I love cycling in the fall.. next time I am probably going to bring my real camera to get some good shots of the area.
Today I went for a nice 16 mile ride just for fun. I almost forgot how much fun and relaxing cycling could be because of the work I have been doing for next year’s racing season. I am also in love with my arm warmers; they feel so amazing. Cycling is also a good time to think. I generally ponder about the current projects I am working on, today about Vodka and Thrust. It is nice how easy problems become when you aren’t forcing yourself to think about them.
Well, my favorite time trial loop got decimated because the town decided to lay down tar and then pile on a bunch of loose gravel. This forces me to ride at a much slow pace because it is (a) bumpy and (b) hard to spot the big potholes.
If I continue straight where that road starts I am forced to climb a fairly steep hill (5% maybe?) which, although doable, will wreck any meaningful capture of a flat 16 mile time trial workout. Looks like I need to find a new route that gives me a flat 20 mile (or less) country road. Not that easy in Jersey where ridges are plentiful and have steep albeit short drop offs.
But there is good news in all of this… my 80 mile workout last Thursday really killed my knees but also tormented my leg muscles. I am finding that high resistance riding is getting a lot easier, including steep climbs and big gear churning. On the major flat part of my 16 mile TT route I am able to hold 23-24mph with greater ease.
Plus, climbing is just so much fun. Gotta love dancing on the pedals and making others jealous that you, a 200+ lb rider can beat them up the climb. 
P.S. Scale has me down ~10 pounds! Onward and downward I go.
Basically I failed today. But I am still proud of the effort I put in!
I wanted to do my first century so badly. Boy did I pick the wrong day to try it! It was so windy and so cloudy and just at the temperature where warmers would overheat me and not wearing them meant I was a bit chilly.
I also picked a very tough route. The first 50 miles was 4000 ft of climbing and 4000 ft of descending. It was a very exciting new route though and I am definately getting better at climbing.
The second 50 would be a little more flat but with some steep but short ascents.
I stopped at mile 44 for a quick sandwich and to refill.
At mile 60 my knees started hurting.
Mile 65 my right calf was about to charlie horse which meant I had to stay in the saddle during every climb. I hate that, much more comfy out of the saddle.
By mile 78 I was coming back in to town to start another loop and decided to call it quits. I had been out for 5 hours and I was barely keeping 15 mph.
Hit 80.xx by the time I made it home. Put all my data into TheDailyPlate and my log and now TDP is saying I can eat roughly 6.5k calories because I burned ~4000 on the ride. hahahahah. not going to happen.
I hit 1 000 miles of riding this season. I actually hit it sometime last week, but was too lazy to post anything about it. This is by far the most miles I have done in any year of biking and the year is not over yet! I attribute a lot of those miles (682 to be exact) to the fact that I got a new bike that is just such a tremendous joy to ride.
Today’s ride was a 21 mile loop that I did pretty hard. I came in at 1 hour and 12 minutes, a 17.x mile per hour average. While this speed not what I will need to compete in TTs next year, my loops include a few hills (TTs around here are mostly flat) including one I can only go up at about 8mph. In the flat sections I am consistently above 21mph and on descents I stay at around 30mph just to be safe. So if I can get a trainer for the winter and work on my aero form I should be in top form for next season.
Today I went on my first group ride. It was a fairly quick and simple 20 mile loop from the local bike shop. There were about 15 of us with many different bikes. I had lots of fun chatting, riding, drafting, et cetera. I will definately be doing it again. Tomorrow is a 50 mile ride to some place that should have some good food. I really need to get a small digital camera to take some pictures on the rides…
I am totally committed to entering a time trial next cycling season. I decided this past week that with a little more training I could definately do it. So next year I am going to start with some 20-35km time trials. After speaking briefly with some of the guys at my LBS (local bike shop you n00bs) it seems that around here the TTs are all kept very flat which will be extremely beneficial to a big guy like me.
I am extremely excited about this, of course, and am going to be modifying my training as well as turning it up a notch. Tomorrow will start a series of sessions devoted to flatland riding. I have a perfect road that is essentially flat that I can just tear up and down. I will do this, pushing my bike as fast as I can for as long as I can (or until the road ends). Much like hill workouts for XC (cross country, come on try and keep up) where you sprint up steep hills, these should help me get better situated on the bike in an aero position and help me get some better straight line speed.
Ah yes, another post about how the coverage of the Olympics sucks. Or is it? No, the coverage has been great. I have been able to see sports I didn’t even know existed (air rifling anyone? Dressage?) and see my favorite pros do battles on the slopes and descents whenever I wanted to. I have also been able to avoid swimming and gymnastics like the black plague because I hear enough from my peers about how awesome so-and-so are.
So what am I complaining about? NBC has fantastic coverage, but why focus on two disciplines? Sure, America loves to watch teenage girls bend in ways that just look inhuman. And sure, America loves to watch the beast that is Phelps destroy his competition on a truly Olympic conquest. But these are just two sports out of the hundreds being played in Beijing.
Perhaps it would shock NBC to find out that there are millions of bike riders out there just dying for any coverage at all. That many of us stayed up for the full 6 hour road race just because we like to see every single pedal stroke of our heros. We thank NBC for the ability to do this, but wish they would give sports like cycling, archery, football (soccer), field (shotput, javelin, discus anyone?), and trap shooting, more on-TV coverage.
We like to hear Paul Sherwin discuss the strategy of the teams and some of us love to hear Phil drabble on about the sunflowers and how they always point towards the sun. There are many of us who wish NBC would give honor to those who deserve to be honored whether they be American, Chinese, Spanish, or Martian. Let us see them triumph over us. Let us see more than just two sports. Show the United States that the Olympics is more than just the sports we care about. That there is a world outside of America. You owe us that much after running spots for Visa that end up saying “Go World!” What they really mean is “Go World, except for anyone who isnt a gymnast or swimmer and a US athlete.”
I bet you didn’t even know that the U.S. won the gold medal in the women’s time trial and that we took bronze in the men’s time trial! Congrats to Armstrong and Leipheimer.
While trying to figure out my fit on the bike I decided it would be a good idea to get some pictures snapped to get a better idea of how I look on the bike… Don’t mind the weird tanline on my wrist!! Now I just need to install my computer / sensors.
So I bought a new bike, a Trek Madone 5.2 Pro. It is my first real roadbike, my first bike with shifters integrated with the brakes, my first pedals with a clipping mechanism, my first carbon fiber bike, and a whole lot of other firsts! The bike I have been riding up until now has been a Nishiki/CyclePro steel frame bike circa 1983, and man what a difference! Today I took the new bike out for the first time and it is just so fast, so stiff and so lightweight. I felt like I could just go for miles and miles on it except that my core strength isn’t where it needs to be for the new position.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a sucky weekend I had of bike riding. I have taken a very deep look at how I ride and took another shot this weekend at going 50 miles. My form has gotten so much better already and it shows because this weekend I went the full distance. However, without an odometer I have no clue how close to 50 miles I got. I do know it was within 47-49 miles for sure, if not more, based on the loops I took. When I finished I knew I could go longer and that was enough for me.
To fix my problems I did a few things: First I looked at how my legs were working with each stroke of the pedals. I found that my left leg was doing too much of the work involuntarily. So I am now pushing with my right leg. I also found that when I get tired I tend to drag my feet such that I don’t lift them up when I should which causes weight to be applied to the pedal moving upwards. I fixed this by making concious changes to how I pedal.
Secondly I looked at my upper body movements and found that when I was pushing hard I would sway from side to side. This is very bad because it is not only a waste of energy but also puts forces at a ninety degree angle to the direction I am traveling. I fixed this by ensuring my upper body remains still as possible throughout the ride. When I climb now, I make sure that although the bike swings from side to side, my shoulder remain in line with the wheels. Again, so as not to waste any energy.
Thirdly, I looked at when I was pedaling too fast or hard and changed my strategy. Because my 50 mile loop[s] have 4-5 hills that are still a tad challenging to me I have forced myself to restrain from blazing across the flat sections. Today this was helped by catching people and being able to wheel suck for a bit. Thank you for all the help out there! It was much appreciated!
Fouthly, I made sure that I was as clean as possible before going out. This meant little to no pizza and a very small breakfast before riding. I had a bowl of rice crispies with some bananas and some coffee. This also meant that I carried only two water bottles rather than the four I carried last time. The weight savings were noticeably, although next time I will probably carry three bottles or grab a refill as I ran out at around 40 miles.
And lastly, I made sure that I carried gatorade instead of just water! This ensured that my legs were still good for the last couple of climbs I had to do. Boy was the gatorade and power bars a life saver today. I ended up eating my power bar a little early, but it felt great. I immediately felt the change and felt basically fresh even after 25 miles of some pretty hard roads.
Tomorrow I get back into the normal 16-20 mile routine until I can go longer in the short time I have after work. I have lost a total of 0 pounds, but feel stronger and thinner. Once I change my diet for good I am sure I will lose some weight.
Cycling | John Sedlak | 
October 20, 2008 4:12 pm | 
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