Fun & Fitness over 50

Today I finally rode with the local bike club. The first time this year and it was perfect.
I only rode once with them last year.

There were about 23 riders and this was billed as a 13-14mph casual ride.

It started from a local school, basically went downhill the first half of the ride and then back uphill for the rest of it. Hence the ride name "up the down staircase".

This could have been a pretty easy ride as most of the pack was way behind. I decided to try keeping up with the leaders and it took everything I had to do so. My weight was an advantage on the downhills but, I assume, equally a disadvantage going back up! ;-)

It was a good workout. I did my best average speed to date, 15.8 mph and my average HR was a whopping 148bpm!

It's good to know that I could have done it as a recovery ride without being totally left behind. It was also gratifying to see one pretty good rider with a vintage bike like mine.

Next week's ride is called "Wine Country Casual" and it is billed as "hilly". I hope to do that one especially as it's the last one for the year for this series because it's starting to get too dark to start at 5:30 or 6PM.

Here's the route!