fitzhugh ride – saturday, jan. 5th

yesterday, saturday, jan. 5th i rode fitzhugh with aaron, jason, & billy. i had ridden a portion of fitzhugh with t3 some months ago & i wasn’t too thrilled with the ride. with t3 we left from the city (circle c) & had to work our way out there & then we didn’t go very far down fitzhugh.

we did it much different yesterday. aaron has a buddy whose parents own some land just off of 290. we parked the cars (last time the a4 is going to have bikes on it – assuming it sells quickly) & were able to get right to the riding (no stop signs, traffic lights, heavy traffic, etc.). i was all jazzed up when we got going because i knew aaron & jason really like to ride hard & fast. then one mile into our 49 mile ride i lost the ability to shift using my front derailleur & when my cable broke i was in my small ring. this meant i was going to be doing a lot of spinning today & i wouldn’t be able to take advantage of my power on the hills & on the down hill i’d only be able to go as fast as gravity would take me. while i was at a disadvantage to riding with these other strong riders i thought to myself it’s good to happen here & not in a race & two it’ll be good training (lemonade from lemons approach).

good training indeed! the ride was awesome, we did a quick loop on the main portion of fitzhugh road to add a few miles & then took it way west out to pedernales state park (i hear the falls there are worth seeing) & then looped back. the ride was fast, hilly, full of great scenery, & little to no traffic! it was a really fun ride that i want to do more often. with the wind & my loss of 10 gears basically i was still able to ride an average of 18.5 mph.

after the ride i swung by bicycle sport shop to drop off the tri bike, pick up the road bike (broke a spoke about a week ago & it needed a tune-up), & most importantly pick-up some warm weather riding gloves & a beanie. the guys at bicycle sport shop rocked again – they took my tri bike right from me & fixed it within 10 minutes. so when i left, i had both bikes on the car!