your daily bicycle log

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.

Ben, my partner for the Dartmoor ride yesterday, carried on and did another 45 miles to take him to 100 - he'd only done 40 for the first time a couple of months ago on a ride with me, and that battered him, and then he did 60 for the first time about a fortnight ago. Good lad.

snagged strava KoM on the hill past my own school!

Rode snowbird stage of tour of utah before pros, basically collapsed and suffered up final climb. Disappointing, but an interesting
Ride.

A good 90km yesterday. Main aim was to get 1300m of climbing in in preparation for next weekend's Tour of Every Pittsburgh Neighbourhood, part of the ongoing bikefes, which promises 8000ft of climbing in 80 miles.

I might make my goal of 1000km in August.

I biked about 15m from home to the Rockaway beach on Sun. After almost two weeks off the bike while I was out of town, that was not a fun ride. There's a bike path from Canarsie pier all the way to the Marine Parkway Bridge, and you'd think the last bridge was the tallest/worst, but somehow it's not the bay bridge that kills me! It's two "little" ones along the bike path that parallels the Shore Parkway. I think they're both just steep.

I have this cunning plan to bike to the SI ferry, take bike on boat, and then bike around the SI coast to this long boardwalk on the east side and go to the beach there. I can't think of anyone who'll go with me though.

So I was stupid and crashed and "three acute fractures third fourth and fifth metacarpals. Mild angulation and displacement of the fracture at base of fifth metacarpal.". Shit really hurt, plus had to ride one handed 30 mins to hospital with no brakes. :(

uh oh

:-(

Oh no! Sorry to hear that Hunt3r. What happened? Hope you're feeling okay post-hospital.

Yeah its all good. I'll see hand guy today or tomorrow I guess.

Ouch. Get well soon.

on road or off road?

on street commuting home. i wasnt paying good enuf attention and hit a pickup truck. a ~parked~ pickup truck. ay yi yi.

Did the Dartmoor ride again today with a slightly tweaked home leg to keep us off a horrible stretch of busy road. 3,500 feet of climbing al in all.

none of 3 recommended hand orthos could see me til monday, so i decided to shit my pants by reading about 5th metacarpal base fractures using my doctor of interwebs degree. if i dont pull thru, rip i was a fatmantis.

damn, i hope things go well for you.

went for a ride with a shasta today + one of his racing buddies. they were recovering from various crashes and illnesses so i could just about keep up. flat (unusual for around here) fast, fun.

Did the "Terrible Tour" of every Pittsburgh Neighborhood. Led by a member of a local team. Pretty good clip through the city. Not quite the climbing fest promised, just under 2000m. Felt really good on it and was able to beat my buddy up most things, a few weeks agao he was able to do me over. (NB buddy has just spent 3 weeks on a beach in the lebanon followed by 7 night shifts at the hospital and hasn't touched a bike but still, I am the winner)

http://app.strava.com/rides/18960465

On sunday, quiet spin and I broke a spoke. Astounded that for once it was not the drive side. It looks like I picked up some fishing twine that wrapped itself around the hub and the spoke. Annoying but a cheap fix.

Not a lot of road riding but a lot of track racing lately. Here is a GoPro video from my handlebars of one of our recent races, a scratch race. The best part is the move I make at around 6:39. Worst part is that I came out into the wind on the final lap and let guys onto the back of the finishing move far to early (into turn one).

http://youtu.be/XGfwnR76kfY

Really impressive riding! I was on the edge of my seat from 6 minutes onwards - good work!

that was cool.

so i'm out of cycling for some months, and i will be off iltrmb. i'll be over on running running thread if im feeling it. careful out there kids.