Bend Prineville Redmond

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	110 miles	3985 miles
Elevation Gain	3712 feet	43.23 miles
Average Moving Speed	15.75 mph	15.07 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

The day started with sunshine. It was a wonderful thing to behold, particularly considering the prior day's adventure in the rain.

I was able to see Mt. Bachelor from Bend and you could definitely see that it had received some snow from yesterday's storm. Perhaps not much, but enough to tell. It made me even more glad we turned around when we did yesterday and didn't try to ride all the way up there.

Rainy Bend OB

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	46.94 miles	3875 miles
Elevation Gain	2225 feet	42.53 miles
Average Moving Speed	15.91 mph	15.04 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

We had planned for the biggest ride of the week on this day. The rain changed all that. It started out cold and dry, and we both felt pretty good, having all the appropriate coverings on arms, legs, hands, ears and torsos.

Until the rain came somewhere around mile 20.

Crater Lake Century

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	101.81 miles	3689 miles
Elevation Gain	6668 feet	40.88 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.79 mph	15.01 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

WEATHER
Our Saturday started out cold, which makes for comfy climbing. Once we got to the top though we were glad we kept our coats and arm/leg warmers. Cold wind on the rim. In fact gusts were a bit scary at times what with traffic and steep cliffs seemingly all around.

RIDE QUALITY (Roads, traffic, support, food, etc)
Road surfaces were pretty good, only a few bad areas.

Old Man Pass

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	79.17 miles	3538 miles
Elevation Gain	5650 feet	39.05 miles
Average Moving Speed	14.26 mph	15.00 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

This was another training ride. Well I guess they all are in a way, but the difference is we've ridden this section of road before, this year even, and decided to do it again in order to get used to the long steep grades. Amy had suggested it, remembering the nice climb on the Lewis & Clark Ultra training route we did this spring. Rather than do the whole grueling 140-mile route again, we drove to Stevenson and climbed over Old Man Pass, descended to the Eagle Cliff General Store near Swift Reservoir, and then returned the same route, over Old Man Pass again.

Kelly and Grantham

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	61.95 miles	3365 miles
Elevation Gain	4205 feet	37.12 miles
Average Moving Speed	15.05 mph	14.88 mph
Dog Bites	close but no cigar!	1

I wasn't going to blog about this ride since it is local and relatively short, but what the hey, why not spam my family on a Monday?

It was short for a couple reasons. My back has been out since Thursday, and that threw a big wrench into our weekend plans. Stayed home and took it easy Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Discovered mentholatum deep heating rub (like Icy Hot or Ben Gay) and that did wonders for my back muscle Saturday and Sunday, so much so that I decided to do some riding today.

We learned a couple things on today's ride. Due to my back problems and the subsequent I-have-no-idea-when-I-will-be-ready-to-ride state of things Amy went to spin class at the local gym on both Saturday and Sunday. She rides hard in those classes. Really hard.

Mount Shasta Summit Century

QUICK STATS	This Ride	2010 Cumulative
Distance	99.70 miles	3239 miles
Elevation Gain	10585 feet	35.63 miles
Average Moving Speed	12.57 mph	14.86 mph
Dog Bites	0	1

I was a little concerned about this ride after last weekend. I was convinced that the biggest problem last weekend was the heat. And perhaps I therefore wasn't drinking enough water. Easy enough problem to fix, or at least improve upon.

The other difference from last weekend is the support. Last weekend I hauled my CamelBak (with about 60 oz. of water) around Mt. Bachelor. Along with two water bottles. Today we had rest/water stops all over the place. I had 3 water bottles, and my original intent was to only fill the third one as needed later in the heat of the day and use it as a mister for cooling off my body.

Did it work? Yep. Although the heat wasn't as bad as it could have been, so it's hard to tell if the solution worked well or if the heat problem simply wasn't that bad this time. It wasn't that it didn't get hot. And my heart rate was higher than ideal during that stretch. But it seemed under control. I was able to keep going and just live with the fact that my heart rate is apparently 10 or 15 beats per minute higher when I am hot.

The main reason we decided to forge ahead and attempt a ride with an advertised elevation gain of 10,500 feet was due to how the organizers mapped out the ride. Basically you start with 35 miles of fluff, and then you do 3 big climbs. And in all 3 cases the climb is an out-and-back. So if your legs decide they just can't go up anymore all you have to do is turn around and ride back down. Pretty cool, eh?