Thursday, March 12, 2009
So what am I riding?
A couple of years ago, I bought a used Trek US Postal OCLV bike. It's full Ultegra..a pretty good bike. I noticed the difference immediately. As a big rider riding big frames, the bottom bracket stiffness was immediately noticeable. Yeah. I needed this bike.
My return to cycling
I was once a serious cyclist and bicycle commuter, logging as much as 100 miles a day in training rides. I used to commute 20 miles to work each way, 40 miles a day. As the kids got increasingly involved in things and needed to be shuttled here and there, it became impossible to log any miles on the bike. I was always in a rush the instant I left work, or taking them someplace before work. I would get a weekend ride in here and there, sometimes with the family. The family rides would be short and slow. The sort of thing you do with kids. The rides I did on my own exposed my horrible fitness level. While I never gained a lot of weight, I was really weak on the bike. The rides no longer brought me the joy they used to bring me.
This blog will chronicle my return to the bike in a serious way. The kids have reached an age where I am no longer needed as a taxi driver nearly as much, enabling my effort.
In fact, my son and I are signed up to ride STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride) together.
My first step was to begin cycling to and from work. My first ride was a practice ride on the weekend to make sure I had a good route. This also established a good baseline for my fitness. The ride details are here:
I wasn't very excited about my performance. I used to pride myself on laying down 20+ mph average rides. Now I was struggling to break 12 mph! The good news was that I enjoyed the ride. I took the train back home from downtown, and made plans for my first real commute.
On March 7th, I rode in on a cold, dark, frosty and foggy morning. My fingers went numb inside my cycling gloves! But I rode in. Unfortunately, my gps didn't collect the tracks. But on the way home, I did start the track just before climbing Terwilliger Boulevard.
This ride has a lot of up-hill riding in it, and I didn't start the track until just before the climb. Nonetheless, just over 10 mph is not very impressive.
On the 10th, I rode in again. It was another cold morning, but I was noticeably more fit. I was anxious to see the results.
This ride felt much better. It was cold again, near freezing, and it was raining at times, but I enjoyed it! And when I reviewed my track, I discovered I averaged nearly 14 mph. I had more energy all day, and was encouraged by quick gains.
On the ride home that night, my legs were noticeably weak. But I still managed to improve my "return home" time to 12.24 MPH.
Tomorrow, the 13th, will be another ride each way. We'll have to see if I make any improvements.
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