Chris vs Virtual Chris

So tonight I used the virtual partner to race against my previous recorded time on my 26 mile loop. The feature on the Garmin puts two triangles on your predetermined route. Once you start the course the dark triangle is you real time and the lighter traingle is the previous time you rode. What I don't like about the feature so far is that it doesn't give a time hack of how far ahead or behind you are of your previous time. On the ascent out I was ahead of my previous time and kept a pace which I'm guessing was only a few seconds faster than my previous time but my lead was gone by time I was on the back stretch and saw the virtual me propel out in front not to be caught. It was pretty cool to "race" if you will against the virtual me. Only thing I dont like is the virtual time does not take into account weather conditions, ie the wind slapping me in the face on the back stretch but it's still a great training tool. I finished about a minute and 21 seconds off my previous time. Legs still feeling pretty good, just want to keep the momentum going.

Also, I've been looking at grabbing some new wheels. They will definitely be new to me, but off the used market. Thinking about a carbon clincher. More on that to come.

Have it your Way

So post title has nothing to do with cycling but today in the town I'm in Burger King opened. So you would think people have had Burger King before, but really a line out the door for Burger King?!?!?

As for the ride today wind was blowing as I was heading out of town and definitely set me back. Even on the flat stretches I still didn't go untouched but a pretty steady wind. Results though, I was 4 mph off the ascent pace I set on Sunday and 5 minutes off the total time it took to do the 25.98 miles. Still pretty happy with the ride considering if it wasn't for the wind on the way out I would have been right with my previous time. Couple days off due to travel and back on bike Sunday.

Wind Wind and more Wind

So I missed my ride on Monday (had to work late)thus making me really anxcious to ride today. One small problem was the wind. First thing this morning it was already gusting pretty good but I thought just maybe it will let up by the time I got off work. Not so much at all. Checked the weather before leaving work and the wind was gusting 20 - 30 mph. At this point I should have just passed on the ride but no I felt I just had to get out on the bike. So I get started out on my 26 mile loop and I'm riding at a 80 degree slant just to stay up. So I figure no way I'm going to do this for 26 miles so I went to my back up plan. Back up plan was to ride this climb up to the local community college a couple times. Long story short I made it up once and definitely had enough of the wind for one day. So after a 20 minutes of fighting the wind I was back at home. Check out the graph from my epic 2.5 mile climb.Oh and WinD SUCKS

Weather should be better tomorrow

GARMIN = DATA TIME and the Sunday Ride

So my Garmin Edge 205 arrived yesterday afternoon. A little disappointed I couldn't have had it in time for the ride yesterday but there was no way in the world that I wouldn't put it to the test today. So today I went to do the ride I do on Mondays and Wednesdays so I could have a baseline ride to compete against. After going pretty hard yesterday I thought would not push at all today.....but the weather being so nice 75ish I couldn't resist from seeing what kind of time I could put up. So off I went. Garmin tells me I made it around the loop in 1:16:27 of moving time. With total elevation change of 741 ft and a total distance of 25.98 miles. Below is a screen shot from motionbased.com who has teamed with GARMIN to provide more analysis tools and allows to you share rides. The basic account is free (which is what I have for now) but for $11.95 a month you can have access to more ways to look at data. I'll probably upgrade to this since I'll be training solo pretty much for the next few months until I return to StL. Day one with Garmin and motionbased.com I'm more than satisfied and ready to ride ride ride ride.






It is definitely not as big as I had anticipated.

they are ALIVE

Todays ride 55 miles and 3500 feet of climbing. Started out taking it pretty easy up first climb but the second climb Tim started to pick things up leaving behind the slower group. So our group of 4 continued on pressing out. Goal today was really just to stay strong and not get dropped. I usually bonk on one of the many climbs so definitely didn't want that to happen. I felt pretty strong for much of the ride today. I know I'm feeling good when I pull more out of initiative versus it just being my turn. Definitley a good sign that my legs are alive this year. Same feeling as yesterday though, I really wish I had the Garmin to track the stats for the ride. Total saddle time was about 3.5 hrs with one stop to refill bottles. Overall I think I'm right where I want to be in my training. Just don't want to get burnt out. Not really knowing exactly what races I will be back for its just nice to be getting the miles in on the bike.


Photo of Tim as we are getting ready to make our way up another long steady ascent.

Rolling again

Worked only a few hours today so I was able to pull the bike a tad bit earlier than usual. Weather was perfect today about 73 and su un un un un ny. I couldn't wait to get out there and push it. Goal of the day was to beat my usual time of 1.5 hr around the loop. I figured I could make up most of the time on the slight ascent out of town. So I really pushed it getting out of town. Once I made it up I was pretty winded but for the next few miles its down hill so I used this time to recover. Then it was just about keeping a steady pace and cadence. I ran into a few windy areas on the back stretch but nothing to bad. So as I made my right turn to for the last 13 miles (usually where I can really get it going) the winds hit. It was pretty consistent for a few miles and then I only caught it in a few areas. Mentally and physically the winds really do a number a me. I thought a great day wasn't going to be so great. The winds did disappear once I got a few miles out and my legs came to life. Nothing unusual finishing up and to my surprise I arrived back to my door 5 minutes faster than usual. Mind you I'm using rough calculations here. I look at my phone as I'm leaving from the house and simply look at again when I get back. Can you say GARMIN PLEASE GET HERE!!! It is supposed to arrive on Monday so maybe I'll have some official numbers for that ride.

After a good ride one needs a good meal......for me tonight it was chicken queso served up by non other than me.


Tomorrow I'm going to do the "Sho N Go" ride here. These rides are usually pretty long in the 60-80 mile range. People show up and choose a ride and head out. taking the camera so should have some photos.

Ride + 20 mph head wind = One tough day

So today the wind was really throwing me around on the hill out of town and most of the back stretch of the loop. I figured since I couldn't really work on besting my time around the loop per say I would just work on setting a decent pace while not letting the wind knock me down. All in all I'm pretty happy with the ride today. I usually get back in about 1.5 hr but today I was closer to 2. Riding by myself this much lately is definitely a mental test. No one pushing me, no coach yelling to "pick it up," and really just no one in sight. I do remember one saying that we all know is that you are only cheating yourself if you loaf during a workout. One thing that really keeps wanting to be on my bike and pushing is the weather. Today it was 75, just perfect for the ride. Not traveling this weekend so I'll catch up with the local "sho n go" ride one day this weekend for a long ride. One thing is for sure I didn't ride this consistently when I was in Maryland for most of last year, which is definitely why I had a lack luster showing at the races I made it back for in St. Louis.


PeAcE

Back at It

Returned to the bike after work today. I really think I believe Floyd now. I felt pretty good today on the ride. On the climb out of town I made my way up switching between sitting in saddle and coming out of saddle until I made it to the top. The rest of the ride has a downhill and is flat as pancake making my way around the loop. My biggest challenge has been to keep pushing myself once I get closer to making it back into town. Training alone I can't really measure where I'm at which leads me into next point of purchasing the Garmin 205 cycle computer. I've read this has the feature of letting you race against a virtual competitor or against a previous time you've recorded. I will order one of these tonight or tomorrow. I'm hoping to have it by next week, so I can really see where I'm at from a ride to ride basis. Plus looking at graphs and data is something I do for living anyhow so why not look at cycling data. Tomorrow is basketball night, back on the bike Wednesday.

Edit as of 10:30 pst I just purchased the GARMIN 205 cycle computer from a store on Ebay. Count down until it arrives has now begun.

Chicago wrap Up

Didn't make it to a Bulls game but did see some interesting street walkers entertaining the crowds after the St. Patricks day parade. I hadn't paid to much attention that this was the weekend St. Patricks Day would be celebrated so it was a bonus being able to catch the parade and not to mention the green water.



While walking Michigan Ave I noticed they had a GARMIN store. Unfortunately I didn't get to go in but I've been surfing the web lately trying to nail down which GPS system I'll will throw on the handle bars or should I even bother.






Any recommendations?

All in all good times in the Windy city

Only thought about cycling at times I knew was loading up on food and how much my next ride will probably hurt.

As for getting the bike today, not going to happen for several reasons. First my own self inflicted weekend which lacked any sleep and the one time I'm happy for the winds we get, mother nature is currently gusting the wind at pretty frequent 28-32 mph. So I'll plan on spinning on the trainer an hour or two tonight.

Weekend off from the bike...already!?!?

So I'm heading to Chicago tomorrow morning to hang with some buddies from college. Not looking forward to the 3.5 hour flight, not to mention I was just on the 3 hour flight last weekend back to St. Louis. Add to that the 2.5 hours it takes me to get to the airport and that makes for some really long days of travel. So two things worthy of mentioning, I won't be riding my bike Friday or Saturday and I don't think the partying that will go on will aid me in any positive way for cycling. Well unless a few beers will actually give me a boost like they did our friend Floyd Landis :-)

I do plan on taking to the bike Sunday when I return. Plan on doing one of the longer routes we have here with more climbing.

PEACE out until Sunday

Cycling outside of the Louie

So my journey to average cyclist came to a screeching halt when a change in jobs took me away from the cycling scene I had just come to know so well. I found myself in Southern Maryland working at Patuxent River Naval Base. To my surprise though, the cycling there was pretty good. Not many races locally but you could drive 3 hr to 4 hrs away to get your race on. I choice not to do any races in those parts except for the one held by the club that was in the city I worked in. I got dropped 10 mins into the race and retired gracefully. Funny cause I did bump into another guy I met riding in St. Louis. He had recently moved to D.C to work at the Air Force base there. Such a small world. There they had Tuesday night Circuit training race if you will. It was a 10 mile loop around the base which consisted of 3 groups. The A group contained fastest riders, then the B group middle of pack guys, and the C group I would call mostly guys new to riding in a group so like a Cat 5 group. On my first group ride there which was a Thursday night ride they do down to the southern most point in Maryland Point Look Out, I found myself in 3 man break way ahead of the rest of the guys, we charged down and made it to the Point with the rest of the guys chasing. Mind you this was my first ride with these guys, so I made a pretty good first impression to be in a break with 2 of there strongest riders. One of the guy was riding a single speed at that (Single Speed Dave is what the call him). This guy was freaking amazing pulling at 24/25 mph on a single speed was nuts. I must say I was just hanging on for a good portion of the pull out but I did a few pulls to show I could mix it up a bit. So after that ride they were like I should ride in the A group for the Tuesday night race. Bad bad bad advise this was a pretty popular training race and drew VERY fast Cat 1/2/3s. I did a few rides with the A group but always got dropped on the first lap around. So down graded to the B group. Here I was more at home but always wound up on the front pulling more than I would like and in the latter part of the race I would always fade. Those were very competitive rides on Tuesday nights. racing in

Patuxent Velo Criterium racing in MD last summer


Patuxent Velo Criterium racing in MD last summer




Lets fast forward to today. Today I now reside in the High Desert of Southern California. Here the cycling seen is pretty dismal compared to what I had become accustomed to. Very small town with no RACES locally. You would have to travel down to L.A. for any of the racing scene and I'm not really up for driving 2 hrs to do one race and go home every weekend. On the group rides we do have here though, the small group packs a mean punch. Former Columbia Bicycling Racer Arjuna Flenner will put a bruising on you. Along with Arjuna there are several other resident riders that definitely mix things up. I have been dropped many of times here on the many long climbs they have on the local routes. I'm going to try and get some photos of these climbs so you can really see what I'm talking about.

With that said I'll be here until sometime this summer then I should return to the old stomping grounds of St. Louis. As you all know I have made it make back for a few races here and there but I have definitely have fallen off from where I left St. Louis in the Fall of 06. That had to be my best year yet cycling. I was at my strongest for my first ever Gateway Cup and managed 2 top twenty finishes and 1 top ten finish (was crashed out on second to last lap of the Lafayette Square, so DNF).

I bring this topic up to show you how good you all have it in St. Louis with the abundance of group rides and races that are held there. I truly do miss riding in the LOUIE

The Ride today

So biking solo really isn't my thing. I really enjoy the company of others and most importantly for training purposes having someone faster than you on the ride definitely will up your game at the same time. Before we get to my ride today, prior to, I have only been out a few times so far in 08. Kind of surprising cause I'm in CA where the weather hasn't been all bad but in the desert we still got daily highs in the 40's some days and morning temps were easily in the 20's. Here there are no organized group rides in the evenings. Kick in SELF MOTiVATION to get out there on my own. I've committed to riding the INYO LOOP consisting of 26.8 miles and 738 feet of climbing on Mondays and Wednesdays. Here this is known as one of the easier loops, because it doesn't have alot of the climbing and elevation change. I chose this because getting off work at 4:45 pm I can be on the bike by 5 and make it back before sunset. Today I got a late start. Left my house at 5:30 and arrived back at 7 on the nose and it the sun was just about down. I asked a friend I work with to come snag a few photos of me making my way around the route. My roommate is also pretty big into photography so I'm hoping I can get him out when I make way up 9 mile canyon. I just got my kit in from the club I rode with when I was in Maryland I really like the colors in it. Reminds me where are the new The HUB KITS!!!?!?!?!?!?

actually feeling pretty good on the ride here, the climb out of town hurts the most but the rest is pretty flat. I need to get a new CATEYE for the bike haven't ridden with one for sometime now but since I will be riding solo I do want to track mileage and average.

Finally Going to try to this blogging thing/intro to Cycling

HELLO WORLD, this blog will mainly contain topics related to my favorite hobby of cycling. Notice I use hobby because A. I do not get paid to ride my bicycle B. I'm definitely at the age where trying to PRO is absurb due to my lack of experience and just entering the sport C. I feel when you have a fulltime job cycling, basketball, etc are all hobbies.

So many of you may know how I got started into cycling and others may not. Well for those that do not know. Here we go.......As cliche as it may seem I had often heard of the great Lance Armstrong. To the non cyclist he was one of, if not the only cyclist known in the mainstream U.S media. Beyond Lance I didn't really know much about cycling other than it looked pretty cool seeing all those guys riding in the peleton when I did see highlights of the Tour De France. So thats my association from a mainstream level. Now to the actual connection. So back in 2001 I met my Godmother for lunch in old town St.Charles but she had to make a quick stop by the bike shop down there ( I believe it was a Touring Cyclist). She was picking up her new FUJI road bike. At the time I was still in college (equal I had no money!!!) so I couldn't believe how much she was spending on a bicycle for crying out loud. So with that said several years past and I had gained the freshman 15 at college, along with the horrible choice of foods at all times of the day. I was ready to try something different. I had played basketball and baseball, but never tried I new sport, something totally different from my past. With that said I told my Godmother I wanted to go on a few rides with her and her crew. So a friend of hers let me borrow an older ride, with the shoe cages, andI proceeded to go on a few 20 mile journeys with them at a blistering 14-15mph
:-) After those rides I found myself wanting to go faster and be a bit competitive at this. So the gentlemen who loaned me the bike would attack at certain points and I would counter. Those were my first days getting the juices flowing. By this time I thought ok let me check out how much purchasing one of these bikes would cost me. So said gentlemen who loaned me the bike who I know will refer by name Larry, had some ties at the local Touring Cyclist. After reading a number of reviews and negotiating a deal so I could get pedals and shoes all in one swoop I owned my first road bike a FUJI Roubaix PRO. This purchase was made keeping in mind I'm not spending to much just in case I get tired of this new sport and hang it up after a month or two. So I had my wheels, now I was really in business, I would go on group rides with Larry and my Godmother but the pace they were pushing just wasn't what I was looking for. I mean hey at the time I was 23 years old and pedaling around at 14 to 15 wasn't doing anything for me. To speed things up I would work on letting them get gaps in front of me then catch them or I would try and do the loop two times versus them doing it just once. Ok that thinking was alittle wishful but hey it was something to push me. I met several young gents who sold me my bike and they said I should try the Touring Cyclist BiAthlon. Biathlon.........hmmm I wanted a challenge and at the time knew nothing about the local cycling scene in StL. So I was in. The race was a 4.5 mile run and 20 mile bike ride. My strong point I knew going in would be the running portion. So everyday afterwork I would run 2-3 miles and cycle 10 miles. Finally working my way up to days where I would run 5 and cycle 30. With that said I spent the summer of 2005 working towards my first race. In the mean time I heard about another style of racing, criteriums. So I also put that on my calendar as a first for me that summer. The day of the Biathlon came and I was feeling pretty good at the number of people that I actually beat on the running portion. So I was feeling pretty good when I was hopping on the bike to head out. I only had one water bottle (total beginner move) so I was very very dehydrated at times on the bike during the 20 miles but luckily at like mile 10 or so they had feed zone where they were passing out water bottles, which turned out to be my saving grace. As I approach the final hill my legs were in explode mode and I was going that slow changing gears my chain fell off and down I went. Several other riders helped me up and back on the bike I went for the last 400 yards. Crossing the line was a pretty good feeling knowing I had trained pretty hard and put up some decent numbers. To my surprise my numbers were such that I WON the 20-24 year old catergory!!!!!!!!!!!!! Overall now I believe I was somewhere around the top 50 I believe. So the competitive career started with success. I was on a pretty good high heading into the Soulard Criterium. This event is where I met Adam (fellow HuB rider). He gave me a few pointers and wished me luck. He also told me about the training crits at Carondelet on Tuesdays. But back to the race, not sure where I finished, I know it wasn't with the main group nor did I care. My goal was to just get my bearings in that style of racing and finish. So I finished with a few first timers and that was my first crit. From there I found myself at the Tuesday night crits and getting familiar with some of the faces on the local scene and them with mine. So my first summer of cycling found me doing 2 races and anxcious for the next season ( I missed the Gateway Cup my first year because I had one more semester of college to complete)



So lets fast forward things to season number two. Now I knew about the StL biking site and most of the group rides that were taking place. So I started doing the Monday night St. Charles ride, Tues Crit, Thurs St. Charles, and Saturday morning Big Shark rides. Also mixing in the races on the weekends when they took place. I must say I feel like I really got my legs on the Monday night ride in St. Charles. I can't count the number of times I got dropped from the lead group, then the second group, and rode solo back or with a few other fellows I met who were just getting there legs going. Needless to say at the end of the summer I was right with the lead group and contested for the sprint finish. Also sometime during the middle of the summer I was asked by several teams if I had any interest in riding with a particular gang. Adam was the first to ask if I would want to come to the Hub group ride on Wednesdays and chat with Ron. So on my first ride that Wednesday after talking with Ron The Hub welcomed me to the groupo. Really from here the rest is history. Just been riding and enjoying wearing my black,yellow,white and green Hub kit where ever I go.

So with that summed up, thats how I got into cycling and I definitely enjoy riding my bike whenever I get the chance. I'm definitely a fair weather rider. You won't see me when its below 45. Very thankful for everyone that I have met these last few years cycling especially my HUB TEAMMATES.



PEACE