eagle road

I was feeling pretty anti-social today, so I did a solo ride down to Chagrin Falls via Eagle Road and Chagrin River Road. I haven't been on Eagle Road for several years. I forgot how nice that area is. There are some steep little hills and the roads are narrow and have lots of character. But on the down side, there was quite a bit of traffic.

Since the temperatures were in the upper 70s, there were lots of people out riding on Chagrin River Road. I tried to keep my pace at about 20 mph, which was actually pretty difficult since the wind out of the South was picking up throughout the day. I passed some recreational riders who seemed to be regretting their decision to go out and ride on such a windy day.

My drive train needs an overhaul. It sounds like a rat and a hamster are having a knife fight in a rusty sewing machine. I think the pulley wheels of the rear derailleur are shot. Also, my BB needs to be tightened again, and was creaking every time I got out of the saddle, so it looks like I'll be doing some wrenching on Monday night.

I wanted to ride the second half of the trip with more intensity and try to ignore fatigue as much as possible. It was definitely easier to do that on a warm day, also by the time I was heading home, I had a ripping tail wind which provided some motivation to ride fast. On the gradual downhills, I was hitting 35-40 mph without even pedaling.

My lower back was pretty tired by the time I got back to Chardon and I was really fatigued. I thought I had been drinking plenty of water, but I dropped 5 pounds on the 3 hour ride!