bike weekend

It was a weekend of biking… and heat… and eating and reading. I think that about covers it.

As for the bike parts, I got in about 60 – 65 miles on Saturday (I don’t have full stats with me today as the Garmin is at home… oops). And another about 13 on Sunday.

Saturday I got on the bike at 4:45. AM. Yes, it was dark, and I needed my lights for the first time in a while! Made it over to the bike shop on time for a 5:15 start of a pre-shopride ride. I knew some of the people would be fast, but damn! I didn’t expect it to be as crazy as it was! And I also didn’t expect I’d be able to hang on for as long as I did! We got pedaling a bit late (the people who had wanted the 5:15 start were late), and headed out towards the San Gabriel Dam, knowing we’d just have time to ride part of that ride. Well we made it to the top of the bike trail in less than half an hour! Yes, it was over 20 MPH AVERAGE!! And included two of my archnemesis hills: one with a light at the base and a steep grade, and one that is looong but low grade. As I turned to get to the top of the trail, a headwind blasted me in the face. Huh… I thought. It’s downhill on the way out. That will have a tailwind. It will be fast. Coming back will be a climb into this! Yikes!

The boyz got over 37 mph on the way down, and didn’t feel they were pushing it. I had decent speed, but didn’t trust me to go quite that fast. On the way back I held onto Dan’s wheel, letting him block wind for me. Too bad the wind was coming from all directions! Julie, Karen and I relized that we were getting hit from all sides except behind us… even when in a group and with people on 2 sides!

We made it back to the top of the trail, and it was rolling hills back to the bike shop. On one of the first of these, about 50 minutes into the ride, my legs were like ok I’m done now! Only gonna redline the HR for so long! And I felt like they had little left. I kept going, but definitely ended up a bit behind the group. Caught Dan and Julie at a light a bit later, and did manage to stay with them the rest of the ride. We pulled into the bike shop parking lot, and I saw Lisa was there for the group ride 🙂

I was ready for an easy group ride… or at least a bit less psycho of a pace! I told Dan if any Danskin people (he’d invited some renting bikes to join us) showed up, I’d be happy to go really easy and stay with them. Unfortunately for my tired legs, none did. And the group seemed to forget that now it was a group ride and that we should regroup, etc. So it was a bit awkward as I was often near the back, and while I wanted to make sure there was a regroup, at the same time that would mean that I was ever with the fastest people so that they’d also wait a bit. And it was Bonelli… which meant hills hills hills! Although we only did a few of the usual climbs, as the main part of the group was out of time and going to head back. I kept going for another lap with Lisa, but was done with hills. Instead we took one of the somewhat flatter loops around the park, and took it at a calmer pace. We split soon, as she had more miles to ride, and I headed home having reached my goal.

Oh, and did I mention the heat? OH GEEZ!!! I need to get used to it. So I started by riding in it later in the day as well for a 5ish mile ride to the race expo for Danskin (and then another 5ish home a few hours later), where I helped out at the Foothill Cyclery booth. And in that 5 miles I was already definitely hot and sweaty again! But it was fun to help a bunch of women just getting excited about tris, and nervous about their first ones. I wish lots of them luck 🙂

Sunday I slept in a bit (ok til like 7… it counts as sleeping in for me!), and then headed out to see part of the Danskin race. I was planning to ride my mtn bike over, and ride a few of the trails while at the park. But as I headed out on it I heard “psssssssssss” and saw a gash in my tire! I had extra tires, but I run a tubeless system and didn’t have the goop that needs to go in them to seal the tires. So I sadly left that bike at home, and back on the tri bike. My butt complained a bit. “Um… You said today would be a break from aero position! What do you call this??”

But I made it to the tri. Saw Lisa there with her cool camera, and tried to stay in the shade as again it was boiling. I didn’t stay too long, as I wanted to get home and I was hungry. Of course, I did go on my bike, getting in about 13 miles round trip.

Later that day I took both bikes over to FC. The tri bike wasn’t shifting too smoothly in the front, and I had to drive the mtn bike one in so figured I might as well deal with both. Ron helped me with the road one while Jon started on the mtn tires. However, for some reason he couldn’t get one of the tires to seal, so I had to leave that one and will have to go back and get it either today or later this week. I’m a bit annoyed at the gash… since I also found some fairly decent scratches (I’d almost call one a missing chunk) on the mtn bike… including part of the rear where the thin plastic coating over the paint was hanging off! And the only explanation is that at the southern NV race our crew guy accidentally messed up the tire on his way home, or dropped something on it… Somehow the gash was in the front tire, although the main (although not major) frame damage was to the rear of the bike. Oh well… I’ll live and since I had extra tires already it will just be the cost of the goop for them.

Oh and the reason for the bike focus was that the knee is still just a bit unhappy, and the foot keeps going in phases. The knee seems a bit happier today, although stiff. And the foot is not extremely pleased. It will be time for more icing this evening. At least in this weather I don’t mind icing as much as when it’s cold!