Dreary Saturday - 50 miles, nice hills, nice scenery

Today I'm looking at my ride from Saturday, Jan 26th 2013. I'm just now really adjusting to cooler weather riding, so I got behind my target mileage - so to make up for it, I did a 50-mile ride that day: a fun ride around Little Rock, starting/ending near Spokes, and hitting some of the climbs I've picked out as particularly fun. 

Click here for the strava link to the workout if you're interested in the precise route I took: 

The video starts with a ride on Kavanaugh - which is such a great street for cyclists*.  I doubled the speed of portions (should be obvious).  *please see preacy side-note at bottom! :D

Next up is the cedar hill descent - this one I have to work to keep the bike within a reasonable margin of the speed limit.  My front contour mount was wobbly there for a while (and we lost part of the Overlook descent because it actually fell off!); so things look a little rougher than they actually are.  Beautiful street to ride down.  I personally don't ride up it because the combination of narrow lanes and short views on steep hills mean cyclists will be quite slow and passing is difficult - and there are other routes :)

Later I highlight the overlook climb & descent.  Got most of the climb on there, but the mount finally gave out on the way down, so I only show the first little bit of that :)


Next up is Pinnacle - Beautiful scenery around here.  I rode down to the boat ramp to generate a little extra climbing.


And finally, probably my favorite, the fort roots climb & descent.  Note the rider having trouble I passed on the way up - think it's probably a younger rider with his dad, but not sure on that one - either way, notice when I come back from the overlook trail at the top, they made the climb! :)


Contour battery died before I quite made it home or I would've highlighted the Oak/Oakwood climb as well. I love/hate that climb... :)  It's one of the two good ways I'm aware of to get back up from Cantrell to Kavanaugh.  They're both within a block or so of Cedar hill.  Oakwood is not very long, but brutally steep.  There's also the trail that runs from Allsop park up to the church at the top of Cedar Hill, which is a bit more forgiving.  I'll hit each route sometime soon and get some vid of those.

BTW - this is actually the first video I've ever edited or uploaded, so hope it's watchable, enjoyable,etc.  Lessons I've already learned - I need to get some actual scenic shots while I'm on some of these hills!  The views from overlook, pinnacle, fort roots, etc. are wonderful.  I think next time I'll split the video into actual couple-minute segments (ie, pinnacle segment, overlook segment, etc) rather than have one long 15-minute stretch.  I'm a noob at this, so suggestions welcome!

Thanks for reading, now go out and give a bike a try! :D

*Preachy-side-note!: Hopefully I'm getting some views from people that don't bike, because I've always wanted people to understand this part -- I know a lot of drivers have some angst when a cyclist is in the central part of the lane. If you look at these cars parked to the right here, it's impossible to predict which may have people in them about to get out, and if they opened the door while I was further to the right, it would lead to an accident - and one of the leading reasons for cyclist deaths is "dooring". Note traffic in this area gives PLENTY of room for you to pass :) Also note - the city has assured us that Sharrows will be installed on kavanaugh showing cyclists and drivers where cyclists are expected to ride (pretty much where I am in this segment of video). I could move over the moment there's noone parked there, but if there's another car parked not far ahead, then I have to move back into traffic very quickly, which is an extremely dangerous maneuver that should be minimized. So if you're behind me on the road, please understand I'm not just being a jerk by staying mid-lane, my safety is on the line in a very real way. /Preachy-side-note