your daily bicycle log

I'll rouse the other melb peeps, ed!

re a rentabike, try these guys or this lot.

cool, thanks

I rode to Mars today. Also my first sub 4 hrs 100km, I'm more impressed because it featured 1800m of climbing

http://app.strava.com/activities/22209318

Hey, gbx, you could do this tomorrow

http://www.voiceplaces.com/ride-with-professional-cyclist-tom-danielson-minneapolis-st-paul-2584900-e/

oh man group rides with actual roadies make me nervous

Just back from 56 miles and 4500 feet of climbing over Dartmoor. Bloody windy and hard work.

Something a bit different for me tomorrow...

Glasgow's second annual Harris Tweed Ride!

I have procured Victorian cycling gent style clothing and am really looking forward to the day out. It's a friend's birthday outing too, so should be especially fun.

It was great!

Amazing coffee, bloody marys, fish & chips, great local beer, oysters, whisky, vietnamese noodle soup, Scottish gin cocktails, pulled pork rolls, whisky cocktails.

And the merest hint of cycling.

Are you going to ride in tweed for the forseeable future?

That really sounds amazing.

haitch, when where should we meet next week?

ha, i thought webmail was being flaky yesterday - tried sending something twice and no good. tuesday night FAP is a goer if you're still available for that?

Tuesday, sounds good.

I DMed my email address to you through twitter

OK, no I didn't because you don't follow me

Marshalling duties today: up at 5.45am after very little sleep, rode 10 miles from race HQ to a roundabout with the temperature just 4C - had to wear some winter stuff for the first time since the spring. Did another 24 miles after the race but there was a howling wind so it wasn't much fun.

So yes, I am the proud owner of a tank of an MTB, but as soon as I started riding it a month ago...I realised that I am woefully out of shape.

Been just doing very short rides with QGP, trying to get in shape on the ol' shared paths before "shredding" those "sweet trails". It's woefully embarrassing how I'm going atm, bottom 10% of Strava sectors...but I'm on an absurdly heavy MTB, if that counts.

Had a very good but short ride on Sunday, through. Felt quite good after it, which is promising.

Fell down stairs while trying to get bike ready for race last night - sore at the bottom of my back and brusied elbow. Slept badly. Drove up to race HQ in freezing conditions. Garmin said -1C when I got on my bike to ride to the start. Only had fingerless mitts - my hands went through pain to total numbness in the opening miles. Then my chain came off when I tried to change up on a gentle descent. The same thing happened about 5 miles later. Finished time trial in sweltering temperatures (approx 5C) with a time more than two and a half minutes slower than my PB a few weeks ago. Not a great day. Next week: the Catford Hill Climb.

cycling!

I got doc permission to road ride just in time for an unending schedule of 14 hr workdays including wknd. (and 25 degree weather) :^(

sounds like you need some PT, i prescribe three full days of riding, i'll write a note

Cold and raining, just right for a ride across town to a lobster boil.

30 miles up the canyon- first ride since Aug 11. very pleasant, perfect weather.

One-handed or are you recovered?

Did the Catford Hill Climb today, it was brutal. I was trying to ride within myself on the lower slopes, but when it ramps up at >20% you instantly find yourself in a world of gasping pain. The road was wetter and muddier than last year so the back wheel kept slipping. I finished about a second slower than last year, but I'm happy with that. Beat Sean Yates too :-)

cool nbs.

two handed, but not without pain in my wrist and knuckles. i'm hoping it was good therapy.

mostly i felt fat and shitty, but then as i descended out the mouth of the canyon, i looked at the cottonwoods, all yellow and lining the drainage, and the sun on the corn and hay fields. fuck me, i'm the luckiest motherfucker ever.

Had to drag the summer bike back into service this morning for my club's hill climb championship. The conditions were terrible: torrential rain, stading water 6 inches deep in places on the way there, cold (3C) and a headwind. I took one look outside and decided to drive. It wasn't even certain that it would go ahead until the last minute - with my seven minutes to go I was frantically putting my cycling shoes on in my car. Freewheeled downhill and saw number 1 was just about to start (I was number 5). Rode a few hundred yards, turned around, got to the start, took off my waterproof top and realised it wouldn't fit it in my back pocket, starter ran to stick it in his car, I struggled to get my gloves back on, managed to clip in to pedals about 3 seconds before I was pushed off. I caught my minute man within sight of the finish so thought I'd done pretty well, but I finished second again (same as 2009, 2010 and 2011) to the same guy who always wins. Rode straight back down, grabbed top, rode back up the hill again and straight into the car. Today's ride: 3.4 miles.

Did my first mtn bike ride since injury- since mid summer really. Fantastic to be onsingletrack.

Flatted and missed the group yesterday, and as I was sitting in the park fixing the flat, I realized I was burned out on heading north for one of the same eight routes. Instead, did a few laps around the lake and then climbed a bunch of hills in the city. Did plenty of "I wonder where this road will take me?" and standing at the top of one hill, scanning the surroundings for the next hill to climb. 43 miles, only 2.7k feet of vert but some of that was damn steep.

Good, if chilly, 80km today. Started to feel very cold on the run back in, temperature had dropped a little but it hasn't been over 4˚C all day. Think I was running out of energy, Need to remember to eat more when its cold. Also need to buy a few more warm things for this winter

rode 6+ miles of singletrack with 6 + 8 year olds. they did great, even with a couple 300ft vert climbs.

I really would love to try some mtb riding, I've only done it a couple of times. A feeling compounded by seeing a BMC Team Elite in the local Trek store.

Also, this was going around a few weeks ago. When I have kids I want elicit this kind of excitiment in cycling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qmQrEM5rVA

if that was lift served and there was no pedaling, little fucker didn't earn jack shit.

lollll

It's been 18˚C in Pittsburgh this weekend, I've done over 180km in over two days almost 3000m in climbing too. Today was so good I extended my ride to complete a metric century.

Feeling good about completing the dirty dozen. Swapping over to my compact crank this evening in preparation.

Weekend doing family things down at my parents' place. Gain grudging acceptance that I can go for an hour's ride early on Sunday morning. About to set off on Friday evening (by car) and decide to pump the tyres up so that I don't need to squeeze a track pump into the car with everything else.
1) the top of the valve on my back wheel somehow unscrews along with the dust cap and then explodes never to be seen again
2) this morning I attempt to replace the valve-less inner tube, my first tyre lever snaps
3) I delve into my bags and realise I only brought two tyre levers with me - as one of these is broken it is now impossible to change the inner tube
4) I get my 1989 racing bike out of my parents' garage in the hope I can ride this - it hasn't been used for about 4 years and is covered in dust and rust. Both tyres are completely flat. I attempt to pump up the front tyre but the valve is too short for the (relatively) deep section rims and the pump can't form any kind of connection. I swear a lot.
5) I hunt for hand pump and realise that has been left in London along with other tyres levers. I swear some more.
6) I sulk.
7) I have a flash of inspiration and put the front wheel from my winter bike onto my 1989 bike and get everything pumped up. There is now only time for 12-mile ride.
8) Post-ride I treat my daughter with a trip to Halfords where I buy some new tyre levers and a new inner tube with a long valve.
9) This afternoon, having promised "I'll just try for 15 minutes maximum and if I can't do it, I'll give up", I attempt to sort out the two unpumpable wheels. I attempt to pump up my spare inner tube and realise that it was punctured all the time.
10) I successfully get new tube into rear wheel of winter bike. Joy!
11) I attempt to sort out front wheel of 1989 bike. Break one of my tyre levers.
12) Break another of my new tyre levers (my third today). Give up. Despair!

While your problems were of course in no way your fault, I will say that the only way to describe my attempts at bike maintenance is "hysterical incompetence."

yesterday i got some serious silent treatment for characterizing our attempt to get our family bike ride organized as a "shit show." the mtb ride, 7.5 miles with like 600 ft of vert was awesome, the kids were great. :( lesson: never call a family activity a shit show, it's not worth it no matter how true.

today, 40 miles with 3500ft of climbing and a carless 40+ mph descent for 20 mins. fantastic. 60 deg. amazing. ok winter, do your worst. (fortunately the weather is supposed to hold through next weekend)

Weather has been great here as well. I got another 100km/1724m in today. November is shaping up to become my second best month of the year.

Weather so go this thanksgiving day. Got a 100km in in the sunshine, also hit to of the dirty dozen climbs and succeeded on both, psyched for saturday, hope I haven't over done it.

so go - so good

got _demolished_ on the mtb by guys i'm supposed to be able to keep up with, two days in a row. still, so great. unbelievable weather, and perfect trail conditions. we rode a trail system i didn't even know about, it has ~flow~.

https://twitter.com/fredmantis/status/272387520279506944

Today

cool, how was the ride?

Pretty good, I didn't 'do' the dirty dozen. I had someone come across me on one hill and I put a foot down and then on the next hill I put a foot down that was all my fault and once you've done it once it's easy to do it again. I failed on 4 out of the 12 hills including "pittsburgh's Steepest' Canton Av at 37%. Tat one is short and there's a real technique to it. I think I could have got that one if I'd practiced it.

I'll search up some videos later, the whole thing was lives streamed

wow, ridiculous. good work.

I go past at about 3:12 on this one

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2055846/events/1695888/videos/6810170

and about 2:24 on this one

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2055846/events/1695888/videos/6808130

Canton Av

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2055846/events/1695888/videos/6814767

http://www.pavephotography.com/img/s4/v63/p1288909362-2.jpg

-1C when on the first part of this morning's ride, rising to a sizzling 3C three hours later

No riding this weekend, Cold this week has knocked the stuffing out of me. COuld hardly breath going to the store yesterday

ridiculous, it was almost 70 deg today. i rode twice- two hours alone, an hour with the family.

Our recent weather could scarcely be more different

broke collarbone and elbow about seven weeks ago by going over handlebars taking evasive action to avoid a car hitting me.

looking forward to getting back on in the new year. First proper serious accident in about ten years of fairly constant cycling. Not really a consolation.

"Hysterical incompetence" otm.