Today I did a ride I haven't done in a while: Point Lookout. It's also the longest ride--at 105 km--I've done so far this year.
I felt better than I thought I would, considering how much riding I've missed due to the long winter full of days of ice-glazed streets. The ride out there was harder, which is actually a good thing. It meant that I felt better in the second half of my ride than I did in my first. It also meant that I was riding into the wind during the stretch from Forest Park to Rockaway Beach, and I had the same wind at my back on the way home.
And what a wind it was! The National Weather Service said it would blow at 30-40 KPH with gusts to 60. It certainly felt that way, coming and going.
Those ripples are not the normal tides of Jamaica Bay: The water is being ruffled, like a bird's feathers, from the wind.
Actually, riding into the wind wasn't the most difficult part of the ride. On my way back, after crossing the bridge from Atlantic Beach to Far Rockaway, I pedaled up to the boardwalk. After a few blocks, I had to exit and cycle the middle of the Rockaway Peninsula: the wind off the ocean blew so strongly that I was having trouble remaining upright. And I wasn't sure of how far, or how long, I could ride in a "track lean":
And, yes, I rode on Tosca. As I pedaled into the gusts, I told myself, "Shifting is for sissies..." ;-)
I felt better than I thought I would, considering how much riding I've missed due to the long winter full of days of ice-glazed streets. The ride out there was harder, which is actually a good thing. It meant that I felt better in the second half of my ride than I did in my first. It also meant that I was riding into the wind during the stretch from Forest Park to Rockaway Beach, and I had the same wind at my back on the way home.
And what a wind it was! The National Weather Service said it would blow at 30-40 KPH with gusts to 60. It certainly felt that way, coming and going.
Those ripples are not the normal tides of Jamaica Bay: The water is being ruffled, like a bird's feathers, from the wind.
Actually, riding into the wind wasn't the most difficult part of the ride. On my way back, after crossing the bridge from Atlantic Beach to Far Rockaway, I pedaled up to the boardwalk. After a few blocks, I had to exit and cycle the middle of the Rockaway Peninsula: the wind off the ocean blew so strongly that I was having trouble remaining upright. And I wasn't sure of how far, or how long, I could ride in a "track lean":
And, yes, I rode on Tosca. As I pedaled into the gusts, I told myself, "Shifting is for sissies..." ;-)
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