Goals

Only the second ride this month and wow, so much of my early season fitness is missing, not to mention my flexibility. Its hard to stay comfortable in the drops. While I'm missing alot of the goals that I set last year for myself for this year, its still been a better and harder year than last. I wanted to ride 3,000 miles this year and this year I'm only about halfway there. Closing in on 1,300 and I'll be happy to make half of my former goal. Didn't get to ride to work (though I did ride to my workplace as a test ride...). My schedule changed a bit too much and made it alot harder to get in, but mainly I wasn't motivated enough. And I'm pretty sure that I mentioned a metric century (62.5 miles) as a goal. Didn't get to that either, but I did crush my old mileage limits with a few 35 mile and a 40 miler that I'm proud of. There's always next year and I'm looking forward to it while still riding outside this year until (and after...) the snow comes.
It was a short ride, just short of eleven miles, but better than what I've been doing- nothing... as I'd been sick... http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/1250181637

Linked Up Again!

Twenty bucks later and I and my bike are ready to ride again with a new SRAM chain and master link. Pretty darned easy, but unfortunately I missed out on a ride today. Got back from our errand running and finished the chain install by 6.30... too late for a ride, but also picked up a cheap light set today! Took a nighttime run in the driveway and its pretty darned bright! Thanks again, Allspeed Cyclery & Snow!

The Weakest Link

Was having a pretty good ride that I had been looking forward to after three days on non-stop monsoon-like rain. Did the usual errand running after work, mail and banking for the union and then hit the trails. Started out conservatively like I usually do and then decided to have more fun on the way back in. I decided to say the hell with picking a cautious line around some huge little ponds on the trail and just tore through them. The deepest one I had been a bit worried about. No way of telling how deep it was. Well it was deep enough that I was peddling through water with my foot underwater at the bottom of the stroke. No problem! I was laughing all the way through. Then was the steep descent. It goes down steeply and then goes right back up in a V. Halfway up it I heard a pop and felt the sinking feeling that I had just broken the chain. Yep, there it was lying in the mud. I have a chain tool, just not with me, of course! So, I had to walk the last mile and a half out, down the street, caught the bus most of the way back and then more walking. Walking a bike sucks!

Kicked!

Ass is officially kicked today. Best guesstimate to my ride after work today that took me from roads to a really wonderful, but completely technical trail ride in Portland that I never knew existed. Its a hard section of singletrack through pine forest and tidal flats with pedestrian bridges, slippery pine needle floors, unmarked dead ends, pine root steps, all out climbs that you have to be careful not to do a wheelie onto your back and suicidal descents down tree root steps. Beautiful, but Map My Ride doesn't correctly map it and my cyclometer doesn't work, so I can only guesstimate that it added all up to ten miles or so. I'm so sore now (but I feel great overall...) after two slow speed falls into a ditch and onto a root. I have a bruise on my elbow, shoulder, hip, cuts on my knee and a large welt, bruise and goose egg on my shin... all on my right hand side, courtesy of the clipless pedal that I cannot easily twist out of. Wonderful afternoon though!
http://trails.org/our-trails/fore-river-sanctuary/

Video: Riding the impossible

Video: Riding the impossible



If your palms are not sweating like mine around about the hairiest stuff @ 3:00 in then you're watching this blindfolded!

A Random Spin, A Fun Ride

 I've taken the last two days off and luckily my wife pushed me out the door this afternoon, despite the threat of continued rain. I grabbed my rain jacket (though I've yet to use it... sorta sadly...) and went out the door not sure where I was going. I decided to take a random ride and see some things that I've wanted to check out lately, but hadn't allowed myself the chance to and in the process I cured my funk that I've been in lately. I had a great ride in on Saturday and then took Sunday off. I was going to ride in the mid to late afternoon Sunday, but with everything that I did around the house I tired myself out by 3, 4 o' clock and just took a nap telling myself that I'd get back to it Monday.
 Monday I didn't ride. I was dead dog tired. I got lousy sleep Sunday night and couldn't fall asleep for the first two hours or so of bed, ruining my night. Six hours doesn't really cut it. I puttered around the house yesterday getting a few things done in my funk, but I wasn't happy, hadn't been happy. I think that I've been too wrapped up in planning a loop and a challenging, long-ish one at that. And now it had gotten too like a chore that I wasn't entirely happy doing it any more. So this was just the cure!
 I found a dirt trail paralleling power lines that I had been curious about in the past and stopped to take the time to check out the sign hanging near the gate at the trailhead. It sloped down pretty steeply and was filled by alot of loose gravel, so I took a foot out of my clipless pedal and started to slowly edge down. Realizing that I couldn't brake enough and that I was sliding I tried to unclip my other foot and well, what I had always said wasn't going to happen to me (its been a long time, but I've used clipless pedals before without falling...)... well, it happened. I flopped over into the gravel and very loose dirt underneath it giving myself a nice bit of trail rash which I also haven't had in forever. (My worst road rash is my right elbow that looks like a fire burn victim's scar... that was road rash and a very good one.) So, here I am getting my feeling back with a few scrapes on my right knee and calf (but secretly sorta proud... bike and I are both ok...) and I walked down to read the sign. "Closed due to rain oversaturation..." Yeah, no kidding. The dirt was damn deep under the gravel and I tried to ride back up, but got stopped when I just sorta spun out. Unfortunately I still don't know who owns the trail or if or when I can ride it.
 I went off on a few more tangents riding little side roads that I've been curious about, found a promising dirt road and a few dead ends, rode a little farther and in the process put in a respectable 9 miles! Looking forward to tomorrow!

Another Break

Taking a break again from riding. I rode yesterday a short warm up ride to make up for the break that I took the day before. Don't know why, but I'm feeling less than motivated today despite the fact that its a beautiful late summer day and it may be thunder storming tomorrow effectively canceling a ride then. Maybe its the quality of sleep. I didn't sleep especially well last night and I"m feeling tired, lethargic and low energy. I'm trying to make it up to myself by getting back to lifting weights which I've neglected for the last couple of weeks, but I still feel like if I don't ride I'm going to be weak by the weekend, but I also know that if I forced myself to ride I'd be weak and less than enthused at sweating this out. Ugh...