Scenic Route

Somewhere along the line, Mom Nature got confused. While April was an excellent May, May is an average April.

Of course, the landlord turned off the boiler in mid-April, given the 80° days. I’ve been heating the apartment with the electric oven and stove-top for the past few days. With the bedroom door shut, I can get it pretty comfortable in here, but not like when the boiler is on.

Nights are tough. It got down to 58° in here the other night, since I won’t leave the oven on unattended. And sleeping on the couch under two comforters and a blanket is getting old.

I had thought of rolling out the sleeping bag on the kitchen floor in front of my “hearth”, but the floor is hard, and narrow, and there’s not quite enough room between the outside door and the oven door. So I wait for the heat to drift in from the kitchen.

It’s been damp and rainy too. Today no less so. Hndlebar called this morning to suggest that riding for five hours in 45°, rain and winds gusting into the 20s was probably not a good idea. I had the same feelings.

As you may recall, hndlebar, bikerjohn and I rode together for what turned out of be my first century back in October.

Hndlebar and I ride at a similar level, have similar training goals for this year, and are doing a couple of the same rides this summer. He’s intimately familiar with those parts outside of town where the hills are, and of course, has a car to get us there. So we’ve been riding together the past couple of Wednesdays.

Back on the seventh, we did 50 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing from Geneseo to Dansville and back, by a route based on the RBC’s map number 74. This took us through Groveland, Kysorville, Byersville, and Ossian on and along roads that all seemed to have the word “hill” in them.

Then back from Dansville there was a nice, long hill on NY 256, which eventually levels out to become West Lake Rd around Conesus Lake. We turned instead and climbed Maple Beach Road. Our cyclometers registered 17% and 18% grades on that climb. I had to stop twice. Foolishly, I’d left my 12-23 “flatlander” cassette on the bike. I almost walked, and would have had I been solo. That’s why a ride partner is great for training.

I enjoyed the ride, but was sore from Thursday straight through to Monday.

Last week we opted for something a bit less challenging. We rode around Keuka Lake, leaving out the reputedly murderous climb in the middle of the “Y”. We rode straight from Branchport to Penn Yan, then straight into the wind down East Lake Rd to Hammondsport.

West Lake Rd back from Hammondsport to Branchport is protected from the wind a bit, so we didn’t get the full tailwind effect. But, that was the nicest stretch of road I’ve ever ridden. It’s smooth, well-maintained, curvy and interesting, has a few little rollers, nice scenery and little traffic. Of course, it’s still off-season, it was a weekday, and a hundred yards of construction had the road closed to motor vehicles for several miles. The workers let us through just fine.

We’ll be doing that ride again real soon, although beginning and ending in Hammondsport. It’s the Sunday “recovery ride” on the Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour coming up the first weekend in June. It was such a nice ride, I can hardly wait to do it again.

Today’s plan was to circumnavigate Canandaigua Lake. That one will wait. I could do it. I ride in foul weather—but only when I have to. And generally not for four or five hours at a whack. So I was relieved when hndlebar called to say he felt the same.

As it turns out, what I thought was just some sinus congestion from being in an underheated apartment, turns out to be a cold. It really kicked into gear by mid-morning and I spent the bulk of the day on the couch.

So my plan to bring this up to date sort of sniffled out. There has been no shortage of interesting things things happening. But there’s always tomorrow…

As if going to the BikeJournal.com Reunion 2008 in Loveland, Colorado isn’t enough. As if signing up for the “Epic Century” ride on that Saturday isn’t enough, (includes a 30-mile climb at 6% to 7% average grade to just shy of 10,000 feet).

The hosting club, Club Hypoxia (motto: Oxygen or Altitude, Pick One), has added a special Pre-Reunion ride on Wednesday July 30—three months from today, exactly.

Worse, yrs trly has decided to advance his travel plans one day in order to partake of this madness.

The ride? To the summit of Mt. Evans. Fourteen-thousand, two-hundred and sixty feet. It’s reputedly the highest paved road in the world. From the entrance station at Echo Lake (10,750 feet), where they extract $3.00 to ride up it on a bike, it’s 14 miles at 5% to 6% average grade to the summit.

The plan is to begin the ascent at 8:00, in order to be back down by the afternoon. Apparently it’s typical for thunderstorms and hail to begin after twelve. (See the Bicycling Mt. Evans page.) I infer that it means three hours for the climb (7 MPH average with a hour’s worth of 5–10 minute rest stops), a little time at the top, and 45 minutes coasting back down.

Sounds like a great little warm-up ride for the Epic Century three days later.

So anyway, I was telling my parents about it over dinner last night. I said it was the highest road in North America. My dad challenged me, “The highest road, or the highest paved road?”

I lost it.

“Does it really matter?” I fired back. “Your 51-year-old son, who smoked for 35 years, is riding his goddamned bicycle to the summit of that mutherfucker at 14,200 feet and change. Does it really matter if the fucking road is paved or not?”

They just returned from a trip to New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Their Buick never made it to 14,260 feet.

I will.

Edit

And then it’s all better after checking this thread on the 50+ forum at bikeforums.net, wherein yrs trly posts a pic modeling his 50+ jersey, and women from NorCal and SoCal go wild. (See posts 12–14.)

It was a dream come true. I always wanted to be able to jump on with a fast group that I happened upon. Tonight I got my chance.

And not in the way you might think.

Now, nobody I know or ride with regularly disses me and the Portland. They know I’m a serious rider and the Portland is my main ride.

But I also know that, while it’s my dream bike, to most roadies, it screams FRED! I mean there’s the rack, fenders, 28mm tires, frame pump, relaxed front geometry, the disk brakes, oh, and all the lights and that big-ass reflector on the back.

But I’ve been working on the engine, you know? So it’s sort of a sleeper. Even when I’m in a jersey and bike shorts. Of course, my helmet sort of gives it away if you know what you’re looking at.

It was a beautiful night coming home from work tonight. A little more than an hour to sunset and I’m heading into it as I roll up to a Y intersection. I have the red, so I unclip and stop. Looked to the right, down the other branch of the Y, and here come a bunch of roadies.

I let the first three pass, and pulled out into a hundred yard gap before the next one. I spun it up to between 95 and 100 RPM and worked my way up through the gears. Next thing I knew, my speed was in the lower 20s and I was gaining on them.

Just as I was drawing up to them, I heard a car coming up behind me. I called out, “Car back!” The third guy in line did a shoulder-check, spotted me and hammered off to the front of the group. The light changed ahead and we all rolled to a stop.

“Hey,” I called out. “Where you guys coming from?”

“South wedge”, replied the chick who was now in third position. “We’re looping on back now.”

“Great night for it,” I said. “Just on the way home from work myself.”

And with that the three of them blew the red light. I rolled up to the crosswalk and engaged the rider behind me in small talk.

The light changed, I clipped-in, spun it up to 95 or so and snick, snick, snick, worked my way through the gears again. In the mid-20s now, I gained on the light jumpers pretty quickly. And I while I was working it, I wasn’t WORKING it, you know? (Average heart rate for the entire ride was 136 BPM, maximum heart rate was 159 BPM. I never went anaerobic.)

But they made it through the next light just as it turned yellow. I had to turn anyway, so I let them go. As I made my right on red, the guy behind me huffed up to a stop.

“Keep the rubber side down!” I called to him, waving.

Oh, I guess I forgot the best part.

My Tailrider trunk bag was bulging full of work clothes and library books, and my grocery panniers were bulging with 24¾ pounds of groceries. Yes I added it up at home. (Top round roasts were on sale! I bought two.)

Oh the humiliation to be caught by a old Fred hauling home the groceries…

At the bike club meeting tonight we were asked to spread the word about this.

Savvy Cyclist Class

• Saturday May 3, 11–4pm
• St. Paul Blvd Fire District
• 433 Cooper Rd, Rochester [ map ]
• Free!
• Open to all riders (or aspiring riders) 14 years of age or older
• Pre-registration preferred, email David Lamb
• Event flyer to share

This course provides information on the vehicle and traffic laws of NYS and how they apply to bicyclists. We will cover common collision scenarios and how to avoid them, discuss safe riding techniques and provide lights and other resources to keep bicyclists safe on the streets.

Whether you are a new or experienced cyclist, our Road I class gives cyclists the confidence needed to ride safely and legally in traffic or on the trail and prepares cyclists for a full understanding of vehicular cycling.

The class features both classroom and on-the-road training so bring your bike and helmet (required to ride).

Note to RBC Ride Leaders: you will receive a volunteer point for attending the clinic, besides becoming a more-knowledgeable ride leader and better cyclist.

Presented by the New York Bicycling Coalition, in cooperation with the Monroe County Office of Traffic Safety, the Rochester Bicycling Club, and the American Diabetes Association

Last week was my first 150 mile week of the year.

I also turned over 1,000 and 1,100 miles on the year.

I rolled over 2,000 miles on the Portland.

On a day when I wasn’t even trying, I set a new personal best speed on the long loop to work. 17.4 MPH average. Amazingly, I wasn’t winded or sweaty. It felt like a nice, easy ride.

Based on that, Saturday morning I left a few minutes early and rode the long loop club-dub 12” extended remix to work. Turned two miles into 20½. At 17.1 MPH average for the whole trip. Again, not even trying. I’d even stopped to take photos along the way.

A year ago to the day, on the shorter 13 mile version of the long loop to work, my average was 14.2 MPH. That was my last long loop commute on the Giant Cypress DX. The following week, on the same route but on my first long loop commute with Yellow Bike, my average was 15.5.

So what they say is true. For the first few years of cycling, you just keep improving.

More than just the speed, what I find infinitely more satisfying is that these recent rides seem so easy. I remember last year really pushing to get that first 15.5 MPH run on Yellow Bike. It was also on Yellow Bike last week that I did the same ride at 17.4 at what seemed like a recovery pace.

Since the weather broke, hills don’t seem as steep or as long either. The other day I was heading north on Winton Rd coming up on Cobbs Hill. Looking at it I was puzzled by how short it was, and how gentle the slope. I rode up and over easily.

Something has changed and everything seems easy.

This is confirmed by a new toy. I bought a new cyclometer recently. In addition to the usual speed and cadence numbers, it also measures altitude to track climbing, and heart rate to measure effort.

The HRM is used in training to set a particular level of effort for whatever ride or phase of a ride you’re on. I’m still finding baselines and measuring against perceived effort. After a while, I’ll know what my training “zones” are and will use it as a training tool.

The hard part is finding your maximum heart rate. The true test is actual measurement, but to start, I’ve opted for one of the formulas. I started conservatively, using the formula that yielded the lowest number, 169. In my case, that converted to training zones that were just too easy. I wasn’t breaking a sweat or even breathing heavily where it said I was in a zone where I should really be feeling it.

I messed around with other formulas and am now using one that set my maximum heart rate at 181. This seems a little closer to the mark when I calculate the training zones from it, although I suspect it’s still a little low.

I ride along just fine with a heart rate of 146. That seems to be my typical, just cruising along rate. It puts me in a high, aerobic development zone. If I try to ride in a recovery zone, I can’t do it. It seems much to slow and easy. Then best I can do is the lower 130s.

Now this also confirms what I suspected all along, that I ride too hard too often. Instead of how most people use HRMs—to train harder in the upper ranges, I’ll be using it on recovery rides to keep my effort down.

It also explains why I’m having such a hard time losing this gut, despite the amount of riding I do. It seems that above a certain zone, the body burns carbs preferentially. In order for it to burn fat preferentially, I have to ride much, much easier than I have been.

The other thing I’m learning from the HRM is that my in-ride recovery rate is very, very good. Meaning that after a harder stretch—a climb or sprint for instance—my heart rate settles right down in under a minute. At a long stoplight, it can drop into the double-digits. This, apparently, is an indicator of overall cardiac heath. I gots it.

The altimeter is interesting too. This one isn’t a precision instrument, but it is helpful for measuring things in general. Cyclists are usually interested in how much climbing was done in a given ride, and what the slope is of any given hill.

That part of Cobbs Hill I mentioned before is between 3% and 4% grade northbound. Southbound, it’s between 6% and 7%. And even that’s not making me want to collapse in a heap at the top any more—which is good, because that ride in Colorado is 6% to 7% average for a whole 30 miles.

So a training regimen for this summer is slowly taking shape in my head. It won’t be perfectly balanced, given my commuting, but I hope to achieve a better balance between climbing days, hard days, LSD (long, steady distance) days and recovery days.

Nine years ago yesterday, my car was towed off to city impound and I became car-free. It wasn’t entirely by choice, but I wasn’t distressed over it either. As I recall, I felt relieved, actually, mainly due to the reduction in drama and expenses.

Even so, at the time my favorite magazine was still Car & Driver, and I was drooling over the latest models from Detroit. It seemed temporary.

I was already commuting by bus so making the transition was simply a matter of using the bus for other trips as well. For the first seven years of car-free living I did quite well for myself with the bus, shoeleather express and the occasional car ride.

Two weeks ago was the second anniversary of my becoming a cyclist. I’ve charged through these years with the zeal of the newly converted. Free of bus routes and schedules, my world expanded.

I was already a master of car-free living, but cycling brought another aspect to it—another set of tools in the armamentarium. It brought flexibility, greater range and higher load carrying capacity.

More importantly, it brought joy.

I don’t recall ever feeling joy over riding the bus. Behind the wheel? Maybe back in the 70s sometime. Traffic pretty much killed that, along with all the other hassles of car ownership.

Cycling brings me joy with every ride. Sometimes it’s a little, sometimes a lot. Sometimes it doesn’t hit until after I hang up the bike, other times it arrives with the first pedal stroke.

Whatever my original motivations, whatever subsidiary reasons, I continue to ride my bike for joy.

Not that I rely on it too much, but the 15-day forecast calls for only one night of below-freezing temps—tomorrow night—so it looks like the winter riding season is over for me, even though there’s still snow on the ground.

And not a moment too soon, AFAIC.

Today I stripped and detailed the Portland. Then I took the studs and the 16-27 cassette off the “winter” wheelset, replacing them with the bike’s original 12-27 cassette and the cyclocross tires, creating an “off-road” wheelset for the three-seasons. And I replaced the broken fender.

The only winter wear and tear seems to be to the rear cables (both shifter and brake) and the rear brake caliper seems a little rough. Then again, that caliper has never seemed as smooth as the front one, so it may just be the problem, not the salt.

Cables I expect to replace anyway, so I’ll only have to sort out the rear caliper. I was going to replace the cables today, but decided to wait a couple of weeks to see how wet the spring is. It’s the wet that attracts and holds the dirt.

When I do that, I’ll replace the chain. If I wiggle and force it, I can fit the .75% side of the chain checker into it. Only 240 miles to 2,000 and it’ll be fine until then. One of the few items that wasn’t in the storage bin when thieves took my spare parts, was a nice new 10-speed Ultegra chain.

Summarizing the 2007-08 winter:

Dec – Mar
70 Rides
458.82 Miles
34:52:24 Ride time

Those figures include all rides where the bike was wearing studs, which was about half of my total rides and hours for the period, and about 40% of the miles.

Lowest temp ridden: 4°F, -16°C. That was also the lowest temp ridden in the 2006–07 season and about the coldest it got here in both years.

The Portland turned out to be everything I’d hoped for in transportation for the winter. And it exceeded my expectations on rec rides. I never expected to chase MTBers off-road through the snow, and to out-climb some of them, but we did it several times. Skinny tires rule!

The forecast highs are in the 40s and 50 for the next two weeks. Some of those days will be rainy, but it’s sure going to be nice not having to put on all those layers before going out.

It got into the lower 40s yesterday under sunny skies. It was pretty windy, but still, Yellow Bike and I got out for a few miles with the club. This particular ride was map 178, Ellison Park to Mendon Ponds Park. Mendon Ponds is a favorite destination, and map 178 takes a slightly different route to it than I usually ride—a hillier route. I’ll have to remember it for my hill training.

I was pleased with my pace, averaging 16.3 MPH over the 30 miles. Part of this route takes the same roads as the ride I led last July. I was delighted that on the same bike, with same gears and even with the heavy winds, I was a full 2 MPH faster than last July. Hills I struggled with last July were non-issues yesterday.

It means that I continue to improve, even when I don’t otherwise notice it.

Now that it’s just four months from riding the Rockies, I’m going to have to knuckle down and do some serious training. I’ve decided to get a new cyclometer with altimeter to track my climbing and a heart rate monitor.

I’m beginning to understand how the different heart rate “zones” relate to different aspects to training. I have a sneaking suspicion that I don’t ride hard enough a lot of the time—at least not hard enough to improve at the rate I need to for the Rockies.

Plus, my lights interfere with my current cyclometers. I like them otherwise. I had been saving for a Garmin Edge 705, which adds GPS and mapping to the feature set, but I can’t justify the extra cost. And it’s having bleeding edge software issues.

I was delighted to find that Blackburn, which made the cyclometers I own now, has addressed the interference issue and has put a few other upgrades into its new line. So on payday this week, I’m going to order the new Neuro 6.0.

It uses the same cadence sensor and wiring harness as my current Delphi models, so I don’t have to change a thing there. The unit is supposed to automatically sense Bike 1 and Bike 2, so near as I can tell, I’ll have to buy one extra wireless speed sensor, and I’ll be able to use the one unit on both bikes.

I confess that I’m ready for spring. Winter has worn out its welcome.

That 65°F day early in March spoiled it for me. Since then, I’ve found increasingly lame excuses to stay indoors. As of today, I’m 200 miles behind my March goal of 350 miles. The only hope of reaching it is to ride 22¼ miles a day, every day for the rest of the month.

It’s not going to happen.

Especially since I’m already formulating excuses to blow off tomorrow’s “Spin Around the Bay” ride with the bike club. I have several excuses to choose from:

• It’s too cold.
• It’s too windy.
• It’s too damp.
• It’s Easter and I have family obligations.
• I don’t have any clean bike clothes.
• I crashed yesterday.

Eh?

Yeah, I took a tumble on the way to work this morning. So much for 2008 goal number four: No crashes.

Another aspect of my I’m-so-done-with-winter outlook is that I’m riding around on my three-season tires. I’ve grown so tired of pushing the damned studs, of the emotionally-flat ride and handling with them, of just the noise, that what little riding I’ve done lately, has been without them. Even when the conditions indicate them.

Like today.

The overnight low was 21°F. Although it’s been dry and sunny, it’s still warm enough to melt during the day, and freeze at night.

So this morning, I dragged my lazy ass out of bed before dawn, showered, geared up and set out at first light on the long loop to work.

I encountered patches of ice along the Riverway and the Canalway—drippage from bridges, and little surface flows of meltwater across the pavement. I’d already traversed dozens of them, and I’d already walked the bike across two large patches of refrozen snow.

But this patch tripped a little advance warning in my head, which I ignored. The others had been on fairly flat pavement. This one was on a little incline that also had some pitch down from left to right.

I was tight to the left edge of the pavement when the rear end slid out, downhill to the right. I stopped pedaling and it stopped slipping. But then the front slid.

I’m going down, I thought. But I had relaxed and was riding it through. Cool, I thought. That works!

Then I ran out of ice—with the wheel cocked at roughly 45° to my line of travel. The tire bit asphalt, sent the bike off to the left from beneath me and flipped me over the bars.

As I sailed up, I remembered how to crash: Let go of the bike, tuck and roll.

I hit with my right elbow first, rolled on to my shoulder, banged the back of my head on the frozen ground, and rolled, and rolled some more. I finished several steps further up the path from my bike.

Miraculously, the bike suffered only a slight tear to the bar tape, a little scuffing on right lever hood, and a little scrape on the rack legs. They’re bare stainless-steel anyway, so you can hardly tell.

Me? Since I rolled this time, rather than doing my usual slam-down-and-skid-along-the-pavement routine, there’s only a little smudge of dirt on my jacket and I have only one very faint bruise.

Crashing without road rash is infinitely preferable to crashing with it. I’ll have to remember this for the next time.

My helmet came out the worst. There’s one little hairline crack in the Styrofoam on the inside. Not even a scratch to the outside. I know you’re supposed to destroy a helmet after a crash. I’m not sure I can bring myself to do it. The crack is so tiny, and it has an internal carbon-fiber cage buried within the Styrofoam. Plus, it was a $200 helmet.

So I’m not sure what I’ll do. I stopped in to Towner’s to see if Specialized has a discounted crash-replacement policy, like some other helmet companies do. They weren’t sure and asked me to drop by during business hours this week so we can call them and check.

Earlier today I was leaving a comment on an entry on RocBike.com. In the entry, Jason offered for download a spreadsheet for maintaining a ride log. In the comment I said I prefer the online ones and listed two that I use, my favorite being BikeJournal.com.

To be sure I’d covered all the bases, I did a Goggle search on bike ride log.

Well, blow me down, what was number one on the search? My public ride log at BikeJournal.com, that’s what.

All I can figure is that it must like my links here.

I’ve been thinking lately that, despite carrying my camera almost everywhere I go on the bike, I’ve taken few pictures of actual winter riding. Sure I’ve taken shots with snow in them, but the roads have been, at worst, wet. I decided to fix that today with these shots from my morning commute.

The Hyperbole Channel™ forecast 12–15 inches for this weekend, split between last night and tonight. We’re going to have to get a lot of snow tonight to make up for how little we got last night. But at least it was a pretty snow.

At the diner this morning, I sat next to some blowhard spouting off about the price of gas, and that nobody does anything to reduce energy consumption. I noticed keys and those goofy remote controls for two different cars on his keyring.

You can never make a point with a blowhard, so I never mentioned this obvious hypocrisy, or that my Trek was parked outside by his guzzler.

Anyway, the cool thing about riding in the snow is that drivers give you a really wide berth. It’s a balance of fear thing. They are far more afraid of that crazy guy on a bike than they are of getting that next light on red.

Fortunately all the snowplows I encountered today were going the opposite direction. Snowplows are one thing I’ll get off the road for.

I arrived at work in plenty of time to mess around outside taking pictures. The librarian, who has keys and an alarm code, was late because the roads weren’t plowed. Here I figured being late was the result of not leaving early enough. Who knew?

Riding home was a little tougher since the temperature had dropped four degrees and the slushy mess was starting to freeze. Even so, my round trip average speed was 13.5 MPH.

I wanted to drop off Yellow Bike’s old wheelset to be trued, and I was having fun in the snow, so after I got home, I strapped the wheelset to my backpack and rode over to Full Moon Vista, where I had a delightful afternoon of drinking coffee, bothering the staff, and chatting with other customers.

Two guys were at least my age and buying their second bikes after taking up riding last year. Both have joined the Rochester Bicycling Club, and I hope to see them again on one of the rides.