28.3 Mile ride today on some steep hills!

Just two weeks before my ride gets underway.  I went for what turned out to be a midday ride today. The pace was a little slow 12.5 miles per hour, but considering the hills I had to climb and the person I was riding with it was not terribly slow.  The last hill I climbed near the Washington Monument on South Mountain at the border of Washington and Frederick counties was a killer.  It was 13.5 miles into the ride and a 14 percent grade in 85 plus degree heat.  I made it to the top.  I thought about getting off my bike, but I was moving so slow up the hill that I could not stop to unclip my bicycle shoe without falling over or rolling backwards so I just kept going up as the cars and small SUV's flew up the hill some I'm sure were driving faster than normal just to show off.  Once at the top, I waited for my riding partner who arrived at the top 5 minutes or so after me walking his bike.  We rested for a bit and then decided to head back to Hagerstown rather than continue on toward Middletown, which at that point was only a few more miles away, but several more hills.  The ride down the hill was much faster.  I was breaking all the way down and still hit 34 plus miles per hour.  I played it safe while my riding partner who had walked up the last part of the hill rode down as fast as he could, likely hitting 40 or near 40 miles per hour.

I'm typing this blog entry on my new netbook that I purchased today after the bike ride.  Target had acer aspire one netbooks on clearance. I picked up an 11.6" wide screen netbook with 250 gig hard drive and 4 gig of ram for $274.  I had seriously considered a tablet/iPad but for $274 I can buy 2 or 3 tablets/iPads and still have a lot less memory.  The netbook should work great for keeping up with my blog on the bicycle.  It's not fast or sexy, but it will get the job done and is less likely to get stolen because it is not sexy or fast.