It's easy to be more environmentally friendly when gas is at $1.05

I've been driving around in a truck for the last 10 years and it has served me very well taking me places where no car ever could. However it is time to get rid of it and buy me something new. I've spent the last 5 months deciding on what I want for a next car and have been going back and forth between another truck or a car. Being that $1.05 gas is now costing me about $100 a week just to get to work and back the decision to be more environmentally friendly was made easier. During the summer I ride my bike to work a couple of times a week. It's an excuse to get some exercise and keeps the gas bill a little lower. Oh ya and there's the bit about saving the environment. Unfortunately I will always need a car so I am on the hunt now. It's been a while since being in the market for a new car and they have gotten a little expensive in the past 10 years. Buying new seems ridiculous as far as how much one loses driving it out of the lot but finding exactly what I want in a used version is turning out to be an almost impossible task. I will keep looking until I find what I want and when I do I will post it here....with roof racks of course.

Riding with Doctors and Worms

Last week I took on an extra ride on Sunday up in Richmond Hill with a bunch of hospital staff and decided to replace this week's Bike Rally training ride with another ride with the docs. I prefer longer rides and the Rally rides are a little short this time of year and in the middle of traffic. I had the open road to myself today and only shared it with my fellow riders.

My brother decided to join us today and it was his first ride this year so he was out of shape. Good thing too because it was all I could do to keep up with him. We rode 60k today and will probably take in another 40k or so tomorrow. The weather cooperated today. It looked like it wanted to rain the whole ride but it held off to some minor misty rain towards the end of the ride. The worms were out enjoying the weather too.

I've been enjoying the rides this year. I'm shy of 500k and looking to better my 2300kms of last year. So far I'm at 171k for April and last year I only rode 78k. Not a bad start. Let's see if I can keep it up.

Riding Legs and Pilates

Ride #2 is complete. A short jaunt of about 39k. Compared to last week this ride was a breeze. It was about 20 degrees warmer than last week and there was not dreaded Cummer Hill. The only problem today was dressing for the part. The morning starts a little cool so a jacket is in order. I even wore arm socks and fingered gloves. About 45 minutes into the ride it got too hot and the pain of having to hang your clothing off your waist began. I'll be more comfy when I can start the ride with the same clothing as what I'll be wearing at the end.

After the ride I took advantage of a free Pilates class. This was the first Pilates class I have ever taken and at the beginning of the class I thought it was going to be a breeze. 10 minutes into it and that thought quickly disappeared. Thank you to Inner Hero who is providing free (once a week) classes to all Bike Rally teamsters for the duration of the training rides. My core should be solid by the time I start on my trek to Montreal.

Tomorrow I will be doing another 40k or so ride with another group that I plan to ride with regularly. Should be another sweet day.

Why is the shortest training ride always the hardest

So we rode our first training ride today. A little nipply but once we got started and the hands went numb it was pretty good. I'm really going to like our team this year. Last years was OK but I already feel like a tighter group this year and I've only met a handful of the riders.

So I rode my new road bike for the first real ride of the year. All I can say is sweet. What a difference from riding on a mountain bike. Even with the thin slick tired on my mountain bike the difference is night and day. My road bike feels like it's riding on glass. It just wants to keep going. The only place that I preferred my mountain bike over my road bike was the climb up Cummer. That was nasty. My heart raced at 105% of my maximum HR. Another % and my chest would have exploded.

Overall a good ride and looking forward to getting a lot more mileage this year. Hopefully it will warm up soon as well.