A Lost Opportunity

Drove to the bus this morning.  On my way, I passed a biker on his way up King's Rd and I thought "Darn!"  Actually that's not exactly what I thought but it conveys the same general meaning while still keeping this blog suitable for family viewing.  Today was the first day in weeks that was slightly above freezing, without significant chance of precipitation for the whole day, and after a brief warm spell that melted all the ice & snow from the roads.  And I didn't even think of getting the bike ready for today.  Drat.

Tomorrow doesn't look too bad either but there's a real chance of some precipitation at or slightly above freezing.  Snow flurries I think I can handle, but I'm missing the outerwear necessary to handle a bike ride in a Spring rain; forget about a December drizzle.  Nevermind the fact that I've managed to get through four seasons of road riding in Southwestern Idaho without buying a fender.  So instead I imbibe and mourn the loss of my fitness that I vowed to keep.  Adding insult to injury, the weather looks to be worsening just in time to ruin the New Years ride as it ruined the Chrsitmas ride.

I may yet break down and put my bike in the trainer.  I should.  Anyway here's a picture of the bike stuff storage corner.  Looks kinda empty - like I need more stuff.  [grin]  The bikes themselves and the maintenance stand are still awaiting their forever homes.

California Dreaming

Well it's time to face facts.  The Winter Soltice has come & gone (without comment from Tyler, which is highly unusual).  The good news there, of course, is that the days are now getting longer and we can officially start looking forward to Spring (and believe me - I am).  The bad news, though, is that it's darn cold out there and the snow covered roads are too much for me.  But that's not because I lack confidence in less-than-optimal conditions (but I do - in a big way); it's more because the lack of any appreciable snow removal around here means that there's no shoulder to bail to when a car approaches.  Plus I sold my mountain bike in the spring and I never got around to buying knobbier tires for my Raleigh so all I've got are slicks.  That's fixed easily enough with a call to Tyler; but it's easier to sit back, eat some peanut butter smidgens, and complain like an old man on his porch in a thunderstorm.

I've got no bike news so I might as well relate some garage news.  The bike storage corner has been completed.  Most bike stuff has been stored.  I've still got to figure out where I want to store my two bikes, rags, old tires, and my work stand; but I'm getting there.  Next on the agenda is another overhead loft that'll fit above the garage doors.  Once I move some rarely-used stuff up there from the shelves I built last fall, then I'll have room for rags, old tires, and my work stand.  :)

I've really gotta clip my toe nails.

Five

That was the temperature outside when I left for work this morning.  Five degrees.  Fahrenheit.  I drove.  Haven't ridden at all since my last post.  And now my gut's feeling kinda ooky, so who knows if I'll get to ride this Saturday like I hoped to.

But I've completed the shelving for my bike stuff in the garage and started organizing all the tools & parts that used to be stashed away in two separate little tool boxes.  I thought I was running short on spare tubes, but somehow I actually have something like seven.  And several of those are as yet unused.  

AND!  I sold the last bits of my Yakima rack earlier this week.  And now I can post three used toolboxes on Craigslist as well.  So slowly but surely I'm getting the extraneous junk out of my life. Kate's thesis rocks are still around though.

General Update

To celebrate my first full month of blogging my biking, I decided to show you my Cyclistats calendar for November.  There it is folks - 12 rides for 176.2 miles during November.  Not exactly staggeringly impressive, but it's roughly 176.2 more miles than I rode last November so cut me some slack.

As you can see, I only rode to the bus once this week.  That's all I could manage this week, what with meetings & other functions all over the valley (2 days), minor bicycle issues (1 day), and laziness (1 day) and all.  But I got out for a ride today, as you can also see.  Last night was my office Christmas party at my boss's place in Eagle.  Kate & I had to drive there separately, so I got a bit liquored up so I had an excuse to leave my truck there, ride home with Kate, and ride my bike back today to get the truck.  So I did that.  Near the end of the ride I got egoslammed by some chooch that wouldn't let me catch him.

And!  Harry will be pleased to know that I changed my truck's oil again today (after less than two weeks and ~250 miles) - I checked the dipstick just one or two days after the last change and the oil was already filthy so I thought I'd give my truck a bit of a treat.  Plus I haven't ridden enough to merit a chain cleaning and I wanted to get my hands dirty and do something manly . . .

In bike maintenance news, I think it's time for a new headset on the Raleigh.  With Tyler's help, I've been nursing the old one for a couple years now - dealing with a wobbly fork and re-tightening it on a regular basis.  On Wednesday night, Tyler stopped by my place to give me a hand in tightening it again.  I rode it sixteen miles the next day, and already it's loose again.  Drat.  This may be a product of the bus though too - that bike rack isn't the easiest on equipment.  Perhaps some experimentation is in order . . .

Something slightly more peripheral but still bike-related is that I've made more progress on my massive garage project - building storage and organizing.  Recent progress involves moving bike hooks to more efficiently use space, building shelves to hold bike paraphernalia, and reorganizing some peg board to house bike tools.  Of course it's slow-going both because I'm anal-retentive and I take weeks to consider things before committing to a single hole in a wall and because every square inch of floor space I manage to clear is taken up again by other junk.

I need a shower.

Pre-Bird Ride

I rode to the bus stop & back home on Wednesday, totaling fifteen miles and some change.

Today, I decided to do something I haven't done in quite a while: drive to the start of a ride.  I've always thought that was kinda silly, and this summer with the help of a new local group called Skinny Tire Pedalers I was able to ride straight from home more often.  But I had a couple goals in mind for today: I wanted to get out on a group ride with the club that I recently joined (LRC), I wanted my stamina to be pushed a little, and I wanted to burn off a few calories before packing many many more on.  So I drove into Boise for LRC's Annual Pre-Bird Ride.

When I arrived there were perhaps fifteen riders there.  By the time we rolled out, we had what we estimated post-ride to be eighty.  Rolling out through downtown Boise with eighty of your closest friends is a neat experience.  The city was quiet.  I'm accustomed to seeing it only during the busiest parts of the day, so the empty streets were somewhat of a shock to me.

I took the middle length of the three route offerings - about 24 miles.  Tyler & Sheree rode their tandem, and they were my comapnions for the first half of the ride.  But I saw some riders a bit more than a mile ahead of us as we approached the turn at Holilynn, and I thought that perhaps this was a good oppotunity to pursue my goal of pushing my stamina.  So at the turn I bid a silent (unnecessarily aloof) adieu to Tyler, Sheree, and their partner in conversation, John; and I motored ahead like a real hero to catch the riders I'd seen earlier.  Even if I couldn't reel them in, I knew my way back to the Co-op.  Plus I figured I'd either catch them or give up before long, and either way then I'd stop & wait for Tyler & company.

So off I went.  In a minute or two, the gang behind me was out of sight around a couple bends in the road.  At least I couldn't see them in my little mirror - for all I know they might've never lost sight of me through the whole ride.  And as I rounded the corner onto Cole & headed north, I could see a couple riders about a mile ahead of me and thought I was making up a little ground.  But by the time I got to where I saw them they'd moved on.  Dang!  I've grown too accustomed to sweeping Skinny Tire rides - catching 12MPH riders doesn't present much of a challenge.  :)

And that cycle repeated once or twice more - I'd catch a glimpse of a cyclist and be motivated to keep trying, then find myself alone.  I think they took a turn that I didn't - the route home was never discussed in detail, and I didn't care enough to press.  So anyway I found myself utterly alone at the intersection of Cole & Overland.  I knew how to get home but I was fairly certain that everyone else had turned on either Amity or Victory.  Come to think of it, I thought they might be turning there but I didn't think to actually look down either of those roads as I crossed them to see if I could see anyone.  Anyway, regardless of our return route I at least made it back to the Co-op before Tyler et al.  Leaving the group wasn't the smartest thing I'd ever done on two wheels, but finishing behind the people from whom I forged ahead would have been . . . less graceful still.

Then I came home and took a two-hour nap after eating four Krispy Kreme doughnuts as a warmup to Thanksgiving dinner.  Sheesh.

Here's Why Bicycles Are Better Than Jaguars

Today I determined that I would change my truck's oil - after probably ten thousand miles since the last oil change, I figured it was about time.  So Griffin & I went for a drive to warm up the engine and to scope out alternative routes home since my normal route is closed for construction.  I pulled the plug on the oil pan when we got home, and as the oil drained I began gathering necessities and quickly came to a realization - I'm gonna need a new oil filter.  With about three tablespoons of oil left in my engine, driving was out, so I threw on my helmet, gloves, & backpack, hopped on my bike, and rode the 2.5 miles to the nearest Wally World.  I got fifteen minutes of exercise, and I didn't have to wait until Kate came home to borrow her van. Then I'd be refilling my engine in the dark too.

But dang, I'd forgotten how easy yet gratifying it is to change one's own oil.  Almost comparable to cleaning one's bike's chain.

On the Bus

As I type this, we're getting our first snowfall of the season.  Either that or someone's tossing wet cotton balls off our roof.  On both Thursday and Friday this week, I rode the Raleigh (pictured at right) to the bus stop in the morning then back home again in the evening for a two-day total of 40 miles.  Friday morning was my first sub-freezing ride in a long time, and possibly ever.  My new gloves didn't keep my hands as warm as I hoped they would, but still they did an admirable job.  I also got my headlight back on Thursday night and tested it successfully on both Friday commutes, which means that I could finally give the loaner back to Tyler.  My relationship with Tyler is a lot like a junkie's relationship with his dealer.  But don't worry Mom; my bike addiction is more like a fashionable high-class out-of-control '80s cocaine habit than a typical modern out-of-control meth addiction that you see on COPS.  :)

And speaking of Tyler, the Look is currently visiting him while he tries re-threading one of my water bottle mounts that I stripped while cleaning it a few weeks ago.

Riding to the bus (20 miles per day) is far more sustainable for me than the whole 50-mile commute, and it generally saves me the same amount of money since I pay for the bus pass whether or not I use it everyday. So I'll probably stick to that through the winter.  Summer bus commuting is complicated by the fact that other bikers take up the two bike rack spots on the bus, so I bike straight in from home far more often to avoid that altogether.  Plus I'm in better shape, it's warmer, there's more light...  Anyway I'll be driving to the bus on Monday to replenish my clothing and towels and Q-tips and such; but I plan to be right back on the bike on Tuesday, weather permitting.

The Big Commute

I rode all the way in to work this morning and all the way home this evening. Took an hour of vacation on both ends of the day so I could ride in daylight for most of the way. Enjoyed a great sunrise in the morning (then endured retina-burning sun in my face for a few miles) and a gorgeous sunset over the Owyhees. And hey, I got reacquainted with my Raleigh too!

It's been a while since my last 50-mile day (August 20 - my last round-trip bike commute), so I figured it'd be a bit of a stretch for me. And it was. I'll be sore tomorrow. But I saved $3 by not taking the bus today and putting off starting a new pass until next week, plus another $3 by not driving to & from the bus stop! That's a savings of more than a dime per mile! Cha-ching! :) Hey, whatever works to get me off my butt & makes me avoid growing a gut like a Harley rider's - resting on the gas tank. (Hi Harry) This was also my first commute in off-season conditions - 34 degrees when I left in the morning and about the same by the time I arrived home. As such, I learned some stuff about cold-weather commuting:

• My current gear (there I am all decked out) is good down to freezing, and even below freezing with the following exceptions: I don't know if I can wait until January for the shoe covers I ordered, and my face mask keeps me plenty warm enough but I find it hard to breathe at the rate I need when it's covering my mouth & nose

• Temperature control is harder for me on the way home than in the morning. Ambient temperature warms slightly over the course of my morning commute, and this is good since I sometimes work up a little sweat earlier on in the ride. This becomes a greater liability in the evenings as it gets cooler.

Don't expect a ride report this weekend.

Veterans' Day Ride

This weekend I didn't ride thanks to weather and plenty to do in the garage. The good news there is:

• our water softener doesn't leak anymore
• I built a little lumber loft above the garage door to hold the longer pieces of wood I have left over after projects
• the pile of scrap wood, old bike parts, dirt, and trash that had accumulated on the garage floor is now mostly cleaned up and I again have room to work on my bike
  

I have plans for more storage stuff (tools, ladders, bikes, Kate's agility equipment...) but this weekend was a big step. Anyway, on to stuff for which I started this blog . . .

One reason I felt able to put off riding this weekend was that today is Veterans' Day, and being a public servant I get the day off so I could ride today while the weather was maybe a little better. By the way, happy Veterans' Day to any & all veterans that might be tuning in, and thank you. So I took that ride that I wanted to take last time - around Power Butte. It's a good ride, particularly when the wind is coming out of the south because then the return trip (riding north on Robinson) is quite fun even without a big effort.

Not much interesting to report - near the south end of Track Rd a Border Collie made a frontal assault on me, but he just herded me and moved off. It was an effective diversionary tactic designed to draw my attention from the attack Dachshund on my flank. An eighth of a mile later, an old Cattledog mix stood a few yards off the road completely ignoring me and yelling at the aggressors to cut it out. Time for a long hot shower.

Ride stats:
Time: 1:29'23"
Distance: 24.69 miles
Avg Speed: 16.5MPH
Max Speed: 28.9MPH

Excuses and Rationalizing

Well I haven't ridden since this weekend. I finally sent my headlight in for repair under warranty yesterday, so hopefully that'll be returned soon and I'll have one fewer excuse not to ride. But in place of riding, I've recently started some yoga-ish stuff from a magazine in the mornings to increase my core strength and flexibility. I'm atrociously inflexible, so this is a very good thing even if it's far less enjoyable than a ride at sunrise. But here's something odd: my butt hurts today. Really badly. Like I injured my tailbone. None of the exercises I've done even involve sitting, so I don't know where this came from.

Something else I've been up to is building a bike carrier for the back of my truck. No more will my bicycles be forced to endure a truck ride lying down in the bed. No, they now can proudly stand upright (sans front wheel). Dammit my butt hurts. I'd been contemplating this design for a couple years, but I never felt like actually implementing it until inspiration struck me in the form of Phil, a fellow Skinny Tire Pedaler who loves making stuff that posers like me have paid ridiculous amounts of money for. He brought his bike to a ride once on a roof rack that he had made completely from scratch, and in doing so convinced me to finally get off my butt with my idea. Thanks Phil! It's built to accommodate three bikes but I have yet to test it in motion.

Potential Races

So here's a discussion of the races I'm thinking of trying. Feel free to suggest others. All of these races are in or near Boise . . . or at least I think they will be.

Camel's Back Duathlon
This is in May, and it'll probably be the first race of my season. What's more, I may very well race it as part of a two-person team with my good friend Chris McTiernan (pictured at right). He's now located in Atlanta, GA but he's been trying to make a good excuse to come out here to visit. My mention of trying a race piqued his interest, and we're currently involved in negotiations to make this possible. So, if this does happen, then he'll do the running (barefoot) and this will essentially be a time trial for me. And this is a very good thing, because my running abilities have never exactly been the stuff of legend.

Y Not Tri
As with the Camel's Back Duathlon, this race is organized by the Treasure Valley YMCA. It's a mini-sprint triathlon, so it's super short (400m swim, 10km bike, & 3km run), which suits me just fine. This was actually the first race that McT and I discussed entering (first individually then as a team), but I started leaning toward the duathlon because I swim only slightly better than a brick. But maybe I'll work up the nerve - it's later in the season so my conditioning should be better by then. Also because the swim happens in a pond where ducks like to hang out a lot, and lots of ducks make lots of duck poop and that's the largest complaint from people in this race.

State Time Trial Championships
This one is, I think, usually hosted by Lost River Cycling, which I just joined. In that case, it'll be at least somewhat local. So I may try it (and get absolutely destroyed).

State Criterium Championships
Again, often hosted by LRC. You may have noted that all the previous races have been individual events. Crits can be raced by individuals as well (though the Toyota team demonstrates annually at the Wells Fargo Criterium that a team has quite an advantage) but they're generally raced in much closer quarters. This makes me very very nervous. But the "Citizens' Race" (that for people who have never raced a crit before) this year was pretty thin, so there wouldn't be too much jostling in that class. Even in the Cat 5 (entry-level) category though, things looked pretty hairy in places. We'll see.

I should also mention that I plan to ride some practice time trials starting in the spring. They happen weekly in the desert south of Boise, so I should get quite familiar with humiliation well ahead of any actual competitions I enter. :)

It's past my bedtime and I'm tired.

Ride report

First, let me give credit to my mother-in-law for the new alternate name of this blog. Good job, Old Mother Pickett.

This blog is working already. It's a relatively dreary day here today: rain sprinkles, a significant wind, and completely overcast. A great day to bag on riding. But I didn't want to endure the embarrassment of reporting that I didn't ride at all this weekend, so I went for it today. Rode just shy of 20 miles and stopped at my cousin Alice's house for an hour-long chat near the end. I originally planned on 26 miles around Power Butte but I cut it short after eight miles straight into the teeth of the wind and dreading the next three as the wind picked up.

You'll be glad to know that I don't plan to post EVERY ride. I just wanted to point out that the blog was working as motivation. :)

A Funny Thing Happened on my Way to the Blog

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog post for something a bit lighter . . . well no, heavier. My training today consisted of two whopping slices of pie, driving all the way to work, and an hour-long conference call. But at least I sold another bit of my Yakima rack.

Anyway a conversation that Kate & I had last night was funny enough that I feel the need to share it, thereby putting off my outline of possible races for me to enter until later.

After reading yesterday's post, Kate was a bit upset with me. "You want ANOTHER bike!?" she said after reading that I'd like to buy a TT bike someday. That would make three for me.

I said, "You have three dogs."

"The dogs aren't mine; they're ours."

I quickly came back, "Well my bikes are ours too."

She sighed and said, "But I can't ride your bikes."

I said, "Well I can't ride your dogs either!" :) She had no response, but somehow I think she's somewhat less than completely convinced.

Reasons for Racing

Indications are that my father thinks I'm a bit off my rocker for wanting to race, and I'm confident that he's not the only one who feels that way. For this reason and others, I feel the need to defend my plan. So here goes.

I've been riding bicycles for about ten years now. I bought an old rigid mountain bike (a Scott - from back when they were built right here in Idaho) in 1998 to get me to & from LHU when I moved off campus with some friends (GAWD that was a great year). For most of my time at ISU, my commute was too short to merit a bicycle, however I started biking to the bus (~7-8 miles) when I realized how much money my daily commute was chewing through after Kate & I moved to Nampa. But as cheap as I am, I've always been a gearhead. Fishing, golf, skiing, cycling . . . whatever the sport, I never missed an opportunity to open a catalog or magazine and covet fancy equipment. And last year I splurged & bought a fancy bike (pictured). Truth be told it's on the low-end in the grand scheme of things and the $800 I spent is pretty tame in comparison to most bikes for sale on the floor of any bike shop you enter, but it's a damn sight fancier than anything I really need - especially since Tyler keeps my old Raleigh in fine shape for commuting. So the point here is that I've bought a lot of stuff that is cool to have and from which I've gotten a lot of use (over 2500 miles this season), but it isn't absolutely necessary for my current level of involvement in the sport of cycling. There's reason 1: to justify these purchases - to allow me to call my fancy bike "my race bike" without being a complete poser.

But I'll still be a gearhead, and there's reason number 2: I want to justify buying MORE stuff. Check out the new LOOK 596 time trial bike. You had a hard time taking your eyes off that beast to come back here and continue reading, didn't you? I don't blame you - that thing is sex on wheels. Now I don't pretend to have any aspirations of ever racing enough to merit that bike (which will reportedly sell for $10K as pictured), but a TT bike of some sort is indeed on my wish list. Maybe an aero helmet and a skin suit too - like that guy in the Comcast commercial that my father says reminds him of me. :) Good comedy.

With reason number 3, I'm finally gonna pull my head part way out of my butt. I like going fast under my own power. It's fun and it's gratifying whether or not there's competition involved. And I love watching my pace quicken over the course of a season. Doing little more than riding a lot of "base miles" (no intense training, just riding at an easily sustainable pace), I've been able to work my average speed up to just shy of 19 MPH over a reasonably flat 12-mile ride this season. I ride my 25-mile commute between 17 & 18 MPH. This may sound impressive to many, but plenty of local enthusiasts ride 20+MPH routinely. I once read that Lance Armstrong's Tour de France time trial team a few years ago averaged 36MPH over a 24-mile course. So I clearly have room for improvement. Training for races gives me a goal, so riding intervals a couple times a week won't seem utterly pointless; and more importantly I have a reason to ride through the winter. So reasons 3 & 4: to give myself a reason to work on my conditioning, and to have an outside party measure the results of said conditioning. And plenty of people (myself included) enter these races with no illusions of winning; as with marathons, most entrants are only out to prove that they can complete the course, and they compete only against their results from previous years.

I think I'm done now. I doubt I've even put a dent in the critics' resolve, but . . . well I honestly just wanted to show you that fancy TT bike. :)

My Very First Blog Entry!

Oh this is so very exciting! Okay I'm over it now. Let's get to the point here: I have a problem with commitment. I talked about biking my entire 25-mile commute for a couple years before I actually got off my butt and did it. I've considered racing my bike now for a year or two but have yet to enter a race. In the hopes that I enjoy bike racing as much as I enjoy bike commuting (and that race conditioning will make my commutes still more enjoyable), I'm committing to trying a couple local races this coming season.

And knowing that without some danger of public humiliation I will procrastinate further, I have decided to start this blog to publicize my effort as well as record my training, my fitness progress, and all my podium appearances. Expect the first few months of this blog to be pretty sparse as the weather's just starting to turn sour, but I plan to keep commuting through the winter as the weather allows so don't tune all the way out either. Subscribe to the RSS feed that this blog broadcasts if you want to stay up on all my exciting news.

That will be all. You are dismissed.