Finishing 2014 strong

So far winter in Colorado has been clear and dry with a lot of daytime sunshine. Since the days are so short now, the majority of my riding has been at night. I'm pleased with my fitness and ability to ride 1-2 hours at a brisk pace 5 to 6 days a week. I fit in a few hard hill efforts on my single speed  to try and maintain my VO2 max. I have spent the last 2 years ramping up my volume so it really is rewarding to put in 150 to 175 miles a week consistently now. I was only logging about 20 miles a week to begin with. 

The most important thing I have learned this year is never miss you glycogen window if you want to maximize you're athletic ability. If I miss it, my legs feel tired and sluggish. If I hit it by consuming about 200 calories minimum within 30 minutes of a workout, I feel great! I then ride further and faster on my next ride which for me is usually 8 to 12 hour later. Can't log 10+ rides a week as I have been if I don't re-file during my window.

As I mentioned, almost all my riding has been at night so I don't have manny pictures. Here are 2 from the last 4 weeks:

Yep, it is a dark cold world out there for a cyclist in December but my niterider 600 lumen LED lamp has my back.. I mean my front.

I did manage to get a nice warm sunny mid day lunch ride in with my work riding club. It was 60 degrees but only 3 of us made the ride. I enjoyed the sun on my calves! 

I have just about completed the Ice Bike Challange which is to commute 52 times to work between October 1st and March 1st. Today was number 50! Finnally a challange I can complete! I still plan to ride every day and see how manny commutes I can get in before March. I'm sure we will have more snow days to come. That should keep things interesting.

Fall Chill and Icebike Challange

The warm sunny weather of fall ended abruptly with a major cold front that brought bellow zero temperatures and about 6 inches of snow over the week. This made my commute difficult but still doable with my studded cross tires, ski helmet, and snow goggles along with the usual winer riding gear. The cold was quite bearable and I enjoyed to challange of making the usually tame 10 mile ride to  work in extreme conditions. Check out #icebikechallenge for more pictures in Instagram!

My coldest commute so far was -5 degrees F. The hardest part was having the legs to plow though the snow on the bike path and road shoulder before it had been plowed. Talk about a resitance workout! That's enough resistance to bog down a car with 100 hp an my little legs tired quickly despite all my training. Remember though, as long as you can hold onto your summer fitness with cosistant efforts every week though the winter, you will be fit and fast come spring. I really despise indoor trainers and avoid gyms like ebolla so this is how I keep my fitness and my sanity since I'm addicted to exercise and need my daily fix. 

My Nokian A10 studded tires are only 32cm wide but they roll like a full knobby 2.1 off road tire. The benefit is that they hold onto icy road amazingly well and I actually feel a great reduction in resitance over packed snow vs. dry pavement. 

I'm really glad I mounted studs on my cross bike vs. my singlespeed because I really need gears to overcome the various road conditions I encounter on each snow ride. 

At last, this week we are thawing out and highs are going to be in the 40s rather than 20's so I will be back on my singlespeed commuter soon. I installed chains on my Old 26er so next major snow storm, I will be ready. 32cm is too narrow for fresh snow over 3". 

Ride on all you brave ice bikers, 

Fall in Colorado

Sara and I have been enjoying fall here in Loveland Colorado. With sunny skies, changing leaves, and warm temperatures it's really hard not to ride till our legs beg for mercy. It looks like I will exceed 45 hours of training time for October which would make it my most productive training month of the year. So far, just one or two frosty morning commutes. Most mornings are in the 40's and most afternoons are in the 60's or 70's. I have yet to find a weekend club ride because Sara and I have been to busy plotting our own solo adventures. I am still on track to log more than 4,000 miles this year even with the setback of moving so I'm stoked for that! Sara passed 500 and hopes to reach 750. Go Sara go!

Sara enjoying the ride to Boulder:

Sara and I decided to make a ride from Longmont to Boulder and back. Sa it turns out, the trail isn't paved and we brought road bikes so we took the highway most of the way after getting lost. We logged over 35 miles, Sara's longest ride yet! 

We also took the river trail west through Windsor to Greeley and back which was over 44 miles. Another new record and a lovely ride for myself, Sara, and Suki!

I have been craving a good cross race but with this nice weather, I don't need an organized race to give me an excuse to ride in a downpour. My legs have been plenty tired without it. I do need to get at least one cross race in this season. I would love to race in the snow, I think that would be a hoot! 

I made some upgrades to my committee singlespeed so it can deliver 100 miles plus a week, problem free. The tires and chain were worn already after 500 miles. The $10 freewheel was also making qite a woriesome racket. The 46 x 16t gearing was a little tall for all but my best days so I changed to a 44t ring. I am actually faster by far with this gear so it was a good change and my legs feel less tired. I installed a new KMC chain and my drivetrain is looking good. 

This heavy Chinese singlespeed has over 700 miles on it now and at last feels dependable and comfortable. Manny more miles to come! The point of this bike is to reduce maintainable and keep the wear and tear down on my carbon cross bike which I have had about 11 months and I have personally put about 3,500 miles on it and I bought it used. Most bikes seem to last 5,000 to 20,000 miles depending so it's something to consider for people like me that like to ride every day.

The bike fence along Lovelands City trail:

I'm looking forward to a long cold winter of cycling to come. I joined a group on Facebook and Strava called the Ice Bike Challange so I won't be alone! The goal is to ride to work at least 50 times between October and April. I expect to hit that by January at current rate but we will see! 

Loveland Colorado, a new place to call home

I am now about a month into my new job in Loveland, Colorado. It's a small town south of Ft. Collins. Upon arriving, we stayed in a cabin for about a month while trying to secure our new residence and I decided to get 2 new bikes to add to our quiver. One singlespeed road bike for me and a hybrid townie for Sara. These bikes fit our new small town bike path lifestyle and the singlespeed is great for a daily rider since it's so flat here. The 46/16 gearing seemed perfect. I picked up this Chinese steel tank from Recycled cycles and changed the stem, bars, and levers for super cheap. 

Sara's bike is a nice light Aluminum hybrid which she has really enjoyed. We added a basket for our little yorkie but she gets motion sick easily.

My first Moutain bike ride was at Devils Backbone. Very desert like terrain here and I'm not super keen on all the rattlesnakes. I snapped this shot on my way to The Horsetooth reservoir. 

Sara joined me for a ride but found the terrain to be more rugged than she had hopped for. 

August was the end of Monsoon season and we did experience frequent intense storms. The sun breaks make for frequent rainbows. 

I cheap my Chinese freewheel only lasted 200 miles so I switched to fixed gear but 20 miles a day fixed just didn't work for my knees so I switched back to freewheel and my knees are happy. I am really enjoying my bike path 20 mile round trip commute and I am finally feeling like the 100 miles over 5 days a week is very doable and I can still fit in some pleasure rides on top of that. My previous commute I had been used to was half the distance so it took some training to work up to it. 

How can you beat a commute like this? 

short sleeves won't last much longer, next week is October!

Time for browner pastures

Sometimes it's the big things that get in the way of training.. Such as getting laid off an re-locating 4 or 5 states away. It's official, my wife and I are moving to Colorado for a more dry, sunny, and laid back way of life. I hope that this little hickup won't kill my cross season; but before I worry too much about a disruption in my training I had better find a new place to park my commuter bike.  I am looking forward to exploring Denver CO and training in a fairly dry but much colder climate this fall and winter. I ordered some narrow studded tires for the winter commute deep in the snow zone as well as some winter cycling shoes so I won't have to hastle with booties twice a day through the cold season.

Packing bikes for shipping properly is a lot of work. The Burley tandem was quite a job. It took an extended bike box and a lot of zip ties. One bike down, 4 to go. Ugg, very sad to pack the bikes away. Looking forward to un-packing in a few weeks. 

One last mossy trail ride at Lord Hill park: 

Washington days numbered but fitness is awesome

The good news is, after about a year and a half of training nearly every day, my fitness has reached new heights. On a long hard climb I can actually recover sorting the segments that are not as steep and push up the next steep segment. I was able to secure a KOM up the back side of Lord Hill out of Snohomish, nice! Just the type of fitness I need to be competitive in cyclocross this year. 

The bad news, I was laid off from work at BE Aerospace allong with a lot of my co workers. Such is the life of an engineer. I put in lots of miles contemplating my next steps to take in life.

Grr, that's a grumpy face. A fast solo ride was a good start. I needed some more miles and some company. The next day I rode wit my team mate Joe and ran into my friend Zach on the way to the ride start. We rode fairly fast and had a great time together. Perfect weather.

80 fast miles in 2 days but I was not done yet. I was still feeling great. The next day I did the Snowhomish Wednesday night ride which was really fast. We were holding 30 on the flats with 3 very strong riders on time trial bikes. That was fun! I really hung in there near the front and didn't getting dropped at all. That was fun. 

130 fast miles in 3 days and I was ready for some rest. Sara and I also decided to move to Colorado. The cost of living in Seattle is getting out of hand and will get much worse with the new $15 an hour minimum wage. I really like the mild winters and the dense forest but it's time to slow our roll off the bike. Now I am applying for jobs like crazy and spending a lot less time on the bike. I hope to still have a good cross season but it may require snow tires. 

Early summer fitness and KOM's

June has been an excellent month for me. My fitness and recovery have surprised me this month. I have set several hill climb KOM's  the past two weeks and put in a lot of miles. My weekly average has finally exceeded 100 and I am now on track for a 4,000 miles and 200,000 feet of elevation by the end of the year if I can keep the momentum going. I did the longest ride in about 10 years with the Snohomish shop. We did our own version of the popular Flying Wheels organized ride and averaged 20 mph including 2 significant hill climbs. It was killer! Jeff Reed of the Starbucks team lead the paceline at over 25 mph on the flats. Tim Turner and I duked it out on the hill climbs and ended up sharing the KOM! Awesome for a segment with nearly 800 riders on the list! Thomas Horan took the next one. These guys are strong riders!

That was a lot of fun. The next day I did a 7 mile hike up to lake 22. 

That was the grand fantail to a significant week of training and this week was nearly the same with a fast 55 mile ride (including a KOM up the back of lord hill) followed by a 9 mile hike up to Bridal Vail Falls and lake Serene. Another great week in the state of Washington! My body hurts so good. I would love to hit up another mtb race soon but at the moment I am enjoying the training miles and hiking with my wife. She even did 26 miles with me on her own bike rather than the tandem this week along with a black dimond hike. What a trooper!

I need my sugar and bread!

I'm off the elimination diet and I learned a few things. The whole purpose for me we to try and figure out how to help clear my skin and aid in muscle recovery. In my case, it had the opposite effect. By eliminating grains and refined sugars, I was not able to hit my 3000 calories a day that I burn and wieght fell off rapidly, as did my training performance. My weight bottomed out at 136 lbs and my waste went down to 28 inches. On the plus side, hill climbing has gotten easier and I found my long lost abs! 

On the minors side, my acne got worse, probaby due to hormone swings from my reduced caloric intake. My muscle recovery was appalling. I could hardly handle 60 miles a week of training volume and I had my word race of the year at a time of the year at a time I should be thriving biased on my training callender. I took two rest days after 5 days and 50 miles and my legs were still tired.

On week three, I gave up on the diet. I started eating sub sandwiches, MetRX bars, and cake along with lots of salad and like a switch, I feel like I'm back from the dead! I set 2 KOMs this week bringing my grand total to 5. The carbs seem to re charge my legs like some kind of super fuel and a day or two after a hard ride, I'm ready for more. 

More KOMs are on the horizon. I set both of these in my work shoes with a 5 lb messanger bag on my back. 

Roslyn Rush XC race 2014

My wife and I made the trip over to The tinny town of Roslyn Washington to break my racing dry spell. Traveling to a race the night before and camping always seems to negatively effect my performance as the stress and exertion of camping and traveling tends to wear me down. My legs were still tired after 2 rest days in a row but I was there and it was time to race!

The beginning of the very steep start climb ( this was my second lap).

I had a few mechanical issues and did not feel great. I was racing as an intermediate and on a good day I should be in the higher category but on a bad day like today, I'm a mid pack finisher. 1200 feet of elevation per lap would have been nice for me had I felt my best. I had a good lead at the top of the climb at the start but my legs would not last. My consistent calorie defincite lately seems to be taking its toll on my body and my bottom bracket failed during the race as well. By the end, the bearings were nearly frozen and my new rear break rotor was rubbing quite a lot. My fork was too soft and my bar ends came loose forcing me to stop for a 60 second trail side repair. I should have done an equipment shake down ride last week. 

Headed toward the finish line.

Despite everything, I didn't want to bail on the second lap. I pushed the envelope a bit too much on the second lap decent and was cramping up a bit. I overshot a corner and had an collision with a large cunck of wood. Oops. 

With everything that went wrong and how bad I was feeling I was happy with my results, 4th in my bracket and 10th overall for cat 2. In the end, I was glad to have made it out to a race and although I didn't make the podium this time around, I re- learned some lessons. It's always better to sleep at home on race day. Always ride the bike a few days before a race to verify your setup. Sealed bearing cartridges need to be packed with greases at least every few years. Keep your training rides chill on race week. If your loosing weight, day after day, eat more food! 

Mid May Fitness Pogress

I am really starting to feel my training pay off this month. I also dropped 5 lbs since starting my elimination diet so my climbing speed is the best it's been since I was 19 years old and 120 lbs (see picture in my header from 2002).

I am now around 136 with significantly stronger legs. The beer belly i had at 150 lbs has been replaced by washboard abbs. I am on the verge of getting too lean but I enjoy the increase in speed at a given effort up all the hills. 

This week, I snatched my fist KOM in 2 years this week on the hardest hill I know of. The steeper and longer the climb is, the better shot I have at s KOM. 

I was stoked to have taken the hill by such a nice margine, about 10% faster than the previous king. 

I also has another fast ride up a killer hill producing a strong of top 10 placements.  Nice!

My legs still hurt. Today is my 2nd day in a row off the bike and I am racing tomorrow at the Rosland Rush XC race tomorrow. Hope my legs will be ready in 24 hours! I have been on reduced volume and higher intensity lately to try and produce some more power out of my skinny little legs. I am just past 1400 miles so far this year, on track for about 3,000 miles by years end. Hast year, I only logged 1000 all from very short rides so I am feeling like a proper cyclist again. 

Home made energy drink 2nd try

I made a second attempt at a home made energy drink free of fillers and refined sugar. This time, I believe I am on to something. 

One batch contained:

1 3/4 cup filtered water

1/8 tbs natural pink Himolayan salt

1/8 tbs baking soda

1 fresh squeezed organic Lemmon

4 tbs coconut blossom sugar

1/4 cup organic unfiltered apple juice

The resulting 4 cup batch needed to be watered down 50% so it was enough for 2 tall 24 oz water bottles. It was tasty and unlike my last attempt with honey and tea, it did not hurt my head and it contained citrus to slow the sugar absorbtion 

The clean diet is going OK. I hove cheated a little here and there on sugar and alcohol and the sugar is an acne trigger for sure. I am trying to substitute Clif bars for apples followed by a loaded salad with beats, seeds, and sweet potatoes post ride with acceptable results. I'm feeling good, but hungry most of the time. I am now between 135 and 140 lbs and floating up hills with relative ease. My beer belly has been replace by a six pack and my upper body is building up more than my legs oddly. Cycling seems to work every part of my body. Must be the constant out of saddle hill climbs out here.

I believe I can get into the top 10 if not top 5 on most of the hard climbs around Everett on Srava. I hit 3rd on the 75th st Boeing climb in Everett shown above in work clothes with a messenger bag. Still a long way from KOM though. If I can take that top spot over, I believe it would stand for a long time. 

Cleaning up my menu

Well, I'm about a week into my elimination diet although I have not stuck to it 100%. I have eaten some MetRX bars and had a little sugary snack here and there to keep me going. I am averaging 7 hours of cardio a week and my carb cravings have been intense. I am trying to eat the last of the processed foods at home and quit buying them. No more coffee either. That means my training rides and races will require a new fuel. That fuel will come from fruit, sugar, and salt. 

My first try at a home made energy drink is shown bellow. I drank this during my 42 mile training ride last Sunday.

So the results? Well, I logged some fast miles and kept a bonk at bay on two bottles of my mix and an apple but it was not a beverage I enjoyed and craved more of. It was a sweet tea with a weird aftertaste that made my head hurt. I did not dilute it enough and the formula needs work. Next time I think I will do without the tea and add more juice. I also picked up some coconut sugar so I will give that a try instead of honey for the calories. 

On the equipment front, I got a lot of flack (rightfully) for showing up to a shop ride without a buddy flap in the pouring rain. My previous full fender was glued on with shoe gu so it was not an easy morning of type install. I needed a hard point at the bb to bolt the fender to. Why not glue one on and leave it there year round?

 

Some 6061 painted black with a hole should serve the purpose of mounting my fended. Zip ties can be removed once the shoe gu is cured: 

Home made extra long buddy flap made from 1/8" industrial conveyor mat, 3m reflective tape, and some stickers for rear approach distance perception:

It might be May but we are not done with the wet weather yet. At times during my ride in the paceline I was wishing for a snorkel and diving mask.