20080429
Excelent roller ride
Iroquois Sports - Presque Isle ITT
Meanwhile, Henry Dimmick took 44th overall and 3rd in the Men's 45-49 year old division. Other racers attending were Randy McCracken, T.Lyle Ferderber, Mike Maher, Dave Hickey, Rich Allen & Ray Sielski. Time Trialing is good food for the soul :)
20080428
Tour de Ephrata 08
On Sunday morning more bad luck started early. My TT start time was 9:42am and it was only 42*. Here is my picture of me warming up on the trainer and gasping for air while having an asthma attack just doing an easy spin before my actual TT warm up routine.
It was a fun course, starting with 5.5 flat miles before you really started to go up. I knew I was in trouble from the start when I couldn't breathe and my speeds on the flat terrain were low. Then once I got to the mountain part of the course I really began to struggle. I still could barely breathe and now I was trying to mash away up the climb in a 42x27 gear. I put on the biggest cassette i own but didn't want to bother changing my chain rings for this one race. My time put me mid-pack, even with all that working against me. So I had to be a little happy.The crit. in the afternoon didn't start until 2:25pm so I had a while to wait. I went and got something to eat and then went to the race venue to see all of the earlier races. This whole time I was very tired from the combination of the two previous races, having to wake up early the previous two mornings (Saturday to get up and drive to the race and Sunday to get up for the TT), and lastly I was tired from the 4 1/2 drive to the race venue on Saturday. The crit. was 25 laps long or about 23 miles. I started with no snap in my legs and dangled near the back for about 5 laps at which point I decided that I wasn't moving up any and I just kept falling further behind out of corners so I decided to pull the plug on the weekend's racing a little early.
It was a good time and a wonderfully organized race. The competition at this race far superseded any at any other 3,4 race I've ever been a part of. I'm really glad I got to experience this event but only wish I could have had a better showing for Ag3r/Indianacycling.com.
20080425
Spring stinks!
I think the winter down here in VA has nicer weather than the Spring. It's been cloudy or rainy here for about 3 weeks with a few beautiful days thrown in. Yesterday started out cloudy for my ride on the parkway but there were still a ton of people out riding. I passed 2 groups of 10 or more. I met one guy on a touring bike fully loaded so I decided to slow down and talk with him on one of the climbs. He had an Australian accent and told me that he was on his third day of a 2 month journey that would take him from Williamsburg, VA to Oregon. If I only had 2 months to spare! Actually if I had 2 months to spare I'd probably just stay around here but be able to race more often.
If I could get a hold of some of this stuff, I'd probably go faster. Maybe they could sponsor us;-)
At the end of my ride yesterday i decided to do my monthly power tests. I thought after riding for 2 hours my numbers would be lower than last time but to my surprise I had my highest power for 20 minutes ever. I guess all of those intervals are working. Now I'm just taking it easy on Thursday and Friday ahead of the Tour de Ephrata this weekend.
20080424
20080418
Hammer Brothers Ride!
20080414
Best Race Ever!
Yesterday was the most fun race that I've ever been a part of. It was the Harris-Roubaix just outside of Harrisonburg, VA. We started with an 8 mile parade type ride from downtown Harrisonburg to the race course. Then the actual race consisted of 3 fifteen mile circuits. Each circuit had 5 miles of paved road and 10 miles of gravel. The field was extremely varied and there was no category separation. We had a few pros, including at least one that just returned from the tour of CA, some Cat.-2s, and even some people who were even slower than I am. It was a great and jarring ride. By the end my seat had slipped and was now slanted back and my water bottle cages had been shaken loose. Then afterward everyone met and sat around a bonfire for laughs and to refuel. A great time was had by all (I think). It was a super hard day but very worthwhile and I look forward to doing it again next year.
More pics HERE
20080408
hard training and bad weather
Today started out looking the same so I wasn't very excited about heading out on a 3.5 hour ride but I did. About 2 hours into the ride the sun came out and things started to warm up.
Hopefully more summer-like weather starts to appear soon.
20080402
The worst part of spring
Normally I won't stop to take pictures but today had one exception when a bear cub that was no bigger than a beagle crossed in front of me. I thought I better stop in case mama bear was close behind. Lucky for me she wasn't. I tried to get a picture of it but I was too slow with the camera.
Unlike yesterday, today I ended up riding home into the wind. It was awful and I was already tired.
Tomorrow looks like rain and temps in the 40s so I'll probably be back inside.
I guess we should enjoy it while we can.