26th Annual Gold Coast Tour-7/13/08- 55 Miles

This is the ride that I usually do on or near my birthday. It is by far the most difficult ride of all the ones that we do. It's out on the North Shore of Long Island. We did 55 miles today. The first 8 miles are definitely very difficult, probably the most difficult of the entire ride. I think Nan may disagree though. We used every gear that we had. There are many hills throughout this ride. The other ones that I can remember right now is one in SeaCliff and one on Albin/Prospect/Shore/Scudder Road. There were 3 food rest stops (PBJ, bananas, oranges, pretzel sticks) and one water stop.We passed many beautiful mansions and were passed by many Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes, Ferraris. They are not too nice to cyclists. We also passed by a horse farm! Here's a pic of our new friend:
Me and Nan at the Roslyn Rest Stop (Mile 32.9):

Here we are at the finish line! (Post Mr.Softee):

Atlantic Beach, North Carolina-6/28-7/05/08

Hi everyone,
We just got back from a fantastic week in Atlantic Beach, NC. The gang obtained their advanced scuba certification, while I put on some more miles on Big Red (my bike). There is really only one safe place that we found to ride...Salter Path Road (aka Route 58). It is 20 miles from Atlantic Beach to the end at Emerald Isle. We tried to do that ride the day after we arrived, but we only made it 20 miles because it was super windy. It was so windy that we almost got blown off our bikes! The winds died down for the rest of the time we were there. We tried again on Monday afternoon and made it to the end and back for a total of 40 miles. We left at 1pm so it was really, really hot. On Thursday (scuba day for Stu, Nan, Marissa and Matt), I did the ride again, but this time left at 8:30am. It was a beautiful ride, no wind and not too hot. This ride is totally flat but can be windy at times. Not alot of pics here because it was so windy..I needed both hands on the bike.