Accidental 10K

 

As I mentioned in Wednesday's blog post, I had a couple of options as to how to finish out this week's bicycling. I decided that I would take yesterday (Thursday) as a rest day, coming back to cycling on Friday and Saturday.

While resting Thursday, I thought about what I'd do today. One thing I decided on was to make changes in my use of the bicycle gears.

My bike has three gears on the front crank set and eight gears on the rear cassette. On the crank set, the smaller the gear, the easier it is to pedal - the larger gear adds more resistance. The gears on the rear cassette are opposite - the larger the gear, the easier to pedal. When I was riding on the Diversion Road I would stay in gear #1 on the crank set because of the slight incline and use a variety on the cassette on the way to Camanjac. Returning home along the Diversion Road, I would switch into #2 on the crank set because there was now a slight decline and I wanted more resistance.

As I began my new routine thru Tubtubon I found my use of the gears unsatisfactory. Most of this new route was flat enough where #2 on the crank set was fine, but when I'd change to #1 going up hill, the resistance would be way too loose. I decided that, starting today, I would keep the crank set in #2 the entire ride and strictly change gears on the cassette when needed. If having the front in #2 and the rear in a high gear while going uphill proved difficult, well, I'd have to soldier thru.

Knowing I'd be rested this morning, I wanted to do my best as far as distance was concerned. The minimum would be the 7 kilometer ride to and from the Gas & Go at Rovira Drive.

On the return ride from Gas & Go along Capt.A Cornelia Rd., there is a road that turns to the right - Buñao Rd. - According to Google Maps, there is a road that goes to the left from Buñao Rd. which connects with Dionesio Calbat. My plan was to take the right on Buñao Rd. then this left and back home via Dionesio Calbat. According to Google Maps, going this way would add 1.8 kilometers to my return ride. My total to and from Gas & Go would be about 8.8 kilometers.

However, this was a bit of a snag this morning. There was no turn to left!

 

I continued on to the National Hwy. I had two options at that point. Left onto the National Hwy to Dionesio Calbat or return to Capt.A Cornelia Rd. via Buñao Rd. I felt that going along the National Hwy. was an unsafe option, so it was back the way I came.

Needless to say, this addition to the ride this morning was quite an effort. When I made it home, I relaxed a bit before going online to Google Maps to calculate the added distance. Going back and forth on Buñao Rd. had added 2.8 kilometers to my ride, making this morning's ride 9.8 kilometers.......hammering hard on 10K.

It was an accidental 10K (more or less) and a very good ride. Add to this my new gearing policy, I had quite the workout this morning.