Ride West, young man!

Yesterday, things did not go well for me, on the bike.  I was going to take a pretty long ride, but pretty slow, until I got to where the Custis trail meets the W&OD.  Instead of heeding the titular advice, I turned east, hit a patch of black ice on the turn, and wiped out.

Mercifully, the extent of the bodily injury was a not-too-bad scrape on my hip; hurt like hell when it happened, but otherwise pretty ignorable.  Somehow, though, falling down onto my left side, I snapped my right brifter, almost in half.  It was good enough to ride home, barely, after I played with it a bit, but I was stuck on, essentially, a two-speed bike.

I was a bit nervous about riding (I wasn't sure yet what state the brifter was in, and my hip was bothering me a little; I wasn't sure yet if there was something more serious), so I turned towards home pretty quickly.

So it ended up being merely a seven-mile ride, and I certainly need to replace the brifter (bike is currently in the shop for that.  Hoping they can get it back to me today, but dunno if that's a realistic hope).

And the hip, as I said, isn't doing badly at all.  Physically, I had no problems with this morning's ride, although it was on the hybrid, alas.  And the hybrid still has the spiked tires, also alas.  That made for a very slow ride, and one with very little data (no power or cadence data, as both meters are on the road bike (one inevitably, and the other accidentally)).

So slow, in fact, that I ended up shortening the route (and not getting lost, somehow) and getting back just about exactly when I was hoping to do so.  Taking hills while staying zone two on that hybrid is very slow work.  Slow enough that I got passed a couple of times today (first day I've ever been passed by more than one person, and it's rare that I get passed even once).  Plus, I ended up on the 18% grade of the Williamsburg hill near my house; I was trying to avoid that.

On the plus side, I actually did an excellent job of staying in zone two; I was worried a couple of times that I'd pushed too hard (including the aforementioned hill), but it looks like I kept it all good.

Snow tomorrow (though maybe just after I finish riding), so I'll probably ride the hybrid again tomorrow, regardless of availability.  But at the least, I'll remember to go get my cadence meter, if so.