Woodland OB

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	49.94 miles	371 miles
Elevation Gain	4,154 feet	4.19 miles
Average Moving Speed	13.8 mph	14.3 mph

I was contemplating a 70-mile ride, but based on how I felt and how the weather looked behind me I decided to turn around at Woodland and basically head back the same way I came, mostly. Turned out to be a good decision as I experienced a very minor sprinkle upon arriving at home. And was pretty tired.

While riding I realized I might not have even had time to do the full 70 miles anyway, particularly since I don't have a headlight on my bike. Timing would have been close, but throw in any unforeseen delay (e.g. flat tire) and I would have been riding in the dark. So the lessons learned here are twofold: 1) Actually think about the fact that the daylight will end before setting out on an afternoon/evening ride. 2) Put my head lamp flashlight in my bike bag and just keep it there. Then if I ever get caught in the dark at least I have some kind of light. Oh, and if you are wondering, we both have tail lights and use them whenever we ride regardless of the time of day.

Probably the coolest part of this ride was the descent from Pine Grove toward Woodland. Dropped 750 feet in less than two miles, and some of it was very curvy. A car passed me just before heading down and I had to use my brakes a couple times just to avoid overtaking him. It was one of those hills you could almost just let her rip, but not quite, particularly at one rather sharp-ish corner. Very fun though. Looks like about a 40 mph average on that stretch. I was too busy to notice if it would have been safe for climbing in the other direction. That would be one serious climb.

Interesting that this ride is the most elevation gain of any so far. It is very close to two others though, so basically tied. I think the difference is that on the other two rides we returned on a relatively flat route. On this ride I returned the same way I went out: on the rolling hills around Ridgefield.

iBike Data
That reminds me, I am now relying exclusively on my iBike for elevation gain data. I used to use my G1 phone for recording trips (using the My Tracks app) and while it was nice it sometimes gave some fairly whacky elevation data. So I didn't trust it that much and relied more on data from sites like Trimble Outdoors (which is what follows). The only problem with the web sites that provide elevation gain data is that they only use as many points as the route that you punch in has. Which can be limited if you are building the route with the "follow streets" option. And this doesn't even consider whether the topographic information is accurate or not, or to what granularity. Anyway, the iBike grabs a data point every 5 seconds, and the slope information, which I can see while riding, seems reasonable. In other words, since it appears to be consistent if not accurate, and the elevation profile looks reasonable, I'm going to assume the data it gathers is the best information available.