Category Archives: frozen yogurt

Biking Bonanza

It was the weekend of biking! What a great winter weather weekend.  The calender says winter, but the temps say spring!  I pulled a 3 fer with the rides this weekend.

For St. Patty’s Day, John made up some Irish Soda Bread.  Last minute decision was to soak the raisins in bourbon and it was a very good idea indeed.  This was a beautiful loaf!

Must have portion control on this for sure.

It was such a nice day, definitely raring to go biking.  John was still recovering from a cold (it seems he has been sick since we got back from Disney), so I went out on my own and met him out for a snack.  I biked along the path.  Still looks like winter:

Lots of people on the path today.  I hit my turnaround point (this is an overpass, hence the fence).

Then biked downtown.  It was really, really crowded!  Not only was it St. Patty’s Day, so the bars were open and busy, but the state high school basketballs finals (or whatever) were in town.  Lots and lots of traffic and people.  I met John at Coffee Planet and they had shamrock sugar cookies!

The iced sugar cookie has to be one of my favorite cookies.  Simple and perfect.  I decided I couldn’t handle the people and traffic on the way home, so I decided to chance the bike path being really soggy.  I was surprised that it was quite ride-able, though!

Not spring yet, though.  It was so nice to get outside and riding again!

That was a nice 17 mile ride.  I had also done my lifting workout in the morning, so my thigh was pretty achy last night.

We were thinking it was going to be in the  40s when we got up and could bike to bagels, so we got all bundled up and then happened to check the weather and it was 32 degrees.  Ooops, a bit too cold, even for me.  But, with temps rising fast for the day, we decided on a morning ride after breakfast and grocery shopping.  John was feeling well enough to ride, too. We headed south in the morning into a fair headwind.  One of those times when you really notice the effects of drafting.  We swapped the lead every couple of miles.  After 8 miles, we hit our turn around point.  It was a beautiful day and getting a little warmer all the time.

My buddy for the day.

We cruised on home with a good tailwind.  We took a big steep hill at the end, which I have decided is my mission to work on this summer.  I will bike 5 miles out of my way to avoid this hill, so it is something I am challenging myself with to do hill repeats on by the end of summer (eek).

That was a 16.5 mile morning ride.

Ready for another one?  We went back out in the afternoon for…. wait for it….

The frozen yogurt is back at our ice cream place!  Yay!  I had a pistachio flavor.  It was in the upper 60s and so sunny.  I was pretty sweaty, actually. It felt really nice to sit outside and everyone else had that idea, too.

The line goes all the way back past the bush.  You know what I love?  When the line is that long and then the person gets up to the window and *still* doesn’t know what they want  🙄

We headed back home into the wind, but it seemed less than this morning.  I do have some wind chap on my cheeks and lips, though.  Total miles for the day?

Pretty darn close to 29.  I have the distance legs for sure, but not quite the hill legs, yet.   46 miles on the weekend.  For halfway through March – that is really fantastic!

Pixie can’t go outside, but she is enjoying all the sun:

I need to be doing that tomorrow.  Definitely a rest day!  I am roasting up some parsnips and sweet potatoes and we will be grilling out tonight in the gorgeous weather.

Question:  How the weather in your neck of the woods?

Ride before the storm

The sun was out on Saturday and no breeze at all.  The calm before the storm. I really wanted to get in a ride today to take advantage since that won’t be happening on Sunday!

Bike computer ready to go:

(I also am showcasing the sorry state of our driveway, which is slated for resurfacing next year. 😳 )

Biker set up and ready to go:

The sun was out, but it was a hazy sun.

We clipped along for the first part of the ride.  No wind and not too many hills for the first 10 miles or so.  We followed the river.  This is part of the dredging for PCBs going on in the Hudson.

Attractive, eh?  It needs to be done, though.  It went on too long with GE fighting having to clean up their mess.

At mile 13, we stopped for a bit of dried pineapple in the midst of a field of grain!

This ride is so beautiful.

John loves the dried pineapple, too:

We arrived in Saratoga for lunch at mile 22. We decided on Chipotle.

It’s easy to eat grain free there, surprisingly.

My salad with pork, cheese, salsa, and sour cream. This is really good!  I actually get this most times now.

We poked around a Barnes and Nobles for a while after eating.  Then biked another couple miles to get downtown.  Mile 24.

It’s the Travers this week.  Lots and lots of people.

Pretty dahlias on sale:

However, our mission was froyo:

I had a bowl with a mix of chocolate and vanilla nonfat yogurt topped with tapioca pearls (these are weird and I like them), toasted coconut, mini M&Ms, and some mini dark/white chocolate chips.

Oh, and a few nuts.

Nomf!


The skies started to cloud up, but still no wind.  So weird.  There is always at least some breeze.  The air just feels heavy.

It was time to head home.  We took a break at mile 35:

Yay- coconut water!

Then it was just 10 more miles to home.  I was booking home.  We lose a lot of average speed from stoplights and hills, and the last 10 miles is a nice fairly flat ride.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  46.2

Average speed:  13.6 mph

Top speed: 26.1 mph

Calories burned:  1452!

I loved my ride today!

We got the outside of the house ready for the storm.  At least it won’t be a hurricane when it moves over us (or it shouldn’t be), but still tropical force winds.  Our porch has never been so clean!  I removed all bird feeders, flags, solar lights and garden paraphernalia.  I hope my neighbors do the same 🙄

Clouds are rolling in.

Stay safe everyone!  I’ll see you all on the flip side of Irene.

47 miles to yogurt!

Saturday was the most beautiful day for a ride.  Just gorgeous!  We took a pretty relaxed approach to the day, as one should for a weekend.  Breakfast was a banana bread breakfast pudding.  I am so liking these!  Plus some cafe au lait.

John then planned out our route.  We decided to go a different way down and hug the river, which was a great idea (that means less steep hills).  It was beautiful.  Most of the first part of the ride went right along the river.  I think I found where I want to move to. Better ask for another raise…  😀

In part of the Hudson, there is an island and somebody has a house on it.  They built a little covered bridge to get there.

I would love to have a covered bridge at the entrance of my driveway!  I am so jealous.

Want to live here?

Indeed.

At mile 11, we stopped for snacks.

My favorite – dates!

If you look close, you can see my black moustache.  Smarty me fiddled with my chain and I propped it up with the gloved part of my hand to keep my fingers from getting dirty.  Well, during the ride I proceeded to wipe sweat off my lip with my gloves and smeared chain grease on it each time.  Good thing John was with me and told me or I would have gone around town that way. 🙄

There was hardly any traffic for the first 18 miles or so and I was loving that.  We both agreed this was our new favorite way to Saratoga.

We arrived downtown at mile 23.5. Since I am in the midst of the no grain challenge, we had to think about where to eat.  Stopped at Esperanto.

But then I got waylaid by this sign and it’s creepiness and had to take a picture.

Esperanto has different dishes from all cuisines.  Most of them had some sort of wheat or rice base.  I decided on the coconut chicken curry.   I asked for them to hold the rice.

They seemed to feel I needed some grain with it, because while they left out the rice, they put some tortilla chips on the side LOL.  I gave those to John.  This was really tasty.  It had carrots, potatoes, and chicken in a coconut curry sauce.  The picture doesn’t look so good, but it sure tasted good!

We strolled downtown for a while doing some window shopping.  In Saratoga, window shopping is about all we can afford.  Cute jacket on sale that was still $100 after being marked down 50%.  Then there are the places I am just not sure about:

😯

We stopped in at a glass studio where one of John’s poker buddies has his stuff.  He is a glass artist and does some beautiful work.

Then it was time for dessert!  I had a coupon to try Plum Dandy.  This is one of those build your own yogurt places.  I have never been to one before.

Here is half of the topping bar.  The chocolate and sprinkles and candy were on the other side.

My yogurt was cake batter flavor and I topped it with strawberries, fresh blueberries, toasted coconut and little yogurt and passion fruit pearls.

Those were like the big tapioca pearls, only they had a liquid center when you bit into them.  I kind of liked them – very different.  My biggest beef? Only 1 size bowl and it is so big that you want to fill it up with yogurt.  It was really hard not to do that.  We still spent $10 for 2 yogurts.

John got all kinds of chocolate stuff, addict that he is.

Yogurt fueled to go on, we headed home the same way.  The only busy part was getting out of town and for a few miles down the main road.  Then it was back to peace and quiet and farms:

We stopped at mile 39 for my other favorite ride fuel:

This was right on the bank of the river at someone’s boat launch.

My buddy 😛

The only thing I don’t like about going this way is the last 1/2 mile to our house.  It’s a steep hill and a tough slog, especially after already doing 46 miles, but we made it!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  46.8 (eh… 47)

Average speed:  14 mph

Top speed 31.5 – woohoo!

Calories burned:  1504

This was such an awesome day!  I immediately came in and had a protein drink and another date before showering.

I do have a hard time eating after ride days and tend to really nibble, but here is what I had.  Dinner was carbs and fat (it’s what I wanted):

Teddie crunchy peanut butter is my favorite!

Then I had a latte at home later with some cashews to get my calories up.

This is where I would normally be eating cereal and chocolate.  I am not avoiding chocolate or anything, I was just craving salt as I sweated profusely on this ride.  It’s really important to listen to what your body wants when you expend a lot of energy.

I just thought you might like to see what I do eat after a ride refueling carbs without grains!