Astrovelo

Went bike riding around Great Sacandaga lake in upstate New York. Turned out to be an unusually warm November day. The route was mostly along the lakeshore and the views were just fantastic. It was one of the most enjoyable ride ever.

Ride no.3 in Maine was enjoyable. Started out cloudy but became sunny half way through. The route had many nice rollers with only a couple of big steep hills. Most downhills helped get up more than halfway up the next hill without effort. A very nice ride overall. Thankfully, I didn’t get lost today and wasn’t sent to nonexistent roads by Strava.

My Strava stats for 2021. This has been the best year so far. My goal was to average 1 hour of exercise per day and I definitely achieved that.

Also the most annual biking mileage ever : 4444 miles.

Goal for 2022: match the stats from last year.

It has been more than a month since this ride and I am really late posting about it.

On Saturday (Sept 25) was this year’s Seacoast century ride. I have been wanting to go for this ride for many years and glad that it finally worked out this year. The route for this century is very attractive as a lot of it goes along this beautiful coastline. It started at Hampton Beach state park in New Hampshire, went into Massachusetts for a loop, back to NH and stayed along the coastline to go into Maine and ended back where it started at Hampton Beach state park.

New Hampshire has a short coastline of about 15 miles and it completely developed to extract as much commercial worth as possible. Even with these commercialized beach towns and big mansions and estates, the coastline is very scenic. Also, end of season meant no crowds. Sun was rising as we started the ride. It started out as a cool and cloudy day - perfect for a long bike ride.

We went over Piscataqua river to cross over into Maine. Have crossed this river on the I-95 bridge many times but, it was a different bridge this time. Could spot the familiar I-95 bridge in the back beyond the railway bridge.

Nubble point lighthouse in York, ME was the 50 mile rest stop. The route left the coastline and went over some inland hills before coming back to the coastline.

The ride organizers smartly put a rest stop that could be accessed at 40 and 70 miles in the ride. It worked out well for them to manage only one location. The second half of the ride was sunny and hot but still not uncomfortable. Surprisingly, I was able to maintain almost 17 mph pace for the whole ride. Overall, it was a fun ride and I’ll try to put it on my riding calendar again in the future.

Here is a link to the ride on Strava.

Saturday, May 22nd was the day for a century ride on Long Island. I had signed up for this ride back in the beginning of 2020 and it was supposed to happen in September of 2020 but, got cancelled due to Covid. The organizers were able to arrange it on this last weekend. We took a ferry across the Long Island Sound from New London to Orient Point at 7 am. Reached Orient Point State Park around 8:45 to start the ride. They wanted to minimize crowds due to Covid restrictions and didn't have a mass start.

This was one of the best supported rides I have done so far. There were rest stops at 13, 30, 50 and 80 miles along the route. There were the usual PB&J sandwiches and grapes and bananas at these stops. But, they had a lot more than that.

At the 13 mile stop, there was a big surprise: PIES. I had a big slice of blueberry pie about 45 minutes into the ride. Didn't seem like a good idea at that time but, it was good fuel for the ride.

The weather forecast called for mostly cloudy and a rainy day but, it turned out to be the opposite. Sunny and hot. I was glad that they had arranged for picking up extra gear at the first rest stop to be transported to the start/end point. I dropped off one layer. It was still hot as the ride continued.

By the time we reached the 80 mile rest stop, it was around 3 pm. I was exhausted, hot and cranky. Thankfully, they had arranged for a water pipe with drip irrigation type device. It felt so good to just let the water flow over my head and cool down. The organizers outdid themselves and brought freshly made pizza at this stop. Eating a slice of warm pizza just changed my outlook on life for the rest of the day. Again I thought that was a bad idea and I would throw up in a few miles as I started riding again. But, that one slice really did a great job as fuel for the last 20 miles.

At the end of the ride, of course, there was more food and beer. It was the first century for my friend and he was very happy to complete it. Took the ferry back home and my wife had made a big spread of Indian food for us. I probably put on a few pounds on the day of this 100 mile ride. Next century ride is planned for September along the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. Hope they have good support like this ride.

Here is a nice video of the ride on Relive.

It was a bright and beautiful Saturday morning. I needed to pop into work to take care of an experiment and also wanted to go for a bikeride. Decided to combine the two activities and went biking to work and back. Turned out to be a good ride on the way to work but, the wind picked up on the way back. I was struggling to keep a 15 mph pace with a strong headwind. This ride takes me over and under the Gold Star Memorial bridge on I-95. The underside of the bridge is very interesting. 

strava.app.link/aEOI7km12eb

The first day of Spring was a wonderful warm Saturday but, had a busy morning and afternoon with chores and family tasks that kept me from going on a bike ride. My wife and I managed to go for our 3 mile walk in the evening and it felt good to be outdoors in the warm sun. We had taken along our jackets, gloves and hats but, they came off just after a few minutes of walking. Sunday turned out to be another beautiful day. Went for this bike ride in the morning. Spent some time looking for spots to make a star trails photo. The church seen in this photo is a good dark spot. I am going to try to shoot a photo here within the next couple of weeks.

Had a nice after-lunch nap and then another 3-mile walk with the wife in the afternoon. Now that our neighborhood is almost completely built up, we can do this 3-mile walk within the neighborhood. One good outcome from the pandemic and work-from-home situation is this walk that we have been going on. We must have done this walk almost 100 times during the last year - more than the previous 13 years combined.

strava.app.link/P8NPISOLPeb

With the temperatures in 50s, I couldn’t resist the temptation of going out for ride even after a tiring work day. Went for a quick spin around town without going too far as I was running out of sunlight. It was a nice ride and looking forward to more outdoor riding this Spring.

Here is a link to the ride on Strava. [strava.app.link/Nh5Ph0bSv...](https://strava.app.link/Nh5Ph0bSveb)

I am glad that an outdoor ride finally worked out on the last day of February. We have had so much snow this month that I didn’t get a chance to ride outdoors at all. As I get older, I am more and more cautious about risking a fall. Thankfully, it warmed up over the last week and all the snow from road shoulders cleared out. It was nice to go on this 28 mile route that I had done only once before. I can see this get into a regular rotation once I start riding out more often in spring.

strava.app.link/Tygb9ly0feb

Went riding with Adit and Sujit around West Windsor, NJ. It was a nice change to ride on flat roads opposed to rolling hills in CT. Towards the end, Adit hit a pothole and got a flat tire.

‪Here is a link to the Strava track of the ride.

Went to pickup CSA bread in Old Lyme. It was a warm afternoon. Rain was promised in the forecast but, it didn’t show up. Very little traffic on the road and that made it a very enjoyable ride.

Strava link.