the handlebars on my Cannondale MTB HT right next to the (very long) stem to get into an MTB TT position of sorts.
I didn’t ride outside today (feeling quite a bit blah, like I’m fighting something), but I did just register for my first event in the US after my move back at the end of July: D2R2. I’m sure other Massachusetts peeps here, or folks from elsewhere, will be there, right?
I signed up for the original 100km as I’ll have been off the bike for about 4.5 weeks. I fly to Boston from Zurich for the last time on 21 July (after packing up, binning, donating, or selling, as the case may be, everything), fly to Korea on 30 July for the family summer vacation, return to Boston on 14 Aug, and ride D2R2 on 19 August. What could go wrong? (My gravel bike will fly with me on 21 July, while the road bike will be shipped with all the furniture etc, to play favorites.)
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I was feeling blah too, but it was from not riding outside in a week. Rained most of the day and then it cleared up. A bit chilly and damp, took the grocery store bike out after sunset.
At the summit of our local climb LOL:
yes, freeway overpasses are the big climbs around here.
This creek is dry most of the year, now it looks like a river:
The Giant Escape ‘grocery store bike’ in a glamour shot outside the new aquatic center:
That rack is better than fenders - bike is dirty but my jacket doesn’t have a spot on it!
Our local creek trail is closed:
Tomorrow will be clear and I should be able to ride my real bike 
And then another week of rain 
but the new Kickr v5 should arrive tomorrow, and I got the Wahoo XDR freehub today.
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