That's more like it!

I took Dixie out for a really lovely 10 mile ride this afternoon. Here's the Strava:



It doesn't look like the Strava shows up in google reader, so if you're interested, click on over to the actual blog to look at it. I do all my reading, right up until the point where I decide I have a meaningful comment to make, in Reader, so I thought I'd warn you too :)



This is the ride I was planning on doing last Wednesday. There's a one-mile segment that Strava is automatically tracking - the mid part of the hill climb - and it took 17:30 to slog up that damn hill Wednesday, and she flew up it in 11:30 today. That's an astronomical improvement. Still, she was dripping wet by the time we made it to the top - I think I will sponge her chest and belly tomorrow and do a bit more clipping. I'm leaving it quite long - it looks like a 3-month-old clip job - so I think she won't freeze.



At about 4 miles we'd worked our way along the top of the hill and there was a very steep long downhill stretch, so I got off and jogged down. My poor Big Leftie complained about it - I don't think I blogged it but I hit it so hard I thought I broke it earlier this month, and it's still bruised - but it felt nice to "trot" downhill on foot. And my faith was rewarded - I found a perfect tree stump (very rare!) at the bottom of the hill.



I worked mostly on keeping Dixie at a consistent speed, and I also didn't check my speed on the GPS once. My watch band is broken so it lives clipped to my saddle - it's not as easy as lifting my wrist up. I am amazed that we were rolling along at 10 mph - it felt like 7-8. She did a lot of gaiting :)



All the erratic stops were from gawking - it was a lovely weekend day and there were a ton of dirt bikes, off-road trucks, and people out target shooting. We often had to slam on the brakes and stare in utter amazement, exactly like she'd never seen a dirt bike/truck/person before.

Dixie was what my riding buddy back in Memphis would've called "spicy." Totally on, sproingy flashy gaits, gawking at everything, just a blast to ride.

You can see she was still PLENTY sweaty. Sorry for the crappy cam-phone pics; they really don't do well at high altitude.


I trimmed her feet after the ride - they look excellent if I do say so myself. I think I've got most of the false sole out and the bars look good and I've been treating her frog cracks with goo and they're opening up pretty well. And I got new gloves! Highly recommended cheap gloves! But I'll take hoof pics and do a post about them tomorrow. I might even take the REAL CAMERA so you can see her feet in the correct colors. ;)