2012 Outdoor Bicycle Riding

[Ronin]

Caravaggio, et al.,

Your path sound great! Also, having a training partner is a very good thing for developing skills as well as confidence. Tell us a bit about your bicycle. We all ride differnet types of bikes -- our primarly bike, as you probably know, is a tandem road bike (3-chainrings [52-39-26] with an 11-34 cogset) so we have a broad range of gears from the very fast (52x11) to the lowest (26x34) for those very difficult climbs and everything in-between. We prefer to ride both hard and fast which is a bit unusual for a couple with a combined age over 130. If Icould figure out how to upload a picture you could see us on our tandem. I also have a Specialized Roubaix as my single bike (for those times I get to ride alone). Like the tandem it is a pure road machine and I really love to ride fast on that. Our average speed on the tandem is in the 15mph range while on the single I'm closer to 18mph average. For a geezer that is pretty good although I know some guys older and faster than me.

Now, bring back the whole BG thing, I have found that when we have an easy day on the tandem my FBG the next morning tends to be lower than that following a typical hard day. My guess is that my Dawn-Effect is stronger when I have depleted a lot of glycogen stores the day before and I get a larger liver-dump in the morning. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[Gordonm]

Rode tonight after dinner so I did not have much time. I figured once I got about a mile out this was going to be a sprint ride. Probably a little shorter than normal ride I usually do. Well I ended up doing 20 miles and averaged 20.2 mph and a heart rate of 155 average. One of my faster rides I have done so early in the season. Felt good to get in one of those rides. Still really liking the new bike. Only complaint is the seat. Not bad but just a little pain every once in a while. I need to look into a better seat.

[raffi]

I did not get my third commute in this morning. Low 30s high wind and prognosticators calling for snow. I simply do not have the equipment for snow and ice. I'm willing to ride in the low 30s or in wind, I don't think the combo is going to work out with my equipment. Add rain/snow and reminding myself that I do this for fun and health, and I see how this morning could miss both marks.

Guess I will ride a shorter ride when I get home.

[raffi]

I picked up my old bike at the bike shop this morning and managed to get about a block away toward home when it became obvious that the crankset should have been replaced as well. Fortunately, they had a lightly used one in stock so I did manage to get my bike working and ridden the 21 miles home.

We are leaving Wednesday and heading to my daughter's college graduation and I'm planning on taking the old bike so I have something to ride that is not my commuter. I was a bit concerned that it would not be ready to go.

[Ronin]

Raffi, et al.,

Congraulations on your daughter's graduation! Have a good trip.

Today was a club road ride. We chose the shorter 26 mile route because we were just not ready for the hillier and longer 40 mile loop. It turned out we were the fastest riders of the short loop. These were familiar roads and we road them well. We had a great post-ride gathering and ate too much food. Tomorrow we have concert tickets so no riding tomorrow.

We hope everyone has been having a good weekend for riding.

[Gordonm]

What a ride day. I did 40 miles this morning with our Sunday group ride. Then I set up my old bike for my 18 year old son because he wanted to give it a try. We went out for another 18 miles and he did excellent. Amazing what fresh 18 year old legs have for stamina. Rode for 3 hrs and 11 minutes of ride time for 58 miles today. Haven't done that many miles in a long time. Felt good when it was all done and my son now wants to ride some more.

[raffi]

I'm looking forward to the possibility of riding with one of my sons that way one of these days. I just bought a bike for my youngest son after having neglected his biking education until he was 10!

I took him to a local park that has a bit of a bike trail around it yesterday and walked him around the (.8 mile) trail trying to get him to balance. About 1/4 of the way around, he was simply not able to do anything but lean on me and if I let go or got out of the way he'd drop. It's hard to try to explain to someone how to ride, since we all do it without thinking. So after a bit of figuring out what he needed, I gave him the simply explanation of if you are falling, turn your wheel in the direction you are falling and only make small corrections since the bike will amplify it. By the time we were 3/4 the way around, I was only giving him forward momentum and not holding him up at all. He had a few spills, but he had the idea down OK. The few times he tried to pedal, things got out of control pretty fast.

When we finished the loop, I told him to take the bike to the top of a very slight hill and see how far he can coast and stay up. The incline was just barely enough to give him enough speed to stay upright and nowhere near enough to get into trouble. He got on the bike and started down the hill and at the bottom had managed to keep it straight and just when he slowed down and I expected him to stop, he started pedaling and went another 30 yards on the flat. When he stopped, I told him he was doing great and to ride it back to me. Sure enough, he did. A few more times down the hill (had to get it on the camera for his mom) and we headed home.

He was showing off for his sisters last night and riding around the top of our driveway and getting better and better at it. After church today, he wanted to go back to the park so he could work on his turns. I decided it would be a good opportunity for me to do a different ride while his 17 year old brother watched him, so we went to the park and I watched long enough to see him get on the bike ride down the trail and around the first turn as thought he'd been doing it his entire life.

When I got back from my (1 hour) ride, he was finishing up his 7th lap and wanted to do 3 more. I followed him around for the last three and while he is still wobbly, he is doing great and less than 24 hours after the first time he had ever been on a bike, he finished almost 8 miles.

[rwallen]

raffi,

Congratulations to your son!!! My weekend of riding didn't turn out so well. Rode 19 miles yesterday but it was at a very leisurely pace. I didn't ride at all today because I went to look at houses with my daughter and son-in-law. Oh well. That's how it goes.

[ORjt]

Nice stories about the kids, etc, everyone!

For me for the last week, it's been work/weather conflicts, mostly. No mid-week rides this last week at all. The only bright spot -- had to work both days this last weekend, but brought my bike in with me, and got in two decent "lunch" rides. On Saturday, a fast 21 miles on flat land, and on Sunday, I did an 18 mile loop up into the hills. About 600' of climb - so not really 'epic' climbing, but a good workout, and a lot of fun.

For the first time this year, I'm actually above my year to date target for miles, so this is good.

Hopefully, the coming week will be better; it's hard to say, still some rain in the forecast. Up next weekend is a planned metric Century in Vancouver,Wa.

Stay safe out there!

--JT

[raffi]

Low 30s this morning and an almost 20mph wind, but the promised rain did not materialize so I did the ride into work. This was my last chance before my trip to California, so it seemed like a good idea. I was bundled up like I was last December and was not too hot. The headwind was liking adding 1000' climb to the ride making it an above average workout.

[Ronin]

Hi Everyone:

The rains came, and finally dispersed. Although it was heavily overcast, there was no wind with temperatures in the high 50's and the tandem ride was excellent! Forecast for tomorrow is for low 80's! What a shift in temperatures and we can be assured that there will be rain at some point -- just hopefully not when we are planning a ride.

[Ronin]

Hi Everyone!

What a difference a day makes. Temperatures were almost 20 degrees higher than yesterday and there were some light winds. The day did not start out promising with AM thunderstorms followed by a rather dreary foggy post storm period. We thought that today was a washout when suddenly the skies cleared, the roads dried and the temperatures soared. It felt good to sweat again (like we did in March) and we think that this time the warmer weather is going to stay around.

Oh yes, the recent rains have helped the lawn so that will be a task to be done soon.

[rwallen]

Hi all,

A little off topic kinda..... I just bought a GoPro Hero 2 camera and attach it to my bike on occasion. So far, I really like it. Has anyone else done this or own a GoPro?

Happy trails!

[Ronin]

Hi Everyone!

We had a nice ride today. It would have been perfect except for the near miss we had with an SUV speeding the wrong way on a one-way street. Luckily there wasn't a fall or a collision but it did get the adrenalin flowing. As to the onboard video camera I don't have one but wish I had so that I would have recorded the idiot's plate number -- would have handed that over to the police for sure.

Tomorrow is a rest day.

[Gordonm]

I had one of the early Go Pro cameras. I found it quite difficult to use and load to the computer. I have heard the newer ones are much more user friendly. They are pretty cool little cameras. I bought it to video my car running the auto cross. You can mount it anywhere.

I have gotten in some good rides. 20 yesterday, 29 today, planned 33 tomorrow with club and my son wants to go out after that for another 20 miles. So I am putting on some good miles. Also trying to plan a ride to Cape May NJ which is aout 75 miles from my house. Probably ride to the beach area around Sea Isle which is 50 miles then ride another 25 down the coast to Cape May. Spend the night and drive home.