This weekend's ride down the trail

My last couple of rides have been around Lake Sammamish.  Those have been around 21 miles and have given me a good feel for the bike.  Except for the start of the ride and the end, the route is mostly flat.  

 

This weekend I decided to push myself a little more and do a 30 mile ride along the Sammamish River Trail.  My plan was simple, leave my house, when the odometer hit 15 miles, turn around and head back.

 

The trail was pretty neat.  There were a lot of families and others on it on everything from rollerblades to recumbent bikes.  I kept a good pace on the trail (about 16mph) and was only passed by one person.  

 

Couple of things I’ve learned in the last week.  The Seat by Ergo ROCKS!!!!!  The first time out my butt was super sore by 15 miles into the ride.  Also my ‘male parts’ were sore as well.  After getting The Seat at the bike show, I’ve discovered butt-bliss.  Not once in the 50+ miles I’ve ridden on it have I had any soreness or numb-butt.  Their advertising slogan is “no numb-butts” and I can testify that its true.  The one side affect of not having the nose to the saddle is that more of the body weight ends up on the arms.  This hasn’t been a problem so far but just something I noticed.  I highly recommend this to anyone who rides longer distances.

 

Two hours of bicycling at the pace I was going burns a lot of calories.  The Bike Journal where I keep my logs has a nifty calorie computer.  My ride on Sunday burned >2100 calories.  I only ate 1801 calories all day on Sunday, so it was no surprise when I weighed in a few pounds lighter the next day.

 

Eating while your heart-rate is at the top of its training zone is tough.  I brought along a Clif Bar to munch during my ride.  I stopped to eat the first half of it.  I tried to eat the 3^rd quarter and 4^th quarter of it while on the go.  It’s tough to reach around fish out the bar and eat while staying focused on the trail and all the traffic, secondly it’s even more tough to chew and swallow.  I could barely force myself to swallow and I was doing some serious mouth breathing because of my heart-rate.  For future rides I’m going to pre-portion the bar so I don’t have to worry about the wrapper, and consciously try to slow down a bit to get my breathing under control.  Also I found I need to be eating the food earlier in the ride as I felt really drained 3/4^th through the ride, but felt good after I got home.  I think starting to eat 45 mins sooner would have helped a lot.

 

I brought along some music for this ride.  It made the ride much more pleasant.  I’m not sure about riding with headphones in traffic, but on the trail I think it’s fine.  I’ve seen some research to suggest it’s not as bad as you’d think.  

 

Ride Journal for February 

Friday afterwork bike ride

The weather in the Seattle area has been very unusual for February.  It’s been very rain-free which is great for bikers.  The only downside is that in the morning the temperature has been hovering around 30 degrees (f).  That’s too cold for me to think about riding into work.  I see a few others doing it in the morning, but I just don’t have all the right apparel yet to do that.  (I did look for some bike jackets but find a relatively inexpensive one in my size proved impossible…..I’ll keep looking though.)

 

At work we wrapped up a little early on Friday.  I got home just after 4pm and decided to take a ride.  It was 51 (F) out which was warm enough for me to ride without the leg warmers.  I suited up and headed out deciding to ride around Phantom Lake….which is a nice play on words since I’m riding a Phantom-Cross.  (I’ll see if I can post a map of the route somehow)

 

According to my Cateye:

 

Distance:  10.5 miles

Max Speed: 33mph

Average Speed: 10.6mph

Time: 1.01 hrs

 

There were several big hills that I really struggled with.  I came close to having to step off the bike, but was able to push through.  I think I was spent more then I expected as I did a long 60 min Spinning Class in the morning and my legs had not fully recovered.

 

It was great to get out in the fresh air….although between 4pm and 5pm I learned is a terrible time to bike the loop I took.  I live close to Microsoft in Redmond Washington, and there was A LOT of traffic.  I need to get use to riding in traffic, but I would rather build up the bike time in a little less stressful environment to start.

My New Bicycle 

Food == Energy

This is another one of those ‘duh’ type of concepts. We all know that food is energy, but today I had a vivid example of that.

I normally workout with my trainer (Emily Cripe) at 6am on M/W/F at The Pro Club in Bellevue. Getting there that early requires me to be out of bed no later then 5:30am (I live only a couple of miles away). Last Friday, I did the 6am Indoor Cycling class (see my comments on this in my other blog) and at the end I was totally exhausted. I normally get through these without too many problems but for this one, we did some extended interval training with little recovery between peaks.

I had mentioned this to Emily afterwards and she asked about what I was eating before we worked out. I hadn’t been eating anything. I mean it’s hard enough to get to the gym by 6am, let alone find time to eat something before hand.

This morning (Wed 2/16/06) we agreed to do Indoor Cycling again instead of our normal routine but I decided to try and get some food before hand. I got up a few minutes early (5:20am) and downed a banana and a yogurt before leaving the house. Ganelle pushed us very hard in this session. We were doing ‘tempo’ riding. As I understand it the tempo rides is pushing yourself right below maximum and we kept it up without any breaks for the whole class. 15 mins of flat, 15 mins at a foothill grade, then 15 mins of a steep hill.

My heartrate training zone is between 135 and 162. In the Indoor cycling classes I usually pace myself around 155 to 160 and when out of the saddle on a steep hill I usually hit about 170.

On today’s ride I don’t think I came below 160 during the whole 45min period with most of it being spent around 170. About 30 mins into the ride I really started to feel exhausted. My breathing was very labored and I was concerned whether I was going to have to reduce my resistance or slow down. I kept pushing and about 40 mins into the class (just after we started to go up the really steep hill) I felt a very strong surge of energy. Even though I was out of the saddle and my heartrate was in the mid 170’s I felt a strong second wind. I felt like I could keep going at that intense pace for a long time.
I felt that my body was using the food now as energy. It was an awesome feeling! The only problem was that it came so late in the class. I need to think about a way to get that food taken in earlier so I can feel the effects sooner in the class.

I need a bike....

I need a bike. Duh! But seriously I will need to get one in order to do this ride. The search began in earnest a few weeks ago.

When I look into getting something big (a car, new TV, laptop, etc) I spend a considerable amount of time trying to get educated. It was no different with the bike purchase. Below are a few of the sites I found helpful in getting to understand what road bikes cost and which ones are better then the others:

1) Road Bike Reviews This site was a reference I kept coming back to. Along with individual bike reviews, there are reviews of individual components and parts. There are also a lot of advertising links to great deals. Finally there is a good discussion forum on lots of bike related topics.
2) Bike Forums.NET A site totally dedicated to people talking about everything bicycling. From folding bikes to road racing, and everything in between.
3) Performance Bicycle The website for my LBS (local bike shop). LBS is a term you read about a lot. Quickly followed by the mantra “support your LBS”.
4) Shimano Components Almost every bike I looked at came with Shimano components. As a newbie to biking it takes a bit of effort to figure out what parts are in what classification. There site helped out a lot. (they just remodeled the site and I think it less usable now.)
5) Ebay Cycling Section It was good to see what was available on Ebay while comparison shopping. (I ended up buying my bike from a dealer on Ebay)

It ended up taking me about 5 or 6 weeks to narrow down on the bike I wanted and order it. This is a lot longer then I take on most purchases (hence my nickname as ‘the ultimate consumer’). After all the research and investigating my short list came down to these three bikes:

1) Tirreno Razza 3.0 (Shimano 105’s) from Performance bike for $849
2) Tommaso AS1 2005 (Shimano 105’s) from Randall Scott Cycle Company for $799
3) Motobecane Fantom Cross (Shimano 105/Tiagra Mix) from Ebay for $647.

Despite the heavy lobbying efforts from a friend who wanted me to get the Tirreno as he did, I ended up getting the Motobecane. The big problem with the Tirreno was that it was green. In just had this drab-dull look at I couldn’t get past. The big advantage of the bike was that if you purchase a bike from Performance they give you life time tune-ups. I’m sure at some point the cost of annual tune-ups will eat into the wallet, but for now that benefit was not enough to overcome the green color of the bike.

The Motobecane is a Cyclocross bike. These are road bikes that are built just a little bit different. They have wider forks to support wider tires, and include flat-bar mounted brake handles in addition to the traditional brake handles found on road bikes. Cyclocross bikes can be ridden off-road with their wider tires but perform just like a road bike when on the road (with the same tires.) The versatility of the bike is what won me over. Plus I felt I got a very good deal. The MSRP of the bike is $1395, but nobody pays MSRP. Two on-line retailers had been selling these for $795 (bikes direct) and $747 (ebay). I had been watching the retailer on ebay list this bike over and over at the $747 price for several weeks (plus $40 shipping). One day they posted a listing for this bike at $647. I double and tripled check that this was the same bike as their other listings and it was. It was just listed for $100 less then normal. While this listing was active there were no listings posting for this same bike at $747. I can only guess someone miskeyed in the price. For $647 (plus shipping) I couldn’t pass it up.

It arrived last Friday and I began building it. I was very impressed with the packing and the level of detail of the parts. As the bike started to come together I was getting excited and couldn’t wait to ride it. But then I got to the assembly of the brakes and the shifting derailuers. After spending a good hour or so trying to figure them out (the assembly manual was a generic version and not specific to my brakes or gears) I decided to give up. I ended up taking the bike to Performance to have them professionally finish off the assembly. The estimated about $40 to get it done, which I’m happy to pay to know that everything is put together correctly. I hope to be able to do my own maintenance work on the bike going forward but getting together right the first time will be worth the $40.

Introductions

This blog will be used to capture some of my thoughts and feelings as I begin to train for the Seattle to Portland Bike Ride this year. STP is put on by the Cascade Bicycle Club.

Hi, my name is Daryl Welsh. In November 2004 I started a program to change my life, it’s called the 20/20 Lifestyles program. It is a comprehensive exercise, diet and psychological program to help people lose weight and get healthy. I’ve been on the program for 15 weeks, and have lost 55 pounds in that time frame, going from 320lbs to 265lbs. The structured part of the program will end in another 12 weeks and I wanted to have something to keep me going after so I can maintain the awesome momentum I’ve started over the last few months.

I decided to do the STP ride for a number of reasons…..

1) I need to have something to push for to maintain my success with the 20/20 program.
2) It seems like an attainable physical challenge. I say attainable because other challenges like a marathon or a triathlon seem way too extreme right now. I’m still technically ‘morbidly obese’ and I have no mistaken visions of running five blocks let alone 26 miles.
3) I like solo type sports. Golf being my current favorite, but biking fits in well as a solo sport. At the end of the day it is just me and the bike and nobody else to blame for any problems.
4) It sounds fun. I’ve read a lot of people’s reports on their rides (like Jim Carson’s) and they make it sound so fun. Challenging of course but fun.