Terry’s Worklog

So, the great recumbent roundup (aka, the Monster Cookie) was a rousing success. Kyle tried out his new high racer and got lots of looks. It’s a very unique, light (21 lbs) and fast bike. Both Kyle and I ended up doing a full century…100.4 miles to be exact. We padded about 18 on the front and then did the remainder on the way home.

I learned a few things about the recumbent that I hadn’t known before.

1. I have no confidence with it in large groups. We left later than we’ve ever left before (about 9:30 am) and the roads were packed. Going through Salem was a little disconcerting as I had people all around me and to be honest, I still haven’t completely mastered the art of starting and stopping on the bike with my clips on. Fortunately, no crashes, though I nearly fell over at a stop right when they were taking pictures for our local newspaper. Thankfully, I didn’t fall. Tipping over at a stop doesn’t really hurt anything but one’s pride, and the last thing I wanted was a picture to remember it by.
2. Kyle’s high racer rocks. My bike is a good little cruiser. I can ride about 20, 21 mph, but that’s flat out. The chain rings are just too small. Kyle’s high racer though is build for speed and I swear, has at least 8 gears past my highest. Then there is Bryan, who has a T-Bone, a freaky fast bike that he was suspiciously pacing himself with. This bike has gearing that both Kyle and I didn’t seem to have. This thing flies.
3. When you sunburn, you really sunburn. The weather wasn’t suppose to be that nice today, but it was gorgeous and I don’t thing any of us had sun tan lotion. Both Bryan and Kyle have darker skin than mine and tend to burn less often. I generally burn until I’ve built up my summer riding tan — and because of that, tend to wear sunscreen — especially this early in the season. However, on my diamond frame, burning is limited to the face, maybe the arms. On the recumbent, everything is fair game because you are essentially laying down as your ride. So my legs, my face, my arms — fortunately, its just a little pink (except for my legs, with are a bit brighter) — but I’ll remember that for next time and will be putting a bottle of sunscreen in the travel bag on the recumbent just in case.

Anyway, the ride was a real hit, and it was nice to get to stretch my legs a bit and finally put in an honest 100 miles. Oh, and back to Bryan. I’d mentioned that he seemed suspiciously pacing himself throughout the ride. Kyle and I found out why over the last 15 miles when he opened it up with the intended purpose of making us suffer. We did. Definitely a great way to start the cycling season.

–TR

So I’m just about ready to head out and do the Salem Monster Cookie, a metric century (60 miles) that takes you from Salem, Oregon north towards Portland, OR. It’s a nice easy ride that’s always a fun way to kick off the riding season. As past practice, a few of us will be turning this metric century into a true century by padding 20 miles to the beginning and end of the ride. And what do you get for finishing — why a monster cookie of course.

This will be new for me this year — I decided to take the recumbant on the ride, so we’ll have to see how that goes. The farthest I’ve ever ridden on the recombant is about 70 miles, so I’m curious to see how this feels over the course of 100 miles.

I’ll drop everyone a quick note after I’m done…

–TR

Most folks know, I love cycling and am probably one of a relatively few number of folks that commutes any real distance that actually puts more miles on their bike than they do in their car.  I was figuring it out last year:  ~15,000 miles for the bike, ~10,000 miles for the car.   

So when I buy equipment for my bike, I rarely skim on the essentials.  However, for a lot of components, much of the cost difference comes from weight and some extra durability of materials — something most normal folks wouldn’t notice or probably even care about (exactly how many hundreds of dollars is shedding a few grams worth to you ).  But the bike tires…that’s completely different.  Few things can make a commute miserable as a flat tire.  Since I bike year round, that means that 1/2 of year I’m riding in the dark, and the rain.  Stopping and trying to change a tire in that slop is not only time consuming but often times fruitless.  More than once have I pulled off a tire, changed it, only to have it flat 5 minutes later because some grime found its way into the inside of the tire (and how can it not in weather like this). 

So, the solution — Kyle had turned me on to the tires he rides in the winter, Schawalbe’s Marathon Plus.  These things are beasts of a tire (though I found a 700 x 25 to fit my bike) that I never really consider riding until I changed 3 flats in one day on relatively clean road.  Suddenly, adding a little extra weight to the bike didn’t seem so bad.

Well, its been almost 3 months and I finally got my first flat (which is coming close to unheard of.  I tend to throw out most tires after 4 months) and I’m impressed.   It was a slow leak that I actually managed to limp home on.  When I got home, I pulled a construction staple, ~1/2 long, from my tire.  It had just pricked the inner tube.  I love these things.  They’re a little spendy (as far as bike tires go) and I’ll only ride them in the winter (when flats are most plentiful) but am I ever glad that Kyle convinced me to get myself a set.  For any of you winter road warriors out there — they come highly recommended.

–TR

I’ve been starting to look this upcoming summer and trying to decide which century and double century rides I’ll be participating in this summer.  There a a few that I always ride in, like the Monster Cookie at the start of the year which is just a metric century and a good stretch of the legs, one’s that I want to make an annual ride like the STP (Seattle to Portland) and others that I rotate.  This year, I’m considering doing the Torture 10,000 again in Portland, a one day century that’s fairly hilly — but Kyle, he’s been trying to talk me into some fairly crazy stuff this year — and as much as it pains me now (and I’m sure later) to say it — I’ll probably do a few of them.  So far, Kyle’s been trying to talk me into doing The Ultimate Road Ride and the Death Ride.  Both look interesting — but they fall between the STP so I’ll likely only get to do one if either. 

The one that Kyle has been suggesting that I’m quickly warming up to is Everest Challenge.  This is a two day, 29,000 ft climb that I I know I couldn’t finish if I did it today, to be honest.  Day one is a 15,000 ft day — piece of cake (rriiighttt).  Pretty much like doing the Torture + one extra hill.  Day 2 — I shudder to think, but I have images of homer simpson, and a very sad, “doh” doing what would seem like 85 miles of straight climbing — oh, and I’m sure a few — “ah, cramp, cramp” would be sprinkled in as well.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t finish the whole ride — but I’m definitely thinking I’d like to try.  The problem is — I’ve got to decide to do it now — if I want to ride it.  I don’t get much hill riding living in the valley — and I’ll have to adjust my training over May – Sept. to get ready.  Plus — I’ve got to get out of the weight room and drop down to about 165 lbs (I ride at 175) to lighten my climb (yuck).  We’ll see.  I’m actually tenatively starting to train like I want to do it — changing my work out routine and calorie intake to start a gradule slimming down process.  This is something I usually start in around May, since my winter riding weight runs around 180, but I really need to start sooner than later if I want to do this ride.  I guess if all is looking good around May — I’ll start hitting Mary’s Peak and see if I really want to spend two days cycling, and hurting and probably throwing up.   I’ve always said part of the fun of cycling is the willingness to hurt just a bit — so we’ll see

–TR

Ah, enjoyed the first frosty ride of the morning today.  It was 37 degrees at my house and ~31-32 our on the highway (its actually interesting, I’ve found that temperature can vary by almost 10 degrees once you get out into the farmland) making the farm land a very sparkly white.  Fortunately, I grabbed some warmer close before heading out this morning, but still was brisk. 

–TR

I’ve been playing with the Microsoft Live Writer and have been itching to include a map into one of my posts.  So here’s a good one.  Here’s a map of my daily commute — 50 miles, round-trip down hwy. 99.  It’s actually a fantastic ride — with mostly courteous drivers (till you hit Corvallis anyway) — and fairly scenic.  I figure, I save myself ~1000 commuting miles per month between the months of April – October, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 miles per month during the winter months (when I commute with friends a couple of days a week to avoid the cold). 

–TR

I was only a matter of time — but I finally broke down and took the family down to the coast to do some blackberry picking.  You see, in riding my bike between Independence and Corvallis every day, I get to smell the blackberries along side the road.  Now, I wouldn’t eat any of the berries along side the road (for fear that someone might have sprayed them), but oh, they make my ride smell like someone is always cooking blackberry pie.  My wife’s been a good sport about the whole thing — as our conversations when I first come into the door have been something along the line of…”Mummm…I could almost taste the blackberries today.  I wonder where we could go to find some around here” and so forth.  Unfortunately, outside of a farm, I’m not really sure I’d pick berries from anywhere near by — since there is a very real chance the that city, state or even nearby private property owners could have sprayed them.  Also, I’m really more into the eating and possibly the picking, of blackberries.  The actual making of the pie is a bit outside my cooking expertise.  I don’t do pastries well — because I don’t like to measure things.  Dinners, etc…these meals rarely require precise measurements, but pastries I’ve found, really tend to. 

Anyway, about two weeks ago, I finally decided that I couldn’t go without some blackberries.  So, my wife, bless her heart, found that the blackberry festival in Coos Bay was going on over the 26th-27th.  So, we packed up the kids and drove down for a visit.  The festival was fun, visiting family was great — but I now have enough blackberries for 4 pies in the freezer….Mummm.  So mission accomplished.

–TR

This weekend, Kyle Banerjee and I drove down to Shasta for the Shasta Super Century.  This is a 135 mile, 16,500 ft vertical gain ride the finished with a quad-burning ride up Mt. Shasta.  This was a ride that I’d been looking forward too but apparently my body wasn’t.  About 6 miles into the first major climb (10 mile, 3800 ft. climb) my back knotted up.  I managed to finish up the hill and figured that maybe this would stretch itself out with a few ibprofin.  I took 4, costed down the hill and made my way to the next rest area.  After a quick water break, we started up the next major climb.  ~10 miles up, I just about fell off my bike as my body said no more.  My back was in knots — I could peddle no further.  I limped my way back to the finish line, finishing only 85-90 miles of the 135 mile course.  After an hour in the bed of the pickup, my back finally stop spasming enough for me to go change and wait for Kyle to finish the ride.  And finish he did.  He finished in ~13 hours and still standing.  I wish I could have rode in with him.

Anyway, this was a disappointing way to finish my big ride session.  I’ll do maybe two more centuries this year, but none of them that are this challenging.  As to why my body had so much trouble, I’m not sure.  The distance wasn’t a problem (I’ve ridden further) and the hills shouldn’t have been a problem (at least the first 3) as I’ve ridden equivalents.  The nearest I can tell is that either:

• I didn’t train well enough for this particular ride — which might have been the case.  I was really focused this year on training for the STP — and that ride turned out as good as I could have asked.  I was able to do it fast and easy.  But I really haven’t done many hill workouts and that might have bit me.
• Bike fitting…I’d actually lowered my bit handlebars the day of the ride in order to give myself a more agressive bike position.  I’ve done this before on flat courses – but I think that the extra torque that this put onto my back probably caused the problem.  I probably shouldn’t have made this change the day of.

Anyway, look like next year I’ll be going down to Shasta to finish this ride.  I’d never not finished a ride and I owe this mountain a climb.  So I guess I’ll be visiting Shasta again next year to give this another go.

–TR

Today, for the first time, I found myself on a recumbant.  A friend of mine had one that he was able to setup for me and let me tool around in it as we took an extended ride.  Definitely different.  When I first got on, I couldn’t figure out how I was going to be able to right the bike given the difference center of gravity — but after a few miles and a climb — I really got the hang of it.  Then the cool part was my friend let me borrow the bike.  So its going to become my part-time commuter.  Given the different muscles being worked, I figured it will help make me a bit for well rounded.  Plus, the bike is a kick to ride.  If you do any cycling — I highly recommend trying one.  Just don’t get frustrated right away with how different an unstable it feels.  That feeling goes away after putting a few miles on the bike.  I’ll be taking a ride tomorrow — so if I remember, I’ll snap a picture of the bike.
–Terry