Hot days and lot of miles

What a week it has been! The week started with some really hot days with high humidity. It was this week I learned about what the "heat index" is. It is a way of quantifying how hot it is but also factoring in humidity. If I recall correctly, we were in the 90F-95F range and in the 50-70% humidity range. That humidity bumped the heat index into the 100F-110F range. It was hot outside!

At the beginning of the heat wave, I took a bike ride in Fitchburg, WI and ended up with a mild case of heat exhaustion. Having had a more severe case of heat exhaustion in July, I knew what it felt like and I knew I had to take it easy for a few days and recuperate. That is why my riding days were different this week.

Last week I mentioned that I had noticed that my rear wheel had some play. I finally had some time on Wednesday (since I wasn't riding thanks to the heat) and I found that the wheel bearings were a little loose on the rear wheel. I dug out my tools (thankfully I have my bicycle tools here!) and checked the wheel hub adjustment. Luckily all it took was a quick adjustment of the bearing and everything is working great.

Thursday August 29th, 2024: 12.24 miles

Lately I've been playing around with the route creator on the Map My Ride web site. I've been using it to explore my area and create routes to ride. One area that I've been exploring goes south-east of us, mainly with farm houses and lots of crops. The roads seemed to be low traffic and relatively straight. So I mapped a route, made my notes, and rode that route today.

The satellite photos on Map My Ride didn't do the ride any justice! There were some gorgeous areas that I rode through today. The picture below was taken on a bridge that goes over the Koshkonog Creek and it was so green and quiet there. 

The ride entailed crossing our major street and to be honest, I was kind of dreading having to do it. There was no traffic light and a long straight away where cars are traveling quite fast. I am happy to report that it turned out to be easy! 

The rest of the ride went quite easy. I made a stop at a large city park, ate a snack, and re-hydrated myself. From there I followed a pretty steady climb up to the other major street in town. The rest of the trip went well and I tried to use it to recover and cool down. All in all, a great ride!

Another bridge over the many branches
of the Koshkonong Creek.

Earlier this week, my dear wife put her name in for a raffle at work. The prize? A 2024 Wisconsin State trails pass. She knew I had been wanting to get one, as I needed to have one in order to ride the state trail near our place. She was the lucky winner for the pass and that evening handed it to me.

Saturday August 31st, 2024: 19.3 miles

I used that pass to get my first ride in on the Glacial Drumlin State Trail. It is a "Rails to Trails" bike/pedestrian trail that connects Madison to Milwaukee. The trail is approximately 53 miles long and passes through many small towns. For those that don't know, a Rail to Trail trail is when an organization gets the rights to convert old, unused railway sections and convert them for pedestrian and bicycle use. I've been lucky to have ridden on many of these trails, as they are very convenient and usually provide safe way to get around.

Now that I had my trail pass, I decided to make my maiden ride on the trail. It was so much fun to finally be able to ride the trail. Up until today, I had only walked the first 1.75 miles of the trail. Today's 19.3 miles took well beyond that point!

The start of the ride was from our home, to the Cottage Grove trail head, riding the trail to the community of Deerfield, then back home. The ride down to the trail head was mostly on a bike path that parallels the major street in Cottage Grove. The ride on the trail was so much fun. Up until today, I hadn't ridden on any dirt surfaces, but the trail is almost all hard packed dirt. I was having to really pay attention to the road ahead of me, looking for any holes, loose dirt, or muddy sections. The nice thing about the trail is that you spend so much of the time just riding, without having to deal with many stop signs or traffic. The only time I would have to slow down and scan for cross traffic was when the trail intersected with the local streets. Luckily it didn't happen that often.

During these long stretches of flat, unobstructed trail, I was able to really power the bike. I noticed that I was able to hold what I consider decent speeds for my fitness state. I was probably doing about 12-17 mph for most of those sections! Unfortunately I failed to start my MapMyRide and my FitBit apps when I left our place. That means I have no data about the ride, like speeds, times, or body information. No proof that I did the ride, other than my photos below.

With this ride, I have my mileage totals for the month. For the month of August 2024, I rode a total of 110.3 miles! I had set out the goal to ride 100 miles at the beginning of the month, but with the crash and days off of the bike to recover, and last week's crazy heat wave, I was starting to think that I would not make it too 100 miles. Of course I keep it all in prospective, that I'm just doing the best I can, when I can. And yes, I've set 100 miles as my goal for September, but I hope to beat it, maybe to 150 miles? We'll have to see how the month goes!

Monday September 2nd, 2024: 11.06 miles

Today is Labor Day, so I decided to ride because I was hoping that the traffic would be later, as people wouldn't be driving for work. For once, I was actually correct! The roads were quieter than they normally are for a Monday. It definitely made for an enjoyable ride. 

In planning this ride, I started out by riding on a busier county road for about four miles. There I transitioned to a quieter road which at the end was about half of the ride. It has some hilly sections, but nothing too strenuous. 

From that point, I was going to take a new residential route that I had never taken before. Something you have to realize, the residential streets in this area are curving and have a lot of cul-de-sac streets. This makes navigating the areas difficult, as you have to either guess if you need to turn, or reference your phone's map. Of course I missed a few turns and had to back track to back on course. Nothing like putting some extra mileage! 

I did stop in at a residential park and take about ten minutes to relax and look around at the park. It is a quaint little park; I would love to live in that neighborhood and have close proximity to that park!