See what's out there

A day after yesterday's missed outdoor ride, I got to head out today. The plan was to drive out to Milton, and pre-ride the bike course a couple of times. It was a pretty cool morning, so I had to bundle up. As it turns out, my aerobars are almost too narrow to use with my thicker gloves. There wasn't much space between them. Once I got past that little niggle, I got in a pretty good ride.

Once the course heads out from the parking lot, there's a few kilometres then straight up Sixth Line Hill. This is the only real climb on the course, and it's a pretty solid effort. Usually I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but today there was a serious (30-50 km/h) wind coming out of the North, and that slowed down everything in that direction. It also made it hard to get into any real rhythm on the ride. The terrain kind of rolls, and is in and out of tree cover, so you never know when the wall of wind is going to hit. I'm pretty solid on the bike, but I was having some shifts of 6-12 inches along the road, dealing with the wind. Coming back was nice, since you could wind up an easy 43 km/h, but I was getting blown around more than I was comfortable, so I decided to call the day after my second loop. I was hoping to do three, but traffic was picking up, and so was the wind. Heading down Sixth Line was a bit nerve-wracking, not knowing when you might get a bit of crosswind on a downhill where you easily hit 80+. I walked it back in to the car, and rolled home in time to hit the yard for more weed pulling. Another weekend just like the others.

Bike: ~50km, 90 minutes