your daily bicycle log

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.

fwiw

Distance: 26.09 mi
Time: 01:12:48 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 912 ft
Avg Speed: 21.5 mph
Avg HR: 153 bpm
Calories: 912 C

shasta u appear to have peaked your form nicely for the giro

I did a mid-afternoon lap of the Richmond Park gravel path (not road) and despite being a) on the slick 23mm-tyred fixie and b) among lots of bike and ped traffic, I smashed my lap record by 40 seconds to record 29.05. I've no idea how!

Distance: 22.09 mi
Time: 01:09:36 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 1,736 ft
Avg Speed: 19.1 mph
Avg HR: 128 bpm

no time for real rides this weekend :(

shiiiiii- that's epic shasta

Not trying to show anyone up, one year ago I was an average joe commuter bugging cutty every 10 mins on IM with annoying roadie questions. I've since cut that down to every 10 hours. All y'all's have inspired me to ride long and hard.

I have a few key rides coming up in the next few weeks and I'll try to log those here. Try to get some pix/vidz as well.

this was me yesterday: meandering loop with a lot of it on tight-ish paths, so i wasn't hammering. started just after 1pm with blue skies and a bit of a breeze, finished in darkness and on-off showers. i managed to get lost for half an hour when i should've crossed a road, i also had the stem faceplate come loose on a sweeping downhill right @ 60kmh+. o_O took five and a half hours (stops for rest, fuel, re-tightening stem bolts, getting bearings back when lost).

dist: 85.24km
moving time: 4:19:39
avg spd: 19.7km/h
avg HR: 147 bpm
1981 calories, om nom nom

Getting antsy as was in chicago all weekend so no biking and have to drive to York, PA today so no biking today or tomorrow.

holy balls "steve"!

Put the tri-bars on this morning in anticipation of a time trial I'm doing on Sunday. For the third time in a row I drove out to Essex and did a loop in the countryside, making the most of the last of the good April weather (the weekend is forecast to be relentlessly cold and wet, so my time trial won't be a lot of fun). I started off fairly gently then started to wind it up a bit on the tri bars. Did the first 10 miles in 29.17 and by 18 miles I'd got the average speed up to 21.4mph. After that I eased off for a bit (partly because I didn't know where I was). Did 25 miles in about 1:13.30. Stopped off at a shop to buy some water as I'd finished my energy drink and realised I was still in with a shout of an average speed of 20mph, so I dug deep and gave it everything for the last 7 or 8 miles (into a headwind) and managed it.

Distance: 42.09 miles
Time: 2 hours 6 mins 17 seconds
Average speed: 20.0 mph
Route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3681998

yeah can't be fucked to cycle up to kilburn today

Pause midway through Saturday's ride (in a village called High Easter):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3536/4560392659_d7b348751a.jpg
and pause midway through today's ride (in a village called Great Easton):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/4561021240_0e5dab6d5a.jpg

Time: 02:24:00
Distance: 40.75 mi
Elevation Gain: 3,786 ft
Calories: 1,366 C

the temp at home: 63 deg
air temp while descending at 40mph from 8400 ft: 42 deg

froze my damn knuckles and toes off.

very persistent drizzle today, I think I need to man up and go out, it's not exactly cold.

Maybe after laundry and the Tour de Romandie Highlights.

Muddiest ride of my life today. We were going to do three out of a possible seven laps of ten miles each - not too much of a struggle you would think, even in my current not so fit state. We managed one, and that took 1h 45. Basically almost all of the course was a mudbath, most of the time it was slidy wet mud that sent you skidding all over the shop, but they occasionally mixed it up with some drier stuff that was like riding through a grow bag, even on the flat it felt like you were struggling up a steep incline. I maybe could have attempted another lap but one of our party was exceedingly unhappy so we decided to call it a day, and when i got back on the bike, albeit after cooling down for 20 minutes, it felt like the right decision. When I got back to the car I was scraping mud off my legs with a stick.

today:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/31994726

weekend totals spread across 2 club rides with "race-effort" segments:

185.9 miles
17.1 mph
12,537 net elevation gain

i attacked, and attacked and attacked the climbers in the cross wind. there was no way i could stay with them up the big climbs so i tried to tactfully get away at the right moment before a big climb to get an edge and cross the top around the same time. i hit 32-33mph in a sprint coming out of the paceline which is a landspeed record for me on flat land. felt good after a week off the bike, but i am sore and wiped out. i need a couple days off for sure.