10 March, 2006

106.82

today i finally got to ride with the germans again, and as the title suggests. a pretty long ride. 106.82 km.
We went north today, i think, but i could be totally wrong. i know we were on the far side of Lippstadt from Paderborn. Lippstadt is a good 45 km away. there were only 3 of us at the start. Karsten (the one with the backpack in the picture) needed to go home? or to his parents home? or something near Lippstadt. so Paul, the guy mentioned a few days ago. and i rode with him till there and then turned back. today started fairly sunny, got cloudy. drizzeled at the start of our ride, then got sunny for a good hour and a half, then some how we lucked out and went right between two big rain storms. since where we went today was flat you could see pretty far. then it got sunny, or partly cloudy for the whole way home. but it was warm, fairly warm, and thats what matters...8 degrees. quite nice actually. i think spring might be here. hopefully.

paul and karsten, near lippstadt.

sorry i didnt get a better picture, but its good enough for now.
It was pretty windy today. i think about 30km/h the whole way out, so the way back was nice and fast. paul and i cruised along. he told me about some of his long bike rides, one of which he did the exact tour route 2 weeks after the tour in 25 days, solo, with a backpack and panier. (pros are 21 days). he also said he went from Morroco to paderborn once too. and someday he wants to do the race across america. and finally i found out he works 4 months out of the year, all of which are biking. he gets enough money to live the rest of the year...crazy. enough of him..
i felt pretty good riding today. even with my hardish run yesterday. i actually feel better now than at the start of the ride.
ride time was 4 hrs 14. a bit slow i guess but, thats ok.
avg. hr was 126, so not working to hard either.
today was the longest ride on the madone yet. which now has 430 km on it.
Tomorrow i go to Hannover.

2 comments:

Sean Noonan said...

dude, did you forget how to convert back to english units? that's only 60-some miles.....

;)

freiden
sean

Anonymous said...

Jake...Sounds like you've found a little slice of heaven over there...Places to ride, locals to ride with and sweet destinations. Made it out for a mid-afternoon ride today myself....rode the Scott CR1 since the Litespeed's rightside Ergolever is in for a rebuild. It is otherworldly riding a sub-7kg bike....sloping toptube makes it seem much smaller than it really is. Slow ride with a fellow TEAM BEAT rider but great to begin the building process again. We live vicariously through your blog entries. Thanks for the frequent updates.