Saturdays are for Epic Gravel

Which way is the beach? THAAAT way!

Sometimes I have problems summarizing a killer ride, and today is one of those. 55 miles of gravel, pavement, bike path, highways, byways and amazing views. South Lincoln to Branched Oak via gravel, Branched Oak to Malcom to Lincoln via highway on two heavy, comfortable bikes with enough water for the 5th army. Mocha in downtown Lincoln. Epic epic epic.

I think that hits it.

It's amazing how awesome a ride on gravel can be, seriously. It's just you, the bike, the road, and nature. Every once in awile you'll come upon a person, a dog, or a house - but not much. No dodging pedestrians, cars, or ninja dog leashes. Just.. the road. I'm glad I discovered it, my cycling drug that is known as gravel. Highways are OK, paths are good, limestone is awesome - but gravel, well, that's where it's at. The hills, they look painful, horrible and downright discouraging but when you beat 'em you can let out a HAH!

Yeah, it was a good ride. Conditions were perfect, it was overcast and probably in the mid 70's or lower. A tailwind would have been nice as the headwind on the way out was a bit of a bummer, but it kept the pace moderate and the legs fresh. I say this, of course, to attempt to break the Curse of the Double Headwind. We will never again refer to this.

On that note, I somehow manged to put TWO big holes right through the tread (and Kevlar!) on my rear Marathon cross. Only thing I can figure is that I rolled over one of those police spike strips or something.. heh.. but yeah, kinda a bummer. Oly, however, being my hero (hah, told you I'd do it!) let me know that he had just ordered a new Marathon Cross that was waiting at MWC, and I could have it if I wanted. Sweet! No having to ride around for a week with a duck taped tire, got a new one in the garage right now, ready to go. Right on!

Like I said, something about this ride today. Had a mocha at Crescent Moon, probably the best one I've ever had - ever. Seriously.

Anyway, rockin' way to start the weekend - gotta love it. I recently picked up an iPhone and have been playing with some of the apps that use the internal GPS for tracking - they're awesome! Downside is that they suck the battery hardcore - all of them. Here's the track to Malcom:

It is, of course, pretty overkill to use a iPhone to track a ride. But I also clipped that pic using 64bit Photoshop CS4. I kinda like my overkill.

Great ride, great day so far. If the rest of the week is anything like today.. well.. I can't wait.

Lincoln to Omaha Express

(edit: This post was originally done Monday, thought I lost it - really just had a d'oh moment and set it to the wrong date. here it is for those who didn't RSS it.. :))

ARRRRGGGHH I screamed at the top of my lungs as I was pushing up the hill, the wind seemingly pushing back twice as hard as every ounce of effort I could muster I AM SO SICK OF THIS (*!#$@@#!! WIND, ENOUGH ALREADY! It was all I could think to yell at the top of my lungs. 60 miles in, I'd been fighting a headwind and hills for the past 17 miles, and was just about beat by both of them. That's when I saw it, and let out a A HA HA HA HA!! worthy of Jack Black as I saw this sign:



That was it, finally the brutal climb out of the Platte River valley with a headwind that should have been a tailwind, it finally paid off - the NNW wind would give a nice westward push as I cruised across Omaha.

Of course rides like this start innocently enough. "How about a early Wabash ride on Saturday?" Oliver asked on Thursday, heck yes - I was in. I love the ride out to Wabash, and Saturday was looking to be a nice mild morning. In talking to my wife, she was thinking of heading to visit her folks in Council Bluffs, Iowa on Saturday as well. Somewhere during the conversation it was brought up - why don't I just ride my bike there and meet 'em there? 76 miles, lots of gravel, lots of pavement - all goodness - the route was planned out into the wee hours of Friday. As direct a route as possible - home to the Mopac, Mopac to Wabash, gravel to Highway 50, Highway 50 to 370, then 370 to S36th street, finally L street to the South Omaha bridge. Cross the bridge, 7 miles later I'd roll into their driveway. Cake.

Saturday morning I woke up and the winds were PERFECT, out of the SW in Lincoln from 10-20mph, in Louisville, NE they were due South 10-20, and in Omaha SSW - perfect as I'd be heading in a West/North/West/Northwest direction all morning.

The ride to Wabash was awesome, and pretty fast - that wind was letting us hold a great pace with no effort. Of course I was loving it, but Oliver and Cory P weren't fans thinking of the long ride back into it. I laughed and ribbed them a bit. In retrospect.. probably not the best idea :).

Bid 'em farewell in Wabash then headed solo on gravel for a couple miles. Amazing views on gravel:

And then on the one MMR of the trip:

(which was outstanding, btw) I wondered why it seemed like there was a headwind. "Must be the wind whipping around in the trees" I told myself. Sure. Whops.

After a couple miles on Highway 50 pushing into what continued to be more and more of a headwind I had to stop, and pulled up weather.com on the smartphone. Why I do this, I don't know - it's the cycling equivalent of watching a trainwreck. Seriously. Yup, fears had been confirmed - she'd switched on me to a NNW wind - ouch.

Stopped in Louisville after fighting with it for not long enough, but needed fuel. The gas station was closed, but the Subway was open - had the best tasting six inch subway club I've had in a LONG time, and met some of the nicest employees - who all were wondering of my sanity when I told them of my route. Hah.

After Louisville, NE I remember it being a constant uphill. I'm sure it wasn't, I'm sure there were downhills - but I don't remember them. From the west I could see a storm rolling in, and looking at my watch I realized my wife was probably on I-80 pretty darn close to me at that point, I came pretty close to pulling the plug. I was climbing forever, it seemed like, and it also seemed like I wasn't moving (I averaged - maybe - 12mph between Louisville and 370). Every time I'd either muster some extra energy or get out of the saddle, the wind would throw it right back at me. Close to the end (I had no idea it was the end) the iPod was playing Guns 'N Roses' "Estranged" and I couldn't help but listen to the lyrics as I ground up the hill:

An now that you've been broken down
Got your head out of the clouds
You're back down on the ground
And you don't talk so loud
An you don't walk so proud
Any more

Ironies, eh? :) After all that, the yelling - the screaming - I turned on to 370 and got a nice shot of tailwind then felt the drizzle. Put the phone(s) and iPod into the waterproof bag and headed out at a radpid pace across Papillion and Bellevue on 370. That part was completely epic, the drizzle enough to cool me off and the tailwind enough to keep me flying down the road. Stopped at S36th and 370 for a Cherry Coke (no idea why, sounded good, tasted even better), bananna and a final bottle refill.

Called the wife, found out the bridge I was planning on taking (South Omaha Bridge) was construction riddled and impassable-by-sane-folk on a bike. My alternate route - the Bob Kerrey Bridge - I hadn't researched enough on the Iowa side, so it'd be a crapshoot at best, and with my Sprint Navigation broken thanks to a "software update", Google Maps not being much help - I stopped attempting to reroute after trying for 15 minutes and just told her to wait about 20 minutes, then come the opposite way that I'd be coming - and we'd probably meet right before the bridge.

The climb on S36th into Omaha was fun, espescially in Bellevue. Two lane road, little traffic but one pretty decent climb in the Swanson area (considered just stopping there and trying a lap on the LHT.. sanity crept back), then into the urban jungle. Rode sidewalks when it came to be Omaha as the traffic was pickin' up, then L street surprised me, and I headed West again (with that glorious tailwind). Crested the hill before 25th & L, saw the family truckster headed the opposite direction so I pulled into the Walgreens parking lot and unclipped. Ride over, smiles from the wife and 14 month old, Mission Accomplished.

Driving back, yup, glad I didn't attempt the South Omaha Bridge - it and the 13th and L area were a mess. Yesterday after lots of looking I have a route using the Kerrey bridge, but it isn't ideal - going to have to research it more. Overall, awesome ride - 4h 45min (ish) of riding time with around 70 miles. You can go anywhere on a bike, just have to do it.

My "oops" moment came when I realized I forgot to give my wife a different set of shoes for me when off-bike. I won't lie, after pushing all morning my feet had started to get a bit sore (alleviated by spinning on 370/in Omaha) and while they're comfortable on the bike, the Bontrager RL's get a little uncomfy off-bike. By 3pm I had enough, and my daughter and I made a trip to Bass Pro Shops to pick up some mocs (and some DQ for her). With the LHT all loaded up, later in the evening we headed back:

All in all, an awesome trip. Here's the crazy part, for the first time in.. ever I think after a long tough ride I wasn't zombied post-ride. After a shower and some food, along with about an hour of lounging around I felt just fine - albeit my legs weren't full of jazz anymore. Pretty awesome.

That's all I've got. Novel over.. :)

Randomness

Lots of randomness for today. First, my favorite thing ever (almost) is The Daily Plate (dot com), or rather, the daily plate when I actually use the thing. See I was annoyed last week and going "okay, I managed to lose a bunch consistently last summer, what the heck was I doing differently?" Thankfully one thing was tracking my weight, intake, and exercise religiously through TDP. So now I'm back to eating almost exactly what I was then (I just ran out of oatmeal packets, so I'll need to make a store run to pick up some old-fashioned oats again), and riding about as much as I was then.

It's really a great tool, just gotta use it. I try not to get too terribly hung up on stats, but they do help to consistently track what's going on - lately I've been also tracking my heart rate during rides, as well as the duration of the ride. Mileage? Once or twice, just to make sure my average speed is where it was a year ago (it's a little higher, whee).

Next up is heat. We've been inundated with rain lately, and right after it stops the sun comes out and shoots the heat up into the mid/high 90's. Pretty brutal, but what I've noticed is just like in winter, I quickly acclimate to it. Yeah, it's going to suck royally for the first couple rides out there - no doubt about that - but keep rolling. It gets better to the point of tolerable. For an hour. Maybe two. :)

Speaking of ride stats, I've been doing good about posting them to facebook and Twitter, as that's all I seem to have time for anymore. Here are linky-dinks:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bdinger/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bdinger/

Having a "unique" last name helps, yaknow.

Finally, the heart rate monitor is the best training tool, ever. Hands down. It helps me in every cycling situation to evaluate better what I should and shouldn't be doing. "Rabbitt" up ahead that I really want to go after, but my HR is already at a 160? Probably should hang back. Hill coming up and I'm lounging around listening to Seger at a 120? Select a new playlist and rock it. Previously I alternated between running at a 11 and running at a 5 all the time - which makes little sense in the grand scheme of things. I'd attack things when I was already at a 10, then push way too far.

Now I've got it figured out. My favorite zone for an hour long ride where I want to get a good workout in is 145-155. Above that, I'm pushing it too hard and it takes too long to recover from. I can go from 160 to 180 pretty quickly (within a couple minutes), with not much to benefit from it, and it takes forever to recover. When I'm in the 145-155 range I can drop down to 125, which I've deemed my ideal "attack" rate, then dial it up reasonably and for a long period of time. I've only been doing this for about two weeks, but in that time I feel better about getting a more reasonable ride in.

One last thought, finally have gotten back to my "summer schedule" for sleeping, I think. I like sleeping 10p-6a, then being at work by 7 - so I can leave around 4:30. It's been a struggle to get back into it, but I think I finally have it down. Those nice cool 6:30am rides are something in the summer.

That was dumb

Wife to me as I'm leaving "Be careful, severe thunderstorm warning in Northern Lancaster county". Me to myself "Psh, that's up north, I'm fine - I'll take the short route".

Sometimes, in my line of work, we refer to things as a ID 10 T error. This is case in point. Particularly considering I'm a trained storm spotter, which of COURSE kicked in halfway to work when I looked west and went "oh... !@#!"

15 minutes later I arrived at work, completely drenched to the laughter of my other early-arriving co-workers. It was, as they say, amusing in volumes :).

Haven't had much time to blog lately, unfortunately, as I've been inundated with work and whilst home, I've been enjoying a computer-lite existence. I of course have about 8 blog posts in my head, but every time I sit down to write one I end up grabbing my book of the day and reading, or chasing the Tasmanian Terrorist Toddler around. Last week I rode every day aside from Monday, which was the day I stayed home from work with back pain, and enjoyed nearly all of them. Except for Tuesday which would be the day where I was terribly dehydrated as I'm not yet used to 90+ degree days with 90+% humidity. Or.. just another in a series of "how does he constantly get dehydrated!"

Today a high of 97, and after the two feet of rain we just got, I'm betting 97% humidity. I'll sweat the pounds off, if nothing else. Weigh in day is Thursday, and a good day it'll be.

DL

Ouch, Thursday night I did some free weights, calisthenics and the stair stepper for the first time since we moved into the new place and got everything set back up. Did I overdo it? Course I did. So now it's Sunday morning and I'm STILL pretty sore after trying just about everything (lots of protein, lots of water, lots of ibuprofen) to get the sore out. Legs are the most sore, particularly my quads on the outer side of my legs.

I rode into work on Friday, and I was a snail. Legs were really sore on the way in, and even worse on the way home - I looked like a marathon runner going up and down stairs. So nope, no awesome weekend rides to report as I didn't ride yesterday but I'm goona try to get out today and tour some bike shops in search of a rack trunk. The panniers are awesome when hauling loads, like say clothes to and from work, but with just small items in them they flop all over the place including the spokes. Yikes. No more cheap panniers.

Anyway, lessons learned. Even my back injury from a couple years ago has flared up, so I'm basically a hobbling old man right now. I'll admint, it's pretty dang amusing. Note to everyone: don't overdo it on the workouts, days of pain aren't worth it. Moderate weights for lots of reps. Whatever you do, also, don't set the stair stepper to a level "9" the first time you get on it.

Fear is the mind killer

Definitive proof that my favorite wheelbuilder at Cycle Works wins the Internet, he'd be the one who penned it on the rim tape after building up the new wheel for the MTB this winter. I'm going to let it speak for itself, kinda, but man isn't it so true? To live in fear is to live a really horrible existence - our country is there right now. Buck the fear, and you live the good life. Think about it. I had completely forgotten about this picture after taking it in late april, first time I changed a tube on the mountain bike after the new wheel was built up for it.

I've been riding with a heart rate monitor on lately, and you know what? I think it's a better tool for on-bike fitness than the bike computer. I don't have a bike computer on my LHT because I'm my own worst enemy in that respect, I'm constantly chasing a faster number for now real good reason. "Why the heck am I only pulling 15mph on this trail today, yesterday I was cooking at almost 20!" Gee, maybe it has something to do with the fact that you've put in a ton of miles this week and your legs are cooked, or there's a slight headwind, or or.. yeah. You get the idea.

Anyway, the HRM is awesome because it keeps me in check. There's times I think I'm working good, then I look down at it and realize my heart rate is only at like, 105 or 110. Other times I'm like yeah, I'm rockin' hard now! Above, look down and realize I'm pushing it a little bit (or a lotta bit) too hard. Last week I found that if I kept it in the 135-150 range during my rides I could ride all day long and not get too tired, or feel fried and ravenous afterwards. Shorter rides, like today I'll push it up a notch. Works great for me.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the weight numbers to start their summer free fall. Rode an absolute ton last week (around 15 hours according to the HRM for something like 13k calories burned), and lost.. a half a pound... haha. Love it when that happens! I'm sure it'll shoot down next week, I've come to expect this when I make a drastic change in either nutrition or exercise - either the weight will fly off that week, or it will be some kind of oddball number that makes no sense.. until the next week (ever watch The Biggest Loser? Yeah..). Half a pound is still half a pound.. I'll take it.

EDIT: My wife sent me this link: http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/cron1.html and it appears to be very interesting. When I plugged in weight and activity levels in the past, it was spot on accurate. For every 3500 calories, you lose 1 pound - so go have fun with it! :)

Tomorrow, gotta drive so I'm thinking about attempting a 0600 wake up to give me an hour to loop memorial stadium.. that would be a great way to start the morning. Not a Husker fan, but something about it is pretty sweet.

Ride lots, enjoy the dreary weather, and man oh man - keep lovin' it. It's a good life when it involves a bike.

It's goona be hard to go back to work...

Saturday afternoon I joined up with Oliver for a trip out on the Mopac. Man.. this week has been awesome. Gravel, wabash, ride around town with Cindy from the LJS then on to Eagle, evening ride, then capped off with a sweaty muggy ride out to Elmwood. Last week I spent about 15 hours on the bike over 5 days, most of it on gravel or limestone, and all of it awesome.

I'm looking forward to being back at work, but man, it's goona be tough getting used to not just running off and spending 3 hours on the bike in the afternoon. Most notably, getting lost out past Eagle where it's only you and the tractors.

The emails keep coming in, and they keep getting more awesome. I've added a couple blogs off to the right, and will keep adding 'em as they come in. Lots of common questions, one of which is what bike I ride. I'll answer that one right now, thought about a seperate post, but I don't need one. Here she is:

It's a Surly Long Haul Trucker Complete, which has proven to be the Best Bike Ever over the past year, and probably 5,000 miles I've put on 'er. Mods for my weight? The stock rear wheel was taken apart and rebuilt (new spokes, etc) by hand over at Cycle Works, and it's been rock solid. Other mods are Schwalbe Marathon Cross tires (roll great on pavement, are comfy like whoa, and just rock on gravel), a Nitto Noodle 48cm Handlebar (I've got a wide shoulder span, this cured my constant shoulder pain on long rides), Brooks B-17 saddle (I'll never ride anything else, I've never had butt comfort problems since going Brooks), and some Shimano PD-M520 pedals. There's been three saddles, three handlebars, three sets of pedals and two different kinds of tire on this bike since I purchased it, and this is how it's staying. It's rock solid and it can go anywhere, setup like this I've taken it on long road rides, through wilderness park, and on gravel centuries.

I'll have more on clothing in another post, and other common questions that seem to come up - but the summary is to just find something and ride. When I started out I was wearing a baseball cap, sneakers, gym shorts and a t-shirt on a mid-90's Raleigh mountain bike that was a size or two too small for me. But you know what? I still had a blast.

Remember, 1 pound a week is still 52 pounds a year. 5 miles a day is still 35 a week. Both of those numbers are better than zero. Dig it, smile, ride and the rest comes later. The long ride is always the best one.