your daily bicycle log

Four of us set out intending to do 50 miles at 1:30pm. I was the only one who made it back, and I only managed 35 miles. Peter pulled out only 4 miles in with a twinge in his knee (he had run 10km this morning, to be fair), Alex was bonking hard after some serious hills 15 miles in, and Steve stacked it on a 25% gradient zig-zagging descent after 20 miles and ended up embedded in a hedge; Alex burst his front tyre braking as Steve crashed. I was at the bottom of the hill waiting for the, round a bend and out of site of Steve's crash. After a couple of minutes I reasoned they weren't just hanging on the brakes, and started walking back up the hill, to see Steve and Alex walking round the corner, Steve with his bike on his right shoulder, and his left side covered in scratches and blood and grass stains. Alone, I did the direct route home as fast as I could, 15 miles in about 39 minutes. Quite an afternoon!

At least you were OK. I hate steep descents - a burst tyre on a 25% zigzag is something I'd be very keen to avoid. No cycling this weekend for me (kids birthday stuff + a cold). I did go out on Friday afternoon, though, and did 53 miles despite having a cold - not actually a wise decision, but the problem with racing is that you feel compelled to keep your fitness up at the expense of common sense.

In San Diego for the weekend, asked an old dude for directions, we started chatting, turns out he invented Speedplay pedals. Got a fifty miles guided tour and some good stories. Apparently Peter Sagan was challenged to an arm-wrestling match by some beefy guy in a bar; Peter broke the guy's forearm.

Cool!

Steve reports via Twitter this morning: "yea I'm ok. Few tender spots but I'll survive." Which is good!

Sunshine at last! Bolted down my dinner then rode over to Hog Hill, got there after the tens (individual time trial) had started but was still in time to register and have ten minutes to get my number on and get ready before I was off. I was setting a pretty good pace and coming past people on the climb but then at about 7 miles down I completely blew up - I got a painful stitch and had to completely ease off and take deep breaths to try and feel more comfortable. I haven't checked yet, but I'm pretty sure my time (28.37) was slower than either time I did it last summer and probably slower than the times I did the summer before - despite this, I've rarely felt quite so bad immediately after a race.

Set out at 8:30 this morning under bright blue skies and did 60 miles of Devonshire hills and rivers in just over four hours. Had company for the first 40 miles until Ben's legs started turning to jelly (he's never done more than 20 miles in a go before, rugby player, though not not big like that suggests, rather than cyclist). 3,000 feet of climbing, absolutely amazing countryside and weather all the way. I did the Teign river valley, the Exe estuary, Woodbury Common, Haldon golf course, touched Dartmoor... Absolutely wonderful.

Gorgeous weather, 10.2 mile time trial in the morning, just 5 seconds off my course best.

~60mi from mpls to stillwater. perfect weather, good company, easy skankin

we must have looked an odd trio tho: I was in full kit on my shiny new (to me) carbon road bike, friend was on her long haul trucker in comfy sporty clothes, other fiend was on a janky SS wearing a ratty tshirt and bike shorts. the second leg of the trip starts out with a hill that kicks up to 13% in bits, mike was fucking crosseyed for much of the ride home

fiend = friend, but it sorta fits, dude has gone bonkers for cycling after years of inactivity, it's great

I did a 14 mile ride on a smooth dirt road with my 6 y/o and 8 y/o. The road has goes along the South Platte River up to big dam, and is closed to cars for the most part. Almost zero complaining, so it was a bit of a miracle. Plus, we saw a small herd of bighorn sheep up close, which the kids enjoyed. The ride also featured a short 8% climb side challenge, and I was bowled over by their enthusiasm and energy.

In Malibu for a wedding, got some riding in. Saturday was 55 miles of mostly canyons, 5k feet of climbing, gorgeous stuff. Stupidly, I started the ride with a big climb without warming up. Ride ended with a long headwind slog on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Next day I just head north on the PCH, which starts out with some rollers before going flat and rustic - just a plunging rock face, road and ocean. I head out fifteen miles before turning around. Felt like I had a tailwind so I'm expecting a headwind the other way - but there's no change, and now that I'm warmed up I can up the speed without really working hard. As perfect a ride as I've had.

The ride also featured a short 8% climb side challenge, and I was bowled over by their enthusiasm and energy.

Typical weight weenies.

ha, the 6 y/o had just got a new bike with 7 spds, w/ no granny, so her low gear isn't that low, but she rode up the hill until she was crying because he legs were burning so badly. then she halted, waited 30 secs, remounted, and rode the final 100m. then flopped on the grass and rubbed her legs. she really is badass in a way her brother just isn't.

noob here. have biked 15 days in a row. biked 0 days in about 10 years before that :)

good work bnw!

hunt3r that story is hilariously awesome.

thx, haitch.

bnw, i hope it is (or becomes) something you love to do.

it hurts, sometimes

You must make her brother badass. Whiny boys grow into indolent men (speaking from experience here!).

After seemingly innumerable glorious days and some great cycling (including, most memorably, a mammoth 80 mile ride with my best cycling friend up and over the Crow Road last week), it finally rained today, but it actually felt good!

Put up a new Pb in all but one of my strava sections on my ride home last night. Really pleased with that, definitely getting stronger if not thinner...

Is there any way of seeing prior performances on a strava section rather than yr current Pb? Would like to see progress.

yes, there is a tab named "my results" on the left side of the segment leaderboard.

v. useful to compare performances imo. have subdued my instincts to go too hard, too early after watching myself die near the top of hills too often.

thanks folks - hiding in plain sight, nice.

Five thousand fixed-gear miles in five months!

Did a race at Hog Hill today in very windy conditions. There were just 29 starters and the bunch was getting whittled down each time up the hill. After about 25 minutes (of an hour-long race) a big attack strung everything out and I found myself at the rear of a group of about 6 with a leading group of 12 breaking away. As the gap edged up to 50 metres it was clear they weren't coming back and I thought "it's now or never" and attacked off the front of my group. After a couple of minutes in no-man's land on my own I managed to bridge across. Nobody else made it. Unfortunately it took a bit out of me and I got dropped with 4 laps to go and soloed in to grab either 12th or 13th spot.

Nice job.

I did 60 miles and 6000 ft vertical. I got hailed on, rained on, and was within about 300 m of a lightning strike while in full flight down the canyon. Great ride!

~40mi to BREW DAY, perfect weather, 2500ft of climbing (in MN!)

54 miles today in and around the New Forest. Very windy, I managed to do the first 25 miles at something between 19 and 20mph before turning into it for the struggle back to the in-laws'.

75 miles on Friday night/Saturday morning. A good run that was taxing in places thanks to the rain, the headwind and the large number of mechanicals that caused a lot of waiting around.

Odd route - some of it is in great countryside, balanced off with some painful drags down dual carriageways. If I wanted to do lots of that I'd start time-trialling (no danger of that whatsoever).

Next up - 118 miles to Bingham near Nottingham a week on Friday....

went out for a while on saturday after lunch in some weak sun, kinda wasn't feelin' it though. however did manage to put away man on colnago on a punchy uphill section.

i was psyched, on that 60 miler i did an extension to my route that only added 20 miles, but has a really nice 4.3 mile, 1400 ft climb, so like 6%+, and early short bits at 13%. hits 9820 feet, which is higher than i thought anything went this far south of the metro. this is where strava's explore feature is great-- i've been riding up there for 16 years and did not know that climbing loop was there.

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/ConiferMtn.jpg

yeah that explorer stuff is great, i used it to string together a bunch of backroads that i'd never ridden the other week.

Today I've been biking around our manufacturing facility which is still the shell of a massive plant that we are taking a slice out of. It's half a kilometre long and sits on two floors so I spent my lunch break riding around, up and down lifts in and out of derelict offices. It's a lot of fun.

Beautiful beautiful evening today. Didn't get riding I'll Sven and only stopped because it was too dark. Absolutely flying along feeling great, even a calf muscle cramping wasn't going to stop me.

i would like to bike around any facility tbh

Didn't get riding I'll Sven
Isn't that so often the case?

damned autocorrect

till seven

so much oxygen available down here- watts for equivalent effort up 15%, VAM up like 150. it didn't _feel_ any better, but it looks nicer in strava.

Frank Long Rd. in Dewitt NY, I salute you:

Distance 0.8mi
Avg Grade 11.8%
Elev Difference 518ft
Elev Gain 518ft

There is a significant portion that hits 25%, and it never gets below 8% that I recall. It's cry-for-your-mama ish. So great (thank god I had 39/26). At one point youre going up at 10% and its hard, and it looks like you are riding toward a wall. No real curves anywhere.

the Stillwater crit course

BRUTAL

http://app.strava.com/segments/945663

I fell off my bike.

Very stupidly hit a level crossing on river avenue at the wrong angle in the twilight and ejected. Nothing damaged expect my pride really. Skinned my knees slightly bruised a hand and my left ankle is swollen. Bike fine, i ripped a glove and cracked a sole plate. I feel like a prize pillock but I'll mend.

Just after, as I was walking along, catching my breath by the side of an empty road, some arsehole in a minivan drove past me slowly, leaning on his horn, hardly moving over at all.

people are dicks! at least you got away unscathed.

went past baaaad crash this morning, someone down in middle of the road, big pack also stopped and directing traffic and stuff. didn't want to stop and gawk so not sure what happened.

more lolzy developments later: we'd hooked up woth my riding buddy's friends and made a group of six. everyone started watching each other near the foot of oliver's hill so i hit them, got 20 metres and thought the KOM was in the bag... and realised i had a puncture. SO denied.

Feeling hobbled by hamstring problems. Not sure if I need to harden TF up or the opposite.

Crazy winds, constantly at least 25mph with gusts of up to 50mph. I went out on Friday for a couple of hours - at one point (into a headwind) I was only managing 9.5mph on the flat. Then the heavens opened I got drowned in a ten-minute deluge of horizontal rain.

Did a 4th-cat race at Hog Hill yesterday in the same windy conditions, which made it 'challenging' to say the least. They had us on the 'Alpine' version of the course (which has you going gently downhill through three near-180 degree turns) which is technical enough at the best of times, but a bit mental when you keep switching between savage headwind/crosswind/tailwind. Photo. On top of that the pace was absolutely crazy for the first couple of laps and the bunch got absolutely shredded - down from 32 to just 16 in about five minutes of racing. I managed to hang on for about 45 minutes of the hour-long race - the photographer was kindly on hand to capture the precise moment I got dropped on the climb: going, going... gone. I knew there weren't many left in the bunch by this point (in fact half the field had been lapped) so I carried on on my own to the bitter end in the hope I could scrape into the top ten and score some points. I caught and passed another who got dropped later than me, but came in 12th.

i crested a 20% hill today, 2 hours into a long mtb ride, feeling bad. it's 93 deg out, and i was going for a pr for father's day. as i sat up to recover, i started getting hit by bugs, they were flying everywhere. a swarm. i looked down at me legs and...they were ladybugs. there were thousands of them flying everywhere, i must have had 20 of them on me.

my legs. and my legs were not ladybugs, though that would have been cool too.

out and back to Stillwater for the crit. great spectating, crowd was nutso for it. we were posted up on the climb, which kicks up to 22%. motherfuckers were doing wheelies in the middle of it. so baller

I was gonna say, Hunter, at the top of a steep hill your mind can start playing tricks...

noob here. have biked 15 days in a row. biked 0 days in about 10 years before that :)

― bnw, Tuesday, May 29, 2012 7:23 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my streak is still up minus 1 24 period out of town. today i doubled my normal ride and it was disturbingly easy!