I got out for a pretty short 25 miler with one of the guys, Luke, from the team on Monday. The bike was awesome. It felt fast, stable and just right. I on the other hand did not perform so flawlessly. Granted I did not sleep at all the night before as I was on the river in a canoe at 3:00 AM (more on this later). I will say it is going to be a learning experience and something that will take a little time to get used to.
We started with me pulling at right around 19 mph which I felt was not full out but nonetheless a pretty steady pace for the 30+ mile ride we had planned. Honestly at this point I don’t know anything about what a good average speed, cadence, etc. is so I was just trying to feel it out. Gears were another issue. On my mtn bike I run a 1x8 setup whereas my road bike is 2x9 which is a lot of options. Yet another thing Iv got to figure out. Never the less I pulled for about the first 8 miles as my riding partner had no clue where we were going. Finally I was getting a bit winded and my mph were dropping so he pulled through and immediately ramped it up to 21mph. Surprisingly I had no trouble holding his wheel for the next couple miles. However when he pulled out and I came through I fell back down to 18-19 and that was all I had. Within a mile he pulled back through upping the pace and I held on until we hit the first real steep climb of the ride. This is when he left me sitting. From there on out it was a yo yo ride on and off his wheel.
The moral of the story is im glad we got a pretty strong rider for next season. Also road biking is completely different than mountain biking. I guess it’s the constant effort rather than the short hard burst that makes the difference but anyway all I know is Iv got a long winter ahead of me. I hope to at least be able to pull hard for Luke so he can win us a race or two come spring season.
This is an outdoor blog and though it primarily focuses on cycling, because that is my main hobby/passion/lifestyle with the onset of November and cold weather two of my other main hobbies come forth from the shadows. In the past this was the time to put the bike away or at least not pull it out as often and switch over to my winter passion of skiing and duck hunting. This year is going to be a bit different with cycling beginning to stay in the spot light year round, but yet there has to be time made for other activities.
That being said Monday was my first duck hunt of the season. As I foreshadowed in the introduction of this blog we set out about 2:15 Monday morning and was canoeing in to our spot at 3. After a near death experience with my roommate doing his best to flip the canoe and in the process filling the boat with water we set out the decoys and built our blind. As we set in our makeshift blind at a little after 5 Am we were freezing because when the boat filled with water it soaked every spare piece of clothing we had brought and didn’t have on our body because of the paddling in part. We persevered however until 6:22 legal shooting time and were surprised with a good number of early season birds. We saw about 30 fly by just out of range before one wood duck got to close and Marshall dropped him out of the sky. Shortly thereafter 2 teal hens came up the creek and land right on the outside of our decoys. We all three stood to take them emptying 8 shells total killing both of the teal along with two of Andrews mallard decoys.
Looking back however we decided the reason so many of the birds we saw showed no interest was that we weren’t concealed well enough. Though we tried to make a blid out of twigs it didn’t do to much good. So after some research we decided to build a portable blind out of PVC pipe. It turned out pretty good and is still a work in progress.
Hopefully the new blind along with the jerk rigs we made up will help coax some more ducks closer in the morning.
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