Saturday, March 10, 2007

I love going fast...

Mt. Hood



This week's ride was night and day from last week. The weather was a better, the hills, while very steep, were short and manageable (well, almost manageable for me, Sean just powered up them as usual).

We started out at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City and rode along the river for a few miles before veering off into some pretty farms lands and absolutely gorgeous views of Mt. Hood. WOW!! The rode was full of fast rolling hills and it was easy to keep your speed on the uphills because they weren't long, and you had enough from the downhill you had just finished.

About 14 miles in we hit the hill at Eadon Rd. It was not very long, but it just went straight up. Once we got to the top, we hit another great area with rolling hills. We looped back around to Springwater Rd. and those pretty little farms, and took a different right on Harding Rd. Within a mile, we found the same hill from Eadon Rd, just on a different street. Again - a hard, short climb up.

Coach Andy invited one of his friends to ride with the team yesterday and he spent a lot of time working with Sean and I and helping us with our form. For me, he concentrated on giving me tips on climbing hills, and he tried to enlighten Sean on the value of using a lower gear and higher RPMs rather than a high gear and "grinding it out." After the last hill, he came back and helped me catch up with Sean again (since he always beats me up the hills). Once we caught up - he rode with us for a while and then must have gone back to the rest of the group since we never saw him again.

It was a great ride, only 2 hours and 9 minutes to ride 33.5 miles. Very different from last weeks ride.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.