Hello Spring!

Hello sunshine! It's been too long since your sparkling rays have warmed the dank and depressed earth here in NY. Amazingly, you've managed to show yourself after a record setting run of snow...good for you.

Yes indeed, with the sunshine and 60 degree days comes the thrill of RIDING OUTSIDE! Mind you that the trails are still covered in snow and ice (thanks snowmobiles) but the roads are mostly dry. The only problem is the excess of sand, salt and cinders that can shred even the toughest tires in seconds.

Sunday we shocked the world with a 35 mile ride, with nearly 2000 feet of climbing, and we finished feeling awesome. Fitness wise, I'm actually at a point which I was at in the middle of May last year. That's what only 4 weeks of indoor training will do for you. I am able to ride all the climbs that gave me even the slightest hint of trouble last year, and now I'm doing them almost effortlessly and using larger gearing (I manned up and swapped out my compact double for a standard double this year.) The only downside of this was a flat tire in the driveway of all places, then another flat on the road, and finally a third flat when the valve core of the presta valve inexplicably disappeared. Incredible, that's all I have to say.

Today, since I was given the green light to do nothing in honour of my birthday (another year older, another mark off my max heart rate, I know....) I took my newly built cyclocross bike out for a jaunt. 25 miles later, I've learned that there is a big difference between my 16.9 pound road bike in it's climbing garb, and my 24 pound cross bike with boat anchor wheels. No flats this time around, probably because those tires are thicker than a doormat. Oh well, it's good training nonetheless, and I'm more than happy to be able to get out and ride in March of all times.



And so, as spring hits us head on, I beg of you to get out there and ride. Test your form, enjoy the spring air and keep the rubber side down.

If it's not one thing, it's another!

So, it was nice out today (about 64 degrees and partly sunny with a little wind) so I decided to go out for a nice easy training ride, despite the fact that I've really felt pretty shitty most of the week. The first problem I encountered was the fact that I didn't really decide to go out until I got home from work and realized that the weather was still being cooperative. That means I haven't really eaten anything since about noon or so when I had lunch (and I decided to jump on the bike at around 4 PM) so I was terribly under-fueled the entire ride. This means I spent a lot of the ride on the verge of cramping up and just feeling pretty crappy in general.

The second problem I ran into came when I tried to pump a little extra air in my front tire since it's been low after not riding for a week. The net result? See below...



For some reason, I don't see that as being normal in any way, shape or form. To add insult to injury, I've got ONE tube that will fit, and it happens to be the spare in my saddle bag. Of course I have plenty of mountain bike tubes and cross tubes. Argh.

In any case, even though I felt pretty crappy on the bike, I still managed 21 miles, upped my MPH by 1.9MPH for this ride and dropped my average HR by 2 BPM. The only problems I had were, surprisingly, climbing. My knees just aren't happy with the height of my saddle, which means it may be time to re-evaluate my entire position on the bike and change a few things.

Sounds like a good project for the weekend.

And speaking of the weekend, it looks like Saturday will be a nice hillclimbing ride to train for our 50 mile Ride The Ridge on 6/1, and Sunday may be a mellow mountain bike ride. It would be nice to get back on my King, really. I mean, I only built it this winter and have....maybe 2 rides on it so far? Ahhh....did I ever say I'm disgusted with the puny mileage I've put in so far this year?

YTD total mileage: 207.64 miles. I've got to work on that.