Naples R.O.A.R.

Naples Ripper Of A Ride (hence R.O.A.R) went down on Saturday. Decided I needed a good old fashioned solo jaunt of my own for a few hours. Original plan was to hit up the early parts of the Humbler course and then grab some extra time in OCP and Cutler.

That was all thrown out the window, when Bridget’s dog took off for 2 hours right as I was about to leave. My bike was leaning against the house and she knocked it over, scared her to death and she bolted. She rarely leaves the yard, and we found her a few blocks away running around scared.

This put me a bit behind and also into time to eat. With that I grabbed some quick food and coffee and made a run for the hills.

I scrambled up and over East Hill and through Hi-Tor. Was making some good pace and riding strong. It was a bit of a weird day, it was warm and humid, but 75 and raining off and on. Sun ended up coming out, and it got crazy windy as the front blew in. I was feeling great up and over East/Hi-Tor and decided to follow the Humbler route and go over Brink Hill.

Brink is a bit of a nasty road climb, continually gets steeper as you go up. And then flattens out in the middle. Just when you think it’s over, it rounds the bend and kicks up around 24% for a few hundred meters. I was starting to feel it at this point, and I was having trouble eating food as my stomach was starting to flip. I was about an hour in and had burned through over 900kj’s at this point (typical is 650), so I had been putting out a good effort. I just couldn’t eat anything.

I figured I could maybe ride out of it and use the long Italy Hill descent to help settle my stomach. Italy Hill was tough, the upper part was just a mud fest, but I had fun and ripped it down the descent and out onto the road.

Once onto the road, the wind funneled into the Italy Valley as it always does and made for a fierce headwind and tough ride to the base of Wood Hill. I climbed wood hill at a moderate tempo pace, but far from how I did the previous weekend. Once at the top, I decided to take a break and stuff some food in no matter what. Got some calories in and made my way through the Hi-Tor Orange Trail. Having fun riding the tech on the gorge rim and then just utterly ripped it down the D.E.C. descent. Once at the bottom, I decided to pull the plug as I didn’t have much energy but had gotten in a pretty good ride at this point. Without taking in the calories, I knew I’d be suffering to put out the effort levels I wanted.

Sunday, I pulled out the road bike and fought the fierce winds for 3 hours again. Feeling like crap I shortened that ride up a bit and headed home. I slept on the couch for 3.5 hours. Damn, I was tired. Last night, starting feeling icky and sore-throat/weakish. Now it all comes back as to why I felt like crap for a few days.

I’m hammering out the cough medicine and fluids in hopes that I’ll be fine and ready for the kickoff to the Farmall Series tomorrow night!