2 steps forward 1 step back

Not much cycling news to report since last week since the weather continues to be the worst in recent memory.  Sweetie and I ran the Race for the Cure on Saturday and then Sunday was spent prepping the garden and planting 3 tomatoe plants.  Was hoping to get more done in the garden but Mother Nature had other plans.  By the time the third plant was in the ground I was working in a steady drizzle of cold rain.  Enough fun for one day - the rest of the plants will have to wait.

I can relate!

Was able to ride 3 days last week including Tuesday's hammer fest in Delaware and Wednesday's WBC Hoover ride with the "A" group.  Thursday was an easier recovery ride for me and since then the bike has sat in the basement waiting for dry weather to return  Whatever gains in fitness were realized last week have probably slipped away over the last 6 rainy days.  The rain is forecast to continue for the next 2 days.

Colorado and BTC are less than a month away.  I'm hoping for some serious saddle time between now and then.  

A Review of the Past Week

Well, the past week has been a busy one for me.  The job, family, housework and a few other activities took priority over the blog.  Fortunately the past week also included a few nice rides and an opportunity to tune up my karma.

Tom's Trillium Tour TTT):  Last Saturday I rode the TTT which began in Nelsonville and wandered through some beautiful sections of the Hocking Hills into Athens and then along the bike trail back to the start at Hocking College.  Started off with Ted, Greg, Rich and Steve but turned off as they pressed on to complete the 100 mile loop.  I ended up with around 70 miles and couldn't have enjoyed the ride more!  The roads were great, the route very well marked and the scenery was outstanding.  The Athens Bicycle Club puts on this ride and I plan to add it to my "must do" list in the future.

WBC Road Cleanup:  On Sunday Sweetie and I joined up with about 6-7 other Westerville Bike Club members for a road clean-up along the club's "adopt a highway" section of road north of Westerville.  My understanding is that our section of road is much easier to clean-up now compared to the first outing when more debris was laying along the side of the road.  But we still found a mother load of beer bottles, wine bottles and cigarette butts and wrappers.  There were even a few articles of undergarments collected for good measure.  Speculation over the possibility that all these items were related to one another in some way was a topic of discussion throughout the day.

Amy Rees & John Clectner with the fruits of their labor during the WBC road clean-up.

Thursday New Albany Ride:  the weather cleared nicely on Thursday and my work schedule allowed me to make it to the COP New Albany ride.  After sizing up the A riders and taking stock of how I felt, I decided to ride with the B's.  Things started off a bit easy but the paced picked up nicely as we hit the rollers.  Our original group of 30 plus eventually whittled down to around a dozen or so riders by the time we rolled to the finish in New Albany.  Among the strongest riders in our group were 3 impressive young ladies who really helped push the pace throughout the night.

Tonight is the eve of the 50th anniversary TOSRV.  This afternoon I went downtown to pick-up my packet and ran into lots of my cycling friends and the weather forecast for the weekend was among every one's primary topic of conversation.  Right now the forecast looks pretty positive with a chance of rain late in the day on Saturday and cloudy skies on Sunday.  Hopefully the forecast holds true and a fun time should be had by all.