Autumn Cycling

We have been on an amazing roll of weekends with good weather and have been doing our level best to take in as many hours of sunshine as possible.

This weekend I had two fantastic rides, and Richard (no surprise) was out for two glorious runs.  Saturday he got in his final long training run before the upcoming ultra-marathon (October 8th = race day), and whipped of 32 km at the local trails. Meanwhile, I hooked up with Becca and David and headed south on a road ride.

We took a little stop at Richard's and my fave beach spot, then rolled along to a town called Älvkarleby, and a very cool hydrostation and dam.

  Post photo stop, we partook of some fika at a lovely outdoor café and thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine (and treats).

 Becca and David

 Fika treats!
I think David picked best as his apple cake came warmed and with vanilla custard.

Just as we were about to roll out, another cyclist heading past noticed us and stopped to chat. Although he was not quite the size of the viking from my last post, he was damn close (I had serious calf envy, to say the least), and both David and I were delighted when he decided to bike back to Gävle with us, and was keen to pull! Funny, the headwind we were facing was not nearly as tough as we had been anticipating ;)

Today I met up with some women I had been introduced to (via a Swedish text message) by another woman I met last weekend at the race, and then road with earlier this week. Yes, my habit of picking up women at sporting events is on in full force and has been quite successful of late! Anyway, this morning I found myself out with five other women on MTBs!!! This was a pretty major change from any MTB outings to date: as some of you will know,  I have really struggled to find women to ride with, and I really miss the strong masters class group of women on the OCup circuit that I was so accustomed to riding with. And so today was a real delight. Ok, we road a lot of double track, but we did get some single track, and I am sure we can work on expanding the ratio of single to double track. And there was a fabulous lunch at the end: one of the many perks of riding with a group of gals, I think! The other neat thing: I managed 5 hours in Swedish! (ok, ok, there were a few breaks on my part where I lapsed into English to get across a particular point, but they kept on going strong in Swedish!). It really feels like I have made some leaps and bounds the last 6 - 8 weeks with my language comprehension and sentence composition, and I am so excited!


Anyway, here we are in all our post-ride glory:

That's me on the left ...

Not only are all these gals cycling enthusiasts, but there are loads of other sports intersts amongst the group - long distance running, white water kayaking, orienteering, multi-sport racing, climbing, skiing, swimming, ... you get the picture! Anyway, by the end of our lunch we had formed the all new Gävle Cykeltjejer Facebook group, creating a forum for ladies in the area to post workout invites to connect with others.  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to have a date to meet some folks at the pool tomorrow night, let along the potential for upcoming training dates! Don't get me wrong - I have been really lucky at finding great people to work out with so far, but it really felt like a turning point in my community ties and involvement in Gävle!

Ah, the power of a bright and sunny Sunday.