Dave’s Good Stuff

I hit my long ride home last night. Not the standard long ride, but the hellishly hilly (at least for Kansas) long ride. It’s the last map there on my routes page, and is also up on mapmyride.com.

Unfortunately, in the chaos that yet remains my Monday morning routine, I left my Edge 705 at home, so I wasn’t able to record the ride. It felt a little like going commando, but without the fun.

The ride itself was a focused ride. I forced myself to pay attention to my cadence and heart rate. Since I didn’t know exactly what they were, I went by gut feel. Who knows how well I did, but I was pretty wasted when I got home. I’m not sure how much of that was effort and how much was not eating enough through the day. Around 20 miles, I was feeling a little beat, so I stopped to get a Gatorade. That brought me out of my funk, and I was able to head into the winds without much difficulty.

There were quite a few fellow cyclists out, but not a one of them was going my way.

This morning I opted for the standard ride in. The main reason was not being wasted and too sweaty by the time I got here. I’m going to pick up some fruit and pasta at lunch, and set myself up with a nice snack about an hour before I leave.

After a long weekend involving lots and lots of fun with the rest of my team in Omaha, NE, and some far less fun work unclogging and replacing the downstairs toilet, I’m back and ready to really kick it up a notch this week.

Over on my commute routes page, I’ve laid out the route I intend to take every day this week. ~35 miles home every day, today through Thursday, and nearly the same loop again on Friday. In the mornings I’m going to buck up and take my 15 mile route into work, going well out of my way out to Lackman before doubling back and heading back into Overland Park.

It is going to be an exhausting week, but it’s designed to break me down. Next week I’ll be in full recovery mode with little to no exercise while my body repairs itself for the Triple Bypass, by which time I’ll be the stronger for the effort I pour out this week.

I’ll probably be posting some pretty boring stuff this week. Dry accounts of how I’m feeling, how the rides went and the like. I want to be able to look back and see exactly where I was and how I felt about it.

I don’t expect much in the way of commuter or lawn mower racing posts this week, but you can always hope. ;)

It’s been well documented that whenever two or more commuters meet on the road, it is necessary that they race. It’s unspoken, and rarely even acknowledged, but accepted without question.

I hear that runners have the same rules.

This morning was supposed to be a relaxing ride in. It was supposed to see me arrive at work relatively low on the sweat meter. In case you’re not paying attention, it didn’t end up that way.

Russ and I hit the intersection of 91st and Lamar at the same time. I was heading east and turning right, while he was heading west and turning left. He hails from Brookside, and I from Shawnee. Honestly, this morning I was that guy that doesn’t stop to chat. I was that guy who just rides on with only a nod, anti-social and distant even though you’re going the same direction. I was feeling solitary and withdrawn due to some general life stresses that have been getting the best of me. I turned right and rode on, pulling a pretty good pace down the hill from 91st to 95th. He apparently kept up pretty well, because the light at 95th stopped us both. We introduced ourselves and struck up a conversation (I wasn’t feeling *that* rude). He works for the advertising company that serves my company. Go figure! Small world, isn’t it?

And that’s when the race began. What started as an easy 17-18mph downhill turned into a 23-26mph minor hammerfest. He was pushing as hard as I was, judging by his breathing. He stayed a bit ahead the whole time. I was still resisting the urge to hammer it fully, but I kept up with him all the same. Interestingly enough, when we got to the incline between Indian Creek Dr and the 435 overpass, I dropped him. My climbing has improved quite a bit over the last few months, which I hope will help ease my passage over the passes in Colorado.

He went his way east towards work at the roundabout, and we bid our farewells. It’s possible we’ll see each other again, but it’s hard to beat the sort of timing we had this morning.

This morning, our hero finds himself racing against manicured lawns everywhere. Turning east on 91st, he notices what appears to be a street cleaner in the distance. He up shifts and increases his tempo just a bit to try and catch up. Unfortunately, stop signs and passing traffic keep him at a distance. He makes quick work of the 69 Highway overpass, and enters the rolling hills of Elmhurst. More stop signs and traffic continue to keep him at bay, but he finally catches his quarry at 91st and Grant. Unfortunately, there are still two cars between himself and what turned out to be an industrial size riding lawnmower.

One car, impatient with the slow and steady pace of the mower, guns it and passes, leaving just one car in between our hero and certain victory! The last obstacle guns her engine as well, but seeing oncoming traffic, stays put, forcing our spry pedalist to do the same. At about that time, a car comes up from behind and tries to squeeze him to the curb, but he puts a hand out and holds firm. The driver backs off, perhaps knowing what is at stake.

At the stoplight at Antioch, the mower turns right, and the driver ahead turns left. A few cars come through going south on Antioch. Delay is unavoidable. The cars clear, and a quick start puts the velomeistro back in play. That leaves nothing and no one between him and the grass eater. Victory is in sight! Ahead, the mower turns to a side street that immediately becomes a short but steep hill. Pulling almost 20mph, our hero closes in. Finally, at the crest of the hill, he shoots around the tenacious Toro with a wave, and is rewarded with one of the longest descents of the ride.

The driver of the dusted mulcher never saw what hit him.

Happy with his hard won victory, he relaxes a bit and enjoys the rest of the ride, secure that there is no mower on the streets that can best him and his Torelli.

I woke up a little late this morning. I drove in yesterday to drop the car off and bring clothes in for the week, and since driving in affords me a little more sleep, I gave it to myself. Unfortunately, I forgot to reclaim it this morning, and so I slept late.

Not that it mattered. I woke up to thunder, lightening and rain. I’m not sure what I would have done had I a car at home, but without one, I started preparing the all-weather Kona for the ride in. It was pretty easy. I have mounts for the headlight and taillight on both bikes, so moving them over is literally two snaps. I have to move the frame/battery bag over, but that’s easy enough with four Velcro straps the only thing standing in the way. The panniers are already packed with the flat kit, and since my clothes were already at work, I didn’t have to worry about that. The rain cost me all of about 4 minutes. In reality, it cost me nothing, b/c (Recumbum may appreciate this) I waited until the lightening and thunder passed before heading out.

The ride in was, as always, uneventful. There was a yellow mustang driven by a rather attractive blonde that hung back and let me keep up with her until about halfway up the bridge taking Quivira over I35. It was fun watching the Hondas and SUVs tear away while this ripped and toned Mustang hung back to see what I could do. I’m sure she was just admiring my Edge 705 and Cat-eye Triple Shot… I can only imagine how well I would have done on my Torelli. I may have been able to keep up for another 20 or 30 entire feet!

The most harrowing event this morning was the pinched nerve that flared up violently in my upper back while I was still at home swapping out lights. I’ve had pinched nerves before, but never so acute and so sudden. Fortunately, while the ache is still there, and I don’t have full range of motion yet w/o pain, it seems a relatively minor episode compared to some I’ve experienced. My Father dealt with this, and his father before him. I hope my sons and/or daughters don’t. It’s no fun.

Maybe I excited the nerves moving the weight bench from a friends house to mine. I’m committed to selling the Weider Max (pics here), due to a preference for actual weights vs. tension bars. Last night I picked up a weight bench with weights a friend of mine wanted to get rid of. It’s been waiting for me for months now, but until the garage sale, we had no room. It’s not as big, has actual honest-to-goodness weights, and it was free. Score.

Ok… back to the auditors…

I don’t think I’m a fan of making extra trips to work in order to carry clothes back and forth, thus enabling me to ride an otherwise non-commute-ready bike.

This week I’m going to try driving in on Monday, and driving home on Thursday. Why Thursday, I hear you asking… because on Friday, we’ll be in Omaha with the rest of my team for a team building pool party. It promises to be more than plenty fun!

Until then, however, we have auditors in all week, so I’m letting you know now, before you get terribly worried, that I may not be posting much this week. It’ll be a busy and stressful one, and I’ll be engaging in stress-reducing activities in my free time that likely won’t involve a lot of keyboard pecking.

Friday night I participated in my first June Moon ride. It was fantastic. I met Noah (who has some great, as always, pics from the ride up on his site) and Chris at their apartment complex, from where we made our way down to the Wendy’s parking lot at K10 and Woodland.

There were 9 of us all told. I felt more than a little like a noob, there amongst the likes of CommuterDude, Noah and BadgerLand, all of whom have been commuting for far longer than I. But cyclists are, by and large, a very friendly bunch, and we all got on great. We hung out there for a while, showing off our bikes and drooling over other bikes. There were all manner of rides, from beater mountains, to beater roadies, to fully decked out commuters (yum!) and racing bikes. We took off at 21:00 sharp for parts unknown (at least to me). My trusty 705 recorded the ride, and you can see the results on motionbased.com.

It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden in the dark, and though my light hadn’t been charged in a few days, there was plenty of light from the rest of the (extremely) bright headlights the rest of the troop were sporting. The air was calm, the stars were out, and all in all, those 50 miles were some of the most a fantastic, relaxing, invigorating and encouraging I’ve ridden in a long time.

We had a close call near Cedar Niles and 87th, as a family of skunks scurried off the road into the underbrush as the peleton passed. There was some residual aroma, but it was their natural state… no one was sprayed, thank the Gods. At this point, the light was really failing, and the collective brightness of our lights was readily apparent. I can only imagine how we must have looked to motorists, nevermind anyone who happened to be on their porch as we passed. What a sight we must have been! From there it was full speed ahead as we descended down what, in the dark, felt like a never ending hill. It was fantastic, made all the more exciting by the fact that, at those speeds, our lights were barely enough to illuminate stopping distance.

In spite of our daring-do, we arrived without incident in De Soto, and took a brief break while we refueled. Noah continued to snap pictures, one of which was of a bug splat on C’Dude’s glasses… Frankly, I’m not surprised he got hit. The bugs were out in force. I probably swallowed half a dozen or so. Who needs gel pack when you have flying insects?

On the way back, it was more climbing than descending, which is where the encouraging part of the ride factors in. I got to talking with Badger about him riding the Triple Bypass in ‘05. He had a few tips for me, which I took to heart. Given my performance on the relatively trivial hills on this ride, he was part of the group that voted in favor of my being ready in a few weeks. Whether they’re right or not, it’s bolstering to hear someone who’s ridden it think so, anyway.

Right around where we saw the skunks on the way out, we finally caught full sight of the barely waning gibbous, thereby making the ride a complete success. At that point, we lost Badger, and I picked up my pace a little bit. 35 miles into the ride, and my legs were feeling fantastic. At Woodland and Prairie Star Parkway, Al and I kept going straight to hit the Wendy’s parking lot from the backside, while the rest of the group took a right to hit it head on. Ours was a full sprint from Prairie Star all the way to Wendy’s, and it felt great!

More bike awe was had, and farewells were said, and Noah, Chris and myself made our way home. Parting ways near Monrovia, I saw a fox in the road on Neiman between 75th and 79th. He was probably dining on some fresh road kill before I startled him away from his meal…

“A cyclist!” he thought. “Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a cyclist riding about after midnight! There’s something mighty queer behind this.” He was right, but he never found out any more about it.

Just a few more minutes and I rounded out an even 50 miles as I rounded the corner before easing into my driveway. It was after 12:30 and I was fulfilled, but ready for bed.

I’m more determined than ever, now, to acquire for myself a commuter bike that I can trick out with fenders and bags and lights and all that jazz, and yet still maintain that nice roady feel.

See the posts by CommuterDude and Noah for other takes on the ride…

Tonight I join the ranks of the June Full Moon Madness riders. We’re meeting up at Wendy’s on K10 at 21:00, where we’ll start our meandering out to DeSoto and back. All in all, from my house, it’ll total a bit over 51 miles, and should go until sometime around 12:30 or 01:00 Saturday morning. Starting at 8:00 to meet Noah on the way, that will make for many glorious relaxed after-dark hours in the saddle.

Story.

This is special because I have not one, but two entire friends at Garmin, both of whom know me by both name and sight. Of course that means I’m all but on the team. I’ll be waiting for Millar’s call.

I’m sure the try-out ride is just perfunctory. See you in France!

In spite of brief showers last night that left the roads a touch damp in places, I enjoyed this morning’s commute on the slim tires of the Torelli.

The Good: There were a few bike commuters out today. Still fewer than I’d expect with the higher temperatures and higher gas prices. All of them were going the other direction, save one who was too far away to catch up to. A few bike commuters is better than no bike commuters.

Speaking of commuters, I came across two the last couple of days going my way. The first was a guy on a mountain bike stand-up-hammering a high gear up the inclines of Lamar between 95th and 91st yesterday. On the Kona, I easily caught up to him sit-spinning in a lower gear. I said “Good afternoon!” as I passed him like he was standing still. He didn’t have the breath to respond. I don’t think he’s convinced yet that granny gears aren’t just for granny anymore. That one sided surprise commuter-race was a complete success. The second was a girl on another mountain bike slowly tooling along 91st on Monday. She wasn’t hammering in the slightest, so I took my time overtaking her. Another “Good afternoon!” and I was past. Sometimes, I’m not much for conversation on my rides.

Back to this morning…

The Bad: The Torelli seriously needs some rear derailleur adjustment. I can throw the chain off the big cog ring onto the hub with ease, and the lower gears tend to make more noise than I care for. I’ll take care of that over lunch. The front derailleur, which has historically caused me far more grief, still hums perfectly.

It’s weird. I feel more like a bike commuter when I’m on my Kona, and a little bit out of my element on the Torelli. I think it’s an association thing, since my reintroduction to regular bike commuting was on the Kona. Perhaps the Torelli is protesting being reduced to mere transportation, when she really just wants to get out and race. She was the happiest I’ve ever seen her during the time trial last Thursday. She just hummed. She certainly likes the long weekend hauls, but racing is her favorite.

The Ugly: The ride ended way too soon. I didn’t hammer it, but I didn’t necessarily take it easy either, so it was all over in just over 30 minutes.