your daily bicycle log

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.

yikes, get well soon. never broke an elbow, heard that's a bad one.

cheers, Hunt3r -actually took the sling off for the first time today, for a bit anyway, so the end is in sight. Actually the tip of the radius, rather than a splintered elbow as such, and while it was the most painful, it's the cb that's least likely to heal properly apparently.

Finally a free day without rain (though plenty of water lying on the roads). Feeling particularly masochistic on New Year's Day I rode up to Epping Forest and went up my club's hill climb route five times in a row.

out and about, 9 degrees F yayyyyy

I did something nasty to my knee over christmas, twisted it in a museum related accident. So I've been going gentle on the trainer and doing pilates.

meaningless stat, but i hit 176 HR today on trainer, i didnt think my old ticker could do that.

*clutches chest, falls over*

kept on finding hilaire shit to take pix of on Saturday ride; leaned bike against fence to snap away only for it to catch gust of wind, fall on drive side and bend derailleur hanger -_-

then rode last night after dinner on cx bike in v temperate weather, half road half gravel thru parkland. lotta rabbits out at night, it seems

http://app.strava.com/activities/37240868

six categorised climbs including the HC donna buang... which was unsealed for 8km. amazing route!!

Cool. I momentarily thought that was a staggering ride for the middle of winter, then remembered Australia was on the other side of the planet.

that looks awesome, i wanna do that someday.

lol NBS - the 'worst' it got all day was some fairly thick fog that rolled in just as i was cresting the mountain (at 7pm)

I want to ride that ride. I'm coming again in March, need to make the bike thing work this time.

we can make it happen!

for the first time in many years, i did the big sat group ride (60 or so ?), it was terrifying. at one point an suv tried to pass the group, which had the entire lane but would be turning off the road in .2 mi. the suv encountered an oncoming vehicle, and skidded off the left side of the road onto the shoulder. otoh, i've not ridden that well in a long time.

I looked into getting premium membership on strava but it seemed like quite a lot of money for not very much (the power reading is just an estimate - they can't know if there was a headwind or how much stuff you were carrying), but I do like the idea of the suffer score. The ridewithgps website gives you the total time that you spent riding in each of your five heart rate zones. I thought I could use this to make my own suffer score. The formula I came up with was Total = (10 x mins in zone 5) + (6 x mins in zone 4) + (3 x mins in zone 3) + (2 x mins in zone 2) + (1 x mins in zone 1). Does that sound reasonable? Maybe I should up the zone 3 bit to 4x.

so today i tested this on my tt, as all my previous tt saddles have given me huge chafing problems in race conditions:

http://www.ismseat.se/pub_images/large/Racing-II-angle-white_20.jpg

i rode tempo on the aerobars pretty much for and entire 1.75 hours, it was... it was good. it was signficantly easier to rotate my hips forward and stay there. there was def more weight on my elbows, but not enough to cause handling probs or fatigue.