June 25th, 2020 - To and from Nyack, NY

Start and end: New York, NY
Turnaround: Nyack, NY
Miles (outbound only): 30.4
Feet climbing per mile: 74
Record of today’s ride: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/51407276

I went to bed the night before last with the intention of riding to Nyack and back the next day. I didn’t set my alarm but would rise when I woke. I was up at 7:00 and on the road at 8:00.

In contrast to my ride to Morristown ten days earlier, what a pleasure it was to ride a route with few turns and traffic lights! It was a sunny day, eventually getting into the mid 80s. There were more cyclists on the road than I would expect for a weekday morning, which I suspect is the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I rode the entire one-mile Alpine climb out of the saddle in my 34/20 gear. The climb took me 10:48, which is substantially longer than my best performance of 8:08 which I did last September 5th. So I’m not nearly in the shape I was in when I returned on August 25th from my 4,500-mile solo trip.

I made no stops except for occasional traffic lights and arrived in Nyack at the Runcible Spoon at 10:30, having maintained an average moving speed of 12.4 miles per hour.

I saw that my battery had gone from 100% to 60% in two and one half hours while in airplane mode and not being used for directions. After a took a few pictures it was down to 50%. I’ve been suspecting that my battery needs to be replaced, and now I’m certain of that.

I felt strong all the way to Nyack and for the first ten miles on my way home, but after that I felt sluggish. I had a desire to stop and rest, but I know that such rests often leave me more exhausted than before I stopped, so I rode all the way home without stopping except for traffic lights.

When I arrived home I saw a message saying that my ride had been paused and I realized that it had not been recorded since I arrived in Nyack. Hence the incomplete mileage reported above. I must have accidentally turned off the RideWithGPS app. I won’t do that again.

I still felt exhausted after a shower so I had a nap, but I continued to feel tired throughout the evening. Many times I’ve told people that when on my 4,500-mile trip last summer, regardless of how tired I might have felt during the day, once I had a shower and shave and changed into my off-bike clothes I always felt refreshed. I distinctly remember such an experience after my 95-mile ride which started in Chetek, WI, but I now wonder whether I always felt so refreshed in the evenings. There were several times in the Blue Ridge mountains when I split the miles I had planned for one day into two days.

I recently improved my procedure for blogging while on the road. I’m using the revised procedure to create this post on my iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard and just discovered a further enhancement I need to make.