Rest Week Riding

"You still ride during a rest week? Shouldn't you "rest" during rest week?" Uh, yea...but it's an "active" rest. An easy, active rest. You ride a bunch less and the riding is super-easy. Tonight was one of those restful rides. It was 1.5 hours at 65-75% of the maximum heart rate spinning at 90-100 rpms. Well, that's not quite how my ride really went. You see, I live amongst hills and very bumpy back, country roads. So the bike of choice is a cyclocross bike at this time of the year and how many rings do cross bikes have? Only two. Thus, those hills in the highest gear of a cross bike don't really keep your heart rate at 65-75%. Now the rpm thing is actually getting better (thanks Brett!) and I managed to keep spinning fast except on the hills. Then I pondered, "is it better to grind in a low gear (remember, it's only two rings), trying to keep the heart rate as low as possible or is better to try to keep the rpms up by standing and then the heart rate goes sky high? I dunno. I just rode my little bicycle and enjoyed every second of beating the rain and slushy stuff heading our way.