Riding at the speed of pregnancy

I have a friend that's pregnant, but who also likes to ride bikes. Only, she can't ride too fast or her heart rate will jump up and it isn't good for the baby. The fix? Ride at the speed of the pregnant woman.

The small group of us started out not long after Carlos Sastre rode down the starting ramp and onto the tarmac for the ITT at the Tour de France; all resplendent in yellow and hoping for a miracle. His teammate, Frank Schelck was 3 minutes ahead of him. Just before Frank was Bernard Kohl, who had fallen off the start ramp before his "go" time. Cadel Evans was a few miles gone by that point, and the great American hope - Christian Vande Velde - was hitting checkpoints with speed and efficiency.

It's easier to ride faster, harder, and longer while there is, arguably, the greatest sporting event in the world going on. Men (flesh, bone, blood) ride for 21 days on a circuitous route around France (and sometimes Great Britain, usually Italy, and other surrounding countries), and cover over 3500k (2,200~ miles). They climb through two mountain ranges (the Pyrenees and the Alps). The stages are typically over 100 miles each. Show me a baseball player that burns 10,000 calories a day. Cyclists work really hard. They're also fairly masochistic.

So, we took off, but we couldn't do a time trial down the road. The warm up was nice, actually. When we got to the base of the only climb of our journey I called out to see if we were playing "King of the Mountain" today. Without waiting for an answer I changed gears and sprang off the front. I didn't even look back.

Halfway up I was passed, but only for a minute. I was really happy with how I did the climb. It was the first time I hadn't dropped into the small ring (double compact), and I managed to climb the lower slopes at 12-14MPH. Awesome.

We completed a few more flat to rolling miles, then turned around descended. Dropped the pregnant one off at home, and climbed another hill. Unfortunately I didn't feel nearly so good the second time. Probably lack of calories.

My Edge 305 shut off once again (after following their instructions to the letter). Don't buy one. It will eventually begin to shut off uncontrollably and at random.

Despite the unit shutting off:

41.48 miles
2:43 ride time
1,267 feet climbed.

Tomorrow: time to hit the dirt. Soon there will be lots of dirt. But for now there's still plenty of time for pavement.