your daily bicycle log

I'm totally at Hyde park corner, hopped up on caffeine laden jelly beans.

I ran into jaxon last night on an evening spin session. He is still a lycraphobe.

ha. one day...

dont make us repost forever in blue jeans

Did 26 miles before 9.30am today. Pleased with that. Set a couple of personal bests, too: 10 miles in 36 minutes, 20 kilometres in 47.

Still having trouble working out how I can cruise at 18/20 mph in the last 5 or so miles of a 75 miler when I can't do that on my commute. It was at about half 8 so it's not like the roads were empty.

group?

we were pretty strung out at that point, although I did have a target to chase, maybe that was it? That or delerium.

Map of the ride is here:
http://www.gpsies.com/mapOnly.do?fileId=mmpiabepjnojkpmq&isFullScreenLeave=true

I think I prefer hills in the dark, I can't see the top and so don't get psyched out.

Rode an easy 30 miles up and down the coast today, the first ride in 5 weeks since breaking my collarbone in a crash. So stoked.

nice, congratulations.

i rode out into a dim, chilly 45 degree, very windy, and occasionally damp day, listening to odyssey and oracle. hit some small hills for a couple of hours. totally great. seriously numb toes at the end though.

Met a couple guys at a bar Wednesday night, they invited me on a group ride. Showed up this am, rode 90 miles to Santa Cruz with 49 other people in identical kit. My first ride over 60 miles, was #20 over the three timed segments. And at the endpoint I heard a guy who finished well ahead of me describing in exaggerated, epic terms an ocean headwind segment where we traded pulls.

Oh - and what's more important, since it wasn't a fast ride really, I really enjoyed it.

90 miles is a long way, sounds great.

Haha, hi Lukas, I finished 2nd on that ride. ^___^

ha. lukas, u know steve shasta was in that ride?

ha. xpost!

lukas do you look like an edgy J-Timberlake?

I guess since the cat's out of the bag... I, too, rode 93.8 miles (+6500ft vert) from SF -> Santa Cruz today. And I have 2 races tomorrow, legs are still buzzin' eek.

ha! yeah i was the dude in the black-and-white striped shirt, pink backpack. awesome ride.

2 races

wut

i was the old fat guy wearing gray, white and neon green. good job today, that's one of my favorite rides ever.

done 170km over the last three days - think i am in 'base building' mode. two weeks of holidays aheaf of me (other than this wednesday), so think i'll just keep on riding 70k each day, hopefully should be less of a secret fattey by the time i go back to work.

cycling tips' wade blew by today on his team bike (focus w/ zipp carbon clinchers) like it weren't no thing, but i reeled in a few myself.

what's with wheelsuckers tho, i mean really. at least the weather was nice.

Just had a fantastic week down in Dorset making the most of a very un-British April heatwave. I rode six days in a row, clocking up about 175 miles. Just had three days off the bike so should be refreshed for my race tomorrow.

Drove up to the Essex/Cambs/Suffolk borderlands today to try out the course for my second 'proper' (i.e. on the open roads) road race this coming Sunday. The circuit is about 11.5 miles long and the race will be five laps of it. I'd say the chances of me finishing it are practically zero, but I'm hoping to last longer than my previous experience (where I was dropped after just four miles and gave up chasing after twenty). Did the first lap at 18.8mph and the attacked the second lap hard averaging just under 21mph. Tried doing unusual intervals: half a mile on, quarter of a mile off (so of varying lengths time-wise, depending on how uphill or downhill the roads were in those sections), managed five of these and decided that was all I could cope with. There is a hill about halfway round the circuit that probably spells doom for me, quite possibly on the first lap. I think my strategy will have to be to imagine that the race is only six miles long and sprint as hard as I can to the top of the hill (and then worry about the rest of the race after that if I'm still in it).

Did a nice 30 miles to see in-laws and parents with the wife today. She's cream-krackered but I'm up for some more. Hoping the weather doesn't turn for the weekend as is predicted so I can clock up another 20+ tomorrow and Saturday.

13.5 miles in 1hr 1min this morning; clocked my fastest ever single mile at 2:58, too. sadly I was seriously overtaken while doing that mile by three very impressively kitted roadies. The bastards.

we finally had fine weather here, so after i took a bunch of kids round the zoo, i blew off the rest of the workday and went up the canyon for a quick couple of hours. climb was pleasant, and a big tailwind on the descent had me over 50 mph (baaaarely), so nice.

Time: 01:51:41
Distance: 32.85 mi
Elevation Gain: 2,605 ft
Avg Moving Speed: 17.7 mph
Max Speed: 50.4 mph

first big ride since maybe december.
http://www.bikemap.net/route/901568
not super long but one of the hardest climbs i've ever done. went w/a big group of people i've never met. all levels. i was only a lil bit behind some roadies which felt good. 2 people ended up walking the hill :( halfway through the ride most of the people stopped to get a buger and a beer. there's no way i could ride on that so 2 other guys and i took off on our own. so much fun.

lukas, through some internet trickery, i realized that you and i have a few common friends (greg s and mical w). saw that you considered going on this ride.

nice. yeah that ride sounded great, but I had to be back early, just did paradise loop. not bored of it yet. see you next time ...

i just entered a gran fondue - http://www.amygillett.org.au/gran-fondo

course profile

hoping to light up some MAMIL asses with my grinding, 'no change of pace whatsoever' climbing technique

Took my first night ride in almost 2 years on Fri -- about 12 miles round-trip and very pleased with it, esp considering there were about 4 straight hours of dancing in between rides.

been hooning along the bristol to bath path and back a couple of times a week for the last month or so.

going the other direction: portishead, clevedon, yatton and then the new strawberry line to cheddar next week.

nick you are in exeter, right? do you know any good circular routes in the totnes/riviera area?

went out for my first lycra ride of the year, now that it's stopped snowing

12miles w/heavy dawdling in the walker sculpture garden, totally beautiful. didn't really break a sweat, and would've gone another hour if i didn't have stuff to do this afternoon

hanging out at one of mpls's many (well, several) coffee shops/bike studios. saw a dude stop by for an espresso, decked in full rapha and wheeling around a moots cyclocross bike. i hated him only because i wanted to ~be~ him.

btw is this a business model that's been replicated elsewhere? we have three cafe/bike shops in town, and two of them are exclusively high-end. like hanging out in this place (http://www.angrycatfishbicycle.com/) is like damn. so easy to procrastinate just by wandering around and looking at shit you can't afford.

Rapha opened a few pop up cafe/shops in Mallorca, New York and London last year. This year they opened in Tokyo and last week one in San Francisco featuring a modest collection of apparel paired with local coffee/pastries.

rapha just opened a store in sf that serves four barrel coffee

xpost. ha

it's down the block from bike nut RIP

there's a couple bike+coffee joints in melbs - true to our coffee snob heritage

i had friday at my disposal, so did this:

http://i56.tinypic.com/2s7sw78.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/10r633p.jpg

holy moly

solo?

xps

london has look mum no hands; bidey in and I idly daydream often about opening our own cafe/bike shop

was in bath recently: very pretty, like everything every tourist ever said edinburgh was like but actually

yep solo - some old bloke on an EMC2 (kiwi brand) could've been construed as giving me a tow for about 30sec on way into whittelsea i guess, heh. lots of quiet pedalling along near-deserted roads in national park area with huuuuuuuge trees.

It's small change for this board, but I did another 16 miles just getting around Brooklyn last night, going to stuff.

94 deg in moab, rode for 4 hours, but were semi-lost and out for like 5.5 hrs in the baking sun. ran out of water midway thru the ride, i got suuuuuuuuuuuper dehydrated by the end. we did the sovereign loop to the end, it was ok but man that trail has v. few places to get your flow on. its not "hard," but it's very tiring after your ability to do bursts of power wear off. one of our guys became fearful of his dehydration and bailed out to the highway, but the other and myself soldiered on. conquered!

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/0506111858_pshop4x6.jpg

castle valley, ut. this was friday night's road ride. hard to tell from there, but the bottom of the descent in the valley to the left is a 3200+ ft drop.

nothing to report here but a buddy of mine was MTBing in wi this weekend. apparently he was like a mile into a 12 mile loop at levis trow and broke his chain. no one could furnish a replacement and all the shops nearby were closed (according to iPhones). so the dude just shouldered it and coasted the downhills. god damn.

did the whole Ride to Work Day thing this morn. met up w/about 2-300 people (mostly people from google, only about 5 people from my company) at 6.30am. another guy i work w/and i kinda split from the big group (it was awful, obvs) and kept w/the pack in the front. i thought the ride was only 39 miles - by car on freeway it is - but all the twists and turns on the paths and the crazy ways we had to take it ended up being i think ~48 miles. took 3hrs flat. i can hardly think today though. work is kinda pointless. i would like a nap

I rode up Mt. Tamalpais and the a bit of the coast with Jeremy Powers, Robert Forster, Chris Jones, Joao Correia and some other pros in town for the Tour of California. Those dudes are fast. Crikey.

Mark and I did another Friday night ride last night/ this morning, really good fun. Hyde Park to Brighton via Turnes Hill and (gulp) Ditchling Beacon, I managed the former, the latter beat me like a spanish donkey. A couple of amazing bits though - a pitch black swoop down a country lane called Lonesome Lane (back road between Reigate and Horley) which twisted and turned beautifully in 140 bike lights (road surface like a billiard table too), then a rapid swoop through the wilds of West sussex with some of the more rapid regulars who act as sweepers on the rides - I ploughed on way faster than I manage on my own with them, a good 6 mph or so faster. Some great roads (admittedly some awful too), a bit too much waiting around at points, but in the main - awesome.