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.