Making progress!

Looking back, the past seven days have gone pretty well on the bike. I've got a few little victories to share!

Let's start with the first ride of the week, in this case it was on Tuesday. This morning, as I was thinking about my ride, I was contemplating a route that I had never completed. The more I thought about it, the more I decided I needed to conquer it. 

The reason I say "conquer" is because last week I drove the route, just to get a preview. As I drove it, I noticed some really crazy hills that I was going to be riding up. Hills are not my strong suit; I'm more of a flat land rider. I've had to accept that I live in a very hilly region, where every direction is going to be a never ending series of rolling hills. I hope that these hills are going to make me a better cyclist, because they hurt when ascending!

As I rode this route, I made sure to take some photos to share. The first photo is a road that goes through the crop fields that are really common in the community we live. The crops are generally corn and soy bean. When the crops are in season, riding next to them is so beautiful.

As I left the crop fields, I encounter a narrow bridge that crosses over the I-94. This section of the interstate connects Madison to Milwaukee. We've driven this stretch of the interstate many times, so it was interesting to see the interstate from up there.

I was hoping to take a photo on the bridge over the interstate, but traffic didn't make the idea a safe one. I continued over the bridge, figuring I'd find another good spot for a photo. On the other side, I found a small bridge that goes over a small creek, Koshkonong Creek. It was a beautiful area and I liked the photo I got of my M700.

I was planning on doing a ride on Thursday, but Mother Nature thought otherwise. It was raining all day and the skies were dark and ominous. I didn't even dare take the dogs out for a walk. The outlook for Friday wasn't looking much better.

Friday morning, I checked the hour-by-hour forecast for the day, hoping maybe for a break in the rain where I could get a ride in. As I was scrolling, things started to look like I was going to be able to get in a ride!

I ended up with a good block of time, more than enough time to get in the ride I've planning on for a while. This ride was going to be the longest I've ridden in Wisconsin! I took another new route and this time I was going to head closer to Madison and encounter more traffic. About half way through the ride, I found a safe place to take a few photos, catch my breath, and drink some water. In the end, I ended up riding 10.6 miles! That is almost two miles further than my best so far!

The most memorable moment on this ride was going down a narrow and busy street. The road was narrow enough that there wasn't a shoulder. I was riding as far to the edge as was safe, and cars were passing me by changing lanes or at least giving me a reasonable distance. This wasn't great, but I generally felt safe, at least until one particular vehicle. I hear you asking, what vehicle was it? It was a large big rig style dump truck. This drive apparently felt that they owned the road and couldn't be bothered to move over. That truck got really close to me, kind of rattling my nerves!

Last week I was thinking how much a good old fashioned bike computer would be very handy to have. Something that would give me the instantaneous speed, distance, etc. I got to thinking and realize I had purchased a Cateye Velo 9 when I was working on getting my tri bike ready. I just never got around to mounting it and I had recently come across the computer in some boxes here in Wisconsin. I found the computer and before Sunday's ride, I mounted and programmed the computer for the bike. This ride was going to see if I got everything right.

For yesterday's ride, I decided that instead of making the ride that pushed my limit for distance, I decided to change it up and go another route: increase the speed. I wanted to take a route that I've already rode and compare my times.

The ride went well and I'm happy to say that my average speed for this route was ½ mph faster! I also didn't take any roadside breaks this time, whereas when I did this ride last month, I took two breaks to do a little recovery and drink some water. From this, my take away is that I'm indeed getting more fit and more comfortable in the saddle. I've got way more to go, but I'm so happy that I'm making progress!