I haven’t done a lot of epic riding this year, but my riding has been more social. Sunday continued that trend, with a short (25-mile) but hilly ride west of town, to Stanford, Indiana. This is becoming one of my favorite routes, and this time, I got to share it with friends. Dave G and Doug joined me. Dave and I ride together a lot, but I had only ridden with Doug a couple of times before.

I wasn’t sure what kind of bike Doug would be riding. He showed up on a Schwinn Voyageur SP, in an excellent commuting/touring configuration, complete with fenders, racks, and downtube shifters. Like me, he commutes by bicycle year-round. This is the kind of bicycle my Long Haul Trucker is patterned after, so I enjoyed seeing Doug’s bike. Oh yeah … he also wore clipless sandals. A good choice.

It was a very humid morning, but fortunately, for most of ride, it wasn’t extremely hot. Just really muggy, and a bit hazy, but the humidity was bad enough to keep us sweating buckets.

This next shot typifies the scenery: haze and plentiful rollers. At one point, we commented that Tim would not have been happy with all the rollers.

One road claimed to be “closed,” but we got through the construction zone quite easily on bicycles.

I saw the bluish-purple wildflowers all over the place during the ride. I’m not sure what they are, so if anyone can help me identify them, that would be great.

Here’s one of my favorite views, with quite a bit of haze. By the time we climbed up on this ridge, the sun had come out in full force and we were just boiling in the heat.

This was a fun ride, with good company, and I still had much of the day left for other activities (mostly just beating the heat). Good times!

Saturday the Louisville Bicycle Club hosted a 100km Populaire. A populaire is the shortest form of brevet sanctioned by Randonneurs USA, intended to give new/prospective randonneurs a taste of the experience, without having to ride 200, 300, 400, 600+ km. I’ve been interested in randonneuring for some time, so I was keen on riding this event. In this case, the ride was actually a bit over 100km at roughly 104km (65 miles). I drove down and rode with Tim, David, and Asher. By the end of the day I had ridden about 120km (75 miles), as I met Tim at his house and we rode to and from the event together, giving us a few extra miles. Here is the route (only including the populaire itself).

The turnout seemed quite good, maybe 50 people or so? I had the pleasure of meeting Timothy (“Barturtle”), who has commented on my blog a number of times, before the event. After getting our cards, having them stamped, and a few remarks by the folks running the event, we were off.

These photos don’t really show it, but traffic was rather heavy for  awhile. I didn’t get the camera out much when we were fighting traffic. Having a lot of riders on the road definitely helped us handle the traffic, but it was still tense at times, especially for a small town guy like myself. I like how in the shot below, you can see the Louisville skyline in the distance.

Despite the traffic, there was some very nice scenery, mostly in the form of the Ohio River. We also rode past a number of parks that looked quite nice.

Within the first few miles we experienced our first mechanical. Asher’s crank arm fell off. In a few minutes, we were rolling again. The initial roads were also quite flat.

Somewhere in the first 10 or 15 miles was the secret control. I meant to take some photos, but I forgot. Fortunately, I didn’t forget to get my brevet card stamped.

After fighting traffic for a while, we reached roads with a quieter, more rural feel, and the terrain got hillier. The route had a very interesting combination of shady, wooded areas, and wide open rolling fields.

At some point, we enjoyed a long, flowing descent of about a mile, riding between a gurgling creek and stone bluffs. This was just a beautiful section of road. Shortly thereafter, we had to climb back up but it was a long, gradual climb that wasn’t too bad.

Eventually we gained another ride in our group. Ann just happened to be riding at the same pace we were, so she joined us. She had a very positive attitude and was fun to ride with.

Ann had a much smaller build than any of us, and consequently, she had to pedal on some of the downhills to have any chance of keeping up. She just didn’t have the mass to drop like a stone, as some of us tend to do.

After more traffic, through which I gave a long pull on the front of a paceline, eventually we reached the second control (or first, or third, depending on how you count them. I don’t know how to count the start, or the secret control).

This control was at a deli called the Red Pepper. We opted to eat lunch, while we were there. This was roughly the halfway point of the ride.

I think several of us felt refreshed, after lunch. Then it was more traffic, but it went by much quicker this time, as we now had a tailwind downhill.

So, soon we were on quiet roads once again.

We had a fun bike blogger geek moment as we were all taking photos at the same time.

We got to ride the same long downhill by the creek and the bluffs again, this time in the opposite direction. It was a blast going both ways. What a fun stretch of road!

Soon we reached the last control, this one at a gelato shop. I had some strawberry sorbet that was wonderful. I haven’t mentioned it, I guess, but it was a fairly hot, humid day. Not scorching heat, but it was definitely warm.

Soon after that we rode a lovely low-lying, wooded road with some very large trees lining the road.

Then it was back on River Road, heading back to town.

With about three miles left to go, I felt my front tire go flat. I fixed it, with some help from Ann, who held the wheel while I pumped. We were rolling again.

We arrived at the finish with just a few minutes to spare (there’s a time limit).

We were all a little shocked that we had cut it so close, but we were happy to have completed our first populaire. We hung out for a while, drank beer and talked about the ride, before calling it a day. Then Tim and I rode back to his house, talked bikes some more, and I loaded up the car and headed home.

I learned a lot from this experience. The biggest lesson was that brevet time limits apparently aren’t as forgiving as I had thought. We finished this one on time without really rushing, but on a 200k or longer brevet, I think I would have to make a conscious effort to keep moving, in order to finish in time. And, even one more mechanical could have meant not finishing in time.

More important than that, though, was another great day on the bike, with a great group of friends. It was awesome  to see Dave C back on the bike again — we’ve missed him on our last couple of rides. I had invited Dave G as well, but he couldn’t make it. Still, we had a good group, and met some new friends as well.

It’s been too long since I posted here. I haven’t been riding much, aside from commuting to work and class. This still has me on the bike about 12 miles per day, four days per week (Fridays this summer I have devoted to some other projects, so I am essentially working from home those days).

Even though I’m only taking one class this summer (and working, of course), I’ve still felt a lack of time, energy, and even motivation to ride. That “motivation” part is weird to me — the past few years I’ve wanted to ride as much as possible whenever the opportunity arose. I’m not feeling that way right now, though the rides I do manage are always enjoyable. For now I’m taking things as they come. But I’m definitely looking forward to my class ending. Hopefully the rest of the summer will be a little more relaxed, and maybe I’ll have more time, energy, and motivation to ride.

I did get out and ride last weekend. It was a little on the hot side — maybe mid-80s. Probably the hottest ride of the year so far. I used to hate heat, but I have learned to deal with it better, and on this day, I actually enjoyed it. I headed out with a sort of vague plan to ride east of town, an area where I rode a lot when I lived on that side of town, but haven’t ridden as much lately.

It was a beautiful day to ride. I felt pretty good, though I did notice that my fitness has declined a bit. I struggled on the hills a bit more than I would have liked. A strong headwind on the return trip certainly didn’t help, though it did cool me down somewhat.

I replaced my rear tire. The old one was worn through the outer casing and a weird purple layer was showing in many places. I’d say I wore it out — it only lasted about 1700 miles. The new tire is also an upgrade to a Continental Grand Prix 4000 700×25. I’ve read that these are more durable than the Conti Ultra Race I had before.

Oddly enough, the GP4000 700×25 is significantly wider than the Ultra Race 700×25 I had on the wheel previously. Before, I could put the wheel on and off easily, but now I have to deflate the tire to do it. As far as I’m concerned, this is a good thing. The extra volume leads to a slightly cushier ride.

I got rained on, on my way home, but the cool rain felt good. Naturally I had just washed the bike, which is now a grimy mess again. I took a road through town that I normally avoid, but on a Sunday afternoon it was quiet and pleasant.

I rode 33 miles, and I felt quite refreshed. I’m hoping to be able to do a longer ride over Memorial Day weekend. I’d love to stretch my legs for 50-60 miles or more. We’ll see!