your daily bicycle log

ed, someday you're gonna neeeeeeed that 53x11 and don't come crying to me.

My summer break has started and I'm determined to make the most of this heatwave to make up for all the rides in the rain I've had to do recently. Today I rode up to Cambridge and got the train back (67 miles all in). Surprisingly hilly and very hot.

was gonna ask how you got back once you're all the way out there. how hot is "hot"?

Probably not that hot by your standards. We don't really do extremes around here. Officially it reached 28C (82F) in the shade yesterday and Garmin claims it reached 33C (91.5F) on my ride. To put it in perspective I had a six or seven week stretch of riding under grey skies with occasional torrential rain where the temperature rarely nudged 20C (68F) and was often a very unseasonal 14C (57F), so it feels like I've suddenly been plucked out of an eternal October and landed in the Sahara.

yeah, i expect it's humid as well. humidity adds like 10 deg of misery imo.

my ride to work was so pleasant this morning, 70 deg, the mountains looked crisp and beautiful, people weren't assholes.

Another 57 miles today. Even hotter this time - garmin says the average temperature was 29C, but the wind when I was riding had a cooling effect. Whenever I stopped in the sun the temperature shot right up, at one point (when I finally found a shop where I could buy more drink) it reached 40C (104F)! The tarmac was melting in some places. That's 125 miles in two days or about 160 miles in three days including a race. I'm knackered.

Felt much better yesterday evening. just 40km flat spin after work, would have done more but it was getting dark. Still only using the larger half of my block.

100 miles.

I fear I may die in my sleep tonight.

Well done. It's my target to do a 100-mile ride at some point in the next three weeks.

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/DSC01817a.jpg

http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/DSC01820a.jpg

Good coffee shop ride this evening, I beat all bar two up the final hill so compact cranks can suck it.

Couple of things I'm noticing, and I should check the data

1) Recent change of stem to put the bars out and down a little means I can spend way more time comfortably on the drops

2) I think my comfortable cadence is higher this year than last, I should check the data

Punctured again too, I need to see what is up with the whole rear wheel/tyre business.

Good stuff everyone!

I watched the BBC documentary on Victoria Pendleton the other night and recommend it - incredible pressure, I really felt for her.

It's on iPlayer until tonight: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01l1yl4/Victoria_Pendleton_Cyclings_Golden_Girl/

This is yesterday's ride, taken from Pete's Garmin watch:

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/116880511#share

We got the big hills out of the way early; we could've just done two laps of the estuary, which is about 50 miles all-round.

The last 20 miles was a real struggle. The last four miles we were just doing loops of the city centre (in rush hour) to get to 100 miles. Last ten miles was pretty psychedelic, mentally.

Feeling remarkably alright at work today.

Visited three of the 7 stanes trail centres in scotland - glentress, dalbeattie, and kirroughtree, except I didn't ride at dalbeattie. Also dalby forest in yorkshire and whinlatter in the lakes. Red routes at glentress and dalby both excellent. My opinion of kirroughtree somewhat coloured by having to ride some of the black route, above my level tbh but the mcmoab rock is bloody impressive. Whinlatter might be ok after a couple of months of dry weather but too many huge puddles for my liking.

Another 40-mile ride again today (again in brilliant sunshine). With a brief bit of Boris Biking yesterday that brings it to 202 miles since Sunday.

I now have the Pedal For Scotland 2012 Sportive looming at the start of September, which they've extended to 110 miles this year!

i dare you to use a highwheeler, which is really the only PROPER fixed gear bike. :)

woke up late, did a chill 58 miles yesterday. not a great workout but felt really nice.

Had a long weekend down in Dorset (where the in-laws live, so I ride there fairly regularly). Did 3 rides based on my usual routes and hammered it up three particular shortish climbs that I often use on the off-chance that these were strava segments (as I'm rapidly becoming addicted to this). Now that I'm back home I've had the chance to analyse the routes: the first climb already existed as a segment (here), I managed 2:19 the first time, which was good enough for 11th out of 46; the next time I tried big-ringing it as an experiment, but this was slower; today I managed 2:00 and claimed 2nd spot. The other two climbs weren't listed so I made segments for them - I got 1st out of 24 for one of them and 2nd out of 22 for the other (beaten by Dan Lloyd, pro-rider, ex-Garmin now Raleigh) (or is has he now retired?) (or was that Dan Fleeming?) (or am I getting mixed up with Dan Martin?) (anyway he was/is a pro of some kind).

he's ex garmin, i bought him a beer once in boulder. weird seeing him on tv, he's veeeeeeery low key. very nice tho.

I think he's on Eurosport as the co-commentating pundit when neither Sean Kelly nor the Scottish guy (Brian something) are available.

yeah, i watched eurosport's online coverage

i finally did a ride i always wanted to try- mt evans (14110 ft) from morrison (5764 ft), 95 miles. Garmin's altimeter undercounts altitude extremes like that- it shows the summit as 13,400 ft. pretty sure i got between 10k and 11k ft of climbing. never went hard, but the last mile of evans is pretty devastating every time i do it. it feels like any hard effort is impossible. you can see the final 7 or 8 switchbacks and they are loooooong, with cars moving to and fro, looming over you.

then, the descent is so slow, and cold, and the pavement is completely abysmal, and there are cars slowing you down as well.

http://app.strava.com/activities/16344715#

Brilliant. Are you rides into the mountains always out and back on the same roads?

Not always but looping stuff can add a quite a bit of distance around here. There are only so many canyons and so many canyon roads.

Was scheduled to do a 10-mile time trial this afternoon on a fast course so I was looking for a PB. I hate riding on the fast courses as it seems really dangerous mixing it with cars and lorries doing >70mph on dual carriageways, but I'm prepared to do it once or twice a season to try to get a good time. While I was driving up the M11 there was suddenly an insane downpour of rain - wipers on top speed, lights on full beam, speed right down, visibility appalling. I started to have second thoughts about doing the race. Then after about 20 minutes I was out of the rain and back into the dry. But when I started driving along the course I noticed there were no riders or marshalls so it was pretty clear something was wrong. I'd heard of races being abandoned because someone had been killed so I had a bad feeling, but when I got to the HQ it turned out they'd cancelled the whole race because the weather had been so bad it was considered too dangerous. While that was sensible, it was a bit annoying as it was completely dry by the time I got there (although very windy). So I had a 110-mile round trip for nothing. I went for a little ride up there before I came home, just so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

I got up early for the first time in forever yesterday to get in a morning ride before a photography job in the afternoon. One friend broke his seatpost bolt just a mile into the ride and had to bail out, unfortunately, but myself & P pushed on for a beautiful morning dash - we were absolutely flying out to Stewarton! It was good to be out & about so much earlier than my normal too.

perfect winter morning for a pedal - slightly foreshortened due to di2 FLAT BATTERY, haha.

This is why I'll be cable shifting for life.

Is this an accurate representation of Melbourne Cycling clubs?

https://sites.google.com/site/greatoceanroadcycling/cycling-clubs-2

My friend got his seatpost sorted, so we had a second attempt at our inaugural ride together and everything went swimmingly, with it turning out to be another absolutely glorious morning - blazing sunshine! Really pleased to have a new cycling buddy.

A fellow Glasgow fixed-gear cyclist just posted this terrifying photo to our forums. He did this today merely by doing a hill start apparently! It's a cheap one-piece single-speed crankset, but quite shocking and scary nonetheless. Thankfully he get away with it unscathed, so he reports.

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i352/jamesreilly/12bfe590.jpg

Surely that just adds to the challenge?

I did a 45-mile ride this afternoon in blustery greyness. Psyching myself up for THE BIG ONE - I'm going to try to ride 100 miles on either Thursday or Friday.

Another beautiful morning hill climb. After weeks of fog, a clear day. The summit looked shrouded from below, but there was only a thin layer, so from the top we looked down on a cloud layer with bits of bridge poking out.

I'm more comfortable standing on the pedals now - I think I used to read Sheldon Brown too literally on that issue. I think that helps explain why I can now get up the first 12% section without completely topping out. Missed a PR but the trajectory is good.

I did a metric century ride on Sunday in aid of Bike Pittsburgh our local bike advocacy group. Pretty good fun and well attended but it absolutely chucked it down for most of the ride. I still enjoyed in, road the last section with a bunch of local club riders who made me hurt a bit but I managed to, just about, stay in touch.

I've been thinking more about the compact crank, I was feeling really good yesterday and doing a lot of down shifting and upping he cadence to climb faster (my average cadence has been climbing all summer) and I'm getting frustrated running out of gears on the steeper sections. Probably won't do anything till the winter but I think I'm going to go compact.

Beautiful ride today, short ride but with a bunch of steep little climbs. GPS was on the fritz but Map my ride shows some 18% sections which I don't believe but there were some nasty ramps. One hill is in the Dirty Dozen (Pittsburgh's Thanksgiving hill climbing race). Perfect weather for it. I love this time of year, the weather is good, I feel good, wonderful.

I am shredding tyres right now, Just put new ones on on saturday, put just under 100 miles on them and I've already worn a noticeable amount of tread off them.

that clubs list sounds about right ed, brunswick are right into CX and everyone else is a bit jealous of the size of st kilda would be my additions. when you arriving?

Dirty Dozen (Pittsburgh's Thanksgiving hill climbing race)
That sounds interesting

I'm visiting in september but not arriving properly for 8-9 months. I'll be over a few times before then.

xpost

Dirty Dozen

http://www.dannychew.com/dd.html

http://www.dannychew.com/images/dd01photos/DD01Logan.jpg

That looks steep

Gives me the willies just looking at that photo! Wow!

some wags put together a melbourne version of that out in the dandenongs, lemme find a link

http://theclimbingcyclist.com/the-inaugural-melbourne-dirty-dozen/

reliably informed that terrys avenue is 'da raw shit'

I completed THE BIG ONE today, my longest ever ride and my first ever ride over a hundred miles, all carefully paced to allow to drop off & pick up my daughter from nursery. Surprisingly I didn't feel particularly tired or weak or cramping or anything and did the last ten miles at a faster pace than any other part of the ride.
Distance: 100.86 miles
Moving Time: 6:01:02
Elapsed Time: 7:27:05
Avg Moving Speed: 16.8 mph
Max Speed: 36.8 mph
Elevation Gain: 1,344 m
Avg Temperature: 22.6 °C
http://app.strava.com/rides/17487943

Well done! Considerably faster than we managed it, unsurprisingly.

Did 55 miles over Dartmoor today, some seriously long hills. First ride since the 100 miler, and it took it out of me; been playing football more than cycling lately.

biked to a winery with the girl yesterday. Kind of cool that 3 or 4 months ago I couldn't have had that experience for a couple of reasons (the biking, the girl) :)

biked to a festival, 35mi. went on a beer run, 12mi. life is good.

Sounds great.

Rode up north to a little beach town with folks. Guy who picked the ride was setting a decent but not insane pace. Highlight was super fun rollers with a view of a fogged-out beach, one of my favorite kinds of riding: gravity-assisted but pedaling enough to feel like you're under your own power. On the way home we decided to climb the highest nearby peak, got a gorgeous city view as our reward.