Monday Apr 14, 2008
On Thursday April 10 I decided to join a local cycling group,
the Georgetown
Cyclopaths, for one of their evening rides. I really love
that name!
There were eight of us that met at Berry Springs Park
and Preserve and headed out. One of the riders had an
idea for a route, so we took the lead from him. We ended up
getting in about 24 miles before finishing back at the start.
This was a nice rural ride, going in a loop to the east, then
north, west to Walburg, and back to Georgetown. I recorded the
ride with my Garmin
Forerunner 305 and uploaded it a couple of places:
Another interesting feature, at least to me, was the amount of
poultry I heard while we were riding, since we have 13 chickens
ourselves. I'm pretty sure I heard chickens, and I saw a sign
about a guinea fowl crossing or something like that. I need to
take Karen out there, since she's the person in our family who's
really into poultry.
I enjoyed the ride, and will join the Cyclopaths again when I
can.
Monday Oct 22, 2007
That's me in the Sun Microsystems jersey in the foreground on the left,
and Nick on the right.
On Saturday 20 October 2007 my son Nick and I set out on the 25
mile course of the 20th annual
Outlaw Trail 100. Things started out well, but after a
while we were out in the country and things got windy and we
encountered hills. We made it to the first water stop at 10
miles without any problems. A ways after that, maybe around
mile 12, Nick started saying his leg hurt and wondering if he
could take the SAG wagon back. We had hit some hills and wind
by this time, and I think it wasn't much fun for Nick at that
point.
At around mile 16 or so we hit a point where the 25 mile route
went north, west and then south. But one of the longer routes
skipped that part, so we decided to do so also. While it looked
to me this would cut off at least 3 miles, we ended the ride at
22.98 miles, according to my Garmin Forerunner 305. So I think
the 25 mile route was actually a bit longer than that.
The longest Nick had ridden in the past was 14 miles, so this
was a lot longer. It took us nearly two and a half hours, and I
think part of the problem was Nick just wasn't used to sitting
on a bike for that length of time. Also, I think Nick may need
a larger bike, as his seat post is out pretty far already, and
it really ought to be higher for better performance.
I'm proud of Nick for hanging in there for 23 miles. For a 9
year old on a mountain bike (with fairly slick tires), that's
pretty darn good!
Wednesday Aug 22, 2007
I'm a member of a summer
cycling group with Rogue Training
Systems. We started in mid July and will finish in mid
October. The goal is to work up to riding a century (100
miles).
On Sunday August 19, we rode from Bee Cave to north Austin to
downtown Austin and back, 40 miles. I hadn't ridden 40 miles in
a single day in at least a couple of decades. I uploaded my
Forerunner 305 (GPS)
data to MotionBased. While my
motion time was 2:58, for a 13.5 mile per hour average, I also
had 31 minutes of rest time.
This coming Sunday, we'll be riding the Krause Kruse out of
Krause Springs for 4 to 4.5 hours. At 13.5 miles per hour, I
can probably just do the 60 mile loop. But there will be an
opportunity to bail out and do a 43 mile loop instead, if things
aren't going well. So I'll be playing this one "by ear" as they
say.
Monday Jul 02, 2007
I took off from work a couple of hours early on Friday, as I'd
had it for the week. In my wanderings around north Austin, I
came upon Performance Bike and remembered I'd been meaning to
visit, so I stopped in. I looked around the whole store and
then came back to the pedal section.
I've been riding with some pedals I bought for my old mountain
bike years ago, with toe clips. This has been good, but I've
been wanting to try the so-called "clipless" pedals. Really
this means pedals with space for cleats, along with cleats on
your cycling shoes. Problem is, the bike I ride is pretty much
the only bike I ride, both for longer rides for
training and transportation, and for riding to school with my
kids. I really didn't want to add cleated pedals to my bike and
be forced to ride with cycling shoes. I found what I think is a
good solution for me: The Forte
Campus pedal. It has the space for a cleat on one side of
the pedal and nothing on the other side. This allows the best
of both worlds.
To install the pedals I had to go buy a pedal wrench to get the
old pedals off, and some grease for installation, as called for
by the brief manual that came with the pedals. After
installing, I added cleats to my cycling shoes. Then I tried it
out on my block, worked pretty well once I got used to getting
my feet in and out. Sam and I took a short ride in the
neighborhood, and I was feeling pretty comfortable. On Sunday,
I went for my third ACA ride, Pfinally Pflugerville, riding the
24 mile option. The pedals worked great, and seemed to help
with leg fatigue, as I really felt good after riding 24 miles.
So far I'm pleased with my new pedals, and it was nice to find
something really useful on my first stop at a new bike shop.
I'm not so thrilled that Performance Bike is a national chain,
as I'd rather spend my money at local bike shops, so I'm not
sure how often I'll go back there. But so far I'm a satisfied
customer.
Monday Jun 04, 2007
On Sunday I rode my first Austin Cycling
Association group ride, the Cedar Park Fever. The
newsletter said there was a choice of a 15 mile ride, but when I
got there I was told it was only 13. Additionally, I drove the
route on Saturday afternoon, based on a ride map from the ACA
web site, and it certainly felt like less than 15, though I
didn't time it.
Before the ride, the ride leader/organizer talked about all the
places on the routes that might be an issue. The route I was
going to take had a low water crossing with 6 to 8 inches of
water over it, so the folks leading my route decided to skip
that. So I actually cut off and turned about, and it turned out
to be only 12.5 miles. On one of the longer routes, there was
talk about water at about 24 inches over a low water crossing,
so an alternate route was offered.
Only bad thing about the experience was I was the only person
doing the 13 mile ride, so I rode back to the start point
alone. Not a big problem, but not as fun either.
I've been looking at the ACA rides page
for future rides I might like. I think the Tour de Austin on
the 17th looks good (according to the map, it's 21 miles) but
I'm not thrilled by the 1 p.m. start time. There's also the
Inside Austin ride on the 24th at 8 a.m., which looks similar
but has a different starting and ending point. And finally,
Pfinally Pflugerville on July 1.
Thursday May 17, 2007
This is Bike to Work Week and Friday 18 May is Bike to Work Day
here in the Austin area. As an added incentive, there will be
breakfast available for bicycle commuters at various
locations around town from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. I'm planning
to bike to work on Friday and stop at Buck's Bikes on Jollyville
just north of Oak Knoll.
I hope to continue to bike to work at least once a week for the
next several weeks, but I may have to bag it if the weather is
too hot in the late afternoon when I'd be commuting home. We
typically have temperatures around 95° F. in the afternoon in
Austin in the summer, so that makes the risk of heat stroke a
bit high. In the past when I've ridden home from work on hot
days, I've been okay until about one or two miles from home, at
which point I felt quite ill. So, I've got to watch that. It's
one thing to stay healthy by riding my bike to work, but getting
heat stroke when riding home from work negates the benefits, I
think.
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