Bike Commuting

Over the last year or so I've started regularly commuting to work. I say regularly in the sense that I do it periodically; I was surprised to find I only commuted 36 days last year when I actually went back and counted. That probably accounts for about 75 of my training hours though, which is nearly 20% of my 403 total hours for 2014. When I put it in that perspective it is definitely a contributor to my fitness.

I thought I'd share a little bit of information on commuting that might help somebody get started on this great habit.

My typical car drive to work is about 8 miles straight down a 7 lane highway, so that's obviously not the best way to ride my bike in. I always say "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." On the bike I use a combination of neighborhoods and park paths for a pretty safe 20 mile route, sometimes I will shorten that to about 17 miles with a little bit of dam top gravel road. Luckily my commute is in a direction I ride a lot anyway, so I was already familiar with the area and able to easily piece together a good route. If you need to figure out a route to work, there are some good tools available. One is Google Maps; they have a biking tool that shows dedicated bike lanes, bike friendly roads and bike paths. Another good tool is Strava. You can view segments on the Segment Explore map to see where the popular roads are to ride. Their global heatmap is another great tool to see where people do and don't ride.

Generally speaking this would represent a map of the cycling population density of TX. Interesting that the MS-150 route between Houston and Austin is so apparent.

The most important bike commuting tool is, of course, the bike. I use a Specialized Crux Disc. This is billed as a cyclocross bike, but is super versatile and makes for a great commuter. It doesn't have fender mounts, which would probably disqualify it for some people, but I can't see myself riding with fenders or really commuting in weather that would require them so it's not a problem for me. I'm just not interested in arriving to work soaking wet with a nasty bike. I keep my bike inside at my desk so that would present a problem in itself.

The Crux super commuter, resting up for the ride home.

Plenty roadworthy, we had some great rides at RMNP last summer.

Most bike components are left to preference (SRAM vs. Shimano, disc vs. rim brakes, gearing, etc.) but one thing that does make a great commuter is tire choice. I use Continental Gatorskin 700x32's. These are high volume tires that make for a very comfortable ride over the rough side streets and bumpy, cracked walking paths I ride. They are also very flat resistant so that's one less thing to worry about while riding to work in the dark. Being so big they probably aren't the fastest tires, but comfort and versatility trump that for me. I can take them on gravel if I feel like taking a different route, and if I want to get even more adventurous I can really take them off-road. I've even ridden singletrack for fun! Of course it's not ideal at 50+ psi and with no tread, but it's doable and fun for some variety. It's by my own design that my cyclocross bike affords me plenty of tire clearance to use the 32's, but some people may be forced or prefer to use a smaller tire; I'm sure the 28 and 25 sizes of these tires are great, too. Some may say they would be a little faster in certain circumstances, but I won't get into the tire size vs. speed debate here. I used to ride Schwalbe 28s and those were pretty comfortable too so that's probably a good size choice.

Fun for doing some dirt surfing every once in a while.

A critical aspect of bike commuting for me is having lights. I work 7am to 4pm, so I leave at 5:30am in the dark year round and in the shortest days of winter I get home just before sunset. For a headlight I use a NiteRider MiNewt Mini 350 USB. It offers plenty of light for me even on its lowest setting, and has enough run time to commute all week on the low or medium settings. The light head mounts to the bar easily with a rubber grommet, and the battery goes on my toptube behind the stem with a velcro strap. The attachment has proven solid and trouble free. One definite advantage of this light for commuting is that it charges via USB. If I need to, I can just plug it in to my computer when I get to work for a charge before riding home. There are lots of light choices out there, and some much cheaper such as the MagicShine variety, but this is another place where I didn't want to risk being stranded in the dark at 6am. I feel that this is a full quality light that will give me years of good service at still a pretty good price.

NiteRider Minewt 350 Mini USB

Just as important as your headlight is the taillight. You want something to catch drivers' attention when approaching you from behind to see you from a good long way off. I use a Cygolite Hotshot 2W. This is a nice, bright light at a good price. It has several flashing modes with adjustable speeds so you can choose exactly which pattern you think will make you most visible or choose to have more battery life. I don't really use the flash speed adjustment, but I'll not complain about having more options. A very nice feature of this light is the rechargeable battery. Instead of worrying about when the AAA's in your blinky are going to die and leave you invisible in the dark, you can charge the battery regularly and put your mind at ease. I can commute and ride for several weeks before I get the indication that the battery is low, but I usually charge it once a week. This light is also USB chargeable so I can charge it at work if I need to. It's small and secure enough that it pretty much stays on my bike all the time unless I'm doing a 'cross race.

Cygolite Hotshot

The last thing (or maybe first thing depending on how you look at it) to consider is the work at either end to make the actual commute happen. The most common question concerns showering when I get to work. Yes, I am fortunate that my office has a nice locker room with a shower, so I can get all cleaned up and changed when I get there. Of course I have to have clothes to change into, this takes a little bit of preparation. I always drive on Monday, so I usually bring shoes, a towel, and 2 or 3 days of clothes to work in a bag that morning for the week. I also always drive on Friday, so I'll take the clothes home to wash and replenish for the next week. I leave soap/shampoo and deodorant in my desk. I also leave a jacket at work, the AC is usually too cold for me.

There are a few issues to solve from time to time, but you can usually figure out a way around them. For instance, if there's a 35° temperature change from your morning to afternoon commute, your clothing needs are going to be quite different. Since I don't ride with panniers or a backpack, getting the warm clothes home to use the next morning can be a bit of a challenge. The 2 options are to wear as little as you can in the morning and stuff all the extra in your jersey pocket for the afternoon, or just leave stuff at work every day. You have to have enough stuff to get through the week, or drive a day between rides to shuttle stuff back home, but you make it work.

Maybe your commute is really too long to be practical to keep the length of your day reasonable? One solution if you can get away without your car for an evening is to drive to work, ride home, ride in the next day, and then drive home. You get 2 long rides in and save 2 car trips, but you can limit the extra time spent each day.

Since I use my commute as training time, I try to be purposeful with my time on the bike. The morning commute is usually pretty easy, since it's dark and my body isn't usually ready for any efforts. This can be a recovery ride. In the afternoon I will try to do some intervals or go longer for base miles. There is a nice park on the way home I can do intervals in, if that's my plan I'll take the shortest route to allow me to spend some time there doing work.

Naturally, if you commute by bike an hour each way you will be hungry! I usually go by the grocery store on my way to work on Monday, so I'll grab a couple of frozen lunches if we don't have enough leftovers from the weekend for all the days I commute. I try not to eat out for lunch to save money, but I have to every once in a while and when you have your bike, it's nice to take a spin at lunch on a beautiful day.

Lunch ride.

BMC Speedfox SF29: First Ride Report

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of my 2012 race bike from my sponsor shop Sugar Cycles: a 2012 BMC Speedfox SF29.

BMC is new to the 29er market, and my sponsor Sugar Cycles is one of three dealers in TX (none in LA BTW) so we wanted to get the word out. They have this bike in two component levels, the X.0 shown here and then an SLX equipped version. They also have a great hardtail, the Teamelite TE29 in both versions as well. One of my teammates is riding the TE29, says it is a great riding frame, handles well and manuals easily with short stays. BMC has more information on their website about the SF29 and the TE29. I'll be up in a couple of weeks with the bike, if you'd like to check it out I'll probably be riding Ruston Friday and Saturday 24th & 25th. If you're interested in a BMC you can get in touch with my boys at Sugar Cycles and they can definitely hook you up.

Now a little more about the bike. The drivetrain is all stock, X.0 2x10. Brakes are the new model Elixir 7. The fork and shock are Fox, with 100mm travel both ends and a 15mm thru-axle up front which I'm very excited to try out. I changed the wheels out, it comes stock with Easton EA70 XCT, which are very nice wheels but I am a big fan of Stan's and I saved a bit of weight as well. The tires were spec, I just moved them over; they mounted up tubeless on the Crests with ZERO effort, one handed with the hand pump and showed no sealant seepage through the sidewalls. The Easton EC70 carbon seatpost is stock, I added the EA70 stem (will be upgraded once I get the fit dialed) and the EC70 XC Wide carbon bars. I also chose to go back with Ergon grips, these have made a great difference for my riding comfort especially having a nagging old wrist injury. A nice Fizik saddle was mounted up out of the box, but I changed it to my tried and true Specialized Phenom.

It's been raining a lot around here the last couple of weeks so I hadn't gotten to ride the bike at all. This weekend we were up in Ruston and I got to spend almost 6 1/2 hours on the trails with the bike.

First impressions are really positive, I really liked the bike but I'll try to stay away from all the "new bike" hype and superlatives and stick with some real observations. First, of course the full suspension is so much smoother than hardtail. I felt like I had it pretty dialed right out of the gate so I was happy. I set it up to be a bit firm in the full open position, about halfway between 0 and the recommended mark on the built-in sag-o-tron meter. I felt like it was soft at first, but of course it felt soft coming off a hardtail. I switched back and forth between open and ProPedal a few times, and once I kinda got used to the squish I decided I liked it open. With as firm as I've got the shock it gets REALLY firm in the ProPedal and I think open is better for trail riding. ProPedal will be for hammering and really smooth climbs. I was able to detect some bob while pedaling seated in the open position, but it didn't seam like much. I'll have to play with the settings a little to see if I can tune it out. The fork is 100mm and I've been riding rigid or 80mm for the last 3 years, I think I appreciated the extra 20mm up front almost as much as I did the rear suspension. Overall they combined for a really smooth ride, and I was able to ride some sections at Ruston like I've never ridden them on my hardtail, for instance the two big dips off the fence line by the front gate. No brakes, no line, just plow through.

I've had a 100mmx100mm full squish 29er before so I kinda knew what to expect there, but overall I was very impressed with the suspension. I think I was most impressed with the handling of the bike. The bike has a 70° head angle, wheelbase is very close to my hardtail, chainstays are 5mm longer. Based on these numbers and the ht having a 71° head angle, I expected the BMC to handle a little slower. I was pleasantly surprised to find the opposite. I think it handles with about the same quickness, but it's better. I sometimes feel like in tight corners the ht wants to tuck the front end a little, while the BMC was very solid. I think this is owed to the 15mm thru axle fork and tapered head tube. The front end is very stiff and the bike goes precisely where you point it. I was able to really whip it through some sections pretty hard, where on the ht I would feel sometimes like I was getting "behind" the bike. It seems to handle a lot like my Monocog which has a 72° head angle and a rigid steel fork which makes it similarly stiff and precise. Combined with the suspension I was able to really push through the rough corners. Another impressive trait was how easy it was to get the front end to come up, for example to manual the rollers. This probably has something to do with the shorter top tube and my cockpit setup as the chainstays are a bit longer than my ht as I said.

The bike has 180mm rotors and I was really happy with the brakes, very quiet (new Avid HS1 rotors) and strong. I may go to 160mm rotors though as I can lose 90g (0.2lbs), and 160s have always been plenty even in Colorado last fall.

This was my first ride on 10spd gear (X0), it seemed a bit more finicky than 9spd but very smooth when it was working well. I think the cable might have been stretching and maybe even slipping at the rear der. No unwanted ghost shifting from suspension action or frame flex though. I never had to get out of the 36t ring up front, of course with the 36t out back I could get the same ratio as 32x32 on the 9spd.

This was also my first ride on the Rocket Ron front tire, I was pretty impressed and it might have contributed to my liking the handling so much.

I still haven't gotten to weigh the bike, but I'm estimating it weighs a lb. or so more than my ht. Could I feel it? I don't know. Certainly not in general, on the climbs I really can't say as there was so much new going on. I think any weight penalty will be offset by the bike's willingness to roll over things so easily by the rear suspension. On really smooth climbs is the only place where I think it might be a penalty overall.

I'll have to get some more time on it and try a few things, but like I said, so far, so very good. I had my GPS on and was able to compare some previous segments on Strava to this weekend. Most segments I'd gone faster during races, but times from this weekend when I was "just riding" took the next top spots. There was one section though where I set 3 new best times, all this weekend, all better than any previous race effort (and another time from this weekend matched my previous best race effort). That is a pretty good indicator for me. I'm really looking forward to racing this bike this year, and especially doing the Ouachita Challenge on it. I think it will make a huge difference in a long race like that in reducing overall fatigue and keeping me feeling fresher.

Almost Marathon Time

The Miles of DisComfort Marathon at Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort, TX is this weekend. I got in my last big rides before the race this past weekend while we were in Ruston. Saturday I rode 4 hours at Lincoln Parish Park there in Ruston, and Sunday I got another 4 hours at Bodcau Recreation Area near Haughton.  I had 2 great rides with some friends and figured out a few things I need to work on.

A couple of things I learned:
1. I need to ride trail more. After both rides I felt pretty beat up, even though my legs weren't completely dead. Both trails are fairly rough, and 4 hours of that when I don't get much trail time will really take it out of you. Energy that could be used pedaling is taken away.
2. I need to go downhill faster. I am a pretty good, confident descender. I don't use the brakes much and carry my speed fairly well through rough stuff and corners. What I learned though is that I don't make a lot of speed to begin with. I'm not using the brakes so I think I'm going fast, but I was proven wrong. A couple of times this weekend, I would coast into a downhill at the same speed as someone else, and they would roll away from me on a section that was fairly straightforward with no cornering/braking needed. One guy termed the phenomenon as his "twinkie power," implying his weight was pulling him downhill faster than mine. I would buy that. Another factor could be that the others were riding full suspension bikes while I'm on a hardtail. As smooth as I can be, my rear tire is still going to bash into rocks and roots harder than theirs are going to roll over them as the suspension absorbs the impacts. I need to focus on being even smoother: absorbing roughness with my legs, hopping my wheels over anything I can, pumping whenever possible to gain speed, and even pedaling to keep my speed as high as I can control instead of just coasting down the hill. I already do these things, but when my competitors are riding full-suspension 29ers they're going to have the equipment advantage in these situations undoubtedly so I have to maximize what I'm working with.

I rode a lap at Bodcau with a friend who was wearing his GoPro, he got some pretty good footage so I can't wait to see it. I've never been filmed while riding, so I'm interested to see if it reveals any other lessons I can learn. I'll put it up when I get it.

These came in the mail last week, but I already have Ergons on all my bikes. What could they be for?

Why do I need another pair of Ergons?

No Riding

I started coming down with something last Saturday and haven't been able to shake it all week. I haven't ridden since Sunday. My plan of riding lots and getting all these base miles hasn't exactly shaped up like I'd hoped it would. I've gotten some good rides on the weekends, but only a couple of weekday rides. I'll do the best with whatever I can get though. I'll be on the bike lots this weekend, Raine has a wedding shower to go to in Ruston and I'll be cut loose to ride as much as I want. Planning on getting in a couple of 40-50 mile days on the trails at Lincoln Parish Park and elsewhere in north LA. There are some great trails up there. Most people would never think so, but they have a good amount of elevation, comparable to the hill country if you ask me. Most of the trails are all about fun, flowy singletrack. Hopefully I'll be able to ride well enough to have fun, sometimes riding when I'm sick helps me shake whatever it is off and start getting better. We'll see if that works or if I run myself further in the ground. The Miles of DisComfort marathon race is next weekend, this will be the last opportunity to get some long rides in before then. I'm just looking to use it as a fun ride and bit of a gut check for the Ouachita Challenge, so I'm not particularly worried about doing well or anything. It should be a fun weekend, we're going over Friday afternoon and going to camp out, some of my teammates are coming too so that's always a good time.

It was a little cool most of this week, so Ben got to play outside wearing his fun hat and mittens. He likes to make the mittens talk like puppets, it's super cute.

Riding Circles in the Dark

If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do. That's what I did last night at least. We had a good morning at church, then lunch with Kristen & Richard at Chuy's. We were both feeling crummy still so I figured I'd rest a bit in the afternoon instead of ride. I watched the Texans lose their playoff game and then went and raked the leaves in the front yard. I went to church to drop Ben off at AWANA but they were short on adults so I stayed and helped out for a while. When I got home I felt like riding my bike so I did. Mounted up the lights and did laps on the bayous behind the house. It's a pretty good little loop, all off road except for crossing a few streets that are usually pretty quiet. I'm supposed to be doing base right now but I felt like going hard so I did, guess that's good considering the limited time I had to ride. If you can't get the volume, make up for it in intensity. I plan to keep doing "base" rides for the next 2 weeks, wrapping that up with the Miles of DisComfort marathon at Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort, TX. After that I'll start some structured interval training according to Chris Carmichael's Time Crunched Cyclist book to lead up to the Ouachita Challenge.

Strava

I've been using Garmin Connect to track my rides and training for the last few years, but just discovered Strava and am going to start using it, too. It seems pretty cool, not only does it track all your stats, but it also lets you compare yourself to other riders on ride segments like climbs. I uploaded some rides to it today from my Garmin and turns out I already am #1 on a few nice climbs. That's fun to see.



http://app.strava.com/segments/830862
http://app.strava.com/segments/830873
http://app.strava.com/segments/830881

Today Richard and I went exploring to find the Cypresswood Improper trails. We ride the real Cypresswood quite frequently but have never ridden these trails. We rode from the house and tried to find a decent road route to the trails. Some roads were good, some were sketchy but we didn't have any close calls or anything so that's good. The trails were decent, would probably be a lot better if we really knew how to get around them and link them up well to hit the good sections. I'm sure we'll be back.

Other than that ride we just chilled around the house all day. Raine and I both woke up feeling pretty bad with a headache, sore stomach, etc. No fun. Hope it's nothing and we're better tomorrow.

2012 Kick-off

It's about time I get back to posting, it's been almost 2 years. I've got plans to return to racing more fervently this year, as well as big plans for life in general, so I'll try to keep them chronicled here. I've also done a little redesign on the blog, I like it, hopefully you do too. For now, here's a little catch-up.

I don't remember much about the rest of 2010. I did the Ouachita Challenge for the 3rd time (and 2nd in a row). I was shooting for 6 hrs but got sick about an hour in so I didn't come close to my goal. I'm sure I did a little more racing, but definitely not much. I did somehow finish a strong 2nd at the Huntsville race in the singlespeed open class, as well as 2nd at Ruston in the SS class again.

Huntsville trophy shot.

We went snowskiing last February with Adam & Clare, it was my first time in about 10 years. We went to Breckenridge, during the best snow season they'd ever had. I was back on blacks by day 2, and went to Vail to ski with Andrew I. on day 3. I got in way over my head with some powder skiing on some stuff that was way too steep or tight for me, but I figured it out before the end of the day. When I went back to Breck I went straight to the top and skied the big bowls the rest of the trip.



Top of Breckenridge.

In 2011 I did the OC again, again shooting for 6 hrs but again had stomach issues, this time about halfway through (while I was on pace to make my goal of course).

Ben turned 2 in August, he's getting so big it's amazing to watch him grow and learn.

At the Sugar Cycles cross race in October.

Fireman for Halloween.

Helping daddy trim the hedges.

Playing on the playground at a 'cross race in Austin.

Riding Ryan's tricycle.

We bought a new house late last year so we don't live where we used to anymore. I miss being able to ride out my front door to Bear Creek Park for all-weather traffic-free training, but other than that we love our new place and location. We are much closer to our church and all our friends so it has been a great move for us.

I didn't do a ton of racing last year, and definitely not much training. I got Richard back into biking in a big way last year, he rode my MTB for several months while I rode my singlespeed with him. It was just weekend riding, didn't do anything for my fitness but it was fun to take a break from "training" and we had a lot of fun just riding. He finally got his own MTB so I could get back on mine and we even built him a CX bike from the ground up after he got hooked on 'cross racing. We traveled to a few TXBRA races, neither one of us did any good but we had fun.

Sugar Cross Fest

We went back to Breck in October with Richard and Kristen. Richard and I took bikes, him on a borrowed Specialized Epic 29er demo from my guys at Sugar Cycles (before he got his bike). We had a blast in Breckenridge, the girls got to have some spa days, we got snowed on, and Richard and I got in about 10hrs of awesome riding.

Top of a big climb outside of Breck at an old mine.

I went offshore 5 times last year, the most I've been in a year so far, I don't mind it too much but I think that's enough. The last trip left a few days after Christmas and kept me out over New Year's eve which was a bummer.

That pretty much gets us to now. I'm trying to get some base miles in for the next few weeks, then ramp up to some interval training for a few weeks before the OC. TMBRA races will fall in there, and I'm going to try to make it out to some races in the fledgling LA XC Series, too. There's a great group of guys over there, I'm very glad to see them getting a series going so I plan to support them whenever I can. I did a couple of 3 hr rides this weekend, one with Richard, one solo. Then I was on the bike at 5:55 this morning to get a couple of hrs in mid-week. I think my Garmin has died so I missed the first few miles/minutes trying to get it working before I kicked off the iPhone logging. Oh well. It was about 40 degrees and the wind was blowing at 20+ gusting to 30 so it was a tough day on the bike. Looking to get some more solid long rides this weekend to keep building that base for the year.

Cool pic from Warda

Not much to say today other than it's pouring rain outside and I need to walk the dog. Hmmm, those two things never get along. Anyways, here's a cool picture from Warda.

And in the time it took to upload that awesome picture the rain had stopped. Nice. So now it's off to work. This evening will find me getting all prepped for the OC, cleaning the bike, packing, etc. Then one last night of rest before heading out Sat. morning.

Hello again

Inspired by my friend Brain, I'm gonna get back to making some blog posts. So I'll catch up since vacation. My little bro had a really bad motorcycle accident, but he's back up and walking now, trying to get back on his feet(figuratively speaking). Christmas and New Years were spent at our house for the first time ever, as Raine's family came through on the way to Austin for cousin Cliff's wedding, and my family came through on the way to S. TX and dropped Luke off to spend the week with me. That was fun, taking care of the cripple. He mostly took care of his self, not like I had to bathe him or anything, thank goodness.

Over New Years(New Years Eve to be exact) I found out some incredible news. I'm gonna be a daddy!!! We're so excited, it's just like the coolest thing in the whole world. Raine is 15 weeks along now, and finally has come out of the hard first trimester. It was hard on both of us, because I was having to do a lot of stuff around the house, keeping me tired and leaving no time for training. But that didn't even seem important at the time. I was trying my best to be a good husband/dad and take the best care of her I could. But now that she's feeling better I'm back to trying and trying to get at least 8 hrs a week.

I've taken up running a bit, as cross training for the bike. My best run so far has been a 5K at 7:07min/mile, which is decent I guess. Nothing spectacular but the gains have been awesome. Great to see times improving so fast when you first start training something like that. If only my biking would make a quantum leap....

But anyway, about biking. I have only done one race this Spring, at Bar-H in St. Jo, TX. It was 23 deg.(yes, deg. F) at the start and my results weren't any hotter, LOL. I started super slow, and mainly just rode around at my own pace. I picked off a few people in my class but finished pretty well at the BACK of the pack. While a guy I beat at Ruston last year won the race. Something's not right here, LOL. Guess we all have our good days and bad. The best part of the race was that it constituted my 2nd and 3rd hours of riding on my new bike. I was mostly just having fun getting used to my new bike, while trying not to turn too sharply and crash myself. New bike vs. old is like the handling of a Lotus vs. a Greyhound bus, but the ride of a Lotus vs. a Cadillac, and the weight of a Lotus vs. a Chevrolet. The weight difference is awesome. The handling difference is awesome but is going to take some getting used to before I can take full advantage of it. The ride is more punishing, but that is what I'll have to live with to get the other advantages. Definitely worth it, though.

So next up is a three-peat of hard racing weekends, starting at Waco. A very hilly course that is either up or down the whole time, with not much in between. So I better get my climbing pants on.
After that is Warda, a relatively tame course with not much climbing but lots of tight singletrack, which means lots of accelerations and you're going all out the whole time with no chances to rest.
The third weekend is the Ouachita Challenge. I did the ride in '06 with Luke, and it was definitely one of the coolest rides I've ever done. I'm looking forward to doing it again, and hope to improve on my previous ride. I'm not treating it as a race by any means, and definitely plan to enjoy myself and enjoy the ride. But I plan to carry some speed around the course as well. The previously mentioned Brain and Shaun are going up, too, so Sugar Cycles will be well represented. Shaun is going 80, I wish I were more in shape to have signed up for that. It includes my favorite section of the Womble while the 60 miler turns off right at the start of the good stuff. :( Regardless of that, it includes a LOT of super sweet singletrack that I can't wait to rip on.

So that's plenty for now I think. I will try to keep more regular with this thing again, as there will be lots to write about as we prepare for our baby! We still have lots to do, and coolly enough, Raine has lots of girls to go through this with. We know so many people pregnant right now it's CRAZY. God has been especially good to our small group at church, as we have a handful of babies on the way. Crazy times. I think the husbands are gonna form a support group, LOL.

I don't have a clever sign off that I know of, so this will have to do for now.

Owch

This is a picture of me last week at the crit coming across the line chasing the solo break with one to go.

I was already at 199bpm doing 31mph or so and had been drilling it for nearly a minute. That was definitely a painful effort that unfortunately didn't pay-off but it was pretty cool anyway.

This weekend I got a lot of good riding in. Me and Nathan did a workout Saturday morning at Double Lake. I rode decent but had a rough day, with a good crash and a snapped derailleur hanger(two seperate occurances). Then Sunday I did 50 miles solo before church, averaging over 20mph for the ride, completing just over 50 miles in 2:28:02. Probably not too impressive for fast cyclists but it was a great ride for me. The craziest part was that I had gone to bed at 1AM the night before and I was on the bike at 7:15 that morning. Josh Greer(college friend) was in town and staying the night with us, and Adam and Clare were over, too. We had fun, I cooked steaks that were slightly overdone but still pretty good.

Monday night Josh came back over and brought his wife Renee and their little girl Aubrey!! She's so cute and sweet and good, I was playing with her all night. :)
It was great to see Josh and Renee, we've missed them since college.

Tonight will be a warmup for the crits tomorrow, hopefully the rain won't wash away my hopes of racing.

Singlespeed slugfest

Saturday I did a 60 mile singlespeed ride to Fulshear. There were 3 ss cross bikes, 1 geared cross bike that never shifted, and me on my rigid 29er ss mtb with cross tires. I was geared the lowest, so I was spinning the whole time. It was a good workout though. We rode along the bayous and backroads the whole time, so it was a neat route. The pic shows my normally big looking bike dwarfed next to the huge yetti bike in Fulshear. All the rhoadies got a kick out of seeing our ragtag group on our ragtag bikes with knobby tires all the way out in Fulshear. The best part was seeing this dude with a high zoot TT bike getting sagged back home from the station after barely making it out there.

Bicycles & Burritos, Airplanes & Pain, Flowerbeds & Friends

Interestingly enough, none of the above pairs are actually pairs. They're all just things that have been going on in the last week. In fact, there are triplets, a pair, and a loner.

We'll start with the loner: flowerbeds. Since we bought our house, we haven't done much improvements to the exterior. We still haven't put down grass on the sides and backyard, and we didn't have much of a flower bed. Raine and her mom and grandma had done some work to the flowerbed last year, but it never really took. The soil was just not good for plants, and they planted at the wrong time of the year. So we decided to redo it this spring in the hope that it would take this time. So we started by mixing some organic matter into the soil to better support the plants. Then we planted three roses, some Salvia(?), and a few small flowers. We also put in a soaker hose to keep the bed nice and moist. We topped it all with some mulch, and it actually looks pretty good. I really hope it will stay looking good, as Raine really likes it and it also really improves the looks of the house: curb appeal, that is. Maybe a pretty flowerbed will make it easier to sell when we decide to evacuate this flat swampland, who knows?(pic to come)

Next up, the dynamic duo: bicycles and pain. After all the setbacks I've come across this season(road race wreck, grandfather sick and passing, etc.) it has been less than ideal. I am just now starting my high intensity training stuff, where you envelope yourself in pain to acclimate yourself to the pace required in a race. I was talking about this with Raine the other day, and she said "I don't get you people. Pain is not gain." This was my response:

"Pain is gain. How do you figure it's not? Ok, well you're actually right it's not the pain that's the gain, it's the recovery part that's where the gain comes from. But you have to have the pain first. But there is a certain enjoyment(to me) of going out and pushing yourself to the limits if for no other reason than to get back to the house in time to see a stupid TV show. It's euphoric. You just have to get into it to feel it. It can't be explained."

It's true that sometimes I don't feel like getting on my bike and pushing to my limits, but I know that I have to. But once I get out there and get started, I don't want to stop. In this case, hurting is good. The pain truly is euphoric. That's what those doods who hang themselves by meat hooks in their backs say, too, but I really think this is different.

And finally, the trifecta: airplanes, burritos, and friends. Towards the end of March I still had some hours to use from my plane "lease" so I took a few mid-week evening flights. Monday night I flew from home over to Eagle Lake, then up to Brenham, then back home. Had a good flight, beautiful day with smooth air and good landings. Then Wednesday night, I flew to College Station with Brandon as my copilot for dinner. Patrick picked us up and they took me for a tour of the A&M campus, then we dropped into Freebird's where Jon met us for dinner. All these guys are Aggies who are in my church small group. We are all either newly(relatively) or nearly married. It's a great group and we all get along great and have a great time. We ate our burritos and told war stories, then we went to Jon's place and watched a "The Office" episode. Namely, Conflict Resolution. Then it was back to the airport for the flight back to Houston. We were bucking a headwind down low, but the ceilings were only about 2800 feet, so we just had to ride it out. Still only took about 45 minutes, though.

So that completes the list. It's now April, which means I'm almost another year older(April 12th if you didn't know, hint hint). It also means the heaviest period of racing is upon us, with three weekends of this month occupied, and two sets of back to back races with only one weekend between the sets. Hopefully I'll have good stories to tell about those races that do not include vomit. And as always, I'll have good pictures of myself. SEE YA!!

Catching up.

It's been a month since I posted last, sorry about that. It happens, though. I have been busy, and I have a lot to write about, so here goes. The weekend after my last post was the supercross race in Houston. My parents and little brother came down, and went with Raine, James, and me to the race. We had a great time, got to see Kevin Windham take the win for the first time. The next day, I finally got a chance to take John flying. We flew across town through the I-10 corridor, then down towards Galveston and around the Hobby class-B airspace and back up to IWS. That was his first flight in several years that I know of, he really enjoyed it and it was real special for me.
The next weekend, I got some good riding in with a trip to Rocky Hill Ranch and 3 hrs on the mtb on Sat. and an intense solo road ride on Sunday.
The next weekend was my first race of the season, Bar-H, which I'll write about in a different post.
Sorry this post is kinda sparse, I had to get it down as I have other things to write about by now.

Time Machine

That's what my airplane is to me. It gives me extra time in a day to get places and get things done. I flew my brother and I to LA this weekend to see our grandfather. What is normally a four hour drive one-way took us less than an hour and a half in the plane. After we got to the airport, the parents picked us up and we all went to lunch. After lunch we went to see Granddaddy. He was doing well, in good spirits and pretty talkative. We had a good visit, then went down to his house to look through some of his things. He loved woodworking, and he had a lot of cool stuff around his house he had made. He wanted us to have something, so I picked out a cool biplane wall hanger.

We went back to visit with him for just a little while, but soon we had to head back. The parents drove us back to the airport and off we went into the wild blue yonder. We buzzed Granddaddy's house because I told him we would, even though I doubt he heard us, then we climbed to 6500 feet and cruised back over East TX at 150mph on a beautiful afternoon.We went up and came back and did all that stuff in about 7.5 hours. That's less than the amount of time it would have taken to drive there, walk in the front door and say hello, and then immediately get back in the car and drive home. That's why it's a time machine.

I also got some miles in this weekend on the road bike, I did the Sugar Cycles Shop Ride Sat. morning. I wound up going on the long route all the way to Angleton with three other guys, we did 64 miles in three hours flat. It was a good fast ride and a great workout. I am feeling good about my fitness with my first MTB race three weeks away.

Roadie Racing

After being a hard-core, hairy-legged, roadie-bashing mt. biker for my first few years of calling myself a cyclist, I have undergone a transition over the last couple of years. It all started when James Ramsaur at Lincoln Parish Park where I worked through part of my college career loaned me an old road bike somebody had dumped on him a few years before. It was probably an early '80s model, and it was too small, but it rolled. I began to enjoy the occasional road ride, going out for hours at a time covering the beautiful countryside around Ruston.

After moving to Houston and realizing the mt. bike riding here was not as convenient as it was in Ruston, and Raine getting interested in road riding and us getting the bug to ride in the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred, we bought our first road bikes. A Trek 1500 for me and a Trek 1000 for Raine. We rode around the paved bayou trails here in Houston for a while and then drove to Wichita Falls for the '06 HHH. I set off to do my first century(100mi ride) and Raine went on her first real solo ride looking for 25 miles. Raine made her full distance and I was so proud of her. My 100 mile attempt was foiled, however, when they shut down the "Hell's Gate" cut off an hour and a half early and I got there only an hour before the published cut-off! Missed it by 30 minutes. So I was forced to take the shortcut back along with a lot of other riders and finished with 75 miles for the day.

After the HHH we continued riding our road bikes together and I used mine for my primary training tool for MTB racing. Throughout all the '07 series most of my miles came on my road bike. As I had started racing for a Specialized dealer the Trek had to go. I swapped the components off my bike onto a Specialized frame and had a sort of new bike! It has continued to evolve from that point as I get more miles on it and get more comfortable on it. I also began to join the Sugar Cycles shop rides on Sat. mornings, getting comfortable riding with others in pace lines and packs. I was a fast guy on these rides but definitely not nearly the fastest. This was the extent of my roadieness for a while, just solo training rides, rides with Raine, and shop rides. I was still a hard-core, hairy-legged, mt. biker just without so much of the roadie bashing part.

Then came the Tour of New Braunfels. My shop's cat 5 team was down a man, so they asked me to pitch in and help out. I had no idea what to expect, and whether or not I would even be able to stay with the pack. My mt. bike season didn't start for another month so I wasn't getting into race shape yet, but I figured I would give it a try. We were all hyped up about the race, making big plans and talking strategy. The Thursday before the race I even gave in to the pressure and shaved my legs! We arrived in New Braunfels and hit the road on the neutral roll out, and all our planning and strategizing was out the window. We weren't all riding together, we were separated from the start, some of us jumped on the front when they weren't supposed to, etc. Eventually our field of 50 starters was whittled down to around 25 still in the lead pack, and true to statistics 3 of our 6 team members were off the back. But surprisingly, I wasn't one of those 3!! I had managed to ride smart the whole time, and didn't have much trouble staying with the pack. I did chase down a couple of breaks, and even attacked once on my own half way through the last lap, so it wasn't like I was sucking wheel the whole time.

As the pack approached the finish I was sitting somewhere about midpack, not as far forward as I should have been and definitely not organized with my remaining two teammates for a lead out. A couple hundred yards away from the line some guy a couple riders ahead of me made a bonehead move and went down, taking a few other riders with him: one of which was me. I hit a downed rider at 25+ mph and to the tarmac I went. I got the breath severely knocked out of me after impacting the stem and a pretty good road rash all the way down my right side. My front wheel was broken and my chain was wrapped all up in my back wheel. Once I got my breath back I fixed my bike enough so I could pedal to the line and I rode in. Everybody who responded to the wreck expected me to want a sag vehicle to carry me back but I told them "I don't quit." Other than the wreck, I really enjoyed the race. It was a good fitness test/indicator and I felt good afterwards. I can see myself doing more road races in the future, but MTB will still be my #1.

So now roadie-bashing and hairy-legged are out the window, but I still plan on being a hard-core mt. biker. And as they say, but it's never been more important to me: keep the rubber side down.

LA Trip

We drove up to LA this weekend to spend some time with the family. Grandaddy wasn't doing well, and Raine had an aunt coming in from NC, so the weekend was to see them. We left Friday about noon and drove to Logansport to see Granddaddy. He was having a bad day, but we still got to visit with him for a while. Afterwards, we had dinner with John, Velda and James. Then we drove on to Ruston to Raine's parents house.

Saturday morning we got up early and got on the road bikes in the 35 deg. temps and damp roads. We rode around our old college campus for a bit, brought back the memories. Luke(little bro) met us in town and then we headed out for some hills. We rode a loop North of town and then back to the house to drop Raine off at the end of an hour and 13 miles or so. Luke and I rode to the other side of town and he headed back home as he had to work, and I took off alone. I rode a loop down to the South side of town and then back to the house. I finished up with 30 miles and 2 hours. Raine rode well on the hills, she's still getting her lungs back after being sick for a while and is learning how to deal with her asthma, too. See the whole ride here.











Saturday night I got drug to the Monroe Mardi Gras Parade, what fun that was. We visited with Raine's grandpa and his wife for a while, it was good to see them. Then off to suffer at the parade standing around in the cold. The highlight of my night was getting in a shouting match and almost coming to fists with a drunk kid who tripped over my feet. That was great. Unfortunately a policeman stepped in before I got to do the world a favor and ruin his night. Had a binge on some fried catfish at Scott's restaurant and then headed back to the house.

Sunday morning I woke up and headed out to Lincoln Parish Park for some mountain bike riding. It was 35 deg. and foggy. I did a pretty easy lap the first go round and finished in an hour. I headed out for my second lap and got almost four miles in when my chain exploded. :( Oh well, so much for my 20-mile day(and glad I didn't ride to the park like I'd planned). I hiked out and drove back to the house. I absolutely chowed down on some Johnny's Pizza then we packed up and hit the road back towards Houston.

We stopped to see Grandaddy again on the way back through. He's staying at my aunt Amy's house now, and when I first walked in I saw Amy in her recliner and I looked over at Granddaddy's hospital bed and it was empty. Gave me quite a shock, I feared the worst after seeing him Friday. Fortunately, he was asleep in the recliner right in front of me buried under the blankets and I just hadn't seen him! We had a good visit, he was much more talkative and I even got him laughing a few times, telling him we'd gone out and rode bicycles in the 35 deg. morning. It was good to get a good visit and see him in a little better spirits. James stopped in and visited for a while, then we all hit the road back to Houston. We stopped at Chili's in Lufkin for dinner, and then went our separate ways.

It was a good weekend with some riding and family visiting. And as an added bonus, even loaded down and with bikes hanging off the back, our new car got 26.67 mpg on the way home Sunday!! That's almost double what we would have gotten in the Xterra. It's already proving itself as the right way to go.

Weekend of riding and flying

So this weekend I had a lot of fun! Saturday, I had to go into work for a while, as it was my duty week to be at the plant. Once that was over, the fun began. I hung around the house with Raine through the middle of the day, wanting to go riding but never could get away from the TV. TBS was playing a 24 marathon, and the back to back to back episodes wouldn't release me! I finally got away early afternoon to go finish my high-performance endorsement and checkout in the plane I'm flying now. We flew down to Eagle Lake and did a few touch and goes, then came back to West Houston for a few more, and Pat called it good. After that, I went up for a sight-seeing flight with a friend who is a partner in Pat's plane. Their plane is in the shop, but his brother was down from South Dakota for the holidays and he wanted to take him up to see the city and the coast. So we flew the I-10 corridor to the other side of town, then down along the coast for a little bit and then back up to West Houston. So I logged a couple hours time for the day. :) It was nice to fly the plane for a while without being worried about doing repeated touch and goes. Back at IWS I did my first night landing in a LOOONG time, but it was a pretty good one.

After church Sunday, Raine, Cotton and I drove up to Hunstville State Park for some riding. We met Dent, Kyle, and Lisa there. Raine had been sick all week and only lasted about 30 minutes before feeling bad enough to call it a day, so I took her back to the truck then took off around the trail backwards to find the others. I met them and finished the lap with them, and then we did another one. I was on my new 29er, and definitely enjoyed it. I'm liking that bike more and more everytime I ride it. It was much smoother through the roots than the rigid singlespeed was at the race!! Hopefully I'll get in another ride tomorrow on New Years Day, or maybe I'll do some more flying. Who knows, I've got the day off and I intend to make the most of it.

Raine Rides again!

I got a pretty good bit of riding in this weekend, really had a good time. It started Sat. morning at the Sugar Cycles shop ride, wheels rolling at 0735. After a flat(Shaun), a wreck(Dent), and riding at the back of the B group taking care of a rider, we finally made it back to the shop 31 miles later. I had to swap the stuff off Kyle's C29ssmaxes I'd been riding back onto my wheels, grab the demo bike for Raine, and then we were supposed to be up and outta there to head to the house for our MTB ride. Well that devolved into taking forever after Kyle offered up a bike that Dent was thinking of buying for him to take out and demo. We had to swap some components, which took forever, so we were over an hour late getting where we needed to be to meet up for the ride. But it all worked out, and we hit the road for Warda, TX to ride at Bluff Creek Ranch.
We all rode a lap together, with Raine back on the dirt for the first time in quite a while. I was really proud of her, she rode very well and impressed the heck outta Dent and I. She really liked the Safire FSR Expert Demo that Kyle let her borrow, she'd never ridden a full-suspension before and said it was way better than her hardtail. After we finished, Dent and I rode a fast lap and really had a blast. They have added a new little section to the trail that involves a new climb and reverses some old stuff, really spices it up a bit. I continue to love my new FSR 29er more and more. The ride is super smooth and the handling and traction are sweet!
Sunday we went out to Memorial Park to do a trail/urban ride. Raine and I met Dent, Katie, and Lisa. The trails were in much better shape than we expected, and we wound up riding just trails. Again, Raine had a great time and did great. Hopefully we can keep her riding regularly and she'll keep improving. She's been pretty focused lately on getting in shape to ride, and has even been sitting on the trainer at night! Hoping to take her to Huntsville this weekend for some more dirt.
Here you can see my bike and Raine's demo side by side. Kinda his and hers. Mine is obviously much larger and rolls on the bigger wheels, but their design and component spec is very similar. It's cool that Specialized puts good effort into their women specific bikes to match the caliber of the rest of their models.

Night Riding Improved

I went out for another night ride last night, it was much better than before. I've been taking my road bike out since I've been staying mostly on the pave, but last night I wanted to try my rigid singlespeed mountain bike. Worlds better. There's something much more confidence inspiring about a 29x2.3 knobby leading the way into the relative unknown of the darkness than a skinny little 700x23. I can't go as fast(probably a good thing at night) pushing the fat tires, but it doesn't really matter how fast I go, it's all about working out at the intensity and duration that I should be at this stage of training. The weather was very nice, temps right around 60 or so. All I wore special was a dry-fit undershirt and my arm warmers(probably could have done without these). I rode for about 2 hours and covered 30 miles. I rode the same route as last time, except I continued on past Eldridge all the way to the Beltway before turning around. I even threw in some dirt and spent a little time at the skate park. :) This is the kind of ride I need to be doing a few times during the week right now to get started with my fitness base. It could be a little longer, but I have to eat dinner and spend time with my wife and sleep sometime.

Night Ride

Went for a night ride last night on the road bike, could only get about 20 miles in. As the temps dropped into the 40's, the extremities started getting cold, and then one of my lights died. That will cause you to start feeling a bit helpless as you start to doubt getting back and wondering how cold you'll be when you get there. I need to start looking into some better lights and better cold weather gear if I hope to keep up my training and night riding through the winter. I know it will pay off, so I have to stay dedicated to it.
Here's the route, nothing too special, but a pretty friendly night route overall. Most was either well lit streets or almost empty bike paths. I did run into a few other riders out and about on the bike paths, though.