No Pain, no Gain.

Lots of pain, and lots of gain (in elevation), let's hope there's some fitness gains in there too.

Somehow I got it in my head that it looked like it should be fun to bike up Mt. Evans. I think the important part is picking your starting location. Initially I had illusions of grandeur that it would be really cool to start from my house. That changed when I drove the family up Mt. Evans last week. The round trip would have been well over 100 miles, let alone the first half of the trip taking me from about 5800 feet in elevation all the way up to 14,150+ feet. I can safely say that that's not going to happen. Probably not ever, after today's experience. If it does happen, you can also look forward to seeing me in some televised domestic Cat 1 /Pro Tour race somewhere. Either that, or I'm retired and do nothing but bike all over the place and am in the best shape of my life.

I had decided on starting somewhere around Evergreen, CO:


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The grade didn't seem to bad in the car, averaging between 3-7 percent, and 32 miles to the top of the mountain... seemed doable in my head at least. 32 miles couldn't be that bad, and overall, I'd get a nice metric century ride in this summer.

The ride to echo mountain lake wasn't all that bad. Not very much traffic, cool morning, seemed to be in the low 70's, not a cloud in the sky. The no cloud part would be a slight problem, as I forgot to put on or bring any sun screen when I left this morning. At 14,000 feet, you have 40% less atmosphere to block those evil UV rays. I did bring some arm warmers for the descent so I could cover up a little. I still got burned a bit on the top of my legs, and my arms toasted up a little after I got back down and took off the warmers, but all in all, its quite minor. Lesson learned.

Anyhow, at Echo Lake (18 miles from the start, and about 2+ hours later) I queued up with the cars and some other cyclists going up. There's are $3 fee if you plan on stopping anywhere along the way, if you just want to drive/ride up and then turn around and go back down without getting out of your car or off your bike, its free. (Note, its a $10 fee for cars, $3 for motorcycles). I paid the fee, since at this point I already knew once I'd made it to the top, if I made it, I'd want to take a rest. The climb up the road started out well, and I just paced myself, and tried to keep the mindset of the "little engine that could." I was anticipating some pain, and significant respiratory problems but I was up for it. I was in for a surprise though. I really expected to be huffing it in the thin atmosphere, but it was different. I had no problem keeping my breathing and HR under control, but eventually it just felt like my quads where on fire, or someone was injecting acid directly into them. It was so hard to turn them over, and eventually got to a point where it felt like if I would stop, they would seize up and not move again... Ow!

To top it all off, the road up the mountain just seems to keep going, and keep going, and keep going. You can see the top from what's probably 2/3rds the way up. It doesn't look to far away, but never seems to get closer. You'll round a switchback only to be presented with yet another ascent up a long road with a turn way off in the distance. Ugggg. I was so close now. I couldn't give up, as much as I wanted to. I must only be 2-3 more turns I told myself (about 8 times). Finally turned the last round and I saw the parking lot and observatory I was so familiar with. Yay.

Oh, almost forgot to mention. I was talking about doing this at work earlier in the week (and trying to find people to suffer with me). Well, one of my co-workers decided to come up too (in his car). And was sure to find me suffering up the way and point out how nice his engine powered iron horse was working. Thanks Rob! I eventually made it up, and saw Rob coming down from the small foot path that leads up about 50 feet to the top where the USGS marker is, as I was leaving.

I didn't spend much time on the top. It was cold, as expected, and I didn't want to cramp up. So I stretched out the muscles a little, tried to eat my cliff bar, put on my arm warmers and left. At this point I could barely stand up. It wasn't a pretty sight (probably quite comical actually). The ride down pretty much sucked, in my opinion. And as far as I'm concerned, the biggest reason for going up is for the opportunity to go back down. Going up the mountain at 4-7 mph isn't bad and the cracks and bumps in the road aren't really noticeable above the pain emanating from my quadriceps. Going down however was a different story. At 20+ mph, every bump and crack seemed to jar my aching body as I tried to keep my muscles tense enough to support my body above the bike, so as to let bike go easily over them. The wind was also atrocious in spots cooling me beyond comfort. It was only motivation to try and get down faster so I could rest at echo lake, in thicker, warmer air.

I finally made it. Took a good rest, bought some Gatorade at the little shop / restaurant there, stretched some more and tried to prepare myself for the last 18 miles to the car. From Echo Lake, I had to go back up hill a bit and over squaw pass again. The climb was not all that significant in length, so I was able to suffer through it pretty well. Also at the lower elevation my quads weren't burning so much either. I figured the "extra" oxygen and lower altitude was able to buffer out some of the lactic acid that I had built up at higher elevations. I was quite hot at this point though, so I pulled over and took off the arm warmers.

Cruising down the rest of the way was pretty fun. The main road is in much better condition, and where there were bumps and pot holes, someone had outlined them with orange paint so they were easy to spot. Cruising down the curves at 30 miles an hour was a blast. This was what I was waiting for. I guess I got a little to lax towards the end though. About 2-3 miles out from my car, on one of the last turns I crashed. I was slowing for the hairpin when I caught some cinders just before entering the turn, while I was breaking. My back wheel locked up and started to slide right. I let off the rear brake and steered left to correct and catch myself, but at this point I was coming into the turn hot, and at the wrong trajectory. Into the loose cinder burm I went, trying to stop without locking up the front and not smash into the wall in front of me (at least it wasn't a drop off.) I managed to hit a deep section of cinders and my front end stopped abruptly sending me over the bars and off to the left a little. Managed a 3 point landing (my elbow, hip and knee) with minor scrapes and skin removal. I was shaken a little, but not to bad. I was quickly back up and back in the rhythm. The intersection at which my car was parked approached quickly. I've not been so happy to make it back to the car in quite a long time.

You can see most of the details of my ride here at motionbased. I had some problems with the cyclocomputer turning off when jolted hard by a bump (am looking into sending it in for repairs, as its getting worse) and as usual, the HR strap on my body when its windy and I'm cold gives bad readings.

Will I do this again? I don't know. Probably not by myself. Some details of the ride:

Length: 64 miles
Total time: 7 hours
Moving time: 5.5 hours (probably higher when you add in the moments my computer shut itself off)
Total Elevation gain: 9,070 feet (most of this over the first 32 miles... ouch)
Average Heart rate: 160 bpm

Pedal Power

This past week marks the beginning of me using cycling as more than just recreation. Of the 4 days I was in the office this week, I commuted mostly by bike twice. I say mostly because I am driving 10 miles to a park-n-ride close to my house and a convenient bike path. From there it's an additional 23 miles by bike into the office. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll be in enough shape to go from my house, but right now, I'm only averaging about 16.6 mph, and as such it already takes an hour twenty to pedal in. Leaving by bike from my house I think would make for a really long day. I probably could have bike 3 of the 4 days, but I'm trying to ease myself into this. I don't want risk being completely zonked at work all the time.

The ride overall isn't too bad. There's one good section through a park, where on my second time in, I rode across a bridge and around a corner only to almost crash directly into a large buck Mule Deer. Talk about a wake up call at 6 in the morning. The wildlife is great though, I've seen fox, prarie dogs, flickers, kestrels, and warblers to name a few. There are a number if interesctions to cross, which aren't to bad in the morning, but delay my ride back in the afternoon. Since its the afternoon, I don't mind as much though. The ride towards home also seems a heck of a lot more difficult too. The elevation profile (as seen at motionbased, here.) is pretty much 'V' shaped. just happens that one side of the V is more consistantly sloped than the other. Makes for a long climb back to the car. Oh well. If I were to drive this whole route to work it would be about 34 miles (My normal shorter drive is 26 miles)... so I'm still saving some gas and wear on the vehicle, as well as helping my body out.

Hopefully soon, I can pick up my average pace. My goal by the end of the season is to knock 10 minutes off the ride (inbound at least). The equates to about 30 second faster pace per mile on average, which I think is reasonable.

Also further adventures of the bike commute, on the 2nd trip back to the car, a co-worker advised me of a quicker way that knocks 5 minutes off his trip.... I got completely lost trying it out, and added about 7 miles to my trip. So much for quicker. It made me realize something though. I need to eat some carbs a little while before I head home in the afternoon. I was starving by the time I got to the car... Low blood sugar and biking don't mix to well. Of course, biking past the Krispy Kreme shop and smelling the fresh donuts did not help (doesn't help in the morning either).

June 25th is official "bike to work" day here in Denver. I encourage any of you out there, even not in Denver, to bike in as well, just once. At least try it out. The key to successfull commuting is plan ahead. The day before, take in a change of clothes, some extra food, shower / washup stuff. Extra pair of shoes. Leave non-essential things in the office too. IE, don't bring that laptop home, so you don't have to bike it in the next day. Make sure you get plenty of food in you, and hydrate the day/night before. Perhaps the weekend before, get up a little earlier and go for a "test run." See if your planned route will get you where you need to go, and how long it will take you. These steps should get you well on your way to riding in to work. Also, make sure you have a spare tube, an air pump, and tire levers with you too. Don't want to get stranded on your way in. Make sure you know how to use them, if you don't ask your local bike shop to show you. And on a slight side note, when you go home... leave your work at work. It will be there when you get back tomorrow. Enjoy the ride and realize the benifits you're giving your self. You're better off for it. Or if you love to work, see if your IT dept. will set you up with the means to remote into your work, thats what I do, should the need arrise.

Up the Hill

And to top off my already wonderful day, I was able to get in a bike ride today. Weather was warm, and the winds were mostly calm... I figured I'd go climb Lookout Mountain, and check out a new route I found to get to the approach. My previous route had me going through some pretty busy roads. Turns out this new route is MUCH better. I also had the chance to put new batteries in my Heart Rate(HR) strap, and cadence sensor. This would be my first ride in CO where I could actually see my HR after a good ride.

Overall, I think I'm still not in very great shape. It wasn't hard for me to push my HR up there, so I decided to try and cap myself at 180. No need to kill myself. Also found out that my conductivity still drops as skin temp and moisture decrease. I got some erroneous readings while descending, which has been typical of the technology ever since I started using it. I also think it might partly have to do with fit. The strap seems a little big for my narrow skinny self. Oh well.

For those of you interested in the details of the ride, you can get 'em over at Motionbased. Hopefully by the end of the summer I should be in good shape. This coming monday marks the start of my bike commuting to work. It's going to take me to long to get to work from home (I'd have to leave about 2 hours earlier) so I'll be driving about 1/3 - 1/2 way, parking at a park-n-ride bus stop and cycling in the rest of the way, leaving about 20-25 miles to work. So getting in upwards of 50 miles at least 3 times a week should add up eventually I figure.

Mind over matter, right?

So it's great to be home, and was a real joy to return to wonderful weather, in the 60's or better. Green Mountain is finally starting to show some green too. Its nice to finally experience some warming and greening. Most of my experience in Colorado to this point has only been during the winter. The only other time I was here was in July, when SunRayce97 finished in Colorado Springs. It was that experience that started my desire to live out here.

Anyhow, I live a good distance away from where I work. About 25 miles by car. My morning commute takes me about 30 minutes, and my afternoon can be upwards of an hour or more, depending on traffic and which way I choose to go. I've been wanting to commute by bike to work at least 1 time a week. Mostly for the sake of fitness and my love of riding my bike, but also to help save with gas of course. I figured riding 1 time a week would save me 1 tank of gas every 4-5 weeks, as well as the wear and tear on the car.

Looking at route options, I figured the simplest way would be to take the C-470 Path all the way down to just south of my office building the head north on mostly back roads. It would be quite long... I think encroaching on 30+ miles. I figured I'd give it a test run yesterday to see how it would work out. I didn't really occur to me that I hadn't ridden my bike for at least 2 mos. and not much before that since I moved here in November.

So I took off in the early-mid afternoon and found the trail I was looking for. I felt great, the weather was nice, and I was having fun. I was observing lots of spring wildlife and looking at some of the early flowers blooming around here. I saw an Eastern Meadowlark, and almost ran over about a dozen different prairie dogs. Well, at some point, I realized that I must have missed a turn somewhere since I was now heading North, when I should have been going East, and I was starting to fatigue a little. I abandoned hopes of making it to the office and just wanted to find a way back to trail I was familiar with. Familiar meaning I still had an idea of their location and direction based on what I remember of the map. I've not actually ridden on many trails around here yet. So I saw another trail along a river that I knew headed North and South. Got myself on that trail, and then picked up the C-470 trail back West to go home.

By this time, it had clouded over, and cooled off quite a bit. Also started to get pretty windy. On my way east, I don't think I realized just how much I was going down hill either. I certainly noticed going up hill headed West and North though. My legs were on fire. I couldn't sustain speeds any better than 10 mph and I had at least 15-20 miles to get home. Lord help me.

Obviously, I made it home. Hindsight has me kicking myself in the pants. I don't know what I was thinking, planning a 50+ mile trip with zero conditioning. At least I did get lost, and was able to shorten things up. My body was very adamant on letting me know there was no amount of "thinking" that was going to make it move any faster or hurt less.

So the details of my trip are here. Sorry I don't have the HR band going. The battery in it is dead, along with my cadence sensor. I guess I'll be working up to a commuting distance slowly. Blah. I hate being out of shape. Oh well. At least I'm well on my way to loosing the 10 pounds I gained while traveling to and from Antarctica.

The last mile

Yesterday, My family and I went for a hike. Jess wanted to go somewhere where there were trees, and I wanted to find some place fun and new to hike... Through various searches, I stumbled across the Beaver Brook Trail. I had a hard time finding actual directions on how to get to a trail head for this thing. The description gave several generalizations as to popular access points, but that's about it. "It's near the Lookout Mountain Nature Center" was about the most useful information I found. I found directions to the nature center, and we drove there. Found a trail head, though not for the Beaver Brook Trail. Fortunately, there was a map of the area at that trail head that gave us a good sense of where we where, and where we needed to be. After driving around for a while, and asking a group of cyclists where Windy Saddle was (the supposed trail head to the trail that led to the trail ;). Anywho, all the driving around led us to a curvy windy road that goes up (and down) the side of Lookout mountain. I thought to myself, "I gotta ride my bike up this thing sometime, it looks like fun!"

So we commenced on our hike, and had a lot of fun. About 3 miles total in distance was hiked. I was surprised, some of the descriptions of this trail that I found said it was really poplular, so I figured it shouldn't be too challening... I guess in the summer time it might not be. Much of the trail this time of year still had plenty of snow on it, and the foot traffic had trampled the snow into some icy patches here and there. To top that off, the exposure of the trail was quite intimidating at times. One slip on the wrong spot and you're going for a ride! I don't suspect that the landing at the bottom is too soft either. Anyway, below are a few of my favorite photos. You can view the whole album here. I think my photo taking is getting a little better, but it still has a long way to go. I also bought a nice circular polarizing filter a while ago, and I keep forgetting to use the darn thing!




I thought this rock looked pretty cool. Kinda looks like there's a skull from some animal on top.





I was trying to be creative here... Not sure I succeed all that well. It looked better in real life I think. This might be another case where messing around with HDR imaging would come in handy. I really need a tripod before I can really make my attempts worth while though.

So anyway, on with the title of this post... The weather today was/is absolutely wonderful, crystal clear skies and 60+ degrees. I thought to myself, "self, why don't you go bike up that road you found yesterday." So that's what I did, and it felt great. I mapped out a route to get over to hill, made a course using the course creator developed by Brad Culberson, and uploaded it to my Garmin 305 GPS / bike computer. Sadly, I couldn't get my heart rate strap, or cadence sensor working. I think the batteries finally bit the dust in them. Oh well. That wasn't going to stop me from enjoying my ride.

I managed to navigate my way through Golden, avoiding most of the really busy roads, though, I also managed to go down a road that was gated at one end. Always fun to hop a fence in roadie shoes as cars and other bikers whiz by. Oh well. After a ten mile warm-up I made it to the base of the hill. I decided I was just going to go up at a pace I could handle, and knew I could sustain for a long time. Since the ride was new to me, I wasn't sure what kind of exertion I could put into it.

There were a ton of cars at the base, all with bike racks. We had seen a lot of riders yesterday while driving, and I think there were even more today. I managed to catch a couple people and pass them on my way up, but some managed to catch and pass me too. Unfortunately, I think more people passed me, than I passed. It was really tough to not hop on the wheel of others as they passed. Was probably a good thing though, I'm convinced that a bunch of people where at least semi-pro, or at least on some organized team of some sort. A couple groups had coaches talking to them out a car, etc. They probably woulda pushed harder just to drop me. I made it to the top, and took a 10 minute breather up at Buffalo Bill's grave.

At my rest, I had the chance to eat a Chocolate flavored PowerGel energy snack. All I have to say, is that if you really, really (and I mean really) like chocolate frosting, you just might be able to handle this stuff. The consistancy is that of a smooth creamy frosting, and the taste is quite chocolaty. It was just too much for me. I felt like all the sweet taste buds on my mouth where hyper stimulated. It took me most of the 10 minute break to choke the stuff down. All I had for a chaser was some Lemon / Lime Gatorade Endurance mix... Yack! The the Gatorade itself I thought was pretty good. Good flavor, not too sweet, and tart enough to keep the thirst working. The pouch I had made a quart, which I found kind of annoying, since my water bottles where 24 oz (as are most bike bottles).

At any rate, I made the wonderful decent back down the mountain feeling great about the climb. Good thing I brought arm warmers with me. I would have gotten cold without them. I haven't ridden since last November, not even on my trainer (I know, I've been bad), and here I was able to climb this thing. I thought I was crazy at the start of my ride, but I did it! Then it hit me... almost home.... Please, please remind me again why I decided to live in house at the top of no small hill, especially after what I had just been through. It was torture! I kept thinking to myself "how am I supposed to have a propper cool down when I have to go up this thing at the end of every ride? arrg" I sucked it up and finished, but not strong. Oh well.

Motionbased Stats are here.

It was a neat ride. Will certainly do it again. Great views, and I got to see some other people enjoying their hobbies. On some of the sharp turns on the climb up (switchbacks), I saw a group of people playing with remote control gliders, riding the wind currents coming up the mountain. I also had a paraglider person swoop over my head as well. That was cool.

official results

I believe I said I would post the official results from my race last sunday, so here they are.

I also uploaded the data from my bike computer too. You can see that here.

Well Satisfied

Well, its one month and one race later. I raced yesterday, Sunday in the 2007 Cargas Criterium. I'd link to the site, detailing the race but there really isn't much to be seen there. It was held in Lancster, PA at the Greenfield Corporate Center. I was in the Cat 4/5 Race. I was initially VERY nervous about this race, being that it was my first major race of the year, really. I was also racing with Cat 4 folks, whom I was pretty sure would be able to put me into a world of hurt early on in the race. We had 5 folks from my team racing in this race, 2 of which had raced in earlier races. My goal was to just stick with 2 of my teammates who have done extensive racing this year already. I figured they certainly knew what they were doing, and by their results, they certainly did. Two of our guys got pulled out early in the race due to being near the rear. There was a decent climb (for a 1 mile Crit course) that I think hurt them pretty good. So it was just my 2 teammates and I. The other 2 guys also happen to be the ones that raced earlier in the day. The race was good, and I hung in there with them. Only scary thing was the wreck that happened next to me. When the went down, they kinda slid in front of me, and I ended up running over some guys bike. I was glad I stayed up. The only frustrating part was the constant breaking before 2 of the turns. The course was really only 2 90 degree turns and on sweeping downhill to round it out. So anyway, last lap comes around and I manage to roll in 12th out of 45+ riders. I'm very happy with that. My teammates placed 6 and 7. Money spots! Brilliant riding by both. I have the utmost respect for them. When results are posted online, I'll post a link.

Bring out your dead!

Sorry about such a long time since the last post. I have no excuses, and I won't try to make any up. I just haven't had the desire to post anything.

So to go along with some previous posts. I had my first bike race of the year this past Sunday, May 20th. It was the South Mountain Mass Start Hill Climb, which was near Shippensburg, PA. You can see my results here. Not a great time. I was hoping to be sub 30 minutes. Oh well. They run this race once a month, so I have a goal to work towards I guess. I was 4th in my Category, out of 12 people, so I'm happy with that. I thought I would be a lot worse. I can say I didn't have anything left at the top of the mountain though, and gave it 100% of what I had, so I can't be upset about that. Not sure what I'll be racing next, but I look forward to it. My work schedule has been chewing into a lot of personal time that I would normally have to ride, which doesn't make me very happy, but I race to have fun, not to make a career out of it, so I can't complain. I just doubt I'll be able to get all the races I need this year to be eligible for reimbursement from the team.

a few pictures of my race.

Well, MR was nice enough to share some of the pictures he took of me racing.... Enjoy.

Nice game face huh? Don't worry, he's all bark, no bite :)

And they're off.... In my usual style, I'm out in front in the beginning. Perhaps its a good thing. Avoid confusion, etc...


And here I am in the lead group, in the beginning, holding my own, for now at least...

And here I am finally, off the back, maybe I shouldn't have start out so fast, hehe.... ouch.

My First Race

Well, I apologize for letting this thing go dormant for a while, as usual, no excuses, just figure no one would be interested in my day to day ritual I call life. Anyway, of note though, I participated in my first bike race (a criterium) yesterday. I can safely say..... I finished. Not a spectacular performance by any stretch, but I'm not disappointed.

Several have requested an AAR of my race, so here it is....

Holy crap, that was hard! At least no one crashed.

To look at the statistical details, you can go here.

My overall thoughts are positive. There were 39 racers, and I placed 20th, and I was not the last guy across the line :)
The Yo-Yo'ing effect from being in the back of a group in Criterium pretty much killed me. I found it harder and harder to keep with the pack around each and every turn. There were 2 guys in front of me from the same team, and I tried to get around them to help minimize my Yo-Yo'ing but they just wouldn't let me. I clearly had better cornering abilities than some, but others just had more of a kick in their sprint.

I've also decided that looking at all the data that my cyclocomputer gives me during a race isn't necessarily a good thing. I think next time I'll change the fields I can see so I don't start analyzing myself in the middle of the race.

I'm now looking forward to my first road race, which won't be until next year. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain at least some kind of fitness program this winter so some of what I gained this year will not be lost.

I'll be headed off to the Netherlands in a few weeks too. I hope to update this with some of my experiences of my first trip to another country as well (Canada doesn't count) . So start looking again around the weeks of August 21st. I'll be spending 2 weeks in Amsterdam, then I'll be spending a weekend in Ruedesheim am Rhein, Germany.

Memorial Day Ride

MH, MR, and I took a nice bike ride this morning. I had driven a loop last Friday that turned out to be right around 57 miles. MH was supposed to be home by 11:30 AM so the loop was out of the question, especially since MR only picked me up when we were supposed to meet at the designated parking spot, taking 30 minutes out of our rideable time. Oh well. It was still a great ride, overall, mostly flat with good sized rollers that were just big enough that you had to work to push over them, but not too much that you really killed yourself. I think it would be a fun road to ride on with a good group that likes to do pace line riding, the 3 of us averaged 19 mph for the whole ride. I did most of the leading, but that's normal. MR did his own thing, when he wasn't drafting. That's okay it doesn't bother me that much, at least when we don't set an expectations before hand, which we didn't. We made it 18 mph up the road before we decided we should turn around to get MH back in time.

When we got back, MR took a quick transition run, I stretched, and MH got ready to leave. After MR got back, I decided I wanted to go climb Peters mountain (on my bike of course) since the decent down the south side, the same side I would be climbing, looked like it would be a blast. Didn't do to bad, I thought, averaged 8mph on the way up from 3B's ice cream place to the top, with an average ascent of 53 feet/minute. Climbing Millers gap, my best time has me averaging 64 feet/minute, but that climb is only 1.3 miles long, where as Peters mountain is 2.1, so pacing is important. I also just finished 36 miles of rollers before Peters mountain, I do Millers gap mostly fresh. I don't know how the ascent speed compares to most other people, but I would like to think I can hold my own against most. Motionbased is being slow again, so I can't grab the links to post directly to the activities, but they are named well enough that you can figure out which they are should you visit my digest (see links in previous posts).

After all was said and done, and I got back, I had a wonderful bowl of Teaberry ice cream at 3B's. Talk about tasting wonderful. I hadn't had that flavor in a long time, and it was quite satisfying. Its quite a nice ice cream stand I think, lots of flavor choices, good prices for the portions, and an excellent product. I'll be going back there again to do my 57 mile loop some day. Hopefully sooner than later.

No, I am not there yet.

So yesterday, I went for another Saturday morning ride with the folks over at World Cup Ski & Cycle. There were a lot more people there than there was the week before. I imagine mostly because the weather was a lot nicer. I think there were about 16 total. The beginning of the ride was uneventful, and was riding at what seemed to me, to be a pretty easy pace, at least when you are in the middle of the pack. About 12-14 miles into it though, the group splintered, into what I believe ended up being 3 different groups. Maybe 2, but as we arrived back at the shop, it seems they came in, in 2 other packs after the group I came in with. Anyway, when the group split, I think I let my ego get the best of me, and I decided to stay up with the lead pack. It was mostly a mistake, but I sure learned a lot. There were I think 6 people including myself in the 'breakaway' and as long as I was in the middle of the paceline, I seemed to do alright, though I was working quite a bit to stay there. Which is good, I need the exercise. Then the rotation came and I was in the lead, Which was hard, I figured I wouldn't be able to put much time in it, but I should at list give it a strong concerted effort, so I went with it for a few miles. A turn came up that I wasn't sure of, the person behind me told me about it, so I had decided to fall back to the rear. That was my downfall. These folks were powering around turns and quickly getting back into a swift cadence. I didn't setup for the turn right and didn't push hard enough to get back with the pack, and fell off the rear. Never caught back on. As hard as a tried, I just couldn't get myself hooked back on.

The waited for me at the next turn to make sure I didn't miss it, when I had told them, that they should just keep going, and not wait for me. They deserve a ride at the pace they wanted to go, and not worry about dropping me. I even explained to them that I had a GPS on my bike, and could find my way home. (While My Garmin 305 doesn't show me roads, I could see where I was relative to where I am, and can just follow roads till I hit something familiar) They then explained to me that their Saturday rides have a no drop policy. That's cool. Good bunch of people.

Then, one of the leaders of the group said he would ride me in, and let the rest of them go ahead. He was really cool about it. Turns out he is a cycling coach, and I believe at least Class III racer himself. He was giving me advice on what I can do to help me stay with the pack better (cornering techniques, and how to best position for drafts). He let me ride his wheel and we tried to catch back up with the pack, but it just wasn't working. I find that even being the 2nd man back in a paceline is significantly more difficult that 3rd or more, so the 2 man group we had going wasn't doing enough for me to give me the strength to go faster at this point. My HR was between 90-95% of my sustained max, and it wasn't getting any better. Anyway, we made it back, and close to the finish, I caught up to everyone because they got caught at a long red light. And we all ended up coming in together.

Overall, I ended up riding 40 miles in 2 hours and several seconds. Average speed ended up being 19.9 mph. That's my record fastest average speed yet, and even more over 40 miles... I believe my previous best was 19.3 mph average, over 10.5 miles, though that was by myself, and a TT course, I spent a lot of time in this ride cutting wind too, only because I fell out of the paceline :(

So the things I'm taking away from this are:

• I need to be put in my place once and a while, it gives me something to strive for.
• If I want to improve, I need to get serious about it, my occasional lunch rides, and a weekend "stroll" aren't going to put me in the league I want to be in.
• I need to realize what my abilities are so that when I do ride with a group, I don't put a burden on them (I felt bad making them wait for me, and causing a leader to ride slower than he probably wanted to.)
  

So that's how they do it in the Tour De France

So I've always wondered how can people cruise along at such fast speeds on a bike. Well, I finally got a taste of that yesterday. I went out on a group ride that leaves from a local bike shop. There were 11 of us there. So we all were cruising along somewhere between 18-22 mph (Normally speeds that fast by myself take everything I've got). As long as I was surrounded by people, the ride was so increddibly enjoyable. Easy to pedal along with, etc etc... I guess that's way people stay in a large peleton in the big professional races. I don't blame them. All I have to say is I feel bad for the guys in front. Once I was due for riding in front, it was completely different... Keeping up that pace and cutting the wind spiked my heart rate up there pretty good. Then by the time my turn up front finished, the organization of the pack started to subside a little, needless to say, I never really recovered, and the nice shelter of the group was now gone :(. Still an enjoyable ride, and I'll be riding with them again. Its a good excuse to get myself up on weekends, and the morning ride doesn't seem to break up my day like the afternoon rides do. You can view the details over here if you are interested.

A Month Later....

Yeah, yeah, I know, its been a long time since I've posted here, and I apologize to those of you who stop by and see if I have posted anything recently. I don't have any excuses really, other than lack of creativity I suppose. I guess I figure my life is boring enough that its not worth posting about. Since my last post, I have ridding my bike several more miles. As of today, I have 637 miles recorded for the season on my bike. It seems weird to think that I've put on enough miles that I could have easily biked up to Rochester to see my Dad and back, and have miles to spare. I participated in the PA. State Police Metric Century ride last week, which put on 70+ miles. I've also been taking longer weekend rides to, which have involved going up and over the local ridge at least twice per ride. I'm actually really starting to like climbing hills on my bike. If you want to see where I've been riding, you can see my digest over at motionbased.

On another note, a few weeks ago, MR and I went down to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to do some hiking. I wanted to scope out some trails for group hike I'll be leading down there in June and check for some good camping spots. It was okay, Friday (the first day) was fun, and we saw some good stuff, and we made it to camp before it started raining, but then it rained all night and into the next day, and we got absolutely soaked. As usual I way overpacked, and had more stuff than I needed, which just absolutely destroyed my legs trying to keep up with MR's pace, who brought probably half as much as I did. Long story short, we hiked back to the car on Saturday, and went home, after stopping and eating a wonderful hot pizza.

Not much else is going on. Finally finished up Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University with our Small Group from church. Overall I'd have to say its a good program. Some of his stuff seems dated, but then again, I guess it is, as I think it was published around 2000. Its all good though. I'm really looking forwarding to paying off all my debt. I can't imagine what its going to be like not having any sort of "extra" payment. Its been a good wake up call, and I'm just glad that we (my wife and I) did something like this now, rather than later.

Not really planning much for the future either. I hope to make it back down to Shenandoah and finish what I had planned to do earlier. I think I can do it as a day hike, so hopefully I can take Jess and Geoffrey with me. Put Geoffrey on my back and we can hike it all. I think its about a 12 mile loop that's left, with one mountain climb in the middle. Should be doable for a day.

50 miles of LSD

The weather was great yesterday and just begging to be enjoyed, so MR and I decided to go for a nice LSD ride. He has a Triathlon coming up soon at Gifford Pinchot park, and wanted to go see what the bike leg is going to be like, so we rode down there, did about 1.5 loops, and rode back home. Totaling about 50 miles in just over 3 hours. We took our time. I was still recovering from last Thursdays racquetball game, followed by a bike ride on Friday that left me feeling awful. I managed to get a sunburn on my arms though... Oh the Horror! I got a sunburn in April. Guess I'll be working my way up to one of those cyclists tans soon.

Yup, you read that right, I tried to play racquetball against MR last Thursday. Its been several years since I've played, and I was never very good to begin with... So yes, of course I got beat, pretty bad actually, but it was nothing unexpected to me. MR seemed pretty happy that he beat me, but to me that's like saying that it felt great to beat a 10 year old in a 400 meter sprint... hehe. Oh well. He did manage to find a really good serve that I was having a difficult time returning, which was half my problem. So all in all, by the time Saturday rolled around, I could barely move, I can't believe all the muscles that got used playing that game. Crazy. It was fun none the less, and hope to play again.

Up and Over, times 4

So today 3 of us went out on a bike ride we like to call the quadruple bypass. There's a nice ridge near here that has some steep roads on it, with a 4 way intersection right at the top. Its always rewarding to get to go down the hill you just struggled to go up, but I have to say, it was a little cold today. I also decided to try wearing my HR strap on my back this time too. I think it works a lot better, normally with conditions like today, I would have gotten lots of false readings, but I don't see any this time.

I have to say, doing this ride already this early in the season, I'm pretty surprised with myself. It didn't feel nearly as bad as I remember it being last year. Maybe that's because I went up Millers Gap road twice already, and its grade makes this thing seem like a speed bump. I've decided Millers gap is as bad as I can handle right now, and these hills (sterrets gap) are just annoying. I probably could have gotten a better workout than I did, but I held back a little, mostly because I wasn't certain how the other legs of the climbs were going to be.

Mark couldn't make it out to ride with us because of a meeting, so he went out and rode our little TT course that we made up. I'm proud to announce that he didn't beat me (he's all bark anyway, Dog owners are like that). Granted, he was only slower by about 30 seconds, so I'll have to work to keep the title. I look forward to the friendly challenge this season. Especially when its warmer and the wind dies down. Good job Mark, not get that GPS unit working so we can dot race on motion based!

Friday afternoon prologue of sorts

So after talking with Mark, and trying to come up with a nice little course we can time trial on, we came up with a nice short little 10 mile course, that is pretty much a subsection of our default lunch ride. It kind of is like a little proglogue ride that they have at the beginning of those big fancy European races. I managed to get an 18.4 mph average speed, as per my Garmin Edge 305, though the data upload to motion based says its only 18.3 mph. I think it might have to do with the way auto pause works on the unit, as well is the distance discrepancy. Software says 10.57 miles, where as MB says 10.55. Either way I'm mostly happy with the results. I was aiming for a 19mph average... hopefully I can obtain at least that by this fall.

Yesterday, we also went up Millers gap again. That was also a good ride, I took my cyclocross bike though, since it has the triple chainring up front. I wouldn't say it was any less tiring on than my road bike, but it was nice to not have to do those little mini switchbacks. I felt like I was cheating though. Not sure why.

The weather is being wacky here too... in the high 70's on monday, now the mid 40's and super windy. Quite annoying. I wish it would just make up its mind. Or at least not be windy. I think the wind is my least favorite part about biking... give me hills any day over wind.

3 rides

Well, the weather has been really nice lately, and I have taken 3 bike rides since I have last posted. The first was last Friday, where I took a quick lunch ride around what I thought would be a short course. Turned out it was longer than I expected, but that's okay. Details here.

Second Ride was a nice long ride with Mark on Saturday, all in all, it was 38 miles for me. Lots of climbing. Ended up not realizing where I was half way through, I guess I didn't memorize the route well enough, so we didn't go where I planned. That's okay though, it was still fun. Just have to do the planned route next time.

Third ride was today. Did the normal (Default) Lunch time ride by myself. My Co-workers are to lazy to actually want to work out during the lunch period lately I guess. They keep giving me excuses, but I think they are just lazy. I rode the loop a little more aggressive than usual just to push myself. Didn't do to bad. 17.7 mph average, and that's with hills, and stopping/slowing for traffic and stuff. Mark thinks he can beat it (and he probably can) but he insists on shortening the loop first... Well of course you can beat it then Mark! So can I. So I guess I'll just have to go out there with him when he tries to do it. Draft him, then beat him in a sprint at the end... :) I know its not that nice, but its probably the only way I can do it. He is just way more cardiovascularly fit that I am. I think I have more power out of the saddle though... time will tell. And yes Mark, if you are reading this, I AM taunting you.... perhaps a 2nd time even!

I think I can, I think I can

So yesterday, Mark and I took a mid afternoon bike ride. You can see his comments on the ride here. I figured we would just do a normal route and glide along and have some fun.... but nooooo, Mark decides he wants to go to the top of the "hill" on Miller's Gap road. A road I have yet to make it up without dismounting.... So I figured what the heck. Needless to say, I had blast. I made it all the way up this time. Had to use a little trick that Mark taught me, that involved switchbacks up the road, but it gives you that 2 second rest you need to go up another 5 feet. Its quite a good feeling to make it up there, despite the fact that you physically feel like your heart's going to explode.

Speaking of heart rate. I really need to find a way to make mine work consistently. At least in cold weather. It doesn't seem like cold skin or something. As you can see from the HR graph on the motionbased page, it was all over, and 240 bpm isn't exactly realistic. I believe that could be classified as some sort of fibrilation, in which case you better be getting the AED. Oh well.

The weather is supposed to be near 60 today, but I'm stuck at a customer sight doing an install today. :-( Oh well. The weather will be getting nice soon, and I won't have be sad about missing the good days that we are having now.

Is it spring yet?

Since everyone else can't suck it up and ride in this slightly chilled weather, I ended up going out by myself today. Details here. I'm trying to get a handle on what's going on with my heart rate. It seems really easy to push it way up into the 170's. So I figured I would try and keep it right around 165 today, except for hill climbs. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be I guess. Anytime I felt like I was exerting any kind of energy to keep myself in a good exercise, fitness building pace, it would jump to 170+... If I relaxed it would drop to low 160's. Overall, I did okay, average HR of 167. But I don't feel like I really exerted myself. I could probably do that loop like that all day. Definitely, could have very easily held a conversation with someone. I guess the good thing though, is if you look at the HR graph it doesn't really have a negative sloping trend line this time (provided you ignore the sections where my heart should have exploded, I think caused by the cold air). I wonder if I set goals to high for myself sometime, but I'm a firm believer that if you aim low, you'll never push yourself to your fullest capability. I guess I'm also never satisfied with what I have either, always striving for better... Wonder if that's a healthy attitude. I think it gets me into trouble sometimes... Oh well.