Learning to hurt

So, after going on the group ride on Thursday i was not sure about going out for a ride on Friday. However, the weather was so nice and cool I couldn't resist. I decided to go on my "default ride" which is a route I have been riding for years and is like an old familiar friend. One of the problems with that is I tend to not take it very seriously. I know each little incline and turn so well I could probably ride it in my sleep. Originally I had intended to ride this as a recovery ride, but when I got a bit more than a mile into it and was on a slight downhill in the big chainring I decided to just do the whole ride in the big chainring. I still shifted through the gears in it, but it purposefully was harder than it normally would have been. And a funy thing happened - I rode much better.

I do the vast majority of my riding alone. I think one of the dangers in that is that it is easy to get complacent. There is no one there to spur me along, so I tend to ride just hard enough to keep from hurting. Going on the group ride pushed me, and pushed me hard. I was worried I was going to be toast the next day so I picked an easy ride. But once I got going I realized what had been going on and what had been missing from my riding. I NEED to hurt. I NEED goals. I NEED something to keep me working hard. I was never going to get better riding to keep from hurting. So doing the whole ride in my heavy gears turned my usual easy ride into something that while most of the time wasn't super-hard, was harder than it usually is. And instead of being really wiped after the hard day on Thursday, I rode strong. It was like a lightbulb going on. I also committed to pedalling more. I have a tendency to coast a lot. So I was riding in a heavier set of gears and pedalling much more than usual and I loved it. I also rode it much faster than usual, by about 1.5mph faster than normal.

The other thing I did was to work on standing up to climb. I have a tendency to sit for climbs, and as a result the muscles used in standing are seriously under-worked. So even when I want to stand to get some kick on a hill it hurts too much to really help. Something else to work on. I have gotten better with pedalling faster in a lighter gear most of the time. So many places for me to improve, and I have let most of the summer go by without seriously committing to anything. Ugh. Well, I have a couple more months of decent riding weather and I am seriously considering a trainer for the winter, though the idea of cycling indoors doesn't appeal to me much. We'll see, I guess.

Like a virgin

So, I went on my first real group ride tonight. I had heard about it at my LBS a couple of weeks ago and decided that I would give it a shot, despite the fact that I am, as the title of this blog suggests, fat and slow. I was kinda torn about it since there was an FBC ride tonight, but I decided that I didn't feel like riding all the way downtown, drinking a couple of beers then going through the whole chaotic ride to bar number two. I have to work in the morning so I couldn't fully indulge on the FBC, so it seemed like a good time to miss it. In the future any FBC ride that falls on a Friday, Saturday or any day before I have a day off from work I will totally be at.

Anyway, this group ride leaves out from Whitworth University (Go Pirates!) which is really close to my house. I got there on time, which is highly unusual for me. I recognized one of the riders from my LBS where I had heard about the ride initially, so I knew I was in the right place. There were two other guys already there, and a coupe of the usual suspects from this ride stopped by to say they weren't riding. In the end it was just the 4 of us. So we headed out in the general direction of a lot of rides I do, but at the bottom of the hill where I usually go straight we took a right. It wasn't long until we hit some (for me) pretty serious climbs. I was told the first 8 miles were pretty much up hill, but it got better than that. Now, I am a big guy (245 pounds) and as such I am not at all built for climbing. Not even a little bit. I quickly got dropped and started hurting. One of the other riders dropped back to hang with me, while I was all granny-geared and wheezing so hard I almost couldn't thank him for coming back for me. It was one of the nicest things on earth. One of the reasons I have never gone on group rides is that I was intimidated. I didn't want to slow it down and have someone get pissed off that I was dragging their workout down. If these guys were upset about me being so slow on the climbs they did an Oscar-worthy job of hiding it.

About the time we got to the top of the last climb we saw that the weather that had been threatening north of us had erupted into a full-on storm, with a headwind that nearly stopped me in my tracks. We decided to bug out and head back. This was the best part of the ride, since what goes up must come down and the only advantage to being a fat guy on a bike is that you can fly down hills with very little effort. The trip back to the intersection at the bottom of all the climbing was FAST. I had taken my bike computer off to input some data into mapmyride.com and had forgotten to put it back on, so I have no idea exactly how fast, but it felt like flying. I wish the pavement would have been a bit smoother, but other than that it was some of the best riding I have ever done. One of the riders had hung back with me and we managed to catch up to the other two pretty easily.

Once we got to the bottom (which is right along the Little Spokane River, one of my favorite places), all that was left was two climbs between me and home. The first is steep and intense, and has always been the hill I use to challenge myself. After the hard climbing I had done earlier I wasn't looking forward to this, but it wasn't that bad. The last climb is longer but less pitched so it is way easier on you. By the time we got to the top of this climb it had started to rain. It felt REALLY good. After that it was a couple of blocks to the starting point of the ride, where I said my good-byes and rode on home. It was a great ride and a great experience. I am glad I went, and glad that it wasn't anything like what I was afraid group rides would be like. I am totally looking forward to next week, and between now and then I am going to ride every hill I can find.

You can check out the route we took here.

Tonight's After-dinner ride

This is another in my quest to put together good short rides. It was a blast to go super fast on the way out, though I was into the wind so it wasn't as fast as it could be. From the last post it may have looked like I am afraid of going fast downhill, but it is mostly about being comfortable with the road and the area. I have ridden tonight's route as part of larger rides for years. I know the road and the traffic well enough not to worry too much about it. I think I topped it out at about 35 mph, with a good wind I can get 40 on the way out but 'twas not to be today.

Kept working on my form, knees high, lighter gearing. I granny-geared a lot on the way back, but that is how I roll. It's all part of being fat and slow, people. I am enjoying playing with mapmyride.com. I prefer the cleaner interface of bikely, but mapmyride seems to work better (and I enjoy the facebook app that lets anyone who knows me check out the rides I am talking about).

In Tour news, Contador is an asshole. He is amazingly powerful in the mountains, but he is also stupid. There was no reason to drop Kloden today, except he wanted to get more time on Lance. A smart racer has to balance what is good for the rider, good for the team, and good for the sponsors. Putting three people is good for the sponsors, which is good for the team. It would also be good for the rider if the rider planned to ride for that team again the following year, but I think it is obvious that AC has left the building when it comes to Astana (or whatever it is next year). Lance can get a couple of minutes back on Contador in the TT tomorrow, and if the team rides for Lance instead of Alberto on Ventoux Lance can still seal the deal. Many people would cry foul on that one, but you can't shit on your teammates and expect them to give their all for you.

Evening Ride

So, I rode this tonight after dinner. I have been working on putting together some shorter rides now that it is really hot for much of the day. I have a lot of 20+ mile rides, but I never put much effort into finding shorter routes. This has a good mix of terrain, flats at the start and finish, nice climb up 5-Mile, screaming descent down Cedar. I would love the descent more if the pavement were better and I hadn't seen a couple of deer earlier in my ride. I am in no hurry to try to hug a deer at 30 miles an hour. Also, the limited shoulder means there is nowhere to go if something goes wrong which makes me nervous.

I worked more on getting my knees higher and pedalling a lighter gear with a faster cadence. I think it is going well. I also have been working on my foot position. I noticed on my last couple of long rides that I had problems with my feet going numb and some serious pain. I think I finally identified the culprit as the platform pedals I use on my commuter bike. They are nice and wide so they encourage stomping on them. Since the SPD pedals I use on my road bike don't cover my whole foot, so if I push down too much I get uneven pressure and it causes the numbness. As much as I hate to do it I am going to have to put the SPD pedals back on the commuter. I had switched them out for a couple of reasons. One, bike commuting is unpredictable and I like to be able to react fast. Two, I hate having to deal with the two pairs of shoes thing. With the platforms I can just wear my work shoes while I ride. Looks dorky, works good.

In other news, I am so completely stoked about the FBC ride on Friday that I can't stand it. I am trying to get as many unsuspecting half-assed cyclists I know to show up and knock a few back while creating a spectacle. Hope to see you there!

You got robbed

I just want to say that George Hincapie totally got robbed this morning. And I don't think Astana is to blame. Astana could have reeled in the break much earlier had they decided to. However, once Ag2r and Garmin started to attack Astana had no choice but to respond. Nocentini had not shown any sign that he was interested in holding onto the maillot jaune until the end there. All in all, very sad. Big George was obviously very hurt at the end of the stage, feeling like he had been betrayed. Bummer.

Welcome to my new joint

So, I started my other blog (www.chihweenie.blogspot.com) with the idea I would write a lot about riding and other stuff. However, it seems that I spend as much time there talking about life in general as I do about cycling. So, I thought "I'll just start another blog!". So I did. I will focus on cycling only on this one and since I am tubby, it'll always be from the perspective of someone who is larger but loves cycling. So, here we go.

I forced myself to go for a ride today. I really needed to ride but I have had family in town the last couple of weeks and so I wasn't getting away to ride as much as I usually do. The beautiful thing about being a fat-ass is that if I don't ride for a while, you can't really tell by looking at me. Sadly, my legs and ass know right away that I haven't been riding as much as usual. But I digress. So, I decided after dinner that I was going to go for a ride, just a short one, but I was going to go hard. It marked the first time I have ridden since I did some wheel switching, and I was anxious to check out the sweet upgrade wheel I got from Trek as a warranty replacement. The story on the wheel is that my commuter bike was developing cracks on the rear wheel around the spoke nipples (probably because I am heavy). I took it to the bike shop and they contacted Trek and then, nothing. I waited, and waited and waited. Finally I called to ask the shop about it. They told me that had gotten a wheel in but they weren't sure if it was the right one so they wanted to call Trek and make sure that it was, indeed, the wheel for my humble commuter bike. It was. I was told it was something of an upgrade, so I was stoked to check it out. Upgrade was kind of an understatement. I ride to work on a Trek 7500 FX that I bought new about 5 years ago. It was my first "real" bike and I love it. It came with Bontrager Select wheels, which are pretty much the standard Trek wheel. The wheel they sent me as a warranty replacement? A brand-spankin' new Bontrager Race X Lite. Crazy.

Putting that nifty new road wheel on my trusty commuter bike would be a complete waste. My initial thought was to buy a matching front wheel and put them on my road bike. Talking to my wife completely put an end to that. So, after some serious discussion with my LBS crew I decided to put the Race X Lite on the road bike, move the Select that was on that to my commuter and keep the old rim around for parts. It took me too long to decide to do this, but I am glad I did.

In any case, back to the ride that I started this post to talk about. So, after dinner, short ride, go hard. I did a shortened version of my usual ride - out Parksmith to Peone to Bruce and then back, about 10 miles. Normally the ride out to Bruce Rd. is the warm-up part of my ride, but since I was making it short I hauled ass from the get-go. It felt great. I wish I had been more scientific about determining if the new wheel was making any kind of difference in the ride, but I wasn't paying that much attention. Also, I am trying to get my knees higher when I ride. One of the cool things about watching too much Tour de France coverage is you get a good look at what proper form looks like. I realized I needed to get a little more "snap" in my pedal stroke to make the most of it. So, no way to tell if the new wheel made a difference or if it was the change in form. Some combination of the two I would guess. Anyway, glad I made myself ride. Now I just need to make myself stick to it.

Oh, and if you live in the North Spokane area and are similarly fat and slow, or fat and slow-tolerant, drop me a line. I'd love to find someone to ride with regularly. Peace out.