The Intrepid Rider

Looking at my spreadsheet, I've now ridden more than seven hundred rides in the first two years of my cycling comeback, about 50-70 of those have been two-a-day rides. My intermediate goal is to ride many more two-a day rides, AM and PM, and to improve my speed on the flats, and of course, someday, to lose the excess weight. My total distance is about 4,000 miles since I started riding on August 12, 2003, the very day I retired. I got about 500 miles in the last half of 2003, over 2000 miles in 2004 and over 1600 miles to date. What have I achieved?

Here are some milestones:

• Rode the hills around here the first time in 6/09/04.
• Got down to 228lbs after the first Tour de Va Beach, 7/20/04.
• Rode the Saunders-Monticello trail the first time 10/19/04, a 4-5% climb, and I did it twice. Was actually scared that I wouldn't be able to make it. That probably helped due to the adrenaline. Here's another link to that, (caution large images) S-M Trail Interesting because it includes some dramatic pictures of the damage done by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.
• Rode to the Hospital on 11/03/04 the first time, clipless pedals. That's only a few miles, but it's all uphill, with some difficult intersections. (I went clipless just prior to this)
• Rode a new topspeed for a few seconds of 25mph on the flat trail on 2/15/05
• Rode Chesapeake the first time, a short, very steep 10% grade - peaked for about three days 2/22/05
• Minor back surgery on 3/3/05 and antibiotics caused a huge drop in ability. Stopped riding the hills regularly and still haven't resumed except occasionally
• Started supplimentation on 3/30/05
• Hit 30 mph for the first time on the flats, with a bit of a runup! Two days later I hit 32.5 mph on the flats with a short downhill runup. Once I got up to 27mph I coasted until I was sure the road was flat, and then cranked it up to 32.5. Felt I could have gone faster, but road started uphill portion too soon.
• Had bad cold for about two weeks, and my longest period off the bike 5/9 - 5/23/04. During that time I rode the stationary bike several times, and after the first week felt I had gotten better, and went for a ride, and did very well. But illness resumed. Thought I was going to lose my conditioning, but did not notice any dip in ability upon resuming training.
• Just 12 days after my recover from the flu, I had a super peak, and rode a difficult Fork Union circuit, about 20 miles on the hardest hills I've ever tried - 6/05/05. One of the hills is about 3-4 miles at 4% grade. Another coming back from FU is almost a mile of 6-7% grade. Had to walk the last half of that. Haven't tried it since, largely due to the traffic.
• Started riding more standing to pedal in July 04. Prior to that just didn't seem to have the skill to do that, but now, it seems very natural.
• Added a 15 minute stationary bike warmup prior to riding 7/22/05. Works very well to pre-pump the quads.
• Started feeling stronger in August, and rode over to Belmont Park after doing the 26 hills route. Almost the entire month of August was one big peak, getting up to 32.5 mph down Franklin riding with S following in the car, and that ended the 'August Peak'. The next day I had a week-long slump.
• Changed start of 26 hills route going straight up Charleton. It's tough, but not as much a slog as trying to ride up Rives.
• Most of September was a slogfest, and a real dip in ability. Legs were hurting more than usual. Did have some peaks, 9/13/o5, got the best average speed to-date, of 15.3 and started graphing average speeds.
• Got the highest average speed to date of 15.6 mph on 9/29/05 riding lightly rolling hills. Highest average speed on the flats this summer was 15.75 mph.
• Had to get new tires on 10/01/05 - surprised to learn that I had ridden the back tire down to the exposed threads!
• In late September I started getting over 14 mph up the short steep hills around here. Some days I can really attack the hills, though I try and attack every time, some days I really fly - quads feel strong. Other days I just can't get the speed up, though I try.
• Did the ride up to Carleton from Linden and Nassau streets for the first time, non-stop. Did it once before with a turn off onto Vine Street to rest the lungs. Remained seated. Struggled the last 50 feet, but made it. That's not such a difficult hill, but since it stretched out in front of me going almost a quarter mile, mentally I choose not to try it some days. It comes up at the end of a series of fast intervals, so that's part of the reason it is difficult.
• Did the first full hour on the stationary bike, and have now done that three times.
• In order to get more ride time, I'm now riding the stationary bike after my road bike, adding an additional half-hour of riding time per day. Most of my problems riding more seem to be mental rather than physical - fear of reckless drivers, insane truck drivers, loose dogs. Almost every ride I have a close call, even though my route is low traffic.
• So in retrospect, I've improved well beyond my expectations.

Recap:
I'm now riding a road bike, whereas two years ago I started with a 40lb clunker with knobby tires. Though that was a fun time, riding along the riverbank in sand and unimproved broken-down tar and stone, they paved the path after six months causing a lot more traffic, including roller bladers and dog walkers and strollers. It got to be so bad with so many confrontations, I realized suddenly that this was my cue to get out and ride the roads. It was very difficult, and I mentally dreaded riding the hills around here almost every ride. Now I don't dread the rides and indeed have learned to ride up the short steep hill up out of my street with little difficulty. I used to have to get a running start, but now I just ride right up it, seated at 65 rpm, or I stand and pedal up it easily. I'm amazed that I used to dread riding this short steep hill.

Up until that point, the hills around here were too difficult for me to get up, and I actually failed to get up the first hill I tried the very first time I tried it. Breathing so hard it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest, I vowed to get a decent bike and try it again. One of the problems that day was that I just couldn't get the gears to shift to the granny gear.

In late May 2004, I got a Trek Hybrid 7500FX which I rode for the CBBT ride. Sadly, the CBBT ride has been canceled - we rode the last event in 2004.

In early 2005, last week in January, I bought my Trek 1000, carbon fork, Tiagra components, and swapped out for a steeper stem and clipless pedals. It weighs in at 24lbs and riding has generally been a pleasure. The drop bars offer much improved stretch, position and grip due to allowing parallel palms on the hoods. I've put over 1600 miles on it (for a while the sensors were not making good contact and I seemed to be missing the first mile of each ride). The actual value is 1576 miles which would probably be just under 2000 miles for the year to date. If I could start getting more miles now that my speed is up, I think I could make nearly 3000 miles for the year, depending on the weather.

One day riding the trail I realized that the bar on the hybrid was just too close to me and I kept using a thumbless grip - I knew at that instant that I needed a new bike - a road bike, not a hybrid. Parenthetically, I think the whole concept of 'hybrid' is a scam on the public to get them to think that kind of bike is more 'comfortable'. I'd suggest if you want comfort, go ride your recliner and watch TV. Turns out a 'comfort bike' is just a straight bar bike with fake suspension that weighs five pounds more than a non-suspended bike. What is comfortable about that I have no idea.

With the new ride, I instantly gained an additional 1 mph average speed on the roads, riding about 14.5 mph average, getting up to 18-19 mph for short periods.

By summer, I had up my average speed to 17 mph on the same streets, clocking my best ever time for about 30 minutes on the flats at Va Beach. I think I could have improved that even more, maybe even to 17.5 mph, but as I mentioned my vacation and watching the last Grand Tour with Lance was cut short by the awful behavior on my brother's part. Somewhat puzzlingly, he hasn't contacted me, called me, or even sent a card on my birthday. Pretty sad; confirms what I thought, that he doesn't really like me.

Anyway, what have I been doing lately? Well my average speed has been improving even more from that of the summer, and I'm now routinely getting over 15 mph on the light rolling hill course here where I do intervals. I'm now riding about four laps, or 8.5 miles per ride, going as fast as I can while still remaining aerobic. Add in the 15 minutes on the stationary bike and that equals about 10 miles per day, seven days a week. I rarely have to take a day off and when I do it's due to mental difficulties, not cardio or need to recover.

I haven't done much riding on the 26 hills course lately, though I did expand it a little a few times. Though that ride is more fun than the intervals course, I end up riding so slowly due to all the hills that I think it drags down my speed. The average speed on that course is in the 13.5 mph range.

The other thing I've been doing is riding the stationary bike more often. I started riding it in August for 15 minutes before going out on the roads, and it seemed to help, getting the quads pumped and breaking a sweat, and avoiding the warmup period on the road.

After a few times, I even experimented with riding 30 minutes on the stationary bike and doing the road course, with no problems. One ride I did the 8 miles on the road and got back and within a few minutes, still sweating, I easily got 30 minutes on the stationary bike.

Time to start a new page.