I like to ride my bicycle - for long distances. I have earned the California Triple Crown and finished the Furnace Creek 508. My goals include qualifying for RAAM and ...(read the blog to find out).
"The bicycle has a soul. If you are able to love it as it deserves, it will give you emotions you will never forget."
Mario Cipolini
"Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride."
John F. Kennedy
"The important decisions in my life I make while out riding my bike."
Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi
"Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever.” Lance Armstrong
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Don Stahos, a republican that I owe a lot too, passed away yesterday. He is the father of Oregon's Bicycle Bill. Here Gov. Tom McCall (another republican) is signing the bill on the seat of a Schwinn Continetial.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Yesterday, I worked from home, which allowed me to ride Gibson Hill for the first time since June. I am please to say that I beat my previous best time!
| June 21, 2005 | October 18, 2005 | |
|---|---|---|
| Time | 23.39.5 | 21.42.5 |
| Average | 9.5 | 10.4 |
This is the analysis of the climb from my HAC4:
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Well, the illness that I have been fighting for the last few weeks caught up with me. I did not work out on Thursday, called in sick on Friday and did not ride on Saturday. But, by Sunday I was feeling better, so Joanne and I loaded up the Meridian tandem and rode the Harvest Century.
We rode quite hard, maintaining an average of 16.5 for 110 miles. Near the end, we still felt strong, but a bit slower on the hills. Here is my analysis for the ride...
My next event ride is the Death Valley Double on October 29, 2005. The last time I rode the northern course, I averaged 14.6 mph. I'm hoping to ride faster this time.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
"If bicycle saddles contribute to erectile dysfunction, then The Netherlands would be empty" -Thorsten Schaette of KHS Bicycle Parts
Two rides in the last two days.
Yesterday, I rode with the Scott's Cycling group north into and beyond Keizer. We started at 6:00 pm when it was still light, but finished at 7:30 pm in the darkness. This was a quick paced ride and I finished with 17.7 mph average for 25 miles. In the race to the top of Ravena hill, I was fourth, my best ever!
Tonight, I did 30 minutes on the stair step machines and then 28 miles at a more reasonable pace.
I thinking of going back to McKenzie Pass this weekend, but it depends on the weather. Right now, the forecast is for showers. But this was the forecast for last weekend and it was dry until after the ride. We shall see if this weekend is the same.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
From the Ultracycling mailing list...
My Recent Deer Accident/Crash at Columbus Fall Challenge in OHIO
Daniel Chew
Oct 10, 2005 13:40 PDT
Last weekend, I collided with a deer and crashed HARD -
cracking my helmet and breaking my bicycle (the black
Softride which I won the 1999 RAAM on will finally have to
be retired after 100,000 miles - more miles than any other
bicycle I have ever ridden. Caludio gave it his blessing
to be retired.
I recently came close to hitting a deer that stepped our of the forest in front of me while I was descending at 42 mph. As I read Danny's posting, I felt the same chills that I felt when I nearly hit a deer.
Be careful out there.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Sunday was a nice recovery ride. I did 28 miles at 11.5 mph. And, yes it hurt, but not as much as this man.
This is Jim "Cutthoat Trout" Trout at the finish of the 2005 Furnace Creek 508.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Today, I will do an easy recovery ride as I am quite sore from yesterday.
Here is the analysis of my yesterday's ride and it should explain why I am taking it easy today.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Today's ride was hard and longer than I expected. First of all, here are the stats...
Dst: 97.72 miles
Avg: 14.5 mph
Max: 40.3 mph
ATM: 6:43:56
Alt: 6,610 ft
The ride consisted of five separate parts: the first descent, the long hill, the descent into Sisters, the climb out of Sisters, and lastly, the long descent.
I was on the bike at 7:45 am at an elevation of 3720 ft. The temperature was just 33 ° F. The route first descends down to an elevation 1,700. I do not know what the wind chill was, but I was cold! I was trying to remember my climb on the Central Coast Double - 13% and 90° F.! I was not successful.
Next, I rode McKenzie pass from the west. I gained more than 3,500 feet in 30 miles. I climbed well, and did not stop at the summit, but continued down to Sisters. There, I ate a rather large lunch - a cup of soup and a turkey sandwich. I then reversed my route and rode McKenzie pass from the east. This direction is much easier as the elevation gain is just 2,000 feet. Again, I climbed well and did not stop at the summit.
I now descended for 3,500 feet and this was very hard. My arms and hands grew tired from braking, my feet started to hurt as I was not peddling and my back began to hurt. I found myself wishing I was climbing again.
At the bottom of the descent, I realized that I did not have time to ride the 20 miles back to my car. I promised my wife that I would be home in time to have dinner with her brother who is visiting from Washington, so I hitch-hiked back to my car. A special thanks to Don Mathews and his wife who picked me up and took me back to my car!
So, I did not finish the ride, but I get to have dinner! An even trade I would say.
Friday, October 07, 2005
It has been a good week for me.
I worked out at the gym with Marin on Monday and Thursday including 30 minutes on the stair climber each day. On Tuesday, I rode with the group from Scott's Cycling, and almost stayed with the attach on MacLeay hill. Wednesday was our first Salem Bicycle Club night ride and we took it easy; it was a recovery ride for me.
Tomorrow, I plan on riding a hard route from Santiam Junction to Sisters via McKenzie pass, returning the way I came.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
It was a good decision to drive SAG on the Peach, rather than ride it.
Here are some (editied) comments from some riders
Well, the weather didn't clear for the Peach. The wind blew, we had rain, it wasn't warm (wasn't too cold either).
The trip south from Chemekete Community College featured fairly strong headwinds, and rain. Not a terribly pleasant way to start. The bike felt as though 50 lbs of water had gotten into the frame. Still, we were better off that those on the single bikes, since we must have overtaken over 100 riders. The headwinds let up for the 5 miles in front of the first rest stop - we managed to get up to our regular cruising speed.
We elected to ride the 62 mile loop. We did 100 miles in the rain on Ring of Fire - didn't have a great desire to repeat that! The middle leg was short, and slow. Crosswinds are very bad for a tandem.
The final leg back to the start was a mixture of slow and fast. There was one point where we got the full benefit of the tail wind, and cursed along for many miles (probably 15) at between 22 and 30MPH. That almost made up for the rain.. Almost! We averaged a feeble 17.8MPH for the day, but I suspect that was better than most.
The Salem Bike club puts on a great ride. The rest stops were well stocked - I bet they had plenty left over today. I also imagine that the 100 mile rest stop didn't see much action today.
Had the obligatory Peach Pie at the end of the ride. Scott, Linda MH, Nance and I then went to a local restaurant, and had soup! Finally got warm, and sort of dry. We had fun today!
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Jason and I also elected to do the 62 mile ride. Pretty much the same experience as Richard and Nance. We averaged 15.7 though... And finished just before the sky opened up (1:30?). We felt sorry for the folks still out riding.
After heading through Salem looking for a Starbuck's (no luck), we figured we'd go to the one in Wilsonville. Calling home revealed that Fitz was heading into work (in Wilsonville!), so we met at the Starbuck's. :-) Visited, shared RSVP experiences with the 3 soggy cyclists at the next table (Fitz had already asked if they had done the Peach, and they were asking about RSVP), then went home. And did laundry.
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OK, it wasn't that bad. We did more than survive. We actually had quite a bit of fun. But it was definitely not what we'd been looking forward to for months. With a slightly wry smile, the Salem Bike Club people at the finish blamed Lance. After all, the LAF ride usurped the weekend that they'd "pre-ordered" and gummed up the weather works.
We (Linda, Michael G., Nat and I... Laura had put herself on the injured reserve list and didn't show) departed at 7:51, coinciding nicely with the spigot in the clouds being flipped to "full open". There was still a little dry pavement in the parking lot when we rolled out, I think, but that didn't last past the first intersection. Rooster tails became the order of the day. RaceBlade fenders work pretty well for keeping the owner's backside dry, but they have little to no effect on riders following. So, Linda and I got pretty plastered front AND back, while Nat and Michael took all their hits on the front. Nat's collection of grime was especially impressive by the end of the day.
Any thoughts of hitting a 20 mph riding average were jettisoned very early on as the wind from the south bore in on us. After about 15 miles, my computer had become so soaked that it quit. I coaxed it back to life periodically by blowing the water out of the contacts, but it was a losing battle. So, I have no stats for the day, but that was strangely liberating in and of itself.
Sometime after sloshing through Turner, I apparently struck a chord that had been waiting for an outlet: "What do you think about doing 62 instead?" It took about two pedal revolutions to reach a consensus on that one. We were all riding well, feeling strong, but the "vision thing" was becoming a real problem for me. Between water droplets and fog, my view of the ride had been reduced to a bad blend of mpressionism and Jackson Pollock, and cleaning the lenses was a very temporary solution. Other concerns were raised as well (as if we really had to work at talking ourselves out of the century) and we decided to take the shortcut to the barn.
It was a very wet, but very nice ride. There's been a course change after Stayton hat makes an already good ride even better. This might have been in effect last year, but I can't remember for sure. Whatever... it's fun and pretty; even on a sloppy gray day.
As we dialed in our aim on Chemeketa, we realized with relief that the winds were not going to shift appreciably on us and that we would have a TAILWINDfor most of the last leg! How very cool! The rooster tails flew even higher, but we kept speeding up regardless.
Not long before the finish, Linda doused us with a heaping helping of something green and fibrous that had been pulverized into the bike lane (I don't want to know what it was... it's all washed off now!) but that just added a little texture to the fun. At various times on the last leg, we all mentioned that we really were having fun. It WAS fun! Fully saturated fun, but fun in any case.
Michael headed out while the rest of us changed clothes, so I didn't get a chance to thank him for his company and share of the work. Thanks, Michael! That also meant I didn't get a chance to give him the print I'd made of him starting out at the State TT. (Linda has it now... you guys can make arrangements if you want. There's a shot of Laura during one of the RAO test rides, too)
Lunch with Richard and Nancy and Linda was fun, and yes, it was nice to watch the deluge from a warm and dry restaurant.
Ride post-script: As I passed through Manning on my way home, I got caught in one of the very worst showers I'd ever been in while driving. The clouds just tried to purge every bit of water they had in them all in one spot. The roar on the car's roof was like standing beside a turning jet engine. My bike sat placidly on the roof through it all, and when I got home I realized that it had essentially been power-washed from above. Almost all of the road grime and grit is gone. I still need to clean the rims and lube the chain, but the really messy cleanup is pretty much done.
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Andrew, Diane, Nanci, and I have a slightly different story. Same start in rain and wind, with rooster tails from two of the four bikes. At the left turn on Turner, we looked at each other and agreed that it wasn't really fun, so we headed straight into Salem, found a hole-in-the-wall cafe named Off Center Cafe, and had a yummy second breakfast, returned to the start for a grand total of 19 miles! No peach pie, as they didn't have a knife to cut it yet, and all the better anyway. When Nance called to arrange lunch, I was already home in my garage cleaning my bikes.
I'll have to work on my birthday miles another day.
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Wonders will never cease here in Oregon. The weather wizards were right! They forecasted anywhere from 30% to 80% chance of showers yesterday. Depending when & where you were, you could have been in a downpour. And a very nice, character building south wind for all to enjoy. Who says the Salem Bike Club doesn't provide something for everyone? Many folks also got to practice their flat changing skills. It kept our SAG drivers busy.
I was there, in herdware, at the start handing out the Road Animal Awards to those who were day of ride registrations. Got to meet a fellow Intel employee, Michael Goldsmith, Richard and Nora Seton and a few others I can't remember their names. I heard someone ask for Amy Reams packet but didn't see her.
We had just over 300 folks pre-register and maybe 50 or so didn't show. Then there are those who signed up day of ride. About 100 folks fell into that category.
I remarked to a friend that too bad we moved the ride to this date because we didn't want to compete with Lance and that ride had the better weather. He pointed out that if we had the real good weather we could have had the chance of having more riders than we planned on , there would be more chance of some
folks suffering sun stroke, and everybody would have delayed finding their winter riding clothes. This was also a chance to seperate the men from the boys and women from the girls. Now we know who will ride during the winter and who has hung their bike up until next April. ;o)
A good time was had by all who rode even though we were completely soaked at the end of the day. Thanks to Bob for the great road markings, to Phyllis for the food, to John, Pat, Dick, & Don for SAG support. A great big thanks to Scott for coordinating the ride. Another big thanks to his wife, Angela, for her support too. Thanks go to the many other folks helped with registration setup/teardown along with the Kiwanas Club who manned the rest stops.
I just hope Lance doesn't take our day next year.
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Key learnings from the Peach:
When I woke up this AM I found I *still* had grime coming out of me ears!
A GPS falling off the handlebars @ 20 mph bounces about 6 inches vertically and 25 feet horizontally.
Road grit is excellent for removing plaque built up on the teeth.
My feet were cold and purple at the end of the ride. This purple somehow got transferred to my socks.
Riding on the drops in a paceline improves the angle at which your face intersects the roostertail of the rider ahead of you, thereby increasing the efficiency with which filth is transferred to your face.
After the paceline rides though a mud patch, you find yourself hoping that the leader drags you through a deep puddle so as to rinse off your glasses.
Warm fingers are happy fingers. Cold toes are sad toes.
Avoid having *too* much fun when riding in the rain. Smiling tastes
bad.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
I rode the Peach of a Century route today, a day before the event as I am driving a SAG vehicle during the event.
The weather was a bit lousy.
Max Temperature 61 °F
Min Temperature 47 °F
Precipitation 0.10 in
Month to date precipitation 0.10
Year to date precipitation 18.13
Max Wind Speed 20 mph
Max Gust Speed 29 mph
I rode 95 miles at an average of 16.0 mph which is good considering I was riding my heavy rain bicycle.