TTime to get ready! Preparing for the Sunday morning long ride can feel like getting ready for a major trek, especially in hot weather. I\’ll need electrolyte drink. I fix it the evening before, so it can be thoroughly chilled. It tastes better cold, but unfortunately it won\’t stay cold for long! I prep my […]
Enjoy while it\’s here! It\’s a three-day weekend! It would be nice if I could get away and ride through a landscape like this one! So far the weather is cooperating rather well. True, it\’s hot (85 degrees at 11:45 am), but it isn\’t raining and the wind isn\’t bad. In fact, the wind feels
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Playing favorites in typically viewed with disdain. For instance, the advice goes that a parent shouldn\’t favor one child over another. When the Tour de France is on, it can be very difficult to keep from playing favorites. Who’s your favorite pro rider? If I actually have a favorite, it’s Nairo Quintana. He caught my
It\’s not the best idea to wear yourself out on the bike, is it? I was brought up with the \”Use it up, wear it out, make it do\” mantra. My mother lived through the Great Depression, and believed very much in that. I still will wear my blouses until they\’re threadbare. I often find
Choose your weapon! Keeping a bicycle in good working order does seem rather like a duel, doesn\’t it? A duel with the elements, that is. The frame gets splattered with gritty mud during a wet ride. The chain ends up a mess, too. After tires, they say, the bicycle\’s biggest maintenance problem is its chain.
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Am I progressing merely inch by inch? Or even as quickly as that? Often enough I\’ve complained that my overall pace doesn\’t seem to be improving any too fast. For years I\’ve had \”increase my pace to 15 mph\” as a goal; and haven\’t attained it yet. Well, let me stop and think a minute.
The pain cave might not be so bad if only it had a view like this one. I don\’t see how anyone can disagree with the fact that indoor cycling means zero risk of being hit by a car, barring an extremely freakish accident. You hear now and then of a car leaving the roadway
Will I remember this, or not? I\’m not the greatest at mechanical things to begin with. I recently had the rear derailer on my hybrid replaced. I had started having problems with the shifting. When I tried to shift from the biggest cog (#1) to the second biggest (#2), it didn\’t feel like I was
Doggone it! There\’s that mutt again! Oh, that hair-raising moment while cycling when we realize that a dog is chasing us! I find it very unsettling, especially when the dog in question is not only running after me, but growling. There\’s one street where a particular dog would chase me if I rode past; and to
I had the idea that \”pain cave\” meant the state you’re in during prolonged, hard efforts: legs burning, heart pounding through your ribs, lungs gasping for air. More specifically, I was thinking of such efforts done outdoors. Actually it seems that “pain cave” means an indoor room in which to do these exhausting workouts! I\’ll have