The Art of the (Illegal) Park

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was skittish about parking at NYIT. The main reason is they have security cars constantly looping through the parking lot. In fact, on Monday I had to endure at least 5 security loops. I made the mistake of spending a decent amount of time putting on all my equipment by the side of my car with my bike still up on the roof rack. It was like an advertisement that I was doing something wrong. I thought to myself "this is so obvious, they have to know I'm parking illegally". My only hope was the security guards were thinking "this is so obvious, there's no way he's parking illegally".

I decided today to get as much prep work done at home as possible in order to minimize time in the lot. I wore my cycling shoes (typically I drive with regular shoes and put on my cycling shoes there) and had all my equipment laid out on my backseat ready to roll. When I arrived, I immediately took down my bike and laid it up against the car while I got prepped. It only took a minute or two to get everything done. I only saw one security guard this time, a nice little victory. Hopefully I won't run into any issues parking here because it's the perfect starting point for my training loop.

Speaking of the training loop, this was the first day I it exclusively. I've ridden all of the terrain before but as parts of different rides. The loop was even better than I was expecting but also very difficult because there's almost no stopping. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. But there's a huge difference between a 25 mile ride with no stops and one that has multiple lights/stops because you get no natural recovery periods. I actually pushed it too hard today. Funny because I was all set to write a post this morning titled "Take'r Easy", which was going to explain how it's better to ride slower early in the season while you build a base of miles. Then I go out and blast it today. I averaged 17mph for 24 miles. That's pretty much midseason form for a GROUP ride. Doing that solo this early in the season is pretty stupid. I need to tone it down next time.