OTB (Off The Bike).
December 1st, 2009
Confession. I have not biked in just under two months.
I miss it, but not as much as I should.
Back in early October, I hiked a little over in North Georgia. It was very near the Appalachian Trail, but I didn’t actually make it to the AT itself. Here are some pictures from the trip.
I ended up hiking about 12 miles the first day, and my knees completely gave out. The next day, after having camped by a forest service road, I bailed, and called a “hiker shuttle” and got out of there. It was not the way I wanted to go, but it’s what it is.
In any case, whatever the problem was (believed to be problems with the iliotibial bands) needs time to get rid of the inflammation. I have given it time (minimum one month completely off the bike, since IBS is a typical bike injury) and now keep thinking I’d like to bike again. I just never pull the trigger. I have walked some, and intend to “get back in shape” by walking more.
I welcome ideas on how to get back to biking, and also (more importantly) how to not have this problem any more.
Sidenote about the two dogs in the photos above. The black one is my hiking buddy Seth’s. The white one was a random campsite dog that took to me, at least through the night when it was raining. She got under my rainfly when it was raining, and then stayed right outside my tent for the remainder of the night. I would love to have picked her up and kept her, but for various reason (none of which are compelling, in retrospect) I didn’t.
Filed under: Photography, appalachian trail, commuting, mountain biking, road biking | 2 Comments »
100 Miles of Nowhere (completed!)
May 25th, 2009
Extremely early on the morning of 5/23 (8:43), I began an arduous journey. At 8:43am, I also arrived at my destination. The journey, however, was only beginning. I required four hours, forty four minutes and forty one seconds to reach my goal of 100 miles, and tacked on an extra two tenths (and a ride to the mailbox, if you want to be technical about it) for good measure. To call it “good measure” in fact is a little ambiguous and disingenuous… I rode the Mississippi division of 100 Miles of Nowhere on a 1up USA Trainer, and … lets just say if the resistance levels offered by the 1up were one to 10, I had mine set at about… zero. So that serves as my disclaimer. Let’s call it a “downhill event” and leave it at that. Nevertheless, I did actually spin on my trainer for 4:44:41 hours, to the tune of “100.2 miles.” That gives an average speed of 21.12 miles per hour. The proof that I should be on the pro tour comes when one knows I did that feat of winningness at an average heart rate of 102 beats per minute while spinning my big ring at an average of 66 revolutions per minute (that’s around 20,000 revolutions). I thusly utterly destroyed the competition. As yet, I have no proof there was any competition even finishing in the same state as I finished, much less anywhere near me. What follows is some graphical data related to my ride.
First, satellite from my Garmin Edge 705:
Then a very unrealistic elevation data graph:
Truth is something much more like the following picture:
in that after almost 43 miles, I had gained approximately 2 feet in elevation, give or take 2 feet. According to the “on-Garmin” data, this 2 feet of elevation would be about 30% of my total elevation gained for the day. Obviously with more than 70% of the climbing remaining within the last 58 miles of the race, it was setting up to be a brutal mountain finish…
Another irrelevant graph based on the aforementioned lack of resistance I chose to use for the event. A downhill event, as I said. Don’t judge me… Also since apparently the Garmin Edge 705 will not PICK which to use between GPS and cadence sensor, the “speed” is based on the (motionless) gps. Which means speed is basically always zero, or very nearly so. Relatedly, this is something I’d like to discuss with Garmin, to tell them to record both sets of data, speed from gps and speed from cadence sensor.
“Grade” over distance. I have no idea what this graph represents, and I checked numerous times to make sure it wasn’t pulling data from some other ride.
Cadence versus Time (also, HR vs Time), which among these graphs probably is actually an interesting one, if there is one.
I can report that my arms are very tired. I won’t say “sore” because it just seems that they’d rather hang there than do anything, but aren’t particularly sore. My sit area also had had enough, and by, let’s say, the 2 hour mark, I was tired of sitting on the bike. By 3 hours, I was very tired of sitting on the bike. By 4 hours, sitting on the bike seemed like downright wrong. And after 4 hours… well…
I did a fair amount of carb loading the night before, at a local Hibachi. That worked out nicely for both me and my lovely wife (namely because it’s her favorite place to eat).
I had no specific plan of how to occupy my mind for the time required to finish this event. Here is how it worked out: The first 3 episodes of Season 1 of The Office. Then Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, then another The Office (maybe, memory gets fuzzy here), and then we switched to Dr. Who (the 2005 edition), season 1, episode 1 – 3 or 4. Yes that is much more than 4:44:41 worth of television: I took a fair amount of long breaks toward the end.
My lovely wife kindly prepared sag stops for me.
This was the “breakfast” stop. Lovely Wife started cooking when I started riding, so this worked out nicely.
This was the “somewhere in the middle” stop (the muffins were started immediately after the breakfast stop, and the smell of their cooking and ultimate doneness dictated my second (and third and fourth) rest stop.
And this was the lunch stop. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
Garmin tells me I burned 7437 cal, which if resistance on the 1up had been set to “real-world” then I could potentially believe. As it were I only ate like I had burned that many calories, both during the race and after. Actually, probably much more after. I ate for the rest of the day Saturday, and most of the day Sunday my appetite was insatiable.
There was one (official) feed station during the race. I chose not to get food but just got a hand-up from my Lovely Wife. As you can see, much skillful deliberation led to a perfect exchange of loving looks (from me) and water bottle (from her). Notice and appreciate the intensity with which the exchange was facilitated with her attentiveness.
And now on with a few race shots:
Due to the hot day, I had shed my jersey to the team car earlier in the race. Then I heard the shifting of gears behind me (phantom? I might never know…) and so there was but one thing to do: ATTACK!
And finally, photos of the victory itself.
A final disclaimer: If the Lord wills my participation in this event on it’s next occasion, then I already have a small loop in mind, that is probably less than a mile, and I look quite forward to defeating it thusly.
Filed under: Reviews, road biking | 3 Comments »
In Which I Don’t Miss the Point…
May 22nd, 2009
Race bib credit to http://www.noncyclist.com/
Let’s start by quoting Fatty regarding the 100 Mile of Nowhere:
You pay $75.00, get $76.28 worth of stuff.
Easy enough to end there and be happy with paying less than what you get. I thought that in the last post. I got all this neat stuff (and as my wife will attest, the shirt alone is worth quite a chunk of that $75) ((it’s the color… the Twin Six tan color, when washed becomes the softest and most comfortable t-shirt you will ever wear)) and the rest was gravy.
Well let me point out another part of the picture:
$75.00 entry fee. $25 of that will cover shipping costs and labor, and the other $50 goes to Fatty’s LiveStrong Challenge.
FatCyclist has raised something like one hundred million dollars* for Livestrong, and I want to be sure to throw that out there. I am happy to have 2/3 of my entry fee going toward that number. Also I thank the sponsors for donating their goods:
- An event t-shirt, designed and produced by Twin Six . Value: $22.00
- A tube of DZ-Nuts. Value: $22.00
- A Banjo Brothers Seat Bag: Value: $10.99
- A Garmin / Slipstream Camelbak Podium Bottle: Value: $10.00
- CarboRocket Single-Serve packs: Value: $6.00
- Clif Shot Bloks: Value: $2.00
- ProBar : Value: $3.29
(I pulled that part directly from FatCyclist.)
So thanks to all the sponsors! Thanks to (basically) donating so much for cancer and research!
TheJayDub
* denotes “preacher count” of amount raised
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100 Miles of Nowhere.
May 21st, 2009
Elden over at Fat Cyclist is hosting the second annual “100 Miles of Nowhere” this Saturday.
“Hosting” is potentially an inadequate term, since we fortunately don’t have to make the trip to Fatty’s cave to ride 100 miles (though any ride in that neck of the woods would be a great one, no doubt), or ride 100 miles with Fatty, or even ever see the F.C., or any of the other 400-some-odd riders participating. I say “some-odd” not as an indication that it is some number over 400 riders (it is) but that every one of us is in fact very odd.
We’re odd because we agreed (nay: paid good money) to participate and ride in this event. We’re even more odd because the 100 miles goes (as, er, the name implies) officially nowhere. It stays right where it starts. On a trainer. Let me repeat that: on a trainer.
Back to Fatty “hosting” the event. He is the host, since he lined up a spectacular goodie bag for participants. It includes
An event t-shirt, designed and produced by Twin Six.
A tube of DZ-Nuts.
A Banjo Brothers Seat Bag.
TWO Garmin / Slipstream Camelbak Podium Bottles.
CarboRocket Single-Serve packs.
Clif Shot Bloks.
ProBar.
Truly this is a nice package, for all told $84, to your door (not to imply that you can still register, because you can’t, you missed your chance). So.. $84 to my door. Which in fact happened today.
I have ridden 100 miles at once before. The next year I tried the same ride again and failed, after about 60 miles. I’ve decided it had something to do with the new shoes I was wearing (not “brand-spankin’ new,” but new enough). Anyway. Couple that with having not ridden nearly as much this year… Should be an interesting time.
So I’m looking at a solid 5 or 6 hour effort on the trainer on Saturday. Also I’ve only used my trainer about 5 times total. For maybe 5 hours total. Yeah, it’s a 1up. I like it. Seems to work nicely, based on my limited experience on trainers (having never used any other…). It will be my instrument of torture this weekend. Thankfully Monday is a holiday and I will get to recover.
I’ll try to get my lovely wife to take some pictures of my suffering. She has already agreed / planned on doing lots of fun stuff to support me. She’s going to have sag stops. And cook muffins. And plan breaks. And hopefully change the dvds, whatever it is I decide to watch in the suffer-fest. Also, I fully intend to run the cooling at or near full blast for the entirety of the event. Fortunately my house is small.
I’m open to suggestions for what movies to fill the 5-6 hours with. I have netflix and can stream so a “Watch Now” would be ideal. No bike movies please (I’ve seen them), and not “Lord of the Rings” because I did that one New Year’s Day, and it actually takes 9 hours… which I hope not to require to finish my ride.
Filed under: road biking | No Comments »
I’ve been tracking calories.
March 4th, 2009
Yes, this is actually bike related.
My lovely wife has been tracking her calories for a couple of weeks, and since I have to do everything she does, I started as well. Probably the fair truth of it is that I wanted to show her how much easier the Livestrong app (itunes link) is than the one she’d used, called Lose It (itunes link). Devious of me but I still maintain that the Livestrong one is better. Mainly because it can be interacted with on their website, which can make all the data entering vastly easier. I will say that the interface for Lose It is easy enough to make the previous point about Livestrong app moot. But whatever. 
In any case I have been tracking my calories for a whole three days. I haven’t found out too much, aside from that I eat a lot. I haven’t been just terribly hungry all the time, and I’m pretty much hitting the target (that, according to Livestrong and my profile, would have me lose a pound or 2 per week). Throw some exercise in the mix, and I should be good to go. Exercise is something that Lose It couldn’t handle, so it’s nice to use the Livestrong app for that reason alone.
Going on. I have glanced over the clearly representative set of data from my eating pattern. And come to this conclusion. I eat. a. lot. of. salt. I hit 149% of my goal today. That is 3 and a half grams of salt. I’m not sure if you know how much salt that is. I do. It’s a lot. And my first day was 122%. Yesterday was much less, but then I didn’t enter all the foods I ate, and incidentally they were some of the saltier ones (canned beans x 2). I will have to go add that data.
Now. The part that relates to cycling. I have shed a few pounds lately, and that’s very needed. I hope to hit 175 by the time I do any serious group rides. And by that I mean races. But will include any ride where I don’t want to feel like a tool at the back of the pack, sweating his winter weight. Fortunately the lovely wife is on my side this time! It’s nice for her to be counting calories too. Nice for me, I mean; she’s beautiful any way, of course.
Now I wonder if Rold Gold make slow salt pretzles. If they don’t, they should. (duh).
Update: Yesterday’s properly updated salt (yes I mean sodium salt) was 134%. Also not good.
Filed under: Reviews, gadgets, mountain biking, road biking | 1 Comment »
Lance Armstrong Goes off.
February 13th, 2009
Watch Lance Armstrong Goes Off | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Via Lance Armstrong Doped via Cycle To
Wicked.
Filed under: road biking | No Comments »