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Is That Weird?

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Is that weird? No; not E-E-R-I-E. E-R-I-E. Follow the footsteps; I mean, the hoof prints, of the famous mule! A week or so ago I received a notice in the mail about Cycle the Erie Canal; and it sounds wonderful. Much of the trail is away from traffic. It\’s mostly flat, and that\’s great for a life-long flatlander like me. Eight days, 400 miles does sound rather daunting. I could manage 50 miles in one day, I\’m quite sure, but averaging that for eight days straight is another matter. The training plan sounds very similar to what I do as a regular thing, though; so maybe I\’d be OK! Unfortunately it\’s not likely I\’ll get to do this tour. Buffalo, NY is far, far away. The tour itself is not cheap; and getting up there, and back afterwards, would add to the cost. Preparation would mean putting the road bike aside for a while. I do most of my riding with the road bike; but a hybrid is recommended for this trip. Suddenly riding the hybrid all day, every day for over a week would be too much if I didn\’t do something to prepare for it. I\’d especially need to practice a lot of loaded riding, namely, full panniers in addition to the Camel-Bak. I don\’t know whether there are any ghosts along the Erie Canal; if I saw one, I\’d be saying, \”Is that weird, or what?\” It sure would make the Erie Canal eerie! But if you can make it to this ride, have a great time; and watch out for what my brother calls \”fresh mule muffins\”.  

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Day 9

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It was a blustery start to Day 9 of Love to Ride. This morning, while I was outward-bound, it seemed a bit as though the Big Bad Wolf were at work. The wind was blowing at 15-16 mph; but all the same, I made some efforts to push 15 mph into the it. I worked at one minute at a time of riding hard, for a total of six intervals. I didn\’t always reach 15 mph, but I did hit a peak speed well over 17 mph; so I guess you could say that my efforts were successful. For a change I had a TAILwind on the way back home! I did some 30-second efforts at getting up to 17-18 mph; and managed a peak velocity of 18.47 mph! On the one hand, my making those efforts is a good thing. I can see that I\’ve actually made some progress over the years. There was a time when hitting 15 mph even with a good tailwind was very hard. On the other hand, I’m too chicken. I suspect that I need to make those efforts more than 30-60 seconds long if I want to increase my cruising speed; and I probably need to do more of them. It was cloudy, but it didn\’t rain. And I saw a coyote today! Maybe it’s the same one I saw almost a week ago, because it was in pretty much the same place. It\’s been quite an interesting Day 9.

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Day 8

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Love to Ride \”rides\” on, into Day 8. Today, for a change, I got to work without getting rained on. It was, however, overcast; and I was rather nervous about the possibility of having the sky open up any moment. As the morning went on, there was some clearing; and the sun came out! As the day went on, the wind picked up; and by the time I rode home it was blowing quite strongly. I\’m glad it was a tailwind for the final mile. The Love to Ride challenge even has me wondering whether I could get in a 100-miler before the end of the month. According to this, I\’m probably not ready for a century at this point; especially if I have a strong wind on the day. Or is my having done 44 miles day before yesterday a sign that I could manage the miles, even if I plod along at 11 mph most of the day? On the other hand, during Tour de Cure last Fall, my arms felt sore and tired before the end; and I did the 50-mile route, not the 100-mile one. If I want to do a century, maybe I\’d better give myself more time to work up to it. Just because today is Day 8 is no reason to get overambitious!

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Set Your Heart

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You can always set your heart on that special, long ride: a century … or Tour de Cure … maybe Bike MS. For most of us, this will mean training up; and one way to train is by heart rate zone. How do we set the appropriate zones? First, we need to know what our maximum heat rate is. The old \”220 minus your age\” to determine what your maximum heart rate should be, has been called into question, and even called \”useless\”; but I\’ve done a VO2 max test with HIIT Lab. This test determines your maximum heart rate; and from there, you can work out your zones. I use a 5-zone system from Get Fast!. (See p. 231). The lowest, Zone 1, is easy/recovery; and for a long, casual ride, Zone 2 is aerobic endurance/cruising. Zone 3 is steady/tempo. Zone 4 is brisk; and Zone 5 is all-out, full-gas effort. Now that we\’ve determined our heart rate zones, how do we train for the big ride? For quite a while I\’ve had the idea of riding another 100-miler of my own teasing the edges of my brain; and I always wonder how best to get ready. Century training plans abound; but the problem with them is that, like this one, the mileages to be ridden during the week are more than I can manage. I can\’t ride fast enough to do them in the time that I have; and that makes it hard to prepare. Riding 100 miles in one day without adequate training is not a good idea! So don\’t set your heart on riding a century before you\’re properly prepared. It\’s a good thing I didn\’t set my heart on it, because I\’m for sure not ready!

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Rerun?

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Is this a rerun? I can\’t remember whether I\’ve posted about this topic before, but it sure is interesting. What a TdF cyclist eats in one day is staggering. That breakfast alone sounds like a full day\’s food for me, or close to it. I\’ll skip the coffee, though. Maybe they\’d let me have mild, cold green tea instead? Then more food an hour and a half later, before they even get on their bikes! I feel stuffed just thinking about it. It is said that pro tour riders need to eat a couple of hours before beginning a day\’s racing. Their food needs a chance to settle before they have to start riding. But then they have to keep on eating, while blazing along for hours at speeds that I, for one, can only dream of attaining. After I\’ve been riding about two hours, my desire for food dwindles; especially if I\’m working hard against a headwind. It gets hard to eat, but TdF riders have to keep eating just so they can keep going. Not so easy, I\’m sure. All those bars, rice cakes, sandwiches, electrolyte drinks — oh, I\’m getting a bellyache! Bring on the Pepto Bismol! The stage is over! Think the eating is over? Perish the thought! Right off their bikes, the riders down a recovery drink. Then there\’s dinner. And yet another snack before lights out. My post-long Sunday ride recovery drink, chocolate whey protein powder in 8 oz skim milk, pales into nothing next to a pro tour rider\’s post-race snack. Those guys aren\’t only professional cyclists; they\’re also professional eaters! And after the day\’s stage is over, the next day is a rerun.

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To Market

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To market today! Remember the old nursery rhyme? \”To market, to market, to buy a fat pig…\” Of course I didn\’t buy a pig; but I got in some miles for Love to Ride. I had several reasons for heading for the regular supermarket instead of the salvage store. One, I wanted an 8 oz jar of Hellman\’s Mayonnaise®; and that\’s something that I\’ve never found at the salvage store. The only mayo I find there is quart jars! I don\’t use mayo very fast; so why buy a large jar of it at a bargain price, and end up having to discard most of it because it\’s going bad? That\’s no bargain in the long run. Two, going to the salvage store would have meant fighting the wind all the way home. It isn\’t a strong wind this morning, but it\’s enough for me to feel it. Not surprisingly, my legs are a bit stiff today. Going to the other store meant that I got the headwind over with on the way there. Three, I don\’t know what the weather will do. Last night the forecast predicted showers/T-storms by 1 pm; and now it says, after 4 pm! The sky was completely overcast this morning, and there was a light mist. I took along the poncho, just in case. I\’m still rather tempted to ride out to the salvage store to fill up a grab bag or two, but I think my legs need a rest now; and I don\’t feel like taking the gamble of getting poured on. After all, the market can bear only so much!

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Double time?

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Is double time helpful? Want to pedal real fast to go real fast? Maybe not so fast. In the first place, we\’re none of us Chris Froome, although we might want to be able to ride as fast as he does. It\’s interesting that trying to pedal very fast in a low gear wastes so much energy. I\’ve noticed that, in said very low gear, I have to pedal furiously to attain 13-14 mph; and it tires me out much too fast. I get all out of breath. On the other hand, a hard gear and slow pedaling is also wearying. My leg muscles get too tired, too fast. One time, several years ago, I tried slow pedaling in a hard gear to see how fast I could go while staying in a low heart rate zone. I got up to 15 mph and was still in my Zone 2 (\”cruising\”); but my quads didn\’t like it any too much; and I wasn\’t able to maintain it for long. We have to find a balance between \”hardness\” of gear, and cadence. Add to that the necessity of changing gears to meet changing conditions: a climb; a turn into the wind; and so on. On top of all that, there\’s personal preference. What feels good to me cadence-wise might feel terrible to another rider. I try not to get hung up on it. Yes, it\’s good to practice low-gear, rapid-cadence pedaling. You might need this kind of double time on a long ride, when there\’s a long stretch heading into the wind. But mostly, choose your gear and cadence; and just keep rolling along.

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Let\’s Be Different

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So what was different, anyway? Aside from more miles for Love to Ride! Contrary to my usual practice, I did my long ride today, Saturday, this weekend. As a rule, Sunday is long-ride day; but the forecast I checked last night predicted an 80% chance of rain tomorrow. Today\’s forecast said, 20% chance of rain. I decided to ride today to be sure of getting my miles. It didn\’t rain, but the fog was pretty bad. I just cleaned my road bike last night, and now it\’s all mucked up again. My legs felt a bit tired, and I decided try to ride steadily, and not push the pace. Luckily the wind was cooperative. There was some breeze, but only around 9 mph. I also decided to go out a little farther than last time before turning for home. I rode 44.3 miles: not a record, but also not bad. As long as the Love to Ride challenge is going on, I\’m trying to use a bicycle to go places that I\’d usually walk to.  So after I got the road bike put away and recorded my ride data, I pedaled the hybrid over to the local drug store. There was nothing I truly needed, but it\’s another ride for my team! (Yeah, yeah, I know — any excuse for ice cream!)  

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Five Down

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Five down, and twenty-five more days of the Love to Ride challenge to go. I hope the weather doesn\’t keep on the way it has for the past two days. After yesterday’s hard efforts, I did only a short, easy ride on the road bike. It was sprinkling a bit when I went out; but not bad. In fact, the water on the ground was much worse than what was falling down. My feet got wet when I had to ride through a couple of ponds of accumulated rain water. After 20 minutes or so the drizzle started to get heavier, which had me concerned that the atmospheric electricity was about to flare up; so I went home a bit earlier than planned. With only five down, I don\’t need to get electrocuted. To Work Riding to work this morning was too much like yesterday morning’s commute. I started out in a light rain that became a downpour before I was halfway there. At least today I wasn’t being chased by lightning; but if anything I got wetter than I did yesterday morning. In part that’s because I had put most of my stuff in my backpack. Having a bulky pack on my back “shortens” the poncho, so the hem of my shorts got quite wet. The bike trunk was still damp inside from yesterday’s dousing, and all I had in it was the cable lock. All this rainy weather has dampened more than me and my stuff. It’s short-circuited my brain, too. I forgot to put the tail light on the hybrid, and didn’t realize it until I got to work. I reached automatically for the light to take it off; and it wasn’t there! Riding to work in the rain leaves me feeling sleepy and tired, making it hard for my mind to focus. I’m glad I remembered to pack a lunch today, so I didn’t need to go outside. I could change into my spare socks and shoes, and have dry feet. Some people might ask, why did I ride to work when I’m close enough to have walked? For one thing, I wouldn’t have stayed much drier if I had walked. Two, the Love to Ride challenge is on! Five down, and I\’m not going to quit. It’s good blog material! Besides, disasters make good copy, right?

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For the Uninitiated

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This is for the uninitiated in the world of cycling. Non-cyclists may be curious about a lot of things in the pedal-pushing world. Or, possibly, shocked. Before I got into cycling shorts, I saw someone riding past who was wearing white cycling shorts. The fabric looked very thin, almost see-through. I was quite horrified. Do non-cyclists think we get bored riding for several hours? It can be  tedious when I\’ve got a headwind all the way home, but it\’s a lot more boring to just sit at home. Why ride up steep hill? We love our bragging rights!! Why on earth would we ride in cold, wind, rain, etc.? If you\’re interested in randonneuring, you must learn to ride in all sorts of conditions. \”That cruel clock is always ticking\”; and you don\’t want to miss the cut-off time because you can\’t ride in the rain, now do you? Strava? I\’m the wrong person to ask about that. Constantly \”competing\” would wear me down, and take the fun out of riding. Why do we wear lycra? It does take getting used to; but once you\’ve adjusted, you won\’t want regular shorts for riding again. Lycra doesn\’t stop at cycling shorts. There are also leg warmers, etc. What\’s that about special cycling socks? Cycling-specific socks do seem a tad more comfortable. I could use some thermal socks for cold-weather riding, that\’s for sure. Other Stuff I don\’t have a cycling cap. I use a helmet with a visor. Supposedly using a visor makes you look like a newbie; but I! Don\’t! Care! My sunglasses don\’t provide adequate protection from overhead sunlight; and why buy a cap when my helmet came with that visor? For the uninitiated, I would say that a helmet is very much necessary. I read of a cyclist who was just standing over his bicycle, waiting for a red light to change. He fell over, and suffered a fatal injury when his unprotected head hit the curb. Yes, it can get uncomfortable \”down under\”, especially when you have a bit of susceptibility for jock itch. Even if you don\’t, long rides on a hot day can make you long for a stop to change into fresh shorts. Chamois Butt\’r helps with that. My ride to work, luckily, is less than three miles, and I try to ride it easily. By the time I ride to work, I\’ve usually put in an hour or so of riding, anyway. Le Tour? I like to look at the online pics. I don\’t have a TV, and of course I can\’t watch it on my computer at work; so I don\’t really \”follow\” it. And now female riders are being given a share in TdF! Do I go by miles, or kilometers? Miles for me. I use them all the time. In the USA, we still go by miles, inches, and so on. As for having hollow legs, I should be so lucky. I hope my bicycles never wind up in a storage shed for years on end; and when you don\’t have to pay for the upkeep of a car, a bicycle is very much affordable!

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