Showing posts with label cycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cycling. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Losing the Lotoja Lottery
I just received my notification from LOTOJA that I did not get a spot in this year's ride. Too bad :( I guess I will have to wait until next year for my shot at redemption. Or, I could ride with a handful of guys that are going to attempt the LOTOJA route several weeks before the race.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Photos From LOTOJA
Here are some photos that Rosey took of me (and Chris) riding in LOTOJA. Note that you probably need to view this in a browser instead of an RSS reader.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Ninety One Point Eight Percent
LOTOJA kicked my ass on Saturday. I rode hard for just over 12 hours and made it 189 miles but just couldn't make it the rest of the way to the finish line. I am severely disappointed :(
I think that the biggest factor contributing to non-completion was letting up on my training regimen in the month leading up to LOTOJA. I had been riding about 200 miles a week for most of the summer but then dropped down to less than a hundred miles a week after riding ULCER in early August. Of course, it didn't help to train at a lower weight for most of the summer and then put on a few extra pounds towards the end of the summer.
It's kind of creepy that I finished exactly as much of LOTOJA as I did of RANATAD. I rode 147 of 160 miles of RANATAD and I rode 189 of 206 miles of LOTOJA. Those both work out to almost exactly 91.8% of the total. It's almost like a switch goes off inside of me and says, "You've done 91.8% of the ride... it's time to quit now".
After failing to complete RANATAD, I told myself that I just needed to have more mental toughness. I needed to push myself to get through no matter what. And, I was prepared to push myself to finish LOTOJA no matter what. The problem is that my body was ready to give up 120 miles into the ride. By the time that I had ridden over the three mountain passes (Strawberry, Geneva and Salt River) and descended into Afton my body was in agonizing pain.
It was sheer mental toughness that drove me through the next 70 miles to get me through Star Valley, Snake River Canyon and just outside of Jackson. From that standpoint I was actually proud of myself that I was able to push that far. It was particularly difficult becuase for much of the ride through Star Valley I was riding into a soul crushing cross/head wind. Several of the guys who rode last year said that the wind this year made the ride much more difficult.
The other factor that I think contributed to my failure was that I rode solo for much of the ride. The guys that I trained with from work all summer were actually riding in a different age category than me so I wasn't able to start at the same time as them. I stuck with my starting pack to Preston, got split up going into the mountains and then for the rest of the day just had a difficult time latching on to anyone. Riding 206 miles in a group is difficult but riding that distance solo is really just sheer stupidity. In retrospect, I think that I would have been better off even finding a slower group of riders and just sticking with them all day so that I didn't have to do as much work riding into the wind.
Again, I am hugely disappointed. I don't know if I dare to wear the LOTOJA jersey that I bought before the ride considering that I didn't finish. But all I can do is come back next year with a little more wisdom and preparation.
Rosey got some pictures from the ride, but I don't have the cable to get them from the camera while we are on the road, so I'll have to post them when we get back home in a couple of weeks.
I think that the biggest factor contributing to non-completion was letting up on my training regimen in the month leading up to LOTOJA. I had been riding about 200 miles a week for most of the summer but then dropped down to less than a hundred miles a week after riding ULCER in early August. Of course, it didn't help to train at a lower weight for most of the summer and then put on a few extra pounds towards the end of the summer.
It's kind of creepy that I finished exactly as much of LOTOJA as I did of RANATAD. I rode 147 of 160 miles of RANATAD and I rode 189 of 206 miles of LOTOJA. Those both work out to almost exactly 91.8% of the total. It's almost like a switch goes off inside of me and says, "You've done 91.8% of the ride... it's time to quit now".
After failing to complete RANATAD, I told myself that I just needed to have more mental toughness. I needed to push myself to get through no matter what. And, I was prepared to push myself to finish LOTOJA no matter what. The problem is that my body was ready to give up 120 miles into the ride. By the time that I had ridden over the three mountain passes (Strawberry, Geneva and Salt River) and descended into Afton my body was in agonizing pain.
It was sheer mental toughness that drove me through the next 70 miles to get me through Star Valley, Snake River Canyon and just outside of Jackson. From that standpoint I was actually proud of myself that I was able to push that far. It was particularly difficult becuase for much of the ride through Star Valley I was riding into a soul crushing cross/head wind. Several of the guys who rode last year said that the wind this year made the ride much more difficult.
The other factor that I think contributed to my failure was that I rode solo for much of the ride. The guys that I trained with from work all summer were actually riding in a different age category than me so I wasn't able to start at the same time as them. I stuck with my starting pack to Preston, got split up going into the mountains and then for the rest of the day just had a difficult time latching on to anyone. Riding 206 miles in a group is difficult but riding that distance solo is really just sheer stupidity. In retrospect, I think that I would have been better off even finding a slower group of riders and just sticking with them all day so that I didn't have to do as much work riding into the wind.
Again, I am hugely disappointed. I don't know if I dare to wear the LOTOJA jersey that I bought before the ride considering that I didn't finish. But all I can do is come back next year with a little more wisdom and preparation.
Rosey got some pictures from the ride, but I don't have the cable to get them from the camera while we are on the road, so I'll have to post them when we get back home in a couple of weeks.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Preparing for LOTOJA
Tomorrow is the ride that I've been preparing for all summer... LOTOJA. We'll ride 206 miles from Logan, UT to Jackson, WY in a single day. For the most part I think that I'm well prepared. I've ridden about 4000 miles on my bike since this spring. I'm a little concerned that I've let up a little in the last couple of weeks (things have been hectic between work and wedding preparations) but I think that I'll be OK.
I'm shooting for an overall course time of under 11 hours. That means that I'll have to keep a moving average of about 20 miles per hour and keep my stopped time down to about 45 minutes. I'll start in a pack of about 60 riders at 7:10 AM and hope to get to Jackson around 6PM.
Rosey will be following with the car, but she has already threatened that she will not let me into the car without finishing unless I'm dead :) She doesn't want to have to listen to me bitch for the next year about not finishing LOTOJA :) I guess I don't blame her.
I'm shooting for an overall course time of under 11 hours. That means that I'll have to keep a moving average of about 20 miles per hour and keep my stopped time down to about 45 minutes. I'll start in a pack of about 60 riders at 7:10 AM and hope to get to Jackson around 6PM.
Rosey will be following with the car, but she has already threatened that she will not let me into the car without finishing unless I'm dead :) She doesn't want to have to listen to me bitch for the next year about not finishing LOTOJA :) I guess I don't blame her.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
ULCER 2007
I rode my second ULCER (Utah Lake Century Epic Ride) on Saturday August 11th. The course started and ended at Thanksgiving Point and rode 111 miles around Utah Lake... although I managed to squeeze in an extra 6 miles by getting off course near Spanish Fork canyon. I completed the ride with a moving average of 21 miles per hour. That's a pretty good speed for me but it probably would have been better if it wasn't for some trouble that I had along the way.This is essentially a slightly longer version of the weekly ride that I do on Thursday mornings. On Thursdays, I do the same loop traveling in the opposite direction but only end with about 89 miles as we don't start at Thanksgiving Point and we don't detour all the way out to Springville.
I was hoping to ride ULCER with the same group that I do my weekly ride with, but they all either had prior commitments or they weren't interested in doing an organized ride that they already ride so frequently for free. I could see their point, but there is just something special about the ULCER being in our "neighborhood" and it's kind of neat to ride in a group of 2000 cyclists that share your passion for riding.
So, I had originally thought that I was going to be riding the ULCER solo, but then I got hooked up with some friends of DanB that were riding as a team. This was MikeB, his son, Ben, Bob and a guy whose name I never got despite riding with for most of the day. We'll refer to him as WhiteJerseyGuy or WJG for short. I had briefly met MikeB and his son Ben at RANATAD but all of the other faces were new.
Riding as a team we actually got to start a little earlier than the general crowd. The teams were released in stages starting at 7AM. We got off by about 7:15. Despite Mike claiming that we were going to start "slow and easy to warm up", we ended up peeling away from the starting line and holding a pace of better than 25 miles per hour. We probably couldn't have maintained this pace on our own, but we were riding on the wheels of a larger group of teams that was doing most of the work. We just got the free ride :)
About 15 miles into the ride, the larger group started to split into several smaller ones. Somehow we ended up in a slightly slower group doing 22 miles per hour. After a couple of miles at this pace, I looked over at my teammate and asked, "Wanna close the gap on the larger group?". "Yeah", he said, "I was thinking about that too. Lead the way." And so I did.
It looked like I had to sprint for a quarter mile to catch up to the larger pack. But after going all out and finally catching the group in front of us, it turned out that they weren't the larger, faster group. They were just another slow group that had been dropped by the fast group. So, I rested for a second and then sprinted for another quarter mile to catch the next group. This happened 3 or 4 times until we finally caught a group that was moving at a nice pace. What looked like an easy quarter mile sprint ended up being an exhausting 2 or 3 mile sprint to catch up with this group. I took the next several miles easy to catch my breath.
By the time that we reached the first rest stop in Springville 30 some odd miles into the ride, we were riding a staggering average of 23 miles per hour. That's fast. At least for me that's fast. I was feeling good, but starting to fear that I couldn't hold that pace for the full 111 miles. We actually rode right on past the first rest stop. The guys that I was riding with really wanted to put in a good time, and so they planned on doing the full loop with only a single stop at the 70 mile mark.
At this point in the ride, we had already lost MikeB and Bob back in Pleasant Grove somewhere. So, it was just Ben, WhiteJerseyGuy and myself heading out from Springville into Spanish Fork. We were still riding on the wheels of another team as we left Springville and starting climbing the hill in Mapleton up Hwy 89. As we got further and further and down this road I begun to wonder when the course was going to turn off towards the lake. This didn't feel right.
To make things worse, we were riding into gale force winds of Spanish Fork Canyon. This couldn't be the right route. No one would be sadistic enough to plan a ride into this kind of a canyon wind. But I just kept following the guy in front of me who was following the guy in front of him. I assumed that someone at the front the of pack knew where we were going. It wasn't until we reached the mouth of Spanish Fork canyon that the entire group collectively realized that we were lost.
We rode fast back down Hwy 6 into Spanish Fork. I knew how to get back on course, but I couldn't convince anyone else to come with me except for WhiteJerseyGuy. So, we split off from the larger group and I took backroads through my hometown to get us back on course. Ben had disappeared into one of the other groups and we wouldn't see him for the rest of the day. I kind of wonder how long it took those other groups to get back on track. It really pissed me to not only lose 6 miles worth of course time, but to have to ride those into a grueling canyon wind. You really don't need that kind of extra work when you are already riding a 111 mile course.
The ride from Spanish Fork to the front side of the lake was smooth. WJG and I got back into a fast moving pack and cruised through the country side out to the lake. I even got the opportunity to pull (ride in front and let the group draft off of me) a couple of times. Things didn't get ugly until we hit the Southwest corner of West Mountain. It's there that we hit a ridiculously strong headwind and a small patch of climbing that knocks the gusto out of you.
The climbing wasn't very difficult by Nebo standards but it just hits you in a way that demoralizing after riding so fast. Coupled with the heat of the rising sun and a water bottle that was beginning to run dry, this section was kind of miserable. The group quickly scattered into individual riders slogging along at their own pace. For the first time in the day, WJG pulled ahead of me and I ended up riding semi-solo for a couple of miles.
There was a water stop just before we picked up highway 6 in Goshen. And it was well placed considering that my water bottles had completely dried up a mile earlier. Even though it was only another 5 miles to our planned lunch stop, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to refill my bottles, empty my bladder and stretch my legs for a couple of minutes.
We were still fighting a stiff head/cross wind on the road to Goshen. But somehow it was made easier knowing that we had such a short distance to cover and that we were going to stop for lunch once we got there. The time went quickly.
At the lunch stop we reunited with MikeB and Bob. Apparently, our little detour through Spanish Fork canyon had given them plenty of time to catch up with us. They pulled into the rest stop just a little after we did. MikeB was still full of vim and vigor but Bob looked a little worse for the wear. We grabbed a couple of bites to eat and then jumped right back out on the road.
I led the group heading out of Goshen. We only had about 5 miles to Elberta where we would turn behind the lake and turn that grueling cross/headwind into a glorious tailwind. I pushed hard to fight the wind on that stretch of road but I was still concerned that I was going too slow for my teammates... so I would push a little harder. A couple of miles down the road, I decided to pull out and let someone else pull when I realized that there was no longer any of my teammates behind me. I had apparently dropped all of them. I hadn't realized it because some other guy had gotten on my wheel making me think that they were still behind me.
I rode solo up to the Elberta turn-off and then waited a couple of minutes in the shade for the rest of the group to catch up. At this point, I wasn't all that concerned about my individual time, I just wanted to have a good, fun ride back to Thanksgiving Point. MikeB and WJG came tooling along in a couple of minutes but Bob was nowhere to be seen. I got back on their wheels and we rode a blazing fast pace with a beautiful tailwind behind us.
When it comes to favorable riding conditions such as tail winds and downhill sections, there are two types of riders: Those who use the easy riding as an opportunity to rest for a while and enjoy the ride and those who use the conditions as mechanism to bolster their average speed. I can be either type of rider depending on the scenario, but with 75+ miles behind me already on this ride, I was leaning more towards cruising for a few miles to recuperate from that ugly headwind.
The group that we were pacing however, saw things differently. They decided that tailwind was the perfect reason to pick the speed up to over 30 miles an hour. That was actually easier than it sounds given the wind and stretch of road that we were riding. But nonetheless, we held that pace for about 5 miles before MikeB decided that he'd had enough and wanted to drop back to a more comfortable pace. I wasn't about to argue with him. A more comfortable pace sounded pretty good to me.
So, we slowed it back down to about 25 or 26 miles per hour and "relaxed" :) We had been cruising along at this pace for a couple of minutes when all of the sudden I heard a loud popping noise. It kind of startled me. At first I thought that I had blown one of my tires. Had my Kevlar failed me? No, my tires seemed to be holding pressure although something didn't look quite right about my front wheel. I pulled over to take a closer look and discovered that I had popped one of my spokes. That popping sound was the sound of my spoke breaking. I'm not entirely sure what caused it. I might have run over something or it could just be a freak accident.
The broken spoke had caused my wheel to become untrue. It was crooked enough that as it spun an entire revolution it rubbed up against both the left and right brake pads. On top of slowing me down, this made it so that the front wheel was kind of wobbly as it spun around. It probably wasn't that big of a deal but after the accident that I had just survived a week ago, a wobbly wheel at 25 miles per hour sounded a little intimidating.
MikeB stuck with me until the next rest stop where I was planning to get a SAG vehicle to bring a mechanic to look at my wheel. We dropped the pace down a couple of miles an hour just to be safe. As if the difference between 25 miles per hour and 23 miles per hour was going to matter if my wheel failed and I came crashing down into the asphalt.
The next "rest stop" was basically a tent setup in the middle of nowhere with a volunteer passing out ice and water. It was a minor stop that most riders didn't even bother to stop at. But at least the guy had a radio and he started to track down a mechanic for me. I probably waited for 15 minutes before being informed that it would be a while before they could get anyone out to me. But, there was a mechanic from Bingham cycle setup at the next rest stop just 12 miles down the road.
They offered to SAG me up to it. I appreciated the offer, but there was no way that I was going to be SAG'ed for any portion of this ride. I saddled up and decided to ride slow and easy to the next stop. 12 miles really wasn't that far. It went quickly with that nice tailwind and a few good tunes on my iPod.
The mechanic took one look at my wheel and basically told me I was screwed. He didn't have any spare spokes and even if he had normal ones, he wouldn't have any of the special spokes that my wheel takes. See I have these fancy wheels with flat aerodynamic spokes rather than the normal round ones. Basically, my only option was to open up my brakes so that the wheel didn't rub as it spun around and to ride the last 20 some odd miles on a wobbly wheel. "Why not?" I thought to myself. If I could ride 15 miles on a wobbly wheel then I can ride another 20. No problem.
Just as I had resigned myself to this option, the mechanic says, "Or... I could just let you take the wheel of my bike here". Hanging right behind him was his personal road bike. I'm not quite sure why he had it with him considering that he wasn't riding, but it just so happened to have the exact same set of wheels that I had on my bike. It wouldn't have mattered if they weren't the same set of wheels, but I thought it a strange coincidence that they just happened to be the same set of wheels. It was an offer that was too good to refuse. I took the wheels and got back on the road without even partaking of the food or water at the rest stop.
The 20 miles back to the finish line actually went pretty quickly. With my confidence in my wheels restored I was able to pick up the speed a little (actually a lot) and pass up a bunch of the people that had passed me up when I had been riding slower on bum wheels. There wasn't a whole lot of drafting to be had. I was mostly riding solo or picking up small groups here and there. The groups never seemed to last for very long though.
Coming through Saratoga Springs I actually met up with Bob again. Apparently the fiddling that I had done with my wheels had given him the opportunity to get back in front of me. I slowed for a minute to talk to him and even briefly considered sticking with him for the remainder of the ride. But he seemed to be really bogged down and after finally getting a good set of wheels back I just didn't feel like holding myself back anymore.
I pulled into the finish line 6 hours and five minutes after leaving earlier that morning. That included roughly 35 minutes of non-moving time for a moving time of 5 hours and 30 minutes with an average speed of 21 miles per hour.
Here is the elevation profile for the ride. It actually looks more jagged than some of the other profiles that I've posted but that's because there was much less overall elevation change which means you see more detail in the rolling ups and downs.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Who Let This Chicken into my Pain Cave?
I woke up a little after 3AM this morning, just like I do every Thursday morning, to ride in to work around Utah Lake. Only this morning, from the instant that my alarm clock went off, every muscle in my body and every neuron in my brain was screaming, "GO BACK TO BED!". It was more than just being tired; I couldn't shake this weird feeling that I just shouldn't ride this morning. Oh, if only I had listened.
The first sign of trouble came as we were riding through the still dark streets of pleasant grove at four in the morning. We were approaching a red traffic light that for some strange reason actually had a fair amount of traffic approaching from the green direction. It was almost as if light saw us coming and switched in our favor so that we had the green and the traffic got the red. I proceeded to power through the light only to hear Layne shout from behind me, "WATCH OUT!!!".
Well, it turns out that the cars approaching from the other direction did something that I myself might have done. They saw a red light at 4 in the morning with no apparent cross traffic and they were just about to run through it... directly into my path. I'm not sure if Layne's shout got their attention or if they just finally saw my approaching lights, but they did stop and we made it safely through the intersection.
We suffered no major catastrophes for the remainder of the ride to Saratoga Springs where we met up with our DanB, but I did think it unlucky that somehow we managed to ride straight through the middle of about half-a-dozen brain-jarring potholes. These are potholes that are usually easily avoidable even in the wee hours of the morning. But somehow we hit nearly every one of them.
After we picked up DanB, we got about 5 miles before he got a flat tire. As I was waiting for him to change his tire, my bowels decided that they were unhappy with my selection of food last night. Well, not so much unhappy with the selection, but rather with the quantity. See, I get into this bad habit of thinking, "I'm riding 90 miles tomorrow so I can eat whatever I want tonight". And although this is true from a caloric perspective, I have discovered that eating large quantities of food before a long ride just leaves me miserable and in constant anticipation of our next bathroom stop.
I had actually been dreaming of our first bathroom stop in Goshen ever since leaving Orem. Now, in Saratoga Springs, we were still an hour and a half away and I knew that I just wasn't going to make it. And in case your unfamiliar with Utah Lake, there is nothing but scrub brush between Saratoga Springs and Elberta... no parks, no gas stations, no porta-potties, just scrub brush.
We were right on the edge of town in Saratoga Springs. Just beyond that last couple of houses were some farm fields. Luckily, I had the foresight to bring along some emergency tissue to use as toilet paper. So, I headed off into one of the fields, pulled my bike shorts around my ankles, squatted down and did my business. I'm not exactly sure what was growing in those fields (looked like weeds mostly), but it really wasn't very tall. I could look one way and see houses and the other and see the road; and no doubt I was also in plain sight of both.
I kept waiting for a light to turn on in one of the houses and for an angry farmer to come chase me down with a shotgun for pooing in his field. Fortunately there were no lights or shotguns. Unfortunately, there was irrigation. Just as I was finishing my business an irrigation sprinkler that had been spouting the other direction had now run a full cycle and was shooting full blast at me. It must have been a funny sight to see me in that field, buck naked from the bottom down, struggling in the dark to find the leg holes in my black underwear and biker shorts. It was no simple task. It took several misfires of getting my bike cleats stuck in my shorts and almost falling over sideways before I was finally successful.
The ride to Elberta was fraught with ugly headwinds. There was a storm brewing up ahead and we were fighting hard to keep a speed of 17.5 MPH. Several times on this stretch of road, I couldn't help but questioning what I found so enticing about all of this to get myself out of bed at 3 in the morning just to endure this kind of suffering. I had trouble coming up with answers.
And then the rain came. It was slow at first but gradually worked into a fairly steady downpour. It wasn't long before we were all soaking wet. Nonetheless, we were all still in fairly good spirits. That headwind from behind the lake was now a crosswind, and in a few more miles would turn into a tailwind that would carry us along West Mountain at a speed of about 27 to 30 miles per hour. That's a great thing about loop rides... even the worst headwind is bound to turn into a tailwind at some point.
The downside of a tailwind, is that once you turn out of it, and you're bound to turn at some point, it's SO demoralizing to go from riding a light and lively 25+ MPH back down to a grueling, fighting the wind pace. It was after making just such a turn that we stumbled onto the most bizarre incident of the day...
I was out in front pulling the group along into the wind. My gaze rest upon the 3 feet of pavement in front of me, intensely concentrating on each and every grueling stroke of the pedal. I was in my pain cave. I was cold and wet and my legs were burning. But I knew that the only way to get into work was to finish that ride. Surrender was not an option.
Just then I hear a loud, "baaa-gaaawwkk" and a chicken came darting out into the road right in front of my tire. A real, live, full-sized, farm chicken. I tried to swerve but couldn't get out of the way in time. I rode right over the top of that chicken. Feathers were flying and it let out a blood curdling scream. But to my amazement, after it cleared my wheel it just kept on moving. I suspect that it made it to the other side of the road and probably died in the ditch. But I'll never know for sure because my cohorts and I were too busy laughing hysterically to pay attention to the chicken :)
The chicken carnage was not to be the last carnage that we were to encounter this morning. As we approached the WalMart overpass in Springville, I was overcome by this foreboding feeling. Something bad was going to happen. I even thought to myself that I should warn my riding companions to take it easy for the next couple of miles until we got back to Novell. But I didn't because I thought it would sound hokey.
Not 5 minutes later, we were taking a sharp right onto Kuhni road via what was previously referred to as Layne's corner. This is the corner that Layne wiped out on at last year's ULCER. History was about to repeat itself only with different players. Layne even warned the group to slow down, but even with the warning, DanB hit that corner just the wrong way on wet asphalt and his bike went flying out from beneath him. Fortunately both bike and rider were OK. DanB got some good road rash on his right thigh but other than that he was able to shake it off in a couple of minutes and get back onto the bike.
As we pulled away from the site of the wreck, I still had that foreboding feeling. I just had the sense that wasn't the last of our bad luck for the morning even though we were just a couple of miles from our destination now. Not but a couple of minutes later, calamity struck once more.
This time Layne was out in front and I was riding tight on his rear wheel to take advantage of the draft. Layne is usually a pretty steady rider and so I don't worry about getting right on his wheel. But as he was riding along this morning his bike computer completely gave out and he slowed down to turn around and tell us about it. I wasn't paying close enough attention and before I knew it my front tire bumped right into the back of his.
At first I was OK, I got over to the right side of his tire. But then to try and recover from my wobble my bike veered back to the left. By this time I had gained an inch on his back tire so that as I came back left, my wheel hit the side of his wheel. This bump along with the wet pavement was just enough to throw my front wheel out from underneath me. My bike went flying to the right and I came crashing down into the pavement chest first and slid to a slow uncomfortable stop on chip-sealed asphalt. A very uncomfortable stop.
The impact was nearly enough to knock the wind out of me but not so much wind was knocked to prevent the shouting of expletives :) It hurt. Bad. After a minute or so I was able to get up and take inventory. The damage didn't actually look that bad. My knees were scraped up and bleeding. My palms were sore from partially breaking the fall. But then I looked down and noticed the blood streaming from left elbow. It didn't feel broken but there was a dime-size chunk of skin missing about half-an-inch deep.
It was ugly. And if you know me very well, you know that I don't handle blood well. So, I laid down and mustered all my mental fortitude to keep from passing out. The laceration was deep but I still think that if I was a normal person I wouldn't have had a problem riding the rest of the way into work before getting it treated. But every time that I tried to stand up I got dizzy again and had to lay back down. So, Rosey came to the rescue, scooped me and my bike up and took me to the clinic where the wound was scraped out and sewn up with many and varied stitches.
So, the moral of the story is this: the next time you get up at three in the morning and everything is screaming at you to go back to bed... listen :)
The End.
The first sign of trouble came as we were riding through the still dark streets of pleasant grove at four in the morning. We were approaching a red traffic light that for some strange reason actually had a fair amount of traffic approaching from the green direction. It was almost as if light saw us coming and switched in our favor so that we had the green and the traffic got the red. I proceeded to power through the light only to hear Layne shout from behind me, "WATCH OUT!!!".
Well, it turns out that the cars approaching from the other direction did something that I myself might have done. They saw a red light at 4 in the morning with no apparent cross traffic and they were just about to run through it... directly into my path. I'm not sure if Layne's shout got their attention or if they just finally saw my approaching lights, but they did stop and we made it safely through the intersection.
We suffered no major catastrophes for the remainder of the ride to Saratoga Springs where we met up with our DanB, but I did think it unlucky that somehow we managed to ride straight through the middle of about half-a-dozen brain-jarring potholes. These are potholes that are usually easily avoidable even in the wee hours of the morning. But somehow we hit nearly every one of them.
After we picked up DanB, we got about 5 miles before he got a flat tire. As I was waiting for him to change his tire, my bowels decided that they were unhappy with my selection of food last night. Well, not so much unhappy with the selection, but rather with the quantity. See, I get into this bad habit of thinking, "I'm riding 90 miles tomorrow so I can eat whatever I want tonight". And although this is true from a caloric perspective, I have discovered that eating large quantities of food before a long ride just leaves me miserable and in constant anticipation of our next bathroom stop.
I had actually been dreaming of our first bathroom stop in Goshen ever since leaving Orem. Now, in Saratoga Springs, we were still an hour and a half away and I knew that I just wasn't going to make it. And in case your unfamiliar with Utah Lake, there is nothing but scrub brush between Saratoga Springs and Elberta... no parks, no gas stations, no porta-potties, just scrub brush.
We were right on the edge of town in Saratoga Springs. Just beyond that last couple of houses were some farm fields. Luckily, I had the foresight to bring along some emergency tissue to use as toilet paper. So, I headed off into one of the fields, pulled my bike shorts around my ankles, squatted down and did my business. I'm not exactly sure what was growing in those fields (looked like weeds mostly), but it really wasn't very tall. I could look one way and see houses and the other and see the road; and no doubt I was also in plain sight of both.
I kept waiting for a light to turn on in one of the houses and for an angry farmer to come chase me down with a shotgun for pooing in his field. Fortunately there were no lights or shotguns. Unfortunately, there was irrigation. Just as I was finishing my business an irrigation sprinkler that had been spouting the other direction had now run a full cycle and was shooting full blast at me. It must have been a funny sight to see me in that field, buck naked from the bottom down, struggling in the dark to find the leg holes in my black underwear and biker shorts. It was no simple task. It took several misfires of getting my bike cleats stuck in my shorts and almost falling over sideways before I was finally successful.
The ride to Elberta was fraught with ugly headwinds. There was a storm brewing up ahead and we were fighting hard to keep a speed of 17.5 MPH. Several times on this stretch of road, I couldn't help but questioning what I found so enticing about all of this to get myself out of bed at 3 in the morning just to endure this kind of suffering. I had trouble coming up with answers.
And then the rain came. It was slow at first but gradually worked into a fairly steady downpour. It wasn't long before we were all soaking wet. Nonetheless, we were all still in fairly good spirits. That headwind from behind the lake was now a crosswind, and in a few more miles would turn into a tailwind that would carry us along West Mountain at a speed of about 27 to 30 miles per hour. That's a great thing about loop rides... even the worst headwind is bound to turn into a tailwind at some point.
The downside of a tailwind, is that once you turn out of it, and you're bound to turn at some point, it's SO demoralizing to go from riding a light and lively 25+ MPH back down to a grueling, fighting the wind pace. It was after making just such a turn that we stumbled onto the most bizarre incident of the day...
I was out in front pulling the group along into the wind. My gaze rest upon the 3 feet of pavement in front of me, intensely concentrating on each and every grueling stroke of the pedal. I was in my pain cave. I was cold and wet and my legs were burning. But I knew that the only way to get into work was to finish that ride. Surrender was not an option.
Just then I hear a loud, "baaa-gaaawwkk" and a chicken came darting out into the road right in front of my tire. A real, live, full-sized, farm chicken. I tried to swerve but couldn't get out of the way in time. I rode right over the top of that chicken. Feathers were flying and it let out a blood curdling scream. But to my amazement, after it cleared my wheel it just kept on moving. I suspect that it made it to the other side of the road and probably died in the ditch. But I'll never know for sure because my cohorts and I were too busy laughing hysterically to pay attention to the chicken :)
The chicken carnage was not to be the last carnage that we were to encounter this morning. As we approached the WalMart overpass in Springville, I was overcome by this foreboding feeling. Something bad was going to happen. I even thought to myself that I should warn my riding companions to take it easy for the next couple of miles until we got back to Novell. But I didn't because I thought it would sound hokey.
Not 5 minutes later, we were taking a sharp right onto Kuhni road via what was previously referred to as Layne's corner. This is the corner that Layne wiped out on at last year's ULCER. History was about to repeat itself only with different players. Layne even warned the group to slow down, but even with the warning, DanB hit that corner just the wrong way on wet asphalt and his bike went flying out from beneath him. Fortunately both bike and rider were OK. DanB got some good road rash on his right thigh but other than that he was able to shake it off in a couple of minutes and get back onto the bike.
As we pulled away from the site of the wreck, I still had that foreboding feeling. I just had the sense that wasn't the last of our bad luck for the morning even though we were just a couple of miles from our destination now. Not but a couple of minutes later, calamity struck once more.
This time Layne was out in front and I was riding tight on his rear wheel to take advantage of the draft. Layne is usually a pretty steady rider and so I don't worry about getting right on his wheel. But as he was riding along this morning his bike computer completely gave out and he slowed down to turn around and tell us about it. I wasn't paying close enough attention and before I knew it my front tire bumped right into the back of his.
At first I was OK, I got over to the right side of his tire. But then to try and recover from my wobble my bike veered back to the left. By this time I had gained an inch on his back tire so that as I came back left, my wheel hit the side of his wheel. This bump along with the wet pavement was just enough to throw my front wheel out from underneath me. My bike went flying to the right and I came crashing down into the pavement chest first and slid to a slow uncomfortable stop on chip-sealed asphalt. A very uncomfortable stop.
The impact was nearly enough to knock the wind out of me but not so much wind was knocked to prevent the shouting of expletives :) It hurt. Bad. After a minute or so I was able to get up and take inventory. The damage didn't actually look that bad. My knees were scraped up and bleeding. My palms were sore from partially breaking the fall. But then I looked down and noticed the blood streaming from left elbow. It didn't feel broken but there was a dime-size chunk of skin missing about half-an-inch deep.
It was ugly. And if you know me very well, you know that I don't handle blood well. So, I laid down and mustered all my mental fortitude to keep from passing out. The laceration was deep but I still think that if I was a normal person I wouldn't have had a problem riding the rest of the way into work before getting it treated. But every time that I tried to stand up I got dizzy again and had to lay back down. So, Rosey came to the rescue, scooped me and my bike up and took me to the clinic where the wound was scraped out and sewn up with many and varied stitches.
So, the moral of the story is this: the next time you get up at three in the morning and everything is screaming at you to go back to bed... listen :)
The End.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Rana-Mo-Tad
Rana-Mo-Tad: Ride Around Nebo and Most Of Timp in A Day.
I failed to complete the full RANATAD ride today. I came so close, at 147 of the 160 total miles. That's just 7 more miles of climbing that I would have had to do followed by an easy 6 miles downhill back to Sundance. But my body just wouldn't take anymore.
The funny thing was that it wasn't my legs that gave out. As the day wore on, my stomach gave me more and more trouble. By my last rest stop, the very thought of food was enough to make me nauseous. Even water was beginning to give me trouble. On the last leg of the ride, Rosey came to meet me and brought me some cold water. As soon as I got off the bike, I almost puked and then shortly thereafter almost blacked out. That's when I decided that it was time to throw in the towel for this year.
Nonetheless, I did still ride 147 miles on my bike including going over the Nebo Loop and doing most of the Alpine Loop as well. Not only is that a personal best for me, but I think that it is also a fairly significant accomplishment even without finishing (although I'm still very sad that I didn't finish).
The day started off well. There were somewhere between 40 and 50 people signed up for the ride. We left Sundance at 6:30 in the morning and rode a very fast 25 MPH average to Payson, some 36 miles away. It was kind of nuts. I heard later that some guy wrecked on that first section and busted his head open. Scary!
As we were leaving our rest stop in Payson, I got separated from my group. I turned around and it appeared that everyone was already gone from the park. I didn't worry about it too much since we hadn't really planned on staying together for the climb anyway. Once you hit serious elevation, it's every man for himself until you get to the other side.
Well, it turns out that most of my group missed a detour and got stuck going through some mud in a construction area. It slowed them down just enough for me to get ahead of them. I expected that they would catch up to me shortly, but I never did see them on that section. I must have been riding fast, because I was one of the first 10 people to make it over the loop to Nephi. I was pretty impressed with myself. I think that it helped me to have ridden Nebo so many times already this year.
My original plan had been wait for the rest of the group once I got to the other side. But I waited for 10 or 15 minutes and there was still no sign of them. When a bunch of guys decided to head back out on the road, I figured that I would just jump in and ride with them instead of waiting.
This turned out to not be such a good idea. The problem with being at the head of the pack is that it is populated by the strongest riders. We were 35 miles from our lunch stop and these guys were setting of pace of 25 to 30 MPH. It was crazy. I held on for the first 25 miles but then got dropped going up a small section of uphill. With 90 miles and a huge climb behind me, I just didn't have what it took to keep their pace.
I think that riding at that pace really took a lot out of me. I would have been better off sticking with a group that was moving 20-25 MPH. Fortunately, I was smart enough to not make the same mistake leaving our lunch stop. I actually waited for the second group to come in rather than leave with the fast group.
It turned out that the second group had several mechanical difficulties and was more than an hour behind the first group. I used the time to rest up. My stomach was already giving me trouble at this point. I was at the lunch stop for over 30 minutes before I could even think about eating anything.
The ride between the lunch stop and the 35 miles to our next stop in Pleasant Grove was slow and HOT. The mid-July temperates were in full swing and it was nearly 100 degrees out. It made things worse that we ended up in a smaller groups that quickly dwindled down to nothing. As we left the stop there were only four of us. We rode hard and caught up with another group of four in front of us. But then one dropped off the back and four split off the front, leaving me to ride with just two compatriots.
But then, just as we were approaching Novell, I turned around and the two of them had disappeared. Poof, vanished into thin air. Now, it was just me, riding solo in the sweltering sun with 120 miles behind me and another 20 in front of me to the next rest stop. As I meandered through Provo, trying to stick to the course, I was fortunate enough to bump into half of the group of four that had split off in front of us. I'm still not quite sure how it happened. But I rode with them all the way to the next rest stop.
I probably spent an hour at that rest stop, waiting for something to sound edible. But no matter how long I waited, nothing sounded good. I finally downed a Coke (someone mentioned that they settle your stomach) and then decided to tackle the final 23 miles.
The final 23 miles went like this: 4 miles of rolling hills followed by 13 miles of climbing, followed by 6 miles of downhill back to Sundance. I was convinced that I could suffer through a mere 17 miles and make it to the downhill section. It may take me longer than usual, but I could do it. I was totally convinced of this until I stopped 10 miles into the climb and nearly blacked out.
So, I guess the moral of the story is: There's always next year :)
In the meantime, I need to figure out how to prevent these problems from happening during LOTOJA. I think that riding in cooler weather will be a huge help. Also, LOTOJA, is said to be an easier ride even though it's longer because it doesn't have nearly as much climbing. But, I need to experiment with food that I can eat on a long ride and not feel like I'm going to puke. And it probably wouldn't hurt to be carrying a little less weight with me up those hills.
I failed to complete the full RANATAD ride today. I came so close, at 147 of the 160 total miles. That's just 7 more miles of climbing that I would have had to do followed by an easy 6 miles downhill back to Sundance. But my body just wouldn't take anymore.
The funny thing was that it wasn't my legs that gave out. As the day wore on, my stomach gave me more and more trouble. By my last rest stop, the very thought of food was enough to make me nauseous. Even water was beginning to give me trouble. On the last leg of the ride, Rosey came to meet me and brought me some cold water. As soon as I got off the bike, I almost puked and then shortly thereafter almost blacked out. That's when I decided that it was time to throw in the towel for this year.
Nonetheless, I did still ride 147 miles on my bike including going over the Nebo Loop and doing most of the Alpine Loop as well. Not only is that a personal best for me, but I think that it is also a fairly significant accomplishment even without finishing (although I'm still very sad that I didn't finish).
The day started off well. There were somewhere between 40 and 50 people signed up for the ride. We left Sundance at 6:30 in the morning and rode a very fast 25 MPH average to Payson, some 36 miles away. It was kind of nuts. I heard later that some guy wrecked on that first section and busted his head open. Scary!As we were leaving our rest stop in Payson, I got separated from my group. I turned around and it appeared that everyone was already gone from the park. I didn't worry about it too much since we hadn't really planned on staying together for the climb anyway. Once you hit serious elevation, it's every man for himself until you get to the other side.
Well, it turns out that most of my group missed a detour and got stuck going through some mud in a construction area. It slowed them down just enough for me to get ahead of them. I expected that they would catch up to me shortly, but I never did see them on that section. I must have been riding fast, because I was one of the first 10 people to make it over the loop to Nephi. I was pretty impressed with myself. I think that it helped me to have ridden Nebo so many times already this year.
My original plan had been wait for the rest of the group once I got to the other side. But I waited for 10 or 15 minutes and there was still no sign of them. When a bunch of guys decided to head back out on the road, I figured that I would just jump in and ride with them instead of waiting.
This turned out to not be such a good idea. The problem with being at the head of the pack is that it is populated by the strongest riders. We were 35 miles from our lunch stop and these guys were setting of pace of 25 to 30 MPH. It was crazy. I held on for the first 25 miles but then got dropped going up a small section of uphill. With 90 miles and a huge climb behind me, I just didn't have what it took to keep their pace.
I think that riding at that pace really took a lot out of me. I would have been better off sticking with a group that was moving 20-25 MPH. Fortunately, I was smart enough to not make the same mistake leaving our lunch stop. I actually waited for the second group to come in rather than leave with the fast group.
It turned out that the second group had several mechanical difficulties and was more than an hour behind the first group. I used the time to rest up. My stomach was already giving me trouble at this point. I was at the lunch stop for over 30 minutes before I could even think about eating anything.
The ride between the lunch stop and the 35 miles to our next stop in Pleasant Grove was slow and HOT. The mid-July temperates were in full swing and it was nearly 100 degrees out. It made things worse that we ended up in a smaller groups that quickly dwindled down to nothing. As we left the stop there were only four of us. We rode hard and caught up with another group of four in front of us. But then one dropped off the back and four split off the front, leaving me to ride with just two compatriots.
But then, just as we were approaching Novell, I turned around and the two of them had disappeared. Poof, vanished into thin air. Now, it was just me, riding solo in the sweltering sun with 120 miles behind me and another 20 in front of me to the next rest stop. As I meandered through Provo, trying to stick to the course, I was fortunate enough to bump into half of the group of four that had split off in front of us. I'm still not quite sure how it happened. But I rode with them all the way to the next rest stop.
I probably spent an hour at that rest stop, waiting for something to sound edible. But no matter how long I waited, nothing sounded good. I finally downed a Coke (someone mentioned that they settle your stomach) and then decided to tackle the final 23 miles.
The final 23 miles went like this: 4 miles of rolling hills followed by 13 miles of climbing, followed by 6 miles of downhill back to Sundance. I was convinced that I could suffer through a mere 17 miles and make it to the downhill section. It may take me longer than usual, but I could do it. I was totally convinced of this until I stopped 10 miles into the climb and nearly blacked out.
So, I guess the moral of the story is: There's always next year :)
In the meantime, I need to figure out how to prevent these problems from happening during LOTOJA. I think that riding in cooler weather will be a huge help. Also, LOTOJA, is said to be an easier ride even though it's longer because it doesn't have nearly as much climbing. But, I need to experiment with food that I can eat on a long ride and not feel like I'm going to puke. And it probably wouldn't hurt to be carrying a little less weight with me up those hills.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Down With The Sickness
Endurance athletes (if I may deign to label myself as such) are a pretty twisted bunch of people. This is a group of people that like to punish themselves with exercise. It's almost like we are the modern day ascetics.
A really good endurance event might be referred to as a "suffer-fest". And instead of discouraging people from signing up, the use of this term might actually bolster attendance. You might even find these people talking about going in search of their "Pain Cave".
Quoth "The Everyday Athlete"
I would. I am.
It's not good enough to have ridden the Nebo Loop. It's not good enough to have ridden the Alpine Loop. How about I get together with a bunch of other lunatics and take a day off of work to ride them both in the same day. Now that sounds like fun!
The event is called R.A.N.A.T.A.D. - Ride Around Nebo And Timp in A Day. 170 miles, 13,000 feet of elevation gain. The ride starts at Sundance resort on the Alpine Loop. You descend into Utah Valley, ride to Payson, up and over the Nebo Loop to Nephi, come back through the valley to Alpine and then end by climbing up and over the Alpine Loop back to Sundance. I get chills just thinking about it :)
The ride is on Monday, July 9th. If all goes well, I hope to still be alive on July 10th :) Wish me luck!
A really good endurance event might be referred to as a "suffer-fest". And instead of discouraging people from signing up, the use of this term might actually bolster attendance. You might even find these people talking about going in search of their "Pain Cave".
Quoth "The Everyday Athlete"
It’s that place you go where you are enveloped by a complete and raw brand of pain. You reach it after feeling the seering inside of you and then ignoring it. You reach it when every voice inside of you has screamed for you to stop and you have silenced them all. The quiet of the pain cave is eerie and horrific.If there really is such a thing as a pain cave, and you knew that you had one, would you really go looking for it?
I would. I am.
It's not good enough to have ridden the Nebo Loop. It's not good enough to have ridden the Alpine Loop. How about I get together with a bunch of other lunatics and take a day off of work to ride them both in the same day. Now that sounds like fun!
The event is called R.A.N.A.T.A.D. - Ride Around Nebo And Timp in A Day. 170 miles, 13,000 feet of elevation gain. The ride starts at Sundance resort on the Alpine Loop. You descend into Utah Valley, ride to Payson, up and over the Nebo Loop to Nephi, come back through the valley to Alpine and then end by climbing up and over the Alpine Loop back to Sundance. I get chills just thinking about it :)
The ride is on Monday, July 9th. If all goes well, I hope to still be alive on July 10th :) Wish me luck!
How to Lower Your Bike Seat
Following on the heels of the ever-so-popular "How to Clean Your iPod" is the next installment in my do-it-yourself series, "How to Lower Your Bike Seat".
Step 1: Affix your bike to the roof rack of your car. Ensure that you perform this step outside of your garage.
Step 2: Forget that bike is affixed to top of car and drive into garage. Note that this procedure only works when your bike seat is slightly taller than the opening of your garage door, but not so tall that the garage door takes the bike clean off the top of your car.
Step 3: Remove bike from roof and enjoy your new properly adjusted seat.
Disclaimer - This procedure may cause peripheral damage to the vehicle used to perform the adjustments, such as (but not limited to) indentations, scraped paint and roof rack removal. This is completely normal.
Yeah, so this is pretty much the worst nightmare of anyone who has ever owned a roof rack :) Fortunately very little damage was done. The only visible damage to the bike was the seat was scuffed up some by the stucco as it squeezed to fit below the garage opening.
My Camry didn't fair as well. The front mounting bracket of the roof rack was ripped free of the door and took a good chunk of paint with it as it came loose. Okay, so it was really a pretty tiny section of paint but it felt bigger than it was :) The rear mounting bracket was pushed into the sheet metal of the roof and made a pretty good indentation. And, again, by "pretty good indentation" I mean a really very small indentation :)
I'm hoping that I can get a body shop to clean up both spots for me. In the meantime, I'm trying to dream up some sort of infrared device that detects that the bike is on top of the car and kills the ignition if I attempt to drive into garage. Fortunately for me, I have a pretty low waiting period before tragedy turns into comedy. After all, it is pretty funny if you think about it :)
Step 1: Affix your bike to the roof rack of your car. Ensure that you perform this step outside of your garage.
Step 2: Forget that bike is affixed to top of car and drive into garage. Note that this procedure only works when your bike seat is slightly taller than the opening of your garage door, but not so tall that the garage door takes the bike clean off the top of your car.
Step 3: Remove bike from roof and enjoy your new properly adjusted seat.
Disclaimer - This procedure may cause peripheral damage to the vehicle used to perform the adjustments, such as (but not limited to) indentations, scraped paint and roof rack removal. This is completely normal.
Yeah, so this is pretty much the worst nightmare of anyone who has ever owned a roof rack :) Fortunately very little damage was done. The only visible damage to the bike was the seat was scuffed up some by the stucco as it squeezed to fit below the garage opening.
My Camry didn't fair as well. The front mounting bracket of the roof rack was ripped free of the door and took a good chunk of paint with it as it came loose. Okay, so it was really a pretty tiny section of paint but it felt bigger than it was :) The rear mounting bracket was pushed into the sheet metal of the roof and made a pretty good indentation. And, again, by "pretty good indentation" I mean a really very small indentation :)
I'm hoping that I can get a body shop to clean up both spots for me. In the meantime, I'm trying to dream up some sort of infrared device that detects that the bike is on top of the car and kills the ignition if I attempt to drive into garage. Fortunately for me, I have a pretty low waiting period before tragedy turns into comedy. After all, it is pretty funny if you think about it :)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Thursday Morning Commute
Every Thursday for the last 3 weeks (and hopefully for the rest of the summer) I have a special commute into work. For this commute, I wake up at 3 in the morning, drive past Novell to Orem and then bike from Orem around the backside of Utah Lake 79 miles into work. It is undoubtedly not the most efficient way to get from Spanish Fork to Novell, but it sure is a lot of fun :) Believe it or not, there are actually 4 other guys (Novell or ex-Novell) who also think that this sounds like fun.
The ride officially starts in Orem at 4 in the morning when it's still very dark out. I had to buy a headlight and blinking taillights for my bike in order to ride safely. The headlight helps a little but it's still a little scary to be cruising along a backroad at 20 MPH when you can barely see the asphalt. It's all worth it though by the time that we get around the back of the lake a little after 5 in the morning. The sun is just starting peek out over Timpanogos and you get a gorgeous view of the lake with all of Utah Valley and the mountains in the background.
The ride officially starts in Orem at 4 in the morning when it's still very dark out. I had to buy a headlight and blinking taillights for my bike in order to ride safely. The headlight helps a little but it's still a little scary to be cruising along a backroad at 20 MPH when you can barely see the asphalt. It's all worth it though by the time that we get around the back of the lake a little after 5 in the morning. The sun is just starting peek out over Timpanogos and you get a gorgeous view of the lake with all of Utah Valley and the mountains in the background.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Conquering a Lesser Summit
I conquered my second mountain ride of the summer on Saturday. I did a 40 miles loop from my sister's house in Orem up and over the Alpine Loop. Compared to Nebo, there was about half as much climbing and the overall ride was shorter by 10 miles. Also, I only hit a peak elevation of 8000 feet versus the 9300 feet on Nebo. Nonetheless, it was a worthwhile challenge.
I encountered way more cyclists on the road going over Alpine than I did going over Nebo. It seems to be a fairly popular route. Although, most of the cyclists that I encountered appeared to be riding from the other direction. I've heard that it's easier from that direction (although it didn't seem obvious that that was the case as I descended into American Fork Canyon).
There was however one cyclist going in the same direction as me. He passed me up in Provo canyon before even getting to the Sundance turnoff. I was struggling to find energy early in the ride and was fighting a pretty stiff headwind coming through Provo Canyon. So, I was kind of glad when he passed me and gave me the opportunity to draft off of him for a little while. I had no trouble keeping up with him as long as he was fighting off all of the wind for me :)
We chatted as we rode for a couple of miles, but once we hit the turnoff to Sundance and started the climb I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up with him for much longer. I may have been able to hang with him for a little while, but it probably would have been at the expense of pushing myself too hard and threatening my ability to complete the loop. So, we wished each other good rides and parted ways.
As I watched him bike off it made me realize how much work I have left to do to really be able to cycle competitively. Cycling is all about your PWR (Power-to-Weight ratio). If you want to be a stronger cyclist you essentially have two options: 1) Gain Power, or 2) Lose Weight. Although I'm thrilled that I finally dropped below 200 pounds, you still just don't see a lot of 200 pound cyclists. My best option to be able to compete with guys like that would be to lose another 20 pounds. Of course, I'll continue to build my power by riding over mountains too :)
I encountered way more cyclists on the road going over Alpine than I did going over Nebo. It seems to be a fairly popular route. Although, most of the cyclists that I encountered appeared to be riding from the other direction. I've heard that it's easier from that direction (although it didn't seem obvious that that was the case as I descended into American Fork Canyon).There was however one cyclist going in the same direction as me. He passed me up in Provo canyon before even getting to the Sundance turnoff. I was struggling to find energy early in the ride and was fighting a pretty stiff headwind coming through Provo Canyon. So, I was kind of glad when he passed me and gave me the opportunity to draft off of him for a little while. I had no trouble keeping up with him as long as he was fighting off all of the wind for me :)
We chatted as we rode for a couple of miles, but once we hit the turnoff to Sundance and started the climb I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up with him for much longer. I may have been able to hang with him for a little while, but it probably would have been at the expense of pushing myself too hard and threatening my ability to complete the loop. So, we wished each other good rides and parted ways.
As I watched him bike off it made me realize how much work I have left to do to really be able to cycle competitively. Cycling is all about your PWR (Power-to-Weight ratio). If you want to be a stronger cyclist you essentially have two options: 1) Gain Power, or 2) Lose Weight. Although I'm thrilled that I finally dropped below 200 pounds, you still just don't see a lot of 200 pound cyclists. My best option to be able to compete with guys like that would be to lose another 20 pounds. Of course, I'll continue to build my power by riding over mountains too :)
Friday, May 25, 2007
Going Kevlar
After another two flat tires within 24 hours of each other, I decided that I had finally had enough with my current tires. So, I swapped in my old Roubaix tires for a set of Specialized Armadillos. The Armadillos are made with a layer of DuPont Kevlar (a material commonly used in bullet proof vests) to be extra puncture resistant. I'm hoping that it gives me bulletproof tires but I'm betting that I'll manage to puncture them within a week :)
Monday, May 14, 2007
Conquering Nebo
I finally did it! Yesterday, I rode 48.5 miles from my house in Spanish Fork to Nephi over the Nebo Loop. I hit the highest point of the ride at 9300 feet above sea level. That's 4700 feet of elevation gain from the lowest point at 4600 feet above sea level.
There was a bit of snow on the road once I got up to the higher elevations, but for the most part it wasn't covering the whole road and I was able to find a path through it. However, there were a handful of times when I had to get off my bike and walk through 10 to 20 yards of snow that was completely covering the road.
My biggest obstacle was a massive tree that had fallen. It was too big to climb over so I had no choice but to go around it. Going around it meant climbing 10 feet or so up the hillside. This wouldn't have been a problem had the hillside not been covered in snow. I got three steps into the climb before I was up to my waste in snow. With a little bit of persistence I was able to finally make it to the other side and continue my ride.
I definitely wasn't setting any speed records yesterday. I completed the ride in just over 4 hours. Of course, I couldn't expect to keep a 20 mph average over a route like that, but I think that I was still riding a little slower than normal. First of all, Rosey and I had gone on a 12 mile hike through the mountains yesterday and my legs and body already felt a little fatigued. Second, I was fighting a pretty ugly wind for the first 10 miles of the ride. On top of being generally demoralizing, fighting that much wind kind of zapped a lot of my energy before I even got to the hard part of the ride.
Now that I've got Nebo behind me, I'm starting to set my sights on other climbs in the area. The Alpine Loop is likely to be next on the list. I'd also like to tackle Fairview to Huntington. I'm hoping that with enough training I can compete in the Alta Hill Climb this year. And, of course, the ultimate goal... Haleakala!
There was a bit of snow on the road once I got up to the higher elevations, but for the most part it wasn't covering the whole road and I was able to find a path through it. However, there were a handful of times when I had to get off my bike and walk through 10 to 20 yards of snow that was completely covering the road.My biggest obstacle was a massive tree that had fallen. It was too big to climb over so I had no choice but to go around it. Going around it meant climbing 10 feet or so up the hillside. This wouldn't have been a problem had the hillside not been covered in snow. I got three steps into the climb before I was up to my waste in snow. With a little bit of persistence I was able to finally make it to the other side and continue my ride.
I definitely wasn't setting any speed records yesterday. I completed the ride in just over 4 hours. Of course, I couldn't expect to keep a 20 mph average over a route like that, but I think that I was still riding a little slower than normal. First of all, Rosey and I had gone on a 12 mile hike through the mountains yesterday and my legs and body already felt a little fatigued. Second, I was fighting a pretty ugly wind for the first 10 miles of the ride. On top of being generally demoralizing, fighting that much wind kind of zapped a lot of my energy before I even got to the hard part of the ride.
Now that I've got Nebo behind me, I'm starting to set my sights on other climbs in the area. The Alpine Loop is likely to be next on the list. I'd also like to tackle Fairview to Huntington. I'm hoping that with enough training I can compete in the Alta Hill Climb this year. And, of course, the ultimate goal... Haleakala!
Monday, May 07, 2007
Lighting Doesn't Strike Twice...
... but apparently flat tires don't abide by that rule. I was out riding at lunch, cruising down Springville Main street at about 28 miles per hour (I love that stretch of road) when all of the sudden I felt the bike bouncing in rhythm with my pedal stroke. That's a sure sign that the rear tire is going or has gone flat. As I slowed to a stop I could hear air hissing out of my rear tire. I discovered as I inspected the tire that I had ridden over some sort of twisted, rusted metal roofing staple.
Fortunately, I keep a spare tube and a CO2 catridge handy for repairing flats. Within a couple of minutes I was back on the bike and made it safely to my lunch destination (Subway).
Later that day... I was riding home from my piano lesson through Hwy 89 in Mapleton when I heard a sharp pop and then a whole lot of hissing. Within a couple of seconds my rear tire was completely flat. The offending piece of road debris was no longer stuck in the tire, but the impression left in my tire looked like it had been caused by a thumbtack. Now who would leave one of those sitting in the middle of the road?
Fortunately, I keep a spare tube and a CO2 catridge handy for repairing flats. Oh wait, I already used my spare tube and CO2 catridge. Damnit! Luckily, I was able to get ahold of Rosey just before she was about to head out on a ride of her own. She was gracious enough to come and rescue me.
I'm starting to think that I need steel belted road bike tires :)
Fortunately, I keep a spare tube and a CO2 catridge handy for repairing flats. Within a couple of minutes I was back on the bike and made it safely to my lunch destination (Subway).
Later that day... I was riding home from my piano lesson through Hwy 89 in Mapleton when I heard a sharp pop and then a whole lot of hissing. Within a couple of seconds my rear tire was completely flat. The offending piece of road debris was no longer stuck in the tire, but the impression left in my tire looked like it had been caused by a thumbtack. Now who would leave one of those sitting in the middle of the road?
Fortunately, I keep a spare tube and a CO2 catridge handy for repairing flats. Oh wait, I already used my spare tube and CO2 catridge. Damnit! Luckily, I was able to get ahold of Rosey just before she was about to head out on a ride of her own. She was gracious enough to come and rescue me.
I'm starting to think that I need steel belted road bike tires :)
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
April Training Recap
It was my goal to ride 200 miles a week in April. That means that I should have hit over 800 miles over the course of the month. Unfortunately, I fell short of that goal and only got 714 miles of riding in. I think that the weather was the largest factor in not meeting my goal. There were still quite a few days that I couldn't ride because of the rain.
As I look forward to May, I want to keep the same total mileage goal, but I want to focus on riding fewer, but longer rides. In April my longest single ride was only 52 miles. Most of my riding was accumulated by lots of short 12-20 mile rides (i.e. commuting back and forth to work). I really need to get in longer rides to start building my endurance.
As I look forward to May, I want to keep the same total mileage goal, but I want to focus on riding fewer, but longer rides. In April my longest single ride was only 52 miles. Most of my riding was accumulated by lots of short 12-20 mile rides (i.e. commuting back and forth to work). I really need to get in longer rides to start building my endurance.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Climbing with Two Wheels
I didn't get a ton of miles on my bike this weekend, but the ones that I did get I had to work for.
Saturday, Rosey and I went mountain biking in Diamond Fork Canyon. We survived about8 miles straight uphill on a rocky mountain trail. We probably would have kept plowing through to Hobble creek canyon but we were both running low on water and didn't want to take any chances. Here is the elevation profile from my GPS:
As if that wasn't enough, on Sunday I decided to tackle Indian Pass on Hwy 191 connecting Price and Duchesne. The inspiration for this ride came last weekend as we were riding the Harley through this very spot. I thought it would make an awesome bike ride... and it did.
The only problem is that it's difficult to gauge exactly how steep a road is when riding in a motorized vehicle. I gained nearly 2000 feet of elevation in the first 7.5 miles of riding. That was rough. My favorite part of the climb was looking at the faces of the passing motorists wondering why the hell I was voluntarily climbing a hill like that.
Once I reached the summit at 9100 ft, it was pretty much all downhill for the next 28 miles. My top speed was a little over 40 miles per hour coming down the steepest section of the mountain. I do wear a helmet on whenever I anticipate speeds like that. Although I was thinking today as I was descending, that at 40 miles per hour, I don't think that my bicycle helmet would really help that much.
My original plan had been to have lunch in Duchesne and then ride back to where I started. Only I hadn't counted on having regain so much elevation coming back from Duchesne. I had imagined that the road was mostly flat after the initial ascent/descent from Indian Pass. Between the mountain biking I had done on Saturday and the climbing that I had already done that morning, my legs were pretty much fried.
I started back to the car but only got about half-way before Rosey met me with the car. I was so happy that she decided to come along and hike while I biked, because I'm not sure that I would have made it back up that mountain :)
Here is the elevation profile of the Indian Pass ride:
Saturday, Rosey and I went mountain biking in Diamond Fork Canyon. We survived about8 miles straight uphill on a rocky mountain trail. We probably would have kept plowing through to Hobble creek canyon but we were both running low on water and didn't want to take any chances. Here is the elevation profile from my GPS:
As if that wasn't enough, on Sunday I decided to tackle Indian Pass on Hwy 191 connecting Price and Duchesne. The inspiration for this ride came last weekend as we were riding the Harley through this very spot. I thought it would make an awesome bike ride... and it did.
The only problem is that it's difficult to gauge exactly how steep a road is when riding in a motorized vehicle. I gained nearly 2000 feet of elevation in the first 7.5 miles of riding. That was rough. My favorite part of the climb was looking at the faces of the passing motorists wondering why the hell I was voluntarily climbing a hill like that.
Once I reached the summit at 9100 ft, it was pretty much all downhill for the next 28 miles. My top speed was a little over 40 miles per hour coming down the steepest section of the mountain. I do wear a helmet on whenever I anticipate speeds like that. Although I was thinking today as I was descending, that at 40 miles per hour, I don't think that my bicycle helmet would really help that much.
My original plan had been to have lunch in Duchesne and then ride back to where I started. Only I hadn't counted on having regain so much elevation coming back from Duchesne. I had imagined that the road was mostly flat after the initial ascent/descent from Indian Pass. Between the mountain biking I had done on Saturday and the climbing that I had already done that morning, my legs were pretty much fried.
I started back to the car but only got about half-way before Rosey met me with the car. I was so happy that she decided to come along and hike while I biked, because I'm not sure that I would have made it back up that mountain :)
Here is the elevation profile of the Indian Pass ride:
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Fuel Costs of Commuting By Bike
I was talking to a friend the other day about how I love cycling to work because it is good exercise, good fun, environmentally friendly and saves me a ton of money on gas. He looked at me quizzically and said, "Do you really save that much money on fuel?".
"What do you mean? Of course, I do. I don't have to put ANY gas in my bike"
"Yeah, but how much extra fuel do you have to put in yourself in order to bike back and forth to work?"
I had never really thought of it that way before. On an average day that I drive to work, I end up driving 56 miles. That's 14 miles each way, twice (I usually come home for lunch). My Camry gets about 28 miles per gallon which means that I use 2 gallons of fuel on an average work day. Given the current price of fuel, commuting by car costs me between 5 and 6 dollars a day.
That means that for commuting by bike to be economically advantageous I would have to spend less than 5 dollars a day extra on food. An average day of riding to work accrues 40 miles; that 12.5 each way and then a 15 mile ride at lunch. Between bigger meals to fuel myself and snacks in between meals to keep me going, I probably spend pretty close to an extra 5 dollars a day when I bike.
Of course, that's not going to prevent me from biking to work. Even if I only break even financially, I still get all of the other benefits of biking. And from a fitness and lifestyle perspective I really like the philsophy of "eat more, exercise more". I ran into some guys on a ride last year that put it this way, "I eat to live, live to ride, and ride so that I can eat more".
"What do you mean? Of course, I do. I don't have to put ANY gas in my bike"
"Yeah, but how much extra fuel do you have to put in yourself in order to bike back and forth to work?"
I had never really thought of it that way before. On an average day that I drive to work, I end up driving 56 miles. That's 14 miles each way, twice (I usually come home for lunch). My Camry gets about 28 miles per gallon which means that I use 2 gallons of fuel on an average work day. Given the current price of fuel, commuting by car costs me between 5 and 6 dollars a day.
That means that for commuting by bike to be economically advantageous I would have to spend less than 5 dollars a day extra on food. An average day of riding to work accrues 40 miles; that 12.5 each way and then a 15 mile ride at lunch. Between bigger meals to fuel myself and snacks in between meals to keep me going, I probably spend pretty close to an extra 5 dollars a day when I bike.
Of course, that's not going to prevent me from biking to work. Even if I only break even financially, I still get all of the other benefits of biking. And from a fitness and lifestyle perspective I really like the philsophy of "eat more, exercise more". I ran into some guys on a ride last year that put it this way, "I eat to live, live to ride, and ride so that I can eat more".
LOTOJA Route Misunderstanding
I was talking to one of my coworkers yesterday who actually rode LOTOJA last year and realized that I misunderstood the route. The ride does not go through Logan canyon and descend on Bear lake like I had originally thought. Rather it continues North from Logan into Idaho and then turns Northwest at Preston and rides along Hwy 36. We will rejoin Hwy 89 just outside of Montpellier.
On the one hand I'm relieved to discover that I won't have to tackle Logan canyon as part of a 200 mile ride. On the other hand, I'm a little disappointed to discover that the epic ride that I was imagining is going to be a little less epic than I imagined. I've already told a handful people that I was riding Logan canyon as part of LOTOJA. Maybe I'll ride it my way anyway and meet up with everyone else in Montpellier :)
On the one hand I'm relieved to discover that I won't have to tackle Logan canyon as part of a 200 mile ride. On the other hand, I'm a little disappointed to discover that the epic ride that I was imagining is going to be a little less epic than I imagined. I've already told a handful people that I was riding Logan canyon as part of LOTOJA. Maybe I'll ride it my way anyway and meet up with everyone else in Montpellier :)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Bike Seats and Long Rides
TK asked in the comments of my last blog whether or not they make comfort seats for long rides on a bicycle. The answer is yes and no. Yes, they do make large padded comfort seats for bicycles, but No, you would never use one for a long ride like LOTOJA. The comfort seats are generally marketed to people that ride slow and for really short distances.
Despite being contrary to what one might consider common sense, it's actually better to have a really small seat on a long ride. The difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle is that, on a bicycle, you actually need to move your legs to pedal. A large seat actually inhibits this action. In addition, there are large arteries that pump blood through your crotch area to your legs. Small seats are designed to avoid placing any pressure on these arteries. A poorly designed seat can actually make your legs go numb after 20 miles.
That's not to say that really small seats are "comfortable" by any stretch of the imagination. But after a 50 mile ride your butt is much less likely to be in agonizing pain on small seat than it would be on a large "comfort" seat.
Despite being contrary to what one might consider common sense, it's actually better to have a really small seat on a long ride. The difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle is that, on a bicycle, you actually need to move your legs to pedal. A large seat actually inhibits this action. In addition, there are large arteries that pump blood through your crotch area to your legs. Small seats are designed to avoid placing any pressure on these arteries. A poorly designed seat can actually make your legs go numb after 20 miles.
That's not to say that really small seats are "comfortable" by any stretch of the imagination. But after a 50 mile ride your butt is much less likely to be in agonizing pain on small seat than it would be on a large "comfort" seat.
Monday, April 02, 2007
LOTOJA Registration
I just completed my registration for the 2007 Logan to Jackson road bike race. The ride is a 206 mile trek through the mountains from Logan, Utah to Jackson, Wyoming... in a single day. At an average pace of about 20 miles per hour, I can expect to spend at least 10 hours in the saddle. Fortunately, the ride isn't until September 8th, so I have plenty of time to get my butt in shape :)
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