Hills and More Hills

One of my friends who has a fat bike just finished Gravel Worlds, a 150 mile bike race and had a great time.  I was really envious that she could do 150 miles so easily..if you call winds of 30mph and 100 degree heat easy.  I've always struggled with cycling speed and distance.  Some of it is I can't/don't get out as often as I should and my back always gives out about 2 hours in.  I love riding, but maybe I'm just not cut out for miles and hours in the saddle.  Add in asthma/breathing issues, my anxiety of being left stranded out in the middle of nowhere and it gets hard.

Another guy had a blog post about his 150 trip.  Sounds like he had a great time as well.  Even he has me wondering if I should try for next year.  Even if I don't make it the 150 miles, at least I tried.

Strava had a challenge of finding new areas of exploring while riding last month or the month before and then an elevation challenge.  I've been taking more of the back areas of the gravel rural roads and am finding the views spectacular and the hills more challenging but but totally worth it once you get to the top.   I know this part of Nebraska is truly beautiful and exploring has been far more fun than just simply riding and the elevation challenge has helped get up the hills.  

I finally made it up a hill thinking I was going to die and looked around.  It was a nice surprise to see horses grazing in the field and spent a couple of minutes resting before heading home.

I've also been taking out my Ridley on the back roads.  LOVE my Ridley cross bike and even hit 30 mph going down a hill while sliding through the gravel.  Talk about a total adrenaline rush; however getting back up that same hill had me exhausted.

Blogger is throwing fits about posting any pictures, so I'm done with this post.  


 

     

Paper Instead of Fabric

It's been a while.  Just been doing other stuff with my Cameo.  I'm not done quilting, I just have been feeling "off" with it.

Here's the "Maple Manor" from SVGcuts that I made with my cameo and digital paper.  Absolutely adore the skull paper that I purchased.  Digital paper is great because you can just print it out and then the machine cuts around it.  No waste of paper and you can find what you want, not what the paper manufacturers think you want.  I used white ink to go around the edges to make it look spookier.  Love this file and it was easy to make.  All those shutters were a pain to glue down though.  Totally worth the hard work!

SVGcuts also had a shoe contest and gave us a free download to make a high heeled shoe.  There's something sexy about red heels and have always wanted a pair.  High heels and I don't work well so having one of my own in paper is good enough.  This was a PITA to put together especially the heel part.  I made it work though and it come out really nice.

Last project was working the sketch portion of the Designer Edition Software for the Cameo.  This is a cool feature where you can draw out stuff with their pens if they happen to work that day.  I'm saving up for a pen holder that uses different pens.  This was done with the silver pen doing cross hatches through out the design.  Way cool.

I went to JoAnn's last night and picked up a rotary blade that makes curves for a quilting kit so I haven't given up on quilting.  Good thing it was 40% off because 15 dollars for one stupid blade is stupid ridiculous.


Still cycling but nothing fancy to talk about.