Last post November 5, 2008

November 5, 2008.  That is how long it has been.  And, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it has been just as long since I have turned a pedal.  I had fully intended to put the bike on a trainer over the winter, if for no other reason than to continue tweaking my riding position on the bike in an attempt to get more comfortable.  But alas, that didn't happen.

This isn't to say that I have lost interest.  Actually, as the weather in Chicago has begun hinting around at getting less awful, I have been getting pretty anxious to ride again.  In fact, I brought the road bike into the house last week and dusted it off.  I also installed some new equipment, and re-installed some old equipment which has made me even more antsy to ride.

First, I decided to install yet another handlebar stem.  I had already gone from the OE 110mm stem to a 90mm stem last season.  That made the ride a bit more comfortable for me, but I still ended up with the seat as far forward as I could get it.  On a couple of my last rides, I noticed that if I pushed myself back on my seat a bit with my arms I felt as if I could generate a stronger pedal stroke.  That got me to thinking that maybe having my seat all the way forward, while comfortable for my arms, back and hands, might have me positioned a too far head of the cranks.  So I decided to go down to a 70mm stem and move the seat back a just a bit.  I hope that I will end up in essentially the same position on the bike as far as my reach from the seat to the handle bars, but move my overall position on the bike back a bit.  I also went to a stem with a steep 30 degree rise.  My thinking here is that the slightly more upright position on the bike will be a little more comfortable still for the long rides.  I am definitely getting that century ride done in 2009, so I'm setting the bike up more as a tourer and less as a speed demon.

Along those same lines, I felt that the tires were due for a change.  The bike was wearing the original 700 x 23c Continental Ultra Sports that came on the bike.  I don't think they had many miles put on them by the original owner, and I put less then 400 on them last season, but I thought I could see some cracking in the sidewalls near the beads.  Since tires aren't terribly expensive and can vastly change the bikes handling characteristics, I decided to go ahead and make a swap.  I read tire reviews and opinions until I was blue in the face, and finally settled on a new set of Continental 4000's.  Based on some other things I had read, I decided to go from a 23c tire size to a 25c.  The tires are just slightly more "plump" then the 23c's.  From what I have read, I will probably not notice any significant drag due their increased size, but the ride may be smoothed a bit.  This will be nice for these nasty Chicago streets and will hopefully fend off fatigue to some degree as my distances increase.  I half wished I had taken a few rides on the old tires prior to switching, just to get a better feel, but when they arrived, I just got too excited and mounted them up.

Finally, I re-installed the aerobars that were on the bike when I bought it.  This also goes back to my planning for longer rides.  Especially now that I have raised the bars a bit with the new stem, I thought I might actually make use of the aerobars now and then, just to have another position to ride in from time to time.  And what the heck - they look cool too.

Aside from adding a small top tube mounted bag for snacks, that is about the extent of changes I've made to the bike.  It is leaning against the wall near me right now, calling out to me to be ridden...

Soon we will ride, Mr. Fuji...  Soon we will ride.

One More Ride

Today may have been the last nice day for '08. Rain moves in tomorrow, and the possibility for snow flurries this weekend. So I knew I was riding into work again today. But I decided to take the roadie this time. I was hoping that, after two trips on the Moab, the Fuji would feel effortless, which it did not, mostly due to some pretty gnarly head winds on the way home.

Since I was on the Fuji today, I had to stay on the streets instead of the bike path I've been going on and on about over the past couple of days. This is not quite as peaceful, but the distance is a bit shorter, and I never noticed until today what good drafting partners cars make! When your fighting a head wind and 10 or 15 cars go whizzing by at 45 and 50 mph, you seriously do get pulled right along with the dried leaves. I found myself looking forward to the next batch of cars coming up in my mirror.

I Can't believe I got to ride in short sleeves and shorts in November.

This trip put the bike computer at 360 miles. Figure in the two trips I made on the Moab last Friday and Monday, and one other mtb trip to work a couple weeks ago, and that puts my at right around 420 miles on bikes since I started this blog late this summer. I kind of hoped my speeds would be up a little more by now, and I'd feel a little stronger, but I'm getting there. I need to start working on some other exercises for the rest of the ol' bod over the winter, and I think I'll look into a trainer, just to continue working my lungs and heart a bit as well as just keeping my butt used to being in the saddle. I have some more ideas about how I'd like to adjust my positioning on the bike for next season.

A friend of mine has gotten into the hobby a bit more this year too, and he'd like to join me on this goal of riding at least 1 century in '09. We've decided to start with some shorter charity rides at the beginning of the year, just to get a feel for how these supported rides all work, and then progress to a century ride somewhere around the middle of summer and into early fall. The more the better I say. We'll be reaching some new goals and hopefully contributing to some worthy causes along the way.

• 19.59 miles
• 1' 17"
• 15.9 mph avg.
• 25.6 mph max.

Got This From a Friend This Morning

Good one:

And Again.

Rode the mountain bike into work again today. The weather is just too nice not to. I was planning on doing it again tomorrow, but I did try to push a bit harder today, and as a result, I'm just a little bit sore tonight. With having to get over to vote tomorrow, and pick my beautiful daughter from work, and needing to get her home in time to do her homework so she can watch some of the election coverage, I think I'm going to take tomorrow off the bike. Maybe. Oh. I should bring home dinner too. Again, so we can get into the election biz quicker.

yeah. Tomorrow, I'll drive. Looks like the weather will hold through Wednesday, so I'll ride then. The rain rolls in on Thursday.

Thought of taking the Roadie again, but that dirt path through the forest preserve is just too too nice to exchange for riding in traffic.

Indian Summer

So I haven't posted since the 19th.  Sheesh.  Well, as much as I am enjoying riding again,  It's just not much fun once the temp drops below 40 degrees and I don't really have the gear for those temps.

But, we got a little respite in the cold weather this week.  I kept an anxious eye on the forecast, planning to take the Moab into work again.  Everything looked good for Thursday.  The weatherman said it would be 41 in the morning and then reach into the 60's.  So, I got the Moab all set to go and got all the clothes I would need to change into once I got to work packed in my backpack.  I laid out my makeshift cool weather gear and was set to go. 

On Thursday morning, it was 31 degrees.

I drove to work.

However, on Friday morning, it was 46 degrees!  So, I loaded the Moab onto the roof of the Subaru and drove over to my beautiful daughters school and rode the rest of the way into work from there, like I did before.  This makes for a 20 mile biking day, gets me to work on time without having to wake up at 5 and ride in complete darkness, and leaves me with a car to drive my beautiful daughter home from school.  I'm planning to do this again on Monday and for as long as the weather holds up this time.  This will probably the last bit of riding I'll do until next Spring, save for a possible snow ride sometime over the winter, just for fun.  I'm still trying to decide if a trainer will be worth it, or if I should maybe just take a spin class to work on buiding up my heart and wind.  Maybe I'll just do something else for the winter and start up on the bikes again in the spring.  The jury is still out on this one.

The bike path through the forest preserve was just incredible yesterday.  What a nice place to ride.  As much as I enjoy the road bike, getting deep into the woods, away from traffic, on a dirt path, with the leaves crunching under the tires is tough to beat.  There were two spots in particular yesterday that stood out.  The trees still have their leaves in these sections, but they have turned a bright, bright yellow-lime color.  They were so thick that I could barely see the blue sky above them, but the sun was shining so bright that it lit the floor of the forest in this amazing lime green hue.  It was just amazing.

No real data for this ride.  As this may become a "regular" ride for me, I should probably start tracking my usual basic data just for kicks.  I guess I could just mount the GPS on the mountain bike again.  Maybe for Monday.