Morning Ride Pictures

Some days, I just fail to understand why people drive so much around here.

Anybody else think about this?

When I get done with a ride, especially if the ride is TO work, I take a quick look in the mirror to make sure I am presentable. First I do this...

And then I think, "That's odd. Why does my head look like that? There's no way I can go into work looking like this."

"I look like, like, like, ummmm.....This!"

Oh well, what to do?

A Bit of a Breakthrough

So a typical ride for me over the past two months has been one of two types: 1) Group ride with a couple guys who ride competitively (Sam hangs for as long as possible until getting wrecked, usually during difficult efforts) or 2) Solo ride of some sort.

All rides have been in road configuration sans aero bars. Well, yesterday things began to look up. We were planning to do a brick (for those that don't know, that's a bike followed by a run). The plan was to ride easy beginning and end, but in the middle include 5x(4-min effort w/2-min rest interval). Thus, the tri configuration was set up prior to the ride. I honestly forgot how much I like being in the aerobars with some skeletal support as opposed to musculature support of the road configuration. So effort number 1, we stay pretty even most of the way, with the training partner getting ahead at the end of the interval. Breakthrough came in interval 2, we had done about 2 minutes, and I was about 20 feet behind when we slowed, turned right and started going uphill. From somewhere (perhaps the suffering of all the previous rides) I found some power to go past the training partner (who is light and usually trounces me on hills) and continue accelerating on the hill. Closed out the interval feeling like a champ and held on in front. The next two we stayed pretty even, and he trounced me on the fifth with his endurance. But all the same. It was good to remember (by feeling) that I can throw down a little on the bike when I want to.

I think there's just something about being aero from which I get more power (ahh, the joys of fitness).

(is this a sweet looking bike or what?)

The run off the bike was a bit tough as the legs were feeling gelatinous near the end of the ride, but a planned upon fast first mile was cut by 15 seconds (probably due to group workout nature) and the following 2.8 miles were hard but good.

Lesson for today: keep going, keep mixing it up and don't overdo it. The breakthroughs will come.

Photos courtesy of velonews.com

KY in the Summer (gotta love it)

This will be your encouraging post for the week/month/quarter. It's hard not to appreciate being outside this time of year, even if one lives in a highly urban area. Regardless, it's better than laying on a couch, and it's exceedingly more interesting. So even if it's a walk, go enjoy your life and slow it down with getting out of the building.


These are some pics from the ride home yesterday afternoon. I did beat the storm home.


Kid you not, there were some 7-8' tall corn stalks just a little further down the road...

On tap for today is a brick with the fellas and maybe a few minutes of Tour de France coverage after.

Ride your A$$

These are some pictures from our ride yesterday. We needed to get out and move after the Fourth's Feast and a hard run at the 10-k.

A quick 10-k recap: I haven't been doing too much speed work, and was not as well-trained as last year. Hence, there were no PR expectations. That's Rodes city next March. Get ready. Mike and I had a little too much fun the night before hanging out and staying up late playing Madden. It was a good time. The next morning we all got out the door a little late (Katy, Mike, Amber, and myself) due to some bowel testing. There was a nice line at the port-o-lets and we all tested their hospitality prior to the race.

Mike and Amber both PR'd and had good races. Katy finished strong, but I'll let her tell you about it. I went out at about 7+min/mi pace and the HR was skyrocketing. I figured it wasn't a PR kind of day as earlier determined, so I went for a good tempo run and finished in 43:02. It was a good time. The weather was overcast and rainy, and pretty cool for July.

The 1st annual SAMBER Independence day cookout was a success with a lot of people coming over for inside out burgers and cornhole. Fun was had by all. Hopefully we'll get some pictures up on the other blog soon.

My riding buddy Jeff and I went out for a nice 45 mile ride saturday morning. Paris is lovely in the summer!

After that, came home and got some lunch and then Amber and I went for a 15-miler. She's getting stronger. About 1+ mph faster than the last ride. We stopped for a quick visit with a local farm inhabitant.

Take Care of your Ride

This is one of those articles where the author (preacher) needs to hear the message he's sending out. It is for such a reason that the author writes. It is very important (relative to bike world, not in respect to the numerous other actually important things in life) to take care of one's bike. Considering the amount of time and energy expended on it by those training, 15 minutes of care once a week is pretty well spent. It is in this vein that the author endeavors to inspire the readers to at least wipe down their bikes, clean and re-lube the chains and inspect their bikes from time to time. The author is by no means a bike mechanic, or even good at upkeep, but here are some resources (Thanks Bikesport Michigan and Google) for enjoying riding and your bike a bit more:

Maintenance Schedule
Preventative Maintenance
Pre-Race Tune-up
Keeping your bike out of the shop
Daily/Per ride inspection
Fixing a Flat

Before you get too worried and start running out to the store, remember that the people writing these articles run bike shops; hence they want your business (which is not a bad thing). Resist the urge to part with loads of cash. If you have something you don't understand on your bike, break out the internets. Google and youTube have countless resources for bike repair, maintenance, tune-up, weird little clicky noises, etc.

Enjoy the Ride.

Defensive Cycling

Since the above happened to me about 5 weeks ago, I figured I'd post a PSA for all those beginning to ride in traffic or who still fear it. You have good reason. Dan Empfield wrote a good article regarding safety on the bike. Don't forget to remember how it should be isn't how it is. And how it is has a lot to do with whether you're safe or not. Enjoy

Who likes Climbing?

I do. It hurts like crap, especially when you're a bigger guy, but the fitness gains are remarkable (at least they have been in the past). Yesterday was a good ride. Beautiful day in the bluegrass, and we took it down the the river for some climbs at Clay's Ferry, T-burg Hill, and the climb up from Hall's on the river. There were some other tough ones in there too. I'm looking forward to doing this ride more. Only next time, I'll be throwing on the 12-27 cassette instead of the 11-23. If you don't know what that means, just e-mail me before you have to do any serious climbing, because you should know.

Hammering out Fitness

Cycling in the spring is one of the greater passions of mine. Beautiful days filled with 60+ mile rides is a good afternoon.

So today we had a bit of deja vu. We had a guy come out who had not been riding since the winter. We were supposed to get in a somewhat easy 50+ mile ride, but somebody forgot to tell one person. This singular person started leading out at about 5 miles and we hammered in a pace line for about 10 miles. We put at least a half mile into the poor guy who hadn't been riding. Why deja vu you ask? Because that was me two and a half weeks ago. Getting dropped really builds some fitness.

Yesterday was a 6 mile effort with some 1/2 mile intervals mixed in in the second half of the run. What's the point? Building base fitness is a great thing. It helps to be ready, but when you can't be ready, it's good to go ahead and thrash yourself a little bit every once in a while. First, it does actually build fitness. Second, it's great motivation to put in some training to get up to a level commensurate with your abilities. So if you need to get ready quick. Crush it a little bit. Just don't be stupid.

In case you were curious about Cyclocross...

Sam's mobile

What is that? You ask. It's a bike rack for the top of my car. I received some great birthday gifts yesterday from Amber that I'm pretty excited about using. Now I can travel with my bike without putting down the back seat and all that mess. The other nice part is that the racks allow for all kinds of different stuff, such as an extra cargo box, or skis, whatever. Awesome!

New object of bike lust...

I don't currently possess the funds or the willingness to spend that amount of funds on this bike, but it sure is nice. Maybe someday...Maybe not...whatever.

Tom Demerly from Bikesport Michigan wrote a great review . Check it out. The integrated fork seems to be a good idea.

The Trail Beckons

On mornings like this, the gym doesn't have a chance to win the toss - I've been away from my beloved Pinellas Trail for over two weeks - and the overcast sky and cooler air brought on by whatever tropical storm is out there right now makes a convincing assertion that summer may actually be coming to an end.

I'd been biking our rails-to-trail for many years before I realized that trail cyclists considered it one of the best "urban" trails in the country. Kyle and Sam were young homeschooling tykes when we first hopped on our bikes to ride the very first completed sections in the middle of our long thumb-shaped Pinellas county. Now it's 34-36 miles end to end with several off-shoot spurs, it connects a bunch of city and county parks, and travels through a wide spectrum of commercial and residential neighborhoods from the housing projects to upper class Belleair with "white trash" and retiree mobile home parks and scores of middle class neighborhoods in between.

I can take the Gulfport spur near the southern end to eat lunch on a rooftop overlooking the Gulf of Mexico or watch the swing dancers at the pavillion, then cross the inter-coastal in the section pictured above, then much farther north, paralell the Gulf again in Dunedin, Crystal Beach and Tarpon Springs, smelling the briny air across the mangroves, even when I can't see it. You can bike for breakfast, lunch or dinner in downtowns made for day-trippers (Gulfport, Dunedin, and Tarpon), and the food is so good at some of these places, that it will take you quite a few bike trips to sample them all.

On my relatively short ride south this overcast Saturday morning, I mostly passed or was passed by other "serious" cyclers (road bikes with helmets, bike shorts, tops, and shoe clips) riding in small groups, with relatively few walkers, runners and skaters. I also encountered a tyke on one of his first rides without training wheels being coached by Grandpa and Grandma who crashed into the fence pictured above just after I passed, a couple of homeless dudes with bikes having a chat by one of the overpasses - a pretty regular occurrence in certain sections of the trail, an assistant cook heading to work with a dangling cigarette, an orange Fanta, and a serious hangover clouding his face, and the best part of my coffee break: a blue/black crow who strutted around the Starbucks patio like a gun-totin' outlaw, forcing the tiny wrens to safer ground.

I like passing commercial buildings sporting murals on several sections of the trail (St. Pete, Clearwater, Tarpon), a homeless dude who routinely reads the paper on a bench just over the fence from the swankiest neighborhood in the county, women who walk the trail barefoot in their Sunday suits and hats with high heels in hand on their way to the African Methodist Episcopal church, compact Mexicans on their way home from work, middle-schoolers clad in baggy blacks who clump together for identity and power, and cast-net fishermen hoping to snag supper from the Anclote River.

It's our trail, its my trail and I love it.