Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

This blog entry also appears on my Writing Space blog as R is for Riotgrrravel Reflections . Two weeks ago, on June 20th, I rode  Riotgrrravel , a gravel race/ride for women and am happy to say that I completed the 30 mile ride. Riotgrrravel is very well organized ride meant to introduce women to gravel racing. The ride is organized and put on by an awesome woman named Ellie and her family. Ellie started the ride just last year (I rode Riotgrrravel last year and  wrote about my experience on my Idyllwild blog ) and I’m so glad she did it again this year. Here we are at race start just about ready to go! From left to right: Lisa, Joy, Me & Katy.  Last year the weather was stellar but the route had to be changed practically moments before race start because of flooding in the days previous to the race. This year the roads weren’t flooded but the morning of the race thunderstorms moved in. We woke up that morning thinking the r...

Back in April, I signed up for the 60 mile Box of Frogs bike ride (there was also a 100 mile route). I knew the ride would be a huge challenge as I have only been on one 60 mile ride ever before (and that was back in 2012) and the longest ride I've done so far this year was 35 miles (actually made up of two rides with an hour break after 20 miles). Uh, now that I look at those stats I realize that it was a bit more than crazy for me to sign up for the Box of Frogs . What was I thinking? Well, I guess I wasn't really thinking. I just saw the bike ride on Facebook and was intrigued by the fact that the ride was multi-surface (tar, paved bike trails, river bottoms trails, gravel and dirt) and was set up so that the riders all end at about the same time. I like that end at the same time idea and I just felt like I had to sign up for the ride. 60 miles seemed reasonable to me at that moment in time. "I can do this!" I thought. So, without thinking much about wheth...

I got out on my gravel bike for a bit of gravel riding this morning. The ride, though short, was lovely. I saw three pheasants, a bunny on the run (I scared it), a dog and heard a bunch of birds singing. The gravel was wet but solid and fairly easy to ride. I'm doing 30 Days of Biking once again (for the 6th time with a couple of bonus rounds thrown in) so getting on my bike this morning was motivated by knowing that I needed to get my ride in for the day. I usually end up riding later on in the day, sometimes I even ride in after dark, so it felt especially good to check "ride bike" of my list of things to do early in the day. My rides for 30 Days of Biking thus far have been short ones - I let myself get all soft, squishy and out of shape over the winter and have been dealing with some medical limitations so I'm taking things slow. That said, I'll be stepping things up as the month goes on and really picking up the pace come May. You see, I've signed...