Geoff and Corey's Training ride.

Training Ride. by cdkorps at Garmin Connect - Details

Bastille Day Let Down

I was planning on riding yesterday to celebrate Bastille Day in high style, but I couldn't find my silk cravat. No ride.

Gettin' High or How I learned to Chase Goats

Greetings Flatlanders. A few days ago I headed out on quite an adventurous day of road cycling with a couple of my co-workers from Wheat Ridge Cyclery. Adam de la Pena (former Durham Cycle Center Employee), Kit Recca (17 year old future Pro Tour racer) and I headed out for what would soon become one of the most memorable and momentous days I have ever had on a bike. We departed from the outskirts of Denver around 8am, with temps already soaring at 7,400 feet.


Halfway up Evans at Summit Lake (before the switchbacks)

Now a few stats:

1) Our starting point of the day was higher than the summit of Mount Ventoux by over 1,000 feet!!!
2) L'Alpe-d'Huez ranges between 6,100 and 10,900 feet.
3) Mount Mitchell tops out at 6,684 feet
4) Mount Sinai in Durham is about 100 feet tall.
5) Mount Evans tops out at 14,240 feet.


The three of us at the summit. 40 degrees in June....fun. Take note of the kid with the $9,000 S-Works....you will hear much more of him in the future from Europe.

Below is our route (out and back) and elevation profile of the day.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day ride with the Professor in pictures.

The Professor's beautiful Circle A:

Which one?

Hollywood asked me, so I ask you our loyal readers: which model should Hollywood rub?

Electronic Shifting's Coming Out Party

Dura-ace! Blah! Another NYT story!

Derny

It's definitely on my wish list for the team. Will Hollywood's personal sponsor step up and let us prototype the 2010 model?

Early Season Training

The other rollas

Tonight's forecasted low temperature will be 11 degrees Farenheit and tomorrow's highs won't push much beyond 20F. I know the Canadians among us are readying to celebrate the arrival of their spring with three hour road rides the next couple of days. But I'm soft like the center of a custard donut, so my bike riding will involve roller time. And in anticipation of the emails asking whether it's me: No. I haven't acquired sleeve tattoos. I'm not hip enough for that. Photo has been swiped from the interwebs.

Pure Power

Formerly the Performance Ride...

but still fast, ATMO. Jay, O. Gangster, the Professor, are out racing this weekend while I hung on for my first fast ride of the year. Humph.

Back to the hills

After two weeks in which the only riding I got in was on my short commute to school, I decided that the beautiful autumn weather and my ever-tightening pants meant that I needed to get in some quality saddle time in. Without enough time to hit the trails I pumped up the Cannondale to 135 psi and pointed my handlebars to the southeast to take on the Hiedelberg Escarpement.

The last time that I headed this way I met with rather dismal defeat, and today I was even less prepared: poor nutrition? yep; fattyboombalatty? check; lazy? uh-huh; lack of sleep? guilty. However, I might be a little wizer. Rather than map a route that took me rather straight to the top, I took a longer, more gradual approach to the top of the ridge. I'll probably wear out my 26 tooth cog if I do many more rides like this, but by getting in a groove and rolling I at least was able to avoid the walk of shame.

The fall colors were nice, and while it was never cold, by the time that got to the ridge the wind was chilling my ears pretty nicely. This route was much longer -- possibly my longest road ride of the year, embarrassing though that is -- and the rollers once I got to the top of the hill really took a lot out of me. By the time that I limped back in to Albany I was ready for a hot shower and some eats.

Here's a map of my ride for your cartographic enjoyment. The total ride time was just a little over two hours and twenty-two minutes; take a whack at those number Adrawk!

How Hiedelberg could kill a man...

This is something I can't understand: how a bike can near kill a man.

Pressed for time last Sunday I headed out to the southwest of Albany to get a couple hours of riding in on the skinny tires. I'd planned to head about halfway up the Hiedelberg Escarpement, a ridge outside of town that begins to loom over you as you get onto progressively smaller country roads. Unfortunately I can't read maps (or wasn't paying attention), and my route took me winding to the top. (And you know it's the top by the beautiful views, and the cell phone towers.)

Here's my route:



There's no way that the map can convey just how out of shape I am, so let me say this: at the top of the ride I actually had to get off and walk the last hundred yards or so. I've never, ever had to do this on a road bike before and I have to admit that it was pretty humbling. I imagine if I had a 27-tooth cassette in the rear -- or a compact crankset -- I would have been fine, but on Sunday the choice was stop and walk, turn around with my tail between my legs, or fall over and hope someone found me. So I walked. Of course as soon as I unclipped the only car I'd seen for minutes pulled up behind me to make sure my humiliation was witnessed.

So yes, I have been beaten and unmanned, but I'm ready to go back for more: at my slow pace, the ascent took somewhere around 25 minutes, all but a couple hundred yards or so were uphill (there were two quick dips). Some was just steady climbing, but there were a few switchbacks and steep pitches. Needless to say it was quite a change from doing repeats on Mt. Sinai (which I was never very good at, and I haven't done for almost a year now).

There were a few minutes where the only thing that got me through were my snazzy new bottle cages. But survive I did, and I'll live to ride -- and walk -- another day.

Le Patron retourne?

Don't call it a comeback.

Back in the saddle

Ah, yes, I remember that feeling: tired legs, stiff back, ravenous hunger -- must be riding season again. After a week of bizarrely winter-like weather I got out today for the first time it what seemed like forever. I still had to go kitted-up in knickers and arm warmers, which seems pretty bizarre for April, but at this point I'll take whatever I can get.

I wasn't able to make the Tuesday FakeRace, so I settled for a spin around west Durham/eastern Orange County by my ownself. Not a long ride, or a fast one, or one that I felt particularly strong on. In fact, it was only remarkable for being the first in what felt like a month.

I hope everyone got in a little saddle time. Trail time, on the other hand, still looks to be a long way off.

New Road Wheels!

The hoops on my Cannondale have been showing their age lately, so I've been searching around for a new set of wheels. The old Mavic Cosmoses (sp?) that I've been rocking for a few years were listing out of round and making weird noises that dosing them with lube was no longer helping. After hemming and hawing a bit I scored a set of Fulcrum Racing 5's from a very generous friend: Tom C's deal on this barely used wheelset, complete with Schwalbe Stelvio tires and high performance Schwalbe tubes really was generous. Add to the price the fact that Tom takes immaculate care of his equipment (we bonded over how many coats of wax we'd put on our bike frames), and I was happy with wheels before they were even on the bike.

I mounted the wheels up last night and took them out for a spin today. I think they're good looking wheels, but I'm not sure the red and white decals complement my frame all that much. (Then again, there's not that much to complain about: between the frame, fork, and seatpost has 'Cannondale' emblazoned on it no less than thirteen times.) The Fulcrums aren't significantly lighter than my Mavics -- a few grams or so -- and I didn't notice any difference in them as I spun them up to speed. I did notice the stickiness of the Schwalbe tires: my old rubber was getting pretty worn, so standing up and hearing these things stick to the pavement was nice.

Most importantly, the Fulcrums are significantly stiffer than the Mavics, which could be charitably called 'pliant.' The Fulcrums manage to be both stiff and forgiving. Whereas in the past I would often rub the tires on the brake pads when standing and climbing (or lately when seating and climbing), with the Fulcrums not only was there no rubbing, but the bike felt much more stable and predictable. In the past sprints were a bit of a adventure, with the bike rocking back and forth in sometimes unpredictable or downright frightening ways, and while I didn't do any sprints on my solo ride, standing up to climb felt more exact. Cornering was better too, and I felt like I could lean on the bars and weight the frame better with the new wheels on.

The best thing about the wheels was that the ride was much 'quieter' than before. This seems counterintuitive -- you'd think that stiffer wheels would make for a harsher ride -- but instead the bike felt like it stuck to the ground better, with less bouncing on chatter bumps and no wind-up on larger hits. It didn't turn the 'Dale into a carbon wonder (I still largely stand by my review of the bike from back when I bought it), but on the chip-seal surface of University Station I felt much more comfortable and in control of the bike.

It's obviously a bit early to have a final opinion on them, but I think I'm going to enjoy putting these things through a thorough test.

FakeRacing, round 1

Tonight was the first night for the weekly DCC/BCD shop ride, aka the FakeRace (not the fakerace). The course is pretty straightforward: out 751, over to Kerley, up Mt. Sinai (oh ye of myth and lore), scoot around on Friends school to Cornwallis (hi Coach K!), then Kerley to Sinai (more myth, more lore), University Station to the final sprint on Old NC 10.

Got that?

Basically it's been roughly the same route since Chris and Adam Haile suggested that rather than go down Mt. Sinai, all the cool kids wanted to go up. Twice. Adam has long since moved on to bigger and better things (like Ohio), but the rest of us are left lugging our ample posteriors up the hill. Twice.

Today we had a smattering of BCCers: Ali and I showed up at the shop, and Linus met us there, having already done something like a double century (that's the scuttlebutt). (Rumors also had it that Brian was going to show up, but that are unconfirmed reports that he never made it back from Tennessee.) Chris met us out on the road, where it was basically us, half the Franklin Street team, and a couple of random guys thrown in for good measure. Not a huge crew, but not bad for the first outing of the year.

The ride itself was fine. Which is a gentleman's way of saying I got dropped. Not until the top of the second climb up Sinai (the weight of all the myth may have been holding me back), which wasn't bad for my fourth road ride of the year (excuses, excuses), but early enough to teach me that training is a good thing. Ali fell back around the same time, and Linus rolled off after sneering at our measly sub-30 mile ride, but Chris made the break and ended up in the chase group that tried but never succeeded in pulling in two FSCers that went off the front. I'm not sure how he did in the final sprint, but lacking corroborating evidence I'll say that he crushed them.

Chris and I rolled back into town for the obligatory post-ride rub of Major's nose and then hit the showers. Needless to say I'm tired, but it was good to actually mix it up a little on the road, even if the only mixing I was doing was with myself for the last five miles.