your daily bicycle log

curse you, trying to buy some el duke has led me to seeing things like this

Laden = lock, water, repair gubbins, pump, other bits & bobs for meeting my sister on the way back home...

second fucking rain ride in a row, jesus christ.

MANY BABYWIPES HAVE DIED THIS EVENING TO CLEAN THESE BIKES

yesterday: climbing
today: more climbing

legs: burning

Did the Puncheur Sportive today: 69 hilly miles in 4 hours 22 mins (including stops). There was a fair bit of black ice about - I saw five people crash and we had to dismount a walk for a bit. The finish was up Ditchling Beacon - horrible, horrible, horrible. I managed to keep riding all the way up and overtook everyone I saw on the climb, but I felt awful.

Having biked up ditchling beacon at a leisurely pace you have my sympathies

Total Elevation Gain week of 3/1 - 3/7/10 (2 short rides, 2 long rides):

19,722ft/6,011m

is that using an altimeter type thing, or ? no matter how you slice it thats a shitload, congrats.

somewhere i posted the hunter climbing calculation rules once. like, less than 200ft vert in one go? doesn't count. less than 4%? dont bring that.

that's from the Garmin data.

longest climb was 3.3 miles at 7.4% (1300ft) which suckkkkkkkkkked.

oh stop ;)

http://www.paloaltobicycles.com/ringmap/gradient.jpg

A lovely evening ride was ruined just now by being accosted by a large gang of feral East End Glasgow teenagers who saw fit to pelt me about the head with various random objects to the point of bleeding.

It's not too bad after a nice hot shower and sit down, but still... bastards.

argh

what?! some fucking dystopic nightmare shit.

That's Glasgow's East End for you. Sometimes.

It's sore, but fine now, they just caught me some belters about the ear from ridiculously close range after running out into the road to get at me.

yeah I've had something similar happen in Chi (didn't connect tho), and knew plenty of ppl who encountered it with regularity

also: clean chain and frame alignment equals silky smooth drivetrain, it's wonderful. also switched to friction shifting after failing to get indexing working properly and I think I like it better?

Spent my lunch hour (+1/2) pootling like a vicar iirc.

lol

Re: Krakow - ouch, sorry to hear that.

I've got the official results in from Sunday's sportive now and me being me, I've bunged them into a spreadsheet and analysed them. On Sunday I was a bit disappointed that I'd only managed to shave 2 minutes off my time from last year, but I now realise it was much tougher this year than last: the median time was 23 minutes longer, and less than 5% of the riders got 'gold standard' (less than 4 hours), compared to nearly 20% last year. Last year I 'beat'* 55% of the riders, this year I 'beat'* 82%.

* I know technically it's not a race, but everyone's trying to finish it as fast as they can.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2804/4421799445_5cb8a956d3.jpg
(me nearing the top of the brutal final climb with 70 miles in my frozen legs)

Did 31 miles this morning in cold, windy Essex. Not much fun. I'll be glad when Spring finally appears.

duuuuuuuuudes

google maps finally has a "by bicycle" feature when yr getting directions.

* I know technically it's not a race, but everyone's trying to finish it as fast as they can.

Interesting. I don't think this is necessarily true. Yes, I want to finish in as good a time as possible; but if I was focused on that for the whole 100 miles or whatever, I think I'd go mad. What I want *most* out of a sportive is a fun, new experience in the fresh air while doing something I love with friends.

cosine.

i'm trying to get the best coffee, not the best time.

duuuuuuuuudes

google maps finally has a "by bicycle" feature when yr getting directions.

― nitzer ebbebe (gbx), Wednesday, March 10, 2010 7:37 AM (58 minutes ago)

is this the same as "Avoid Major Highways" or have they tapped into dedicated bike routes, trails and such?

trails, bike lanes, etc.

i just mapped my usual commute (which is like 5 miles of path, half mile of street) and it got it just right

neat, will try it out.

What I want *most* out of a sportive is a fun, new experience in the fresh air while doing something I love with friends.

Both of those things sound good, but probably tricky to fit them in what with all the cycling.

i dont have a general policy about how hard i ride something like that-- its not like i wanna quick time, its that i wanna "win" any hill or sign sprint thats contested by the group. and im happy to yak all u want, but please, NO STOPS unless piss or mechanical or dire hunger knock. generally hate hate stopping for over 2 minutes.

this is why training by oneself, if training is the objective, is superior. when you have a program, groups can derail the program. and it is why bike racing as an objective can steal the joy from your riding hobby, at least ime. youre doing work.

Yeah - it's like when I was making decent $$$ playing online poker - it became a job, an expectation, not a fun hobby.

ha hunt3r otm. HATE riding with groups. i turn down all my team's group rides. much rather go out by myself or one other like minded individual with similar fitness and training goals. NO STOPPING. NO LOOKING AT STUFF. NO MUFFINS.

and yeah its work

cutty doing work, a ilx joint

ok i saw a shit brown kona ute in the racks today, and while i dig the philosophy, i feel like if youre gonna ride that, you have to prove you need it by carrying, say, a 900 lbs sow in a cage.

Now I'm back on the slicks I can feel some of the horrorshow of my drivetrain through my feet. Bottom bracket is very gravelly.

did a nice 42 miles. first trip up to 8400 feet of the season. the extra mass slows me down, but my lower back and my core generally felt really solid. no aches, no squirming around on the climbs. it was almost warm in town (low 50s), but they still tons of snow on top, and low 40s.

One of the most beautiful rides of my life.

60 of us rode from San Francisco to Santa Cruz which is 92 miles over mostly rollers with 4 major climbs (~6500 feet of total elevation gain). I averaged 19.1mph which is definitely my biggest effort to date for a ride of this caliber. the ride was casual but there were 3 competitive segments:
a 1.2 mile uphill "sprint"
a 3.3 mile climb over a mountain pass (1300 feet ascent @ 7.5% grade)
a 7.2 mile rolling, twisty and technical "GC" stage

I placed 3rd in the sprint (24.7mph), 12th in the climb (8.6mph) and 2nd in the GC stage (23.9mph). I won a cool computer bag, a winter beanie, and a cookbook. :o)

Not that it counted but I finished 3rd overall. I felt insanely great until about 85 miles and then my legs just started aching and I eased up which may have cost me my 20mph average trip speed.

We ended up at a gastropub in Santa Cruz with gourmet burgers and pitchers of beer in the sun... Then we loaded our bikes into a truck fitted for bike transport and boarded a bus back to the city.

Good times but I will sleep very deeply tonight.

that sounds dang wonderful

like srsly

very impressive

that sounds really fun. was there a field size limit, cause it seems like a pretty marketable event?

nice riding.

awesome!!!

That sounds rather wonderful.

Well done too.

still tryna get comfortable on tt bike so did moderate 26 miles on it with some hard 3 minute efforts. 34 deg with terrible 15-20 mph wind out of the north and spitting snow. my northbound sections were at a whopping 17 mph and painful as hell.

taking tt saddle recommendations cutty

Get the heaviest saddle you can find (for training purposes) ;-)

i know! right now the "taint shredder" saddle is not making it. i could probly do 40k on it, but.... fortunately the tt races im doing are really short, like 16k.

this seems like a good tt saddle but $290, yeeeeesh.

had fairly uninspiring week of riding - work and back, getting groceries, that was about it. luckily i have lollerdays from friday for a week and a bit.

ha i almost brought up the fact that said saddle costs about 2x what i paid for my frameset.

out for a couple laps this morning before dawn on the usual route. several packs of cyclists out on thr rollers - thought they'd all be off hammering the north road group ride, so was a bit of a shock to be honest.

might take the camera next time, it's quite spectacular!