your daily bicycle log

So nice biking into work this morning, crisp, bright sunny, I should move further away from work.

apparently there is a vicar convention, cuz mpls be pootlin'

creek path was dangerously jammed. i think i saw a fucking rollerblader

>:o

sorry butthurt rollerbladers u_u

ha, i still have a pair of the 1980s first gen laceup rollerblades and busted them out when teaching my kid to ride a bike

then i cranked up a boombox and roller jammed on my corner

[WARNING LONG]

So there is the famous ridge just north of SF called the Marin Headlands, in fact the Golden Gate Bridge spans right across to it. It's the southern most part of the Marin County peninsula, a county which is 80% national forest and where most of us city folk go to ride bikes. It's very hilly and picturesque as it has the Pacific Ocean to the west, the SF Bay to the east, the Napa and Sonoma wine country to the North, and SF across the Golden Gate Bridge to the South.

Here's a big pic for perspective: http://marinphotoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/BonitaGoldenGate.jpg
and here's a smaller pic to show perspective on the climb/grade/route: http://www.gatetrails.com/photos/slackerhill.jpg

2 times a week, my club has a 6:15am dawn ride where we spin across town and the bridge, then attack the undulating climb (1.7 miles, avg. grade of 5.7% with some 8% sections), we regroup at the top and then depending on weather or everyone's mood/fitness, either turn back home or loop down and attack the climb from the backside which is shorter but steeper (1.4 miles at a steady 8.1%).

HOWEVER, the Golden Gate National Park is closing the top 1/3 of the climb (which really has the dopest views of SF imo) for 28 weeks starting April 1st, 2010. So our club decided to throw a going-away/farewell ride where you could do the climbs @6:15am (and then celebrate with coffee/donuts) or @5:30pm (champagne!)... or hey, why not both?

So I decide to the morning ride, but one problem. There is a storm the night before the ride. We had a couple short showers the night before but I'm awakened before my 6am alarm (which is rare) to the sound of high winds and sideways rain pummeling my bedroom windows @ 5:30am. Does not bode well. All the sudden, my phone is blowing up with emails from the club listserve saying "rain or shine", "rain does NOT cancel" etc. Hardcore! The storm passes quickly and by the time I'm dressed and heading to my join point, you can actually see the clouds parting and the pre-dawn glow peaking through.

By my join point, the group is 20 riders strong, already shattering the previous record of 14 riders for the AM dawn ride which we end up doubling with 28 total. At our last group point before the climb we stop for a group photo (the club founders are tailing us in car taking pics/video), I notice as we pull off that I have a slow leak in my rear tire. I do a quick squeeze and estimate I'm at ~80psi which given the conditions is not horrible, but I take the rear of the group to be safe.

First climb I do in 8:52 (avg speed/power: 11.3mph/343W). I'm absolutely pushed to my fitness limits. I place in the top 10 but I'm about 14 seconds off my PR disappointingly as I thought I'd have a shot at breaking it. I borrow a hand pump from a fellow rider which shows perhaps the reason why: 60psi reading from the gauge. So I try to get it my rear tire to at least 90psi for the backside but on one of my last 2-3 pumps the nipple breaks off the nozzle, and my tube (also my spirit) goes limp. To add insult to injury, it begins raining. I change my flat in the rain and decide to abandon this mission and come back for the afternoon session.

[ffwd about 8 hours]

it's actually been a nice day and i have to HUSTLE to get to the meeting spot by 5:30pm. I pick up 2 other stragglers on our 6 mile path to the foot of the Headlands and thankfully, one of the dudes is right about my fitness, maybe a little better. So as we're about 2 minutes away, still on the bridge and approaching the start of the climb, we see the lead group of 24 riders go off. FUCK! We don't want to kill ourselves because we're already pushing it and we want to save our watts for the hill. So the other dudes and I slow it down a little and I even pop a clif blox with a little caffeine.

The first part of the hill is really steep and convex. At about 1/3 of the way (2-3mins in), my legs are screaming and I'm already sucking wind. I'm thinking that I may have given too much in the morning ride and it's gonna be tough from here all the way up, but the other dude is right on my wheel and I've got a good cadence going that will get me to the top.

I give it everything and finish with 8:43 for the frontside (11.5mph, 347W). Still 5 seconds off my PR which I did with 10 less bpm... so kinda dissapointing. But I finished in the top 5 for the day (including against some cat 3 climber dudes) for the frontside.

So we wind down the beautiful but scary steep coastal descent (*trying to find on youtube*) and then hit the back. This climb is tougher: it's steady and never has any forgiving segments. After my two earlier efforts, I'm not sure what I have left but I settle into a decent cadence and just start chipping away, using my altimeter as a countdown. Like the frontside, my breathing quickly becomes forced and I'm just trying to stay smooth, efficient and keep the pedalstroke firm and spinning. The guy from the frontside was on my ass again until the last 100meters and he reached back and launched an out of the saddle sprint out to catch a guy ahead of us that I just watched dumbfoundedly.

I ended up breaking my PR on the backside by a minute (I never really took it seriously). But I looked at an effort I had done late last year and I had very similar heartrate and was almost two minutes slower. Also I put out 368W for almost 9 minutes which is a lot for me.

Overall, I logged the 5th best combined times on both climbs which, for a non-climber, I'm pretty surprised with. Still it's early in the year and I may have been pressing more than most guys were. I'm a little disappointed I didn't PR both climbs as that was a goal but I'll settle for the higher place then I thought I'd come in at.

Steve, what size frame do you ride? (I'd ask the rest of you but Steve is the only one of you I've met in the flesh)

(Still struggling with this modern style small bike riding, my bike shop owning grandfather would never have approved; unless you were in danger of cracking your nuts on the top tube every time you stopped, the bike was too small)

i ride a 57cm (bianchi measure) but i went through a whole proper frame sizing/fitting. Although I'm on the taller side, my legs are not as long as you'd imagine (think michael phelps, well w/o the olympian fitness that is). my commuter bike is a 58cm, but my bike before that was also a 57cm bianchi.

I did the competitive cyclist fit calculator and it has me right down on a 56cm. My Surly is a 60cm and I accept that it is very big (and comfortable). Basically the CC fit puts me on the BMC SLT01 55cm frame (using top tube length as the main sizing criteria, as recommended) but this seems very we to me.

That said my Merckx is a 58 and that seems a little large.

okay i promise i'll never write a lengthy DBL again!

today 65 miles group ride with 7 efforts* broke up thus:

2x5m, 1x10m, 1x5m, 1x10m, 1x5m, 1x10m, 2x5m

efforts were race pace including climbs or pacelines over rollers.

afterwards/during, i felt taxed but after looking at my times/speed/power, i have really improved a huge bit over a month ago. could be the benefit of a shorter ride?

[9 efforts* ]

dumb commuter question: are the (non-paceline) "efforts" a group thing? like, is it like "everybody go we're gonna hammer for 10min" or is everyone on their own training ish and just suddenly go off the front or something?

yeah, speaking via my naive training regiment experience, our efforts are built on established stretches of rollers or climbs. non-paceline efforts (basically climbs) are at your own pace but there are a group of about 5 of us that are all around the same fitness and are pretty good at pushing each other and feeding off each other. most of our climbs/stretches that we build are rides around are conveniently like ~5/10min length (give or take) but today we were watching our clocks pretty diligently, esp on the pacelines (15secs at established pace then off and back).

and our club regroups often (every 30-60mins depending on terrain) so its not like we are looking to shatter the field but we also like to flex our fitness as we track our times on climbs and over segments. also we are all pretty much competitive sons of bitches.

Another Glasgow Alleycat last night - 6 stops all over the city, fastest times of 40 minutes or so, spotting animals fixed to posts outside specific named buildings, and collecting a tube ticket in order to finish. It was a long, tough race, but great fun.

I got 8th spot (albeit in a much smaller field), but am pleased with the effort and posted a respectable time.

What larks.

i had an antique double chairlift at eldora spike me in the calf muscle so goddamn hard while helping my 4 y/o load up that im wondering if ill be pain free by wednesday (my first tt race this year). charlie horse extraordinaire.

I have aquired a mild but annoying bruise on the left achilles which is refusing to fade.

20km of rollers to warm up, then up this. that fucken 9% pinch, ugh. this is the area that got hit by the bushfires last year that you might've heard about; burned-out trees from the pinch all the way to near kinglake itself near the top, where the trees and ferns have regrown again.

Changed my route home to be my normal route to work which meant I had to go up the short but steep herron avenue hairpins, instead of the much gentler, 39th/ Penn Av. Was very pleased to make it up relatively easily.

First time on the fixie this year, shocking. Remembered just how shit the roads are here, like sitting on a pneumatic drill. More afraid for my life than when mtbing, in places.

Where are you, ledge?

75km training loop mostly on bike paths - first twisty, then straight and fast, then twisty again with some rolling altitude changes. briefly on the worst road in the city again - 3km of the fucken worst potholes!!

xp, London. Blackfriars is my main spot for crossing the river, and north and south of the bridge, and up Ludgate Hill, it's a nightmare. They have just resurfaced the nearest major junction by my place at Waterloo tho.

Yeah, I just assumed it'd be London. It's like the surface of the moon in places.

Speaking of which, and as it's that time of year, spent Friday evening watching youtube footage from Sunday in Hell. Must have been posted here before somewhere, so I won't do it again. But really is a fantastic documentary.

On holiday, so have managed 153 miles in the last week (which is pretty good by my standards). This included a hard solo training ride where I did 25 miles at 19.2mph average speed (compared to my normal trainig speed of 17mph) and the evil 17% climb in Steyning, Sussex again.

After a warm week with a light breeze, cold and drizzly for my first long ride on the BMC, decided to try some of the other tarmac bike trails in the city, I now realise why no one uses them, they only link at one end which led to some portaging over rail lines. Nice riding once you get on them though. Not the quality workout I was hoping for, should have worn tights I think. Savage headwind along the rivers. However, happy to know that I am starting out being able to spin along at 32km/h on the flat.

Speaking of flats, I flatted a mile from home, nice little snakebite, started to drizzle as I fixed. Chance of snow tonight, damned weather.

Working on even cadence today

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4531768011_537480abe9_o.jpg

Freaking cold again and worse winds than yesterday. Braved 40km of it before calling it a day. Need to start throwing some hills and intervals into the mix.

leaving work to go ride. hardcore. with a 4 y/o and 6 y/o.

so the final piece of the puzzle arrived yesterday, look pedals and mavic road shoes from france, out before the volcano. Had a lovely ride this morning, although downtown pittsburgh traffic was not the place to learn about one sided pedal. However coming home was awesome, didn't matter that every light on my route home was against me, every single one red, the climb out of the valley was just the best, so fast, so smooth. Revelling in the warm evening, knowing that I have a bike someone won the tour on (ok so floyd was disqualified, but it wasn't the bike's fault). I now have no excuses not to get better and have huge amounts of fun.

making time for an hour and a half on the bike before work tomorrow

u r an inspiration bro

downtown pittsburgh traffic was not the place to learn about one sided pedal

plenty of stop-start practice at clipping in and out! i had similar concerns before starting w/ clipless, but it has been surprisingly easy to adapt. haven't done a horizontal trackstand yet either.

I think it's worse coming from crank brothers because the pedal is always there, something to clip into, right there, so I just put my foot down and end up sliding off the wrong side. Need to remember to flick and clip as with regular pedals with clips.

Such a good feeling clipped in, no power seems to be going missing from the system. Getting increasingly aggravated with crank brothers, the cleats wear too quickly (also I think that after 7 years or so the springs are not up to snuff).

cheap crank bros are the worst.

I now have no excuses not to get better and have huge amounts of fun.

cheers to that! stoked 4 u~

i cant believe crank bros have even been around 7 years- i remember them showing up and going WOW. well, i also remember speedplays showing up and going WOW. ok, really, i also remember spd's showing up and going WOW (and breaking my femur on the first edition 747s). so so old and tired. could sleep a million years.

damn homie what was it like when dirt came out

40.4 miles today at 18.7mph average speed. I drove out to the countryside and rode from there: it's so great not to have to deal with all the traffic lights on my way out of and back into London, and to get away from the usual roads and out onto country lanes where you see about one car every ten minutes.

Almost a carbon copy today: drove out to the same spot, rode in the same general area (but changed the route) in the same glorious spring sunshine. Managed to do 36.5 miles at an astonishingly high average speed of 19.7mph without even really pushing it.

i rolled around for a bit today but the crit circuit (where i wanted to do SECRETE POWERCLIMB TRAINING) was busy with someone learning to drive and then the weather turned a bit sketchy. will try again tomorrow i think.

Headed out of town for a long period which means time off the bike which I'm not exactly thrilled about. Weather forecast looked superb, so it called for something special. My previous longest ride was 200km so I decide to test myself with an impromptu sesquicentury, making sure that I had enough water and nutrition onboard as I left the house. I laid down three goals: stay in the little ring no matter what (no matter how tempting), try to keep saddle time under 9 hours (16.7mph avg), and total time under 10 hours (15mph avg including stops/breaks).

I head north @ 9am, adding in scenic loops here and there to tack on extra miles as I get out of the city. I try to keep my HR under 67% of max for the first 40 miles as it's pretty flat and the route I'm improvising will have quite a bit of climbing between miles 65 through 125. I take my first stop after 40 miles to refill my water bottles (switching from pure h2o to gatorade) and pull off my arm/knee warmers.

It is absolutely stunningly gorgeous out. California's state flower is the golden poppy and they are just starting to bloom. Something about the fresh green grass, baby blue sky and golden poppies bursting in bloom made a really nice backdrop, even enough to make me disregard what normally would be deemed an annoying headwind.

My first real climb is the Marshall Wall about a mile and a half of undulating 4-9% grade which comes at mile 65. This grade separates the coast from the inland valleys of Sonoma County. I take it pretty easy, just shift down to my granny gear, spin and take my first Gu. There is a reason that they call this hill the Marshall "WALL" and I don't want to get to ambitious with a lot of riding left to do in the day.

After the climb there is a long fast descent to the coast. It's a bit taxing because I'm topping 40mph through some technical curves. Once I hit the coast I'm in heaven. Beautiful ocean/bay to my right (think Hitchcock's "The Birds") dotted with oyster farms and shacks, rolling hills and best of all, an epic tailwind for about 25 miles as I head south down the coast. As tempting as it is to just plow through, I stop around mile 80 to grab a quick lunch (kind bars, banana, refill my magic mixture of 2:1 gatorade:energy drink) and make a nature stop.

I'm back on the bike and nestling comfortably in the tailwind but I know my fortunes are soon to change as I know I have my biggest climb, Mt. Tamalpais looming on the horizon. Over 2,000 feet in 7 miles, an average of 5.5% grade with some 8-9% sections. I'm back in my granny gear, zip my jersey down to my navel and alternating between in/out of saddle as I'm starting to suffer from ass fatigue. Okay here is the crazy thing, I stop regulating my HR around this point and at this point am just ~riding~: I set my PR up the first 4 mile segment (note, I've never really attacked this climb), but on the top segment (the top 3 mile segment which is part of a commonly ridden loop approaching from a different direction), I set my 2nd fastest time (nowhere near my PR, like 1:15 off) even though I'm 95 miles into my ride.

I descend into Mill Valley and do a couple quick climbs over and back a hill I'm pretty familiar with. There are some afternoon riders out now and I hold off their attacks. I log my 9th best and 6th best times on each respective climb. I begin calculating my mileage remaining to hit the sesqui. I've got 120 miles in the bag but I'm about 10 miles from home. My avg mph is only about 16.3 and I still have a bit of climbing to do to get back in the city so I decide to get as close to home as possible and hit this flat loop in the park where I can avg about 18mph and not worry about city traffic.

I climb the Sausalito to Golden Gate Bridge hill which is probably one of my most ridden climbs. My bike computer which I've had since September 2009 says I've climbed this route 47 times. On my club rides, this climb is almost always the scene of many attacks as it's the last place to put in a really monster effort before you're back in the city. So I'm basically trying to tell you that I've boogied up this hill quite a bit. I pass this guy on the flat before the hill wearing vintage italian kit on a vintage colnago with downtube shifters. for some reason, these guys always intimidate me. i take off up the climb and i imagine he's breathing down my neck, mocking my carbon fiber frame and choice of 00s components in a european-accented voice. Once I hit the top and turn around and don't see anyone... okay I've got an overactive imagination. More craziness: this was my 6th fastest time up this climb... after 200km on the day.

So I make my way to the Golden Gate Park, find my course and run into some riders I know who are doing their evening slow spin session. They do an early morning high-intensity spin/interval class and then in the evening do low intensity, easy riding for an hour on the same loop. Fortunately for me their easy-riding is about 18-19mph so I can hang and chat it up which is helpful as I've spent the majority of the day talking to myself or the cows along the road. I *try* not to do any drafting but I find myself falling prey to that temptation a couple of times and then pull wide. My ass is killing me, every lap I get out of the saddle and stand to get any relief I can.

At about 147.5 miles, I pull off the loop and head home, I'm shot. Nothing left. When I stop in front of my house I sit down for a minute or two on the stairs to regroup, something I haven't done in a very long time, since I first started riding. Final numbers:

Distance: 151 mi
Elapsed Time: 10:04:14
Moving Time: 09:04:58
Resting Time: 00:59:16
Total Elevation Gain: 9,757 ft
Average Speed: 16.6 mph (max 42.4 mph)
Average Watts: 171 (max 602)
Average Heart Rate: 124 bpm (max 172)

much of my ride intersected with this (for visual effect):
http://vimeo.com/6540552

I did my normal saturday morning loop (55 miles around North San Diego county) counter-clockwise for the first time ever, and it was like riding on completely new roads. Really strange. I even had to double back one time because I missed a turn. Amazing weather, amazing scenery today, like Shasta said, poppies in full bloom. Really really nice.

Did about 10 miles around town yesterday and today. Waterloo->serpentince->brixton->wloo, and wloo->liverpool st->regents park->wloo. Exceeding small beer I know but I'm just glad to be out on the bike and off the buses and tubes. I have a 30 mile offroad event on sunday which I am feeling exceeding ill-prepared for...

ugh @ "exceeding" * 2

posting to this thread after reading shasta's rides is like posting to a music thread w/scott seward

daaaaaang

shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasta brother thats sick. ive never ridden that far in a ride!

curious to see what this embed instruction actually puts in... (its my ride today)

<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/31130919'>;</iframe>

that was grand.