Suffer-o-rama

Yesterday I did my usual sunday ride when it’s Everest Challenge training time- about 55 miles and 6800′ of climbing. Near the end of the ride I go up highway 9. “Teh 9″ is a very popular motorcycling road. I don’t mind sharing the road with motorcycles, and I enjoy seeing interesting ones (twins, vintage, and especially two-strokes. In-line four cylinder sport bikes, which are the majority, bore me).

Even with the new lower speed limit, heavy patrolling and double botts-dots on the center line, it’s a racer road. The shoulders are littered with sport bike debris from the frequent crashes. One of my big fears on this road is getting taken out by a crashing motorcycle.

As I was approaching a tight 20 mph hairpin near the top some sport bikes went by. The first one tucked his front end but saved it. The next guy went down right behind me. I heard his bike skittering along the pavement and turned to see it slide by me. I slowed and it came to a stop about two feet away. I stopped, leaned my bike against the guardrail and asked the rider if he was ok. He was- it was low speed and he was wearing full racing leathers. I stopped traffic while he and his buddy picked the bike up and pushed it to the shoulder. I talked to the guys for a while trying to discern if the rider was thinking straight- sometimes after a crash all the adrenalin will make you stupid. While we were there another group of riders went by and one of them crashed too. He was also ok although he nearly was run down by the rider behind him who did the classic thing of fixating on the rider that’s sliding on the road, not on the path you need to take to go around him.

After determining that everyone was ok I got out of there before more bikes crashed. As I neared the summit I could make out a slime trail on the road. It got heavier and heavier until it ended under a crappy blue Ford van parked at the top of the climb. I wonder how many crashes he caused yesterday?

ericm training rides

Did the usual thursday group ride today. We had more than the usual number of guys- about 10. I was third to the top of the first climb, won the first sprint (it’s a hill sprint otherwise I would not have a chance) and got second on the second climb.

On the descent we turn from highway 35 to 84. There’s a right turn lane there and a stop sign. The other guys have gotten kind of bad about rolling that stop sign (it’s safe to do so) and I have been following along so as not to get left behind.

This time as I was slowing I looked down the bank and spotted the motorcycle cop lurking there. I called out to stop, and stopped and put a foot down for good measure. But it was too late for the front four… they’d rolled it and the cop already had his lights going.

Karl had stoppped next to me but said something about it being “bogus”. I told him to cool it and said we should just go down the hill out of sight and wait.

But no, he went over to argue with the cop. I know that never works. If you haven’t been pulled over then stopping is asking for it, especially if you’re all wearing the same team kit. Even if the cop didn’t want to give you all tickets for arguing with him it’s hard for a non-cyclist to tell exactly how many identical looking riders stopped or didn’t stop. So I kept going.

A couple of the 60+ guys who are slower descenders missed all excitement and kept going, so we had a small group for the final sprint… which I lost. One of those guys has a mean sprint.

ericm training rides

Late last week I decided that I wanted to do repeats on Mt Diablo on saturday. I did look at the weather, and yes, I noted that there was a heat advisory. But I kind of like heat, and I wanted to get some heat acclimitization in. It’s been colder than usual so I haven’t gotten much warm weather riding in.

The first two repeats were nice. I didn’t go all that fast- 1:10 for the south gate and about 1:13 for the slightly longer north gate- but the weather was fine. Even at 8am I was able to start off without a vest or arm warmers, something that rarely happens.

On the descent back to the south gate it got kind of warm. Then it got hot. Then I went around a corner and someone opened the door to hell’s own blast furnace. It was stupid hot, hot enough that the air was rising off the baking ground in evil waves of heat. It was so miserable that I had to laugh at how ridiculous it was. When I got to the car, even the cold water in my cooler was warm. But it was still cooler than the hot water in my bottles so I put it in. I thought about quitting but I knew that if I did I’d be disappointed- I wasn’t really tired yet, just hot. So I decided that I’d go at least to the south gate ranger station (about 1/3 of the way up) and see how I felt.

A mile or so up the road I passed a car that had another Webcor rider about ready to go on his ride. We rode together up to the junction ranger station (about halfway) where he said that he wanted to go dunk his head under the faucet and I should ride on. A couple miles up the road my feet started hurting a lot- when it’s hot they swell up. It got so bad that I stopped in a tiny little bit of shade and took off my left shoe for a bit, then put it on with the straps real loose. Aaah, much better. By the top I was severely overheated… when I got there I stood in the shade and panted like a dog for a while. After about four bottles of water and some more salt tablets I went back down. On the way down I squirted some of my water on my legs to cool down, but it was like taking a hot shower. When I checked my data after the ride I found that the max temp on the ride was 109 degrees. I felt so bad after getting home that I spend the rest of the day, and all day Sunday, hiding inside on the couch. It would have been more productive to have done something easier and cooler near the coast so I would have had something left for a ride on Sunday.

Note how the power goes down for each climb but the heart rate goes up:

ericm training rides

I was going to do Mt Diablo repeats today but there was a TT on the north gate road, so I went to Mt Hamilton instead. It’s a good thing I did, it turns out that I am still tired from this week. I only managed the front and back side (6500′) and was pretty slow.

There was a guy crashed with a possible broken collarbone on the back side. I stopped to make sure he was ok- he already had a friend there. No cell reception but when I got to the bottom there was a truck full of local ranchers who were getting reception by standing outside the truck and holding the phone up, yelling at the sherriff into it. I thanked them about 20 times and went back up. The collarbone guy was sitting up and was feeling better but still not getting up. The sherriff and CDF truck passed me as I continued the climb, and the ambulance went by as I was at the observatory.

The rest of my ride I was a bit more conservative on the descents. All it takes is one mistake and you’re looking at 4-6 weeks off the bike.

ericm training rides

Lately I have been riding to the club “B” ride, doing the 45-50 mile ride, and then riding back. That’s usually 75-80 miles if I go from town. It’d be a lot more if I rode from home, and a little too much for me.

I did that yesterday, the from town version that is. The B ride is one of the easier racing club rides in the area and it is open to non members so it gets a number of riders who are new to the racing scene. We had a few yesterday, including one guy with baggy mountain bike shorts, hairy legs and a baggy jersey. In short, a total fred.

Road cyclists tend to identify each other by our dress (and of course shaved legs). Riders who don’t fit in are “freds”. Part of that is safety. You don’t want to have an inexperienced rider in a peloton do something wrong and take you down. And of course part of it is just elitism. We put a lot of work into our conditioning, learning the skills, and accepting being a social outcast. So we get a little defensive about our position in the cycling social hierarchy. You can’t just buy a bike and be a racer, you have to put in the hours and the suffering to earn the label.

I wound up next to baggy shorts fred at the back and was keeping my eye on him as I didn’t want him blundering into me or braking suddenly. He didn’t do anything scary and on the first small hill I moved forward and forgot about him. To be honest I didn’t think I’d need to be concerned about him…. he’d probably get dropped or turn off when he realized that he couldn’t handle the pace.

About 1/3 the way up the first major climb of the ride, Old La Honda, right as I was getting gapped off the back of the leading group of six, someone came by me like I was standing still. It was mr baggy shorts fred, not looking like he was working all that hard. I eventually caught three of the leaders, on my way to setting a personal record for power over 20 minutes. Baggy shorts guy was just up ahead,. When he got to the top no one was there, since we meet down at Skywood. He looked questioning at me and I pointed down the road, saying “you’re going well” as I went by and led the way to Skywood.

As we waited for the rest of the ride no one wanted to talk to him so I did. He said that he’d been with the leaders for a while but cracked, and I explained that he’d used a lot of energy to get up from the back of the pack. On the next climb we wound up chasing a couple others and I managed to get way from baggy shorts guy only because I know the road and the steep parts where I can break a rider who is right on the edge.

Anyhow, by the end of the ride I could see that he was riding straight and predictably and near the front where he could keep an eye on things. In fact at one point he rode off the front, apparently because he got bored! It was cool to see how much he was learning… I don’t normally see that in a new rider. I certainly didn’t pick it up that fast.

If this guy gets serious about racing, he may be pretty good.

ericm training rides

I’ve been slow and tired a lot since I came back from being sick for two weeks. Tuesday’s Chain Reaction ride was particularly bad. My legs just ached. I was last up Kings, getting beat by a new guy on a heavy steel touring bike. New guys usually don’t do well on this ride. Neither do guys on old touring bikes. When I saw him unloading two minutes before the ride and saw his bike I said to myself, ok, you won’t be last today. Wrong! He was much faster than we all thought. By the end the guys were all “Dude, you should get a good carbon bike, you will be even faster”.

Yesterday I did the steep climbs around home ride (22 miles and 3300′ of climbing) for the first time in some months. I even climbed the 10% road back to home on the 34×24 instead of the 34×27, while keeping my power and HR down to endurance pace.

This morning when the alarm went off at 4:30 I didn’t want to get up. I was feeling pretty tired. But by the time I drove up to Woodside and got on my bike I was feeling fine. My interval (1 24 minute @ SST went well, and then I went back up Kings with the ride and went at SST pace there too. The touring bike guy did not drop me, in fact I was at the front of the group to the top (ok, we wern’t going all out). I didn’t get dropped on the flat stretch on Skyline like I did Tuesday even though the stiff crosswind meant that I couldn’t get any draft. I even contested the Skylonda sprint. Then more SST on the final climb up West OLH. All for a total of 36 miles and 4400′ of climbing.

I am really psyched that I feel so good on the third day of a three day block. But I’d like to sleep in till 6 or so tomorrow.

While we were waiting for Millo to fix a flat I mentioned that I want to do the Devil Mountain Double century as my first double. A couple of the guys were all “well, just jump in at the deep end!” That’s guys who have done it. But I don’t think it’ll be that bad. It’s only 14 hours or so on the bike, I should be able to handle that. I think.

ericm training rides

I felt ok after yesterday’s two hour easy ride so I showed up for the Chain Reaction ride today. Only three others made it; maybe the cold and fog kept them away. When we rolled off I announced to the group that I was going to be slow. I was right! Even though the pace was moderate I just couldn’t stick after the first mile up Kings. Mike decided to keep me company even though I told him he didn’t have to wait. I think he was enjoying the novelty of being able to ride easily along side me while I was suffering. I couldn’t hang in on the flat part on Skyline, with Mike pulling at a constant pace to keep me on his wheel. I even got dropped on the gradual descent of W. 84. That hasn’t happened for a while. I got dropped just about everywhere. Except on the steeper descent on E. 84, where I often can’t keep up. The road was wet in places and Mike had a good slide in the wet there last week so I think everyone was being cautious. But for once I had no problem keeping up.

Even with being slow and my legs hurting from being unaccustomed to the effort, and the fog, it was nice to get out. The fog cleared and the sun came out for a moment as I was finishing the ride. That part there made the whole two hours worth it.

ericm training rides

Today I got out for the first time in 6 days. I had stuff to do (clean house & gutters), then my sister was visiting and I wanted to spend time with her (and she didn’t bring her bike!).

I think that is the longest I have been off the bike since my accident a couple years ago.

I went on the usual group ride this morning. My legs hurt at first but then they loosened up and started working. Karl showed up for his first group ride in five or six weeks since he broke his collarbone. So I went kind of slow to be social. Not that slow though- I thought I was doing everyone a favor by pulling on the false flat section on Skyline until Karl came around and upped the pace to where I was barely hanging on.

After I got to work I realized how much better I feel- my mood is better, my brain is working again, and I have a familiar dull ache in my legs. It feels good.

ericm training rides

I did my last big day today. Three times up Mt Diablo (for a total of 10k’ of climbing) with some teamates. Bryan did this ride with me a few weeks ago and I encouraged him to re-join the club and race EC. Doing Diablo in an hour is considered a good time for most people; today he did it in under an hour three times in a row (actually we did the north gate once and he was slightly over an hour there but that side is longer and has more climbing. The time he did would be under an hour on the south gate). He’s likely to do very well in the 45s.

I was disapointed since I was the slowest of the group, but my times were the best I’ve ever done for thee Diablos (1:05, 1:07, 1:08) and I didn’t feel too bad afterwards. During the ride when I was off the back I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I am even bothering to do the race. Given my present abilities I will do well to get into the top 10. Getting on the podium is out of the question. But now that I am home I am feeling a little better about it. My goal for the race hasn’t changed, it’s just that a couple of the guys who are going to finish in front of me will be teamates.

ericm training rides

That’s what I heard a minute into this morning’s first hill interval, as I stood up to power up a steeper section. Another broken spoke on my Powertap rear wheel. That’s the second in the last month. For someone who doesn’t weigh much and doesn’t make much power I am remarkably hard on rear wheels.

I had to do a road-side re-truing just to get the wheel close enough that it could pass through the brake with the quick-release open. Even then it was quite a ways out of true. I bailed out of my intervals, worried that I’d completely destroy the weakend wheel, but still did the Chain Reaction ride. With the wobble in the wheel I had to take the curvy descents slower than normal.

I just found out that my Cervelo’s fork has been recalled… they have been breaking. Aiee! Not what I want to be worrying about when I’m tucked in at 50 mph on a long desert descent or banked over in a 40 mph turn on skyline. So now I’ll have some last minute equipment hassles before EC.

Speaking of Everest Challenge, I signed up last night. I’ll be in the master 45s this year. Kevin K from the Chain Reaction ride (and my club, Webcor/Alto Velo) is also racing in the 45s. The plan is to ride together for at least part of each day, assuming that we’re both going roughly the same that is. When we rode 3x Diablos a few weeks back I was feeling better on the first one and he was feeling much better on the last one while I faded and he left me behind. Kevin’s always much stronger than I am on the flat and will be a faster descender on the long straights so I’d benefit from us riding together, assuming I can keep up!

ericm Equipment, training rides