Oh, I am so jealous of your roads if they are all like that one. Sometimes I think I am sitting on a pneumatic drill instead of a bike they are so rough and potholed around here. It is getting to the stage that you can barely take your eyes off the road to look at the views or you are in danger of taking out a wheel if you hit a bad one.Another nice day for riding here. I took my phone to get a few pictures at a big local lake. This is one of my favorite roads. It has very low traffic and rolling hills with a smooth surface. You can stand or sit, coast, grind, spin, however you want to ride it. It is only about 4 or 5 miles long, but there are many others just beyond this area, in a big lake area, very similar to it, that I will be riding more as the year rolls along. These new roads I am riding are making things more interesting.
I didn't have my camera out when I ran up on two huge Turkey Vultures eating something in the road. A car had just overtaken me and I noticed the birds barely even flinched when it went by them. I start singing to try and scare them, they don't pay any attention. I yell, they don't even look up. I was getting closer now and a little nervous about them flying into me when I got beside them, these bird wingspan must have been about 6 feet. I finally came out of the saddle and started sprinting at them as hard as I could go, while I was doing my Klingon death scream. That did the trick,
I am just glad nobody was around. Small children might have been emotionally scarred for years, adults too for that matter.
Wondered who would be first.
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I thought I hated the wind (for general hair-ruining and umbrella-destroying reasons), then I cycled 20 miles into the wind yesterday and realised I didn’t know what it was to hate the wind at all
Pleased with myself for going from a person who didn't think they could ride a bike at all to someone who can cycle 20 miles without too much trouble (apart from a sore bum) within a week though.
That's a beautiful stretch of road. Are the roads around you asphalt as opposed to concrete? I always imagined cycling on concrete roads would be pretty unpleasant but I'm not sure how many roads in America are concrete. I know the main highways are but I'm not sure about the smaller roads. If all the roads around you are smooth asphalt I may have to emigrate!
I think any of us would be, 20 miles in a week is good in itself, but into the winds we have been having is a remarkable achievement.
Though in time you will find the headwind isn't so dangerous (just energy sapping) it's side winds that are a danger, though I guess you know this.
. I'm happy to have found something I seem to have decent stamina for as I've never been remotely athletic. The opposite in fact! 
"I'll go this way so the wind is behind me"... wrong!
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You will learn to cope with the wind better, I try and plan a route into the prevailing winds on the way out (other commitments aside), and whilst you dont always get a tailwind home, usually the wind isn't so fierce, though side winds from the rear are as dangerous IMHO as they are from the front or side.Thank you
I wouldn't mind the wind, but why does it have to change direction so that I'm cycling into it on the way out and again on the way home?
A sudden gust of wind from a side street got me yesterday. I may have shouted an expletive or two due to the surprise of almost being blown over
Nice ride even though, wish I could do 14mph over a metric century, well done.
Although it's warmer the wind has made it quite unpleasant so all in all as good a time as any to be out of action.
From what I have read these aren't usually too bad on spokes, the down side is the cost, ten times the price for one, I pay between 35-50p at Evans deepens who's on. I have tried looking after the hubs, they spin free enough, well the front did, but I couldn't tell if the back is off or not because it is so out of true.