First long ride on my new bike (long)

As I've posted here over the last two months or so, I got my new Fuji
Touring in early September. This past Saturday, I got my first long
(for me, anyway) ride on it, and was very impressed with it. I had
done plenty of rides up to about 22 miles before, but for this longer
ride I rode with another poster here in the NG's; I won't identify
him, but if he wants to chime in with additional comments, you'll
know.

The weather on Saturday was great: temps in the 50's, bright sun, and
a little more wind than I would have liked, but nothing horrible. I
have described all the stuff I have hanging on my bike in other posts,
so I won't repeat it here except to say that I was curious to see how
my homemade wheel covers would work out. I brought along a jacket,
but could tell within the first 1/2 mile that I wouldn't need it. I
was hoping that riding with a partner would help me to keep from
pushing too hard and burnng out early.

I left the house at 9:15 and rode the 8 miles or so to the starting
point (a Walmart) and got there a few minutes early, so I sat on a
bench in the sun; it was so nice that I was really tempted to just sit
there for the rest of the day. He pulled up in his truck with the
bike in the back and unloaded. After a few minutes we took off.

We did several miles on a couple of roads with wide shoulders (wide
enough to ride side-by-side and still leave room between us and the
travel lanes), with a side tour through the veterans cemetary, then a
short stretch on a narrower busier road with little shoulder room, but
which took us to the South County bike path. This path was extended
within the last two months to about 7 miles. At the end of the path,
a half-mile or so on a busy commercial road brought us back to
residential streets.

A stop for lunch, and then we took one of my regular routes along the
ocean, which was gorgeous riding: a good tail wind meant that with a
nice easy speed of 16+ mph, we were feeling basically no relative
wind. Of course, that only lasted until we turned around after
another short rest at the Pt. Judith light house. That wind wasn't
nearly so nice going the other way, but after a few miles we got back
into the trees which blocked most of it. Another mile or two of
exposed riding along the beach, a couple of side road explorations,
and I realized it was starting to get colder and dimmer, so I turned
on my tail light and let him lead so that cars coming up behind would
see us as we ran into and out of the shadows from the lowering sun. I
also had on my bright yellow jersey to help the visibility. At this
point, we were probably about 10 miles from the Walmart. We rode
together about half this distance, and then I turned around and turned
on my headlight to ride the five or six miles home because I didn't
fancy riding any longer at twilight than necessary. I pushed pretty
hard on the way home, staying on the aero bars for most of it, and
running over 18mph almost the whole way except for the one big hill.

I ended up pulling into my driveway at 4:16, (which is just a few
minutes before sunset this time of year), having covered 61.45 miles
on my computer in almost exactly 7 hours. The computer said the
moving time was about 4:45 (didn't record it), with a moving average
of about 12.9 mph. This was nearly three times my previous longest
ride on this bike, and also the longest I've ever done. When I was a
kid my Boy Scout troop did a 50 miler once, which was my previous
long.

I survived it much better than I expected. As expected, my butt was a
little sore, but nothing serious, and my legs and arms were tired but
again nothing serious. I could have easily gone longer if I had
enough daylight. The next day my shoulders were just a little sore
and my legs a little tired; it just felt like I had done a good whole-
body workout the previous day (which is exactly what it was, I guess).

As for the lessons learned, I think I need to shorten my stem by 10 or
15 mm to reduce the weight on my hands a little, but other than that
it felt really good. I was pleasantly surprised how well my
Specialized Body Geometry seat worked as long as I made sure I was
well back on it. If I let myself slide forward too much it was
causing a little numbness. I had previously noticed that I tend to
slide forward when pushing hard on training rides, occasionally
causing some numbness. And based on how my legs feel, I don't think I
want to move the seat any further forward. I was glad I had long
sleeves on, but didn't really need as much insulation on my torso as
I had. I also think leg warmers are in order when the temps are in
the mid-50's and below, so I'll have to look into that as well.

The ride was great, and now I can't wait for next summer when I hope
to join some of the local group rides to rack up a few more miles in
warmer weather.

Thanks for listening!

--
Dave Kerber
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