Real pretty in SoCal right now
14 Likes
Re: heart rate
- a delightful Tarck century for coffee outside. Longest ride in 4 weeks and my back is almost better.
14 Likes
performance condition: help
10 Likes
So that’s what my back looks like
1 Like
Do you work at the shop up north that looks like it used to be a big old machine shop?
1 Like
I don’t think so
3 Likes
Did a bigger trail ride than I have in years. Only took one pic so I could describe how I went otb but miraculously ended up stepping over the front of my bike and running out of it. Last time I rode this section I destroyed a brand new tire.
6 Likes
I just got back from tagging along on my wife’s work trip to DC. I joined in a couple infrastructure rides in the rain and then when the sun came out on Sunday, I took off on my own for a long ride. Monday was more infrastructure tours and the All Bodies on Bikes ride as part of the National Bike Summit.
Sunday’s adventure: A few years ago, NPR had a story about Loudon County gravel roads. I took the metro out of DC to the end of the Silver Line in Ashburn. After a couple miles of suburban hellscape, I hit the Washington & Old Dominion trail. Took that through Leesburg then headed for the hills. The gravel roads were wonderful, although the development pattern there is weird. All this old farm country has McMansions scattered throughout to created a low-density sprawl. Ultimately I concluded that the asphalt that the county hasn’t spread on the gravel roads was repurposed to add extra lanes to all the other roads. After a 30 mile loop, I got back on the W&OD and rode back to DC.
I hadn’t realized this was a real sign, not just something @EndpointBraden made up for a patch. Although apparently the MUTCD prefers the text “Pavement Ends” sign now.
Stopped for trail-side BBQ for lunch.
78 miles in, I rode right into cherry blossom tourist chaos.
All told, it was a 90-mile day.
I’m pretty pleased with my personal Strava heat map from 4.5 days in DC. No Rock Creek Park or C&O Canal this trip, but we’re cooking up plans to do the C&O+GAP.
21 Likes
I hadn’t been on Dalles Mountain in some years, still real fucking windy 03/25/23 - A bike ride in Klickitat County, WA
31 Likes
mt d and the surrounding open spaces is really the only thing i truly miss about my hometown. beautiful!
1 Like
I guess the OMTM adventure squad was roaming the same area.
We have a lot of McMansions among farms here too. They call them hobby farms. I call them cosplay farmers.
5 Likes
“gentleman farmer”
some of my relatives have done this on retirement. decades as successful professionals, but on retiring buy a tractor and a chore coat and start talking a lot about how connected they are with the land.
beats golfing, I guess
9 Likes
Hobby farms, I can understand more-or-less. There were some of those with horses. But many were big brick houses with manicured lawns, multiple luxury cars, and nothing farm-like about them.
Not a great photo, but this give some sense of it…
5 Likes
Oh yeah I live just south of there, I know the type well. There’s a pretty smooth gradient from “working farm/horse ranch” to “just some dude’s big tacky house” in rural areas in this part of the country.
1 Like
If I can ever retire you can bet it’ll be in the country to have a little hobby goat farm
3 Likes
there’s a nice goat pen in the park down the hill from my house, they’re really pleasant animals. Unfortunately it might be going away because people stole some of the goats?
So I guess watch out for goat rustlers in your golden years
5 Likes