My lower back continues to ail me. The weather was unrideable, lots of snow today. I hopped on the trainer today. It took me a while to setup the hardware. The Sager didn't function with the trainer. It detected the trainer, but failed to do realtime resistance increase/decrease. I ended up bringing the Asus k501 down and hooked it up. It didn't give me a problem, with the exception that the external monitor was bugging out. I have to do more diagnostics to figure out why. So, the ride... I chose the "Hilly" course. I wasn't sure what to expect. I started out brisk for the first 15 minutes or so. The scenery was beautiful. I made a quick 5 mile loop and then headed out in a different direction. There's a tunnel that has an aquarium built around it. Very nice and something to ease the exercise pains. Being that this was my first time in this aroute, I wasn't sure what to expect for the climb. Turns out that it was twice that of the London loop, if not three times. By the time I reached the climb, I was sufficiently warmed up. I was able to hold good to high tempo for the greater part of the climb. I felt good, despite my back ailment. My body comes alive after I start breaking a sweat. This usually takes 15 to 30 minutes. Such was the case today. I made the climb my primary workout zone. After summiting, I enjoyed the downhill, not exactly free-wheeling. I kept the power down till I got back to the main island. Overall, I felt good. My legs were there, I was able to get my HR up in the 150's during hard efforts. Concentration felt good too. The gear worked great, despite the monitor discrepancy. Other notes, there were about 400+ riders on the course.