your daily bicycle log

Did a race at Hog Hill today in very windy conditions. There were just 29 starters and the bunch was getting whittled down each time up the hill. After about 25 minutes (of an hour-long race) a big attack strung everything out and I found myself at the rear of a group of about 6 with a leading group of 12 breaking away. As the gap edged up to 50 metres it was clear they weren't coming back and I thought "it's now or never" and attacked off the front of my group. After a couple of minutes in no-man's land on my own I managed to bridge across. Nobody else made it. Unfortunately it took a bit out of me and I got dropped with 4 laps to go and soloed in to grab either 12th or 13th spot.

Nice job.

I did 60 miles and 6000 ft vertical. I got hailed on, rained on, and was within about 300 m of a lightning strike while in full flight down the canyon. Great ride!

~40mi to BREW DAY, perfect weather, 2500ft of climbing (in MN!)

54 miles today in and around the New Forest. Very windy, I managed to do the first 25 miles at something between 19 and 20mph before turning into it for the struggle back to the in-laws'.

75 miles on Friday night/Saturday morning. A good run that was taxing in places thanks to the rain, the headwind and the large number of mechanicals that caused a lot of waiting around.

Odd route - some of it is in great countryside, balanced off with some painful drags down dual carriageways. If I wanted to do lots of that I'd start time-trialling (no danger of that whatsoever).

Next up - 118 miles to Bingham near Nottingham a week on Friday....

went out for a while on saturday after lunch in some weak sun, kinda wasn't feelin' it though. however did manage to put away man on colnago on a punchy uphill section.

i was psyched, on that 60 miler i did an extension to my route that only added 20 miles, but has a really nice 4.3 mile, 1400 ft climb, so like 6%+, and early short bits at 13%. hits 9820 feet, which is higher than i thought anything went this far south of the metro. this is where strava's explore feature is great-- i've been riding up there for 16 years and did not know that climbing loop was there.

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/ConiferMtn.jpg

yeah that explorer stuff is great, i used it to string together a bunch of backroads that i'd never ridden the other week.

Today I've been biking around our manufacturing facility which is still the shell of a massive plant that we are taking a slice out of. It's half a kilometre long and sits on two floors so I spent my lunch break riding around, up and down lifts in and out of derelict offices. It's a lot of fun.

Beautiful beautiful evening today. Didn't get riding I'll Sven and only stopped because it was too dark. Absolutely flying along feeling great, even a calf muscle cramping wasn't going to stop me.

i would like to bike around any facility tbh

Didn't get riding I'll Sven
Isn't that so often the case?

damned autocorrect

till seven

so much oxygen available down here- watts for equivalent effort up 15%, VAM up like 150. it didn't _feel_ any better, but it looks nicer in strava.

Frank Long Rd. in Dewitt NY, I salute you:

Distance 0.8mi
Avg Grade 11.8%
Elev Difference 518ft
Elev Gain 518ft

There is a significant portion that hits 25%, and it never gets below 8% that I recall. It's cry-for-your-mama ish. So great (thank god I had 39/26). At one point youre going up at 10% and its hard, and it looks like you are riding toward a wall. No real curves anywhere.

the Stillwater crit course

BRUTAL

http://app.strava.com/segments/945663

I fell off my bike.

Very stupidly hit a level crossing on river avenue at the wrong angle in the twilight and ejected. Nothing damaged expect my pride really. Skinned my knees slightly bruised a hand and my left ankle is swollen. Bike fine, i ripped a glove and cracked a sole plate. I feel like a prize pillock but I'll mend.

Just after, as I was walking along, catching my breath by the side of an empty road, some arsehole in a minivan drove past me slowly, leaning on his horn, hardly moving over at all.

people are dicks! at least you got away unscathed.

went past baaaad crash this morning, someone down in middle of the road, big pack also stopped and directing traffic and stuff. didn't want to stop and gawk so not sure what happened.

more lolzy developments later: we'd hooked up woth my riding buddy's friends and made a group of six. everyone started watching each other near the foot of oliver's hill so i hit them, got 20 metres and thought the KOM was in the bag... and realised i had a puncture. SO denied.

Feeling hobbled by hamstring problems. Not sure if I need to harden TF up or the opposite.

Crazy winds, constantly at least 25mph with gusts of up to 50mph. I went out on Friday for a couple of hours - at one point (into a headwind) I was only managing 9.5mph on the flat. Then the heavens opened I got drowned in a ten-minute deluge of horizontal rain.

Did a 4th-cat race at Hog Hill yesterday in the same windy conditions, which made it 'challenging' to say the least. They had us on the 'Alpine' version of the course (which has you going gently downhill through three near-180 degree turns) which is technical enough at the best of times, but a bit mental when you keep switching between savage headwind/crosswind/tailwind. Photo. On top of that the pace was absolutely crazy for the first couple of laps and the bunch got absolutely shredded - down from 32 to just 16 in about five minutes of racing. I managed to hang on for about 45 minutes of the hour-long race - the photographer was kindly on hand to capture the precise moment I got dropped on the climb: going, going... gone. I knew there weren't many left in the bunch by this point (in fact half the field had been lapped) so I carried on on my own to the bitter end in the hope I could scrape into the top ten and score some points. I caught and passed another who got dropped later than me, but came in 12th.

i crested a 20% hill today, 2 hours into a long mtb ride, feeling bad. it's 93 deg out, and i was going for a pr for father's day. as i sat up to recover, i started getting hit by bugs, they were flying everywhere. a swarm. i looked down at me legs and...they were ladybugs. there were thousands of them flying everywhere, i must have had 20 of them on me.

my legs. and my legs were not ladybugs, though that would have been cool too.

out and back to Stillwater for the crit. great spectating, crowd was nutso for it. we were posted up on the climb, which kicks up to 22%. motherfuckers were doing wheelies in the middle of it. so baller

I was gonna say, Hunter, at the top of a steep hill your mind can start playing tricks...

noob here. have biked 15 days in a row. biked 0 days in about 10 years before that :)

― bnw, Tuesday, May 29, 2012 7:23 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my streak is still up minus 1 24 period out of town. today i doubled my normal ride and it was disturbingly easy!

one of us

Battered by strong winds and soaked to the skin again. I wish something resembling summer would show its face.

ay yi yi 100 deg today and tomorrow and 95+ sunday. feel terrible for the firefighters up at High Park :(

Did an extremely windy 10-mile time trial followed by an accidental 20-mile warm down (not lost, just badly misjudged the scale of the map)

It's up around 30˚C today which is actually cooler than it's been most of the week. Did a flat 80km today preparation for a century ride tomorrow. Temperature is going up again tomorrow, glad it starts at 6:30am.

Rumours that we're going to break through the 20˚C barrier next week and have a couple of days without rain

as i completed my 80 kms today my garmin claimed 43.5 deg C. fortunately, it was only 38.5. also fortunately, most of my ride was earlier, cooler, and over 2000 m.

metric is hard.

246km this weekend 2263m of climbing, i feel pretty pleased about that

feel like i am slowly losing noob shell. I have been honked at for no reason, been called an ass for shouting at girl on cell phone standing in middle on path. probably need a crash before i am legit.

100 deg in the shade again by the end of my ride today. i felt terrible terrible and heat zapped, so i just packed it in and pointed back to town, hit the pool with the kids.

my biggest day ever yesterday! 100.7 miles, 7,600 feet of climb. three people out of five dropped out. i may have kept some people waiting on some hilltops, but i finished, feeling fine. good day.

Resolved to do 70 mi and 7k of climbing, I did 5k of climbing and feeling great- rear flat in rain storm. Fix it, went .5 miles front flatted. Sitting on the side of the road, waiting for a lift. (used my spare tube, patch didn't happen 4 me, out of co2 anyway). May I should start carrying a pump again, I hear having a heavy bike will make my training better.)

Six thousand fixed-gear miles in six months!

Did reckon with the Pittsburgh regatta when out today. Not entirely sure what it is but it seems to consist of a bunch of partially clothed drunks floating in the river and lolling in parking lots that culminates with a Kenny Chesney concert.

Damned hot again today.

two flats on saturday - think something's up with the sidewall of the back tyre. was going to get some new GP4000s anyway so no biggie i guess, plus it's raining all week up to saturday so they should be here by then!

two flats on saturday - think something's up with the sidewall of the back tyre.

had this recently. took me an embarrassingly long time to work out what it was tho.

Got drenched yesterday. Didn't learn my lesson. Set off again today when the eternal rain had eased a bit. Roads flooded all over the place. At one point I was 'riding' through at least 18 inches of water. I tried to escape this by going onto a main road instead of country lanes, only to find this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXH9R0E-1v8&feature=youtu.be
It took me quite a few diversions and a bit of walking off road to get home. The heavens opened to give me a torrential downpour for the last five minutes, just to make my day. When I finally got in I discovered squashed bits of slug smeered all down the sides of my cycling shoes. What a summer.

(I can't see anything above where I posted a youtube clip, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXH9R0E-1v8&feature=youtu.be)

Can't even see my link now? In formatting hell, one last try: View this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXH9R0E-1v8

not cycling weather imo

72 miles and 7300 ft of vert feelin like total shit in the cold, fog, and rain. at 5:45 AM. outcome- 14mph avg! *hits mental erase button*

Went out for a brief 30k on my way back was wing mirrored by an E350 box truck. Not too bad some minor bruising but the driver who did at least stop wasn't very apologetic and initially wouldn't give his details without the police being there but then relented when I said I was happy to wait.

Asked me if I was a Christian as if it would be OK to run me over if I had another life to move onto.

Wing mirrored as in clipped by a car coming from behind you? yuck

exactly. At least it was high up and caught a fleshy part. (of which I have many)

lol

the commuter is in getting a service so i've been running errands in the rain this morning on a loaner - this sikkkk rig. 'cept it's orange! quite stately form of progress i must say.