an adroit day

Got in a bit later than planned and wound up starting a training for three people on the wrong system. Of the two similar ones I automatically went to the one that was more frequently scheduled and well... about an hour in the realization dawned and well, everyone got a good laugh.

That's what happens when ya turn a Tuesday into a Monday I guess.

I had high hopes of riding in. Thinking that the day after a snow storm the path should be ridable without anyone packing it down too much. And thinking maybe to combat the walked on lumpiness I got the Adroit ready to ride. Swapping out the SPDs for cages so i could wear my monster almost mickey mouse boots. Figuring packed up with snow the cleats wouldn't do much good, and well it was 15°F when I left the house and might as well have absolutely toasty warm feet. The weirdest part about riding in flats is standing up to sprint or climb a hill. The pedals and shoes actually lock in together pretty well for flat riding, i can get enough friction to get most of the pedal stroke. Anyway, i'm getting ahead of my self.

Maybe skiers, esp those XC folks who wax, know what 15°F powdery snow is like. And snow bikers might know what it is like to try and ride on 4-12" of the stuff (blown drifts we only got about 6-8 inches in this last storm). So I thought well since the skinny tires cut through the snow well but get tossed all over the place on the footprints, the wider tires (only a 2.1 - i wasn't going to swap in the 2.35 just for the morning) running about 30 psi should be okay. They were fine. As long as i kept the forward momentum. Once I got sideways (happened once) game over dab time.

I made it the little ways up to the big cross road and hung a left. For a few pedal strokes i was doubting my bike choice. But the shoulder had 1" or so of fresh or blown snow onto of ice and packed snow and who knows what. The wide knobbies were the bomb. The patches of polished icy snow weren't a problem. The bike was great. Had about 1 mile of stopped traffic to do some lane splitting. Roll down the middle, when the traffic moved up i slipped behind a car until they stopped moving and I leap frogged down another good distance. one jeep i passed early on in the lane splitting didn't catch up to me until i was past the golf course on the vet. Much of the shoulder was actually unridable. Maybe a pugsley. But if i had a pugsley i probably would have been able to ride the path. Although I can't image it being all that fast.

Saw two anti-bike cars again today. One of them was just as obvious squishing over across the white line to try and give me as little space as possible as they did last time. I didn't think I had memorized the plate very well on that vehicle but well when i saw the plate - bingo - code recognition algorithm confirmed it. And I worked on the no harm no foul mantra and it was good. Let it slide. No worries. And my BP stayed nice and mellow.

Headed down to the other facility after lunch for a quick check to see why the scope wasn't working and found the Potato Park completely snowed under. Had a nice ride down and back... man those big ass boots are wicked warm and dry. Not sure I want to go back to cycling shoes and pedals and booties any time soon!
But it is a lot slower.

slow can be good sometimes.

Slow means more total seat time on the bike.

but then that isn't always a good thing.

I switched up the South Main hills on saturday. Made em a bit tougher. Starting on Hopkins one block before College and taking that onto George to the top up by the green in the big ring. Then hitting college, waterman, and yeah brentani, I took the stairs on Meeting street. Holy crap they hurt. At the top of meeting I hung a right and headed back down angel/thomas and the over to south Court and took south court all the way up to prospect, back down south court. Up north court, back down, Cady up and down, bowen all the way up over the wet cobbles and the sidewalk to Congdon and back down south court. Bowen was always my test hill. I felt like crap on the first few hills, over cooked from the big ring up Hopkins or just generally tired but when I hit Bowen I felt great, no problems climbing at all in the 42-25. Sure it wasn't fast but I never felt bogged down or like i needed to leverage slowly with arms and legs, ya know when you are just barely turning the pedals over sort of feeling. From there i hit Howland and Church with a bit of spirit and feeling good about Bowen feeling not so hard, and then came Star. And without any respite I turned right up Jenckes.

Jenckes looks flat as you approach it going north on Benefit.

View Larger Map But Jenckes is not flat. it is the steepest of the bunch and it goes on at that pitch for two (well almost 3) lung and leg burning blocks. Adding it without rest after star is usually pretty brutal. It was a good kind of pain. Hills are like that. Unlike a trainer interval, even with watts and kjs you are left with numbers, a hill you can look back down and say yeah, I climbed that. Even if it is a small rise. So from Jenckes maybe I should have bailed but i wanted to add one more longer hill in to finish me off. So i headed down main to the base of Doyle. And attacked Doyle in the big ring all the way up to hope.

Sensations were good that whole ride. But the morning sun was gone and the wind and the cloud cover was making me feel pretty damn cold. I'm not usually cold but I under dressed, expecting it to be sunny and warmer. So I headed home after saying hey to a team mate leading the 3rd group ride of the day out of La Prov and was cold. Until the sun came out again about 1.5-2 miles from home. the sun was wonderful, and warm and it just capped off a nice end of the ride. I would have loved heading out with the crew of heavy hitters for the 9am monster ride but all in all I managed a good hill workout, time on the bike, catching up with friends in person, and I got home in time to get the youngest dressed and ready for Ballet!

Sunday I got my spring haircut. Except it is really a summer cut and well the weather isn't exactly all that warm out yet. 4 on top, 3 on the sides and no more wings over my ears (or walking around all morning not realizing i have Buckwheat head from the balaclava).

Patrick O'Grady. Damn he makes me laugh.

gotta love the verbose bsnyc - picking up the lance listening to barry and all the blog twists and turns... i'm guessing that if there's one other person who does read ALL the internet it is bsnyc... lately I'm slacking... not even getting through 50% of the open tabs in a day. Good thing it is the off season

okay - that's enough rambling, eh? maybe

or not

should
i
keep
going
on
and
on

no

done

heddwch
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