your daily bicycle log

My club organised the first 10-mile time trials on the Olympic Velopark road circuit tonight (the circuit only opened to the public about a month ago). In previous years (on the Hog Hill circuit) we would get between 20 and 40 riders. Tonight I turned up five minutes after the first man was off, expecting to sign in and get no.30 or thereabouts. I got number 72. Once it reached 86 they had to close it to further entrants as there wasn't enough time for everyone to finish. It was nice and sunny when I got there, but started absolutely pissing down about ten minutes before I started. I got soaked to the skin as if I'd jumped into a lake, but it was still good fun. A great circuit.

How did it compare to the old eastway? I always enjoyed the downhill into the left hander.

ed which road to KL - there's a few unsealed ones!

I've also not been riding much beyond commuting - been busy, lazy, whatever. about to commence secrete training for amy's gran fondo in september, though...

Steels Creek Rd up from the edge of Yarra Glen.

I'm up for secret training. Total rush have some monthly sunday rides which look quite good, next is on the 25th.

http://www.strava.com/activities/139778336

I better get my act together with registering for Amy's. Need to work out logistics as well. DO I want a speed gout or an age group?

I went for speed group. age ain't nothing but a number!

well, speed ain't nothing but a number either, but you know.

thinking of staying in apollo bay and getting the bus transfer on the morning. lorne sure books out early!

That seems to be the game. I'll do some looking this evening.

I do like that steels creek rd also - would probably hit it again on the cx bike, though. would also not do so much instagramming.

have vague idea for train to lilydale > healsville > the old road to yarra glen > up to top of steels creek rd > down to melba highway > down to healsville again via toolangi and myers creek rd > back way up donna buang > warburton > back to lilydale on the rail trail. I feel it would be a 'day out'.

That would indeed be a day out. I don't think I would take my bike on the warbuton rail trail.

Weather being well or sunday I plan on Green Wedge->Mount Pleasant->Kangaroo Ground->Christmas Hills-> Yarra Glen-> Old Healesville Rd->Healesville->Myers Creek Rd->Toolangi->Kinglake->Whittlesea->Plenty Rd slog home

I did warby trail on 25s a couple of summers back and it was doable - but i went harder with the CX bike and 28s on cup day last year.

How did it compare to the old eastway?

I did actually race at Eastway, but ages and ages ago (the spring/summer of 1989 when I was 15 and had just got into cycling), so it's difficult to make a comparison. Every race I did there went anti-clockwise and I don't remember any lefts at the end of descents.

big ringed rathdowne st hill on the tour de commute this morning - drew out a couple of pursuers but had a clear gap at the top.

got overconfident descending today and the inevitable happened. first crash in a couple years. no real harm apart from needing to buy new bibs. at the LBS I blamed it on "well see the other turns were nicely on-camber and this one wasn't ... " and got roundly mocked. still a good day out.

Ouch. Glorious sunshine here today. Did 50-odd miles with a lengthy interruption for rear wheel puncture due to me idiotically taking a spare inner tube whose valve was too short to be of any use.

Done about 140 miles in the last four days. Glorious sunshine pretty much every mile. Wonderful.

i only managed a hundo less than that, but i had a great ride today. sunny, perfect temp, almost half on quiet gravel roads. i was concerned about bonking far from home, as this is the longest ride I've done this year (and since moving here, to Where There Be Hills), but i was pleased to discover that as i rolled up to my apt i felt like i could've ridden a bit longer

now of course i've had a shower and half an alcoholic sports drink and i'm about ready to melt into the couch

having such a shit time trying to fit in rides- too flipped out and tired even to commute, srsly. today i had a nice ride, but it was for sanity purposes. i could work 24-7 right now, but i simply had to get out on the bike, so... i did.

see today was one of the first actual weekends i've had for months (i usually work 6d/wk), so the luxury of being able to do something for a long time that wasn't chores was v gratifying indeed

i swear, like 5 minutes after i typed that i thought "man, gbx should totally kick my ass over that post."

ha no it's cool, in t-minus a month I will have something approaching a normal person schedule

187 miles since I picked up the CdF last Saturday morning. Not bad.

nice

16 more this morning.

In LA for the weekend, rented a bike. Stopped at Rock Store in the middle of a 55 mile ride past beach and through canyon. Checked email (mistake) found out that my city bike and road bike were both stolen out of my garage. I think renter's insurance will cover it, but still, damn.

Do those GPS tracker things like Bikespike make sense? If I were a bike thief, I'd be back ...

Amazing how often my display name has been appropriate recently.

that is so fucking terrible, sorry man.

That is the shittiest. Definitely time to up security in the garage. I remember growing up we had several repeat bike thefts from out shed. No insight on the bike spike, put possibly some actual spikes may help. Not sure how the bikes were secured in the garage, and in an ideal world you shouldn't have to but may be time to install some solid ground or wall anchors, hopefully landlord will be ok with that. CCTV cameras mare pretty cheap now but may only be effective in limiting how much your insurance premiums go up.

fukkin awful, man, condolences

Just looked at the bikespike, I have to say its a little disappointing that it is externally mounted rather than fitting inside a tube. I can see why, any metal frame would block the signal, but inside a carbon frame or seat post it should work.

It would possibly defeat an opportunist thief, but a pro would have it off in a jiffy which means the window of opportunity to recover the bike is pretty small.

Shit man.

~this~ close to my first metric century today

nice, kinda flat-ish* ride out to The Worthy Burger, burgered and beered up, raced the rain home, v nearly cracked in the last 10k or so but managed to keep it together

now i am going to drink a beer in the shower, fuiud

*it ~looked~ flat but still managed to through in 1000m of climbing??

like the direction this training is taking- climbing, drinking.

i just recalculated it on strava -- 800m, which makes more sense

xp yeah it's weird i'm not losing that much weight, idgi

About 480 miles this month. 460+ recorded on Strava plus 17ish the day after my birthday that I forgot to track. Not bad. 21,497 feet recorded, and I reckon I missed 800ish in the unrecorded ride.

Good work, but wrong thread!

Damnit!

testing to see if mesmeride rendering is ilxable. cool site.

[img src='http://s3.amazonaws.com/saved-routes/route_images/images/000/000/452/original/06012014_low_foothills_tour20140602-2-1tmador.png?1401736220' alt='06/01/2014 low foothills tour' /]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/saved-routes/route_images/images/000/000/452/original/06012014_low_foothills_tour20140602-2-1tmador.png?1401736220' alt='06/01/2014 low foothills tour'

first ticket in 18 years of bike commuting, $$$. full stop/foot down, then rolled a red light in central downtown. moto cop said he saw me do it more'n once, hmm i dunno, i ain't talkin on that. "where do you work"? "is this your bicycle, mr. hunt3r"? "what brand of bike is this"?

actually i learned something. after he let me go, i rode about 50 yards, came to red light. the pedestrian crossing had just switched to flashing red with 20 secs on the countdown, so i dismounted and ran it ped-style (which took 5 secs). turns out, that's illegal/jaywalking. i always assumed as long as you cleared the intersection, you were good. either the copper didn't see me, didn't bother, or didn't care. it was pretty instinctual, but as i did it i thought, "man, this is probably nagl."

70 miles today, and 4,700 feet climbed. Over Dartmoor. Clear blue skies. Hot. Burnt forearms. Amazing. I am destroyed now though.

0.8 mile commute home for me

On Saturday two of us get an early train to Bristol, meet a third, and ride 91 miles back to Exeter via the Mendips and Somerset Levels. Excited.

Sounds good (assuming the levels aren't still four foot underwater).

93.8 miles, 5,300 feet of climbing, blue skies almost all the way. Riding down Cheddar Gorge is absolutely a highlight of my cycling life. Amazing.

Cheddar gorge looks amazing!

I haven't ridden in two weeks :(

did a trail i've never done before, totally amazing 5 mile singletrack descent, wildflowers going out of control. i've never seen even close to so many columbines in one place, thousands all over the mountainside.