I had my best ride ever...

For the first time in at least 3 weeks I had an awesome sleep. I think it ended up being about 11 hours long and when I woke up my back was much better. Even the chaffing in my groin area and blister on my toe was feeling better. And I was so motivated to get on the bike and go for a ride out to Lockport. Riding down Henderson Highway from Winnipeg to Lockport is one of the few decent cycling routes and it's the one I always did. When I looked out the window it was raining and I thought it might be better to wait until tomorrow. I thought the rain was an omen.

I had a craving for the legendary "Giant Apple Pancake" from the Original Pancake house, another Winnipeg tradition. So I went with Alice and my mom. The pancake didn't disappoint. It has fresh apples and is baked with Cinnamon and brown sugar, it's delicious. When we got home, my full stomach was motivating me to do a ride. Even though it was raining lightly I decided to do the Lockport route. Just as I left the house I heard a squeaking sound and tracked it down to my rear tire, it was rubbing against my frame. Turns out the the hub wasn't pulled back far enough. I fixed it by adjusting the screws that keep the hub pulled back and then realized that it must have been rubbing the entire time during the race, but I couldn't hear it over the noise from the wind howling. I guess it also made the ride a little harder. Like I said before "expect the unexpected".

The ride was my best ever. It was a cross wind and I did a moderate effort. I didn't start the speedometer correctly for the first half of the ride but I did for the second half. I ended up doing the return from Lockport to Winnipeg, which is 17 km, averaging 38.5 kph / 23.87 mph and my average heart rate was around 135 bpm. If I pushed it, I could have went faster. For most of the ride it was pouring rain and I had to take my glasses off and I'm near blind without my glasses, so I "kept my fingers crossed" that I didn't hit a groove or a pothole. Which I didn't. I'm glad I had that fast of a ride because I was starting to wonder if I lost my biking mojo after the Morden race. Today my legs felt great, they were super strong. Plus, I needed that ride to burn off that "Giant Apple Pancake" and eat up some of those party calories I'm going to consume at Alice's sisters house tonight. They've invited us over for a barbecue.

My overall ride average speed was a little slower but that was because I had a slow warm up and cool down.

Mod Bike - 37.08 km / 35.19 kph / 131 bpm

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