So You Need to Borrow A Bike?

My note to a guy in town who is borrowing a bike from me for a charity ride next weekend. I don't know the guy, nor his wife, who is a friend of my wife's. I figured this was entertaining enough to share.

Hey John,

Sorry I wasn't there this morning to help with the bike. I've got it setup now, tires & chain are set. I put 1 bottle cage on but didn't have another laying around to throw on. You can get one for a few bucks at HG if you need it. If I find one before you get the bike I'll toss it on there.

Few things you'll want to know about the bike which will help make your ride a bit better...hopefully.

1. The bike is setup 1x9, which means the front has no gears. I raced a full cross season with it a few years ago which is why it's setup this way. If your route has a lot of hills you may curse me by the end of it. Scratch that, you will curse me, bank on it.

2. If you shift into biggest cog in the back, on the hills presumably, the rear derailleur will rub against the spokes. I'd avoid that unless absolutely necessary. I really don't ride that bike anymore so I haven't bothered to take care of it. If I get a few minutes tomorrow night and you have not picked up the bike, I'll try to take a look. Alternately if you bring it down to Jim at HG and tell him it's my bike he'll fix it up for you at no cost. Just mention it's my bike and you're borrowing it. He may laugh. He does that.

3. The biggest pain to start is going to be the shifter for that rear derailleur. It shifts into easier gears as it's supposed to. But shifting to harder gears doesn't work like it should. So when you click the inner lever, both parts of the lever move. In one of my crashes 2 years ago I got something stuck in there and it's never worked itself out. So what you need to do is hold the outer lever and click the inner one. At first you will, again, curse me. But after a few minutes you won't even realize you're doing it. Hopefully.

4. Ok, now you've gotten to the top of the hill and you start to scream downhill. This is a bit of a bad idea, as the brakes are designed for cross races, which are typically muddy. The brakes are setup to give plenty of room for the mud to clear the wheel, but they do not provide the stopping power that normal road brakes do. Most cross courses are flat, so braking power is a non issue. But screaming down that hill, you may curse me a 3rd time when you realize they don't work that well. But the bike is heavy, so it will bomb downhill like a champ. You can leave your friends in the dust, sweet!

If it's raining, it's exponentially worse. Just be careful with the brakes.

I think those are the main points. The tires are cross tires so you'll have to work harder. I pumped them up to 70 PSI which is the max on those. So I can't even make them rock solid to help with the rolling resistance. So again, if it's hot and there are a lot of hills, I'm sure you'll be cursing me as your cohorts all sail along while you toil to keep pace.

So in summary...

* the shifters suck
* the brakes suck
* the tires suck for the road
* the bike is heavy
* the saddle is actually bent (sorry, I just remembered this one)

However, I'm fairly sure the chain is rock solid. And there's a bottle cage on the front. So you've got that going for you. Which is nice.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Norm

The Magic Day

On Saturday, August 1st, 2009, I set out to ride to my folk's house in Pennsylvania, opting for the long route. My aim was to hit a list of 7 points of interest to me, and to take my new Cannondale Super Six all of 100 miles in the process. I had previously dubbed this bike The Magic Bike. I also dubbed this ride the Northern Vision Quest. One can only guess exactly what I was hoping to find with this ride. Whatever it was, it was successful. This is my story.

The Plan

Here is how I laid it out before the ride. This is how I prefaced it the day before the ride on my training thread:

"I am doing the Northern Vision Quest ride:
http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=70258

The idea here is to get out to Califon as directly as possible, as far from home as fast as I can. Then I'm going to meander around and hit various items of interest. This will totally be back-loaded, I think everything is after the halfway point. In order of appearance:

1. Fiddler's Elbow, the reputed hardest climb in NJ
2. Merril Creek Reservoir, where Eagles live
3. The Buddhist Shrine up on Montana Mountain
4. The house I lived in until 3rd grade
5. The East-West Shrine, just because it's there
6. Iron Bridge Road, the reported second hardest climb in NJ
7. The house I lived in from 3rd grade to college

After that I'll go up and over the hill to Milford, then up the river to my folks just south of Easton. The ride clicks in at 98 miles, so I will likely look to add a few miles to get the magic 100.

I need to figure out where my pit stops will be. I may hit Pottersville if it's open at that time of the day, even though it's only an hour into the ride. I need to make sure I don't burn myself out tomorrow."

My big concern was water intake. I had done a century the weekend before, and dehydrated colossally. I wanted to avoid that happening again. It's so easy to think you're not in trouble while you're losing water faster than you know.

The Easy Start

I woke up fresh, feeling good. A quick breakfast and cup of coffee and I felt like this day was going to be a good one. I don't know why. Maybe my mindset was on. Maybe it was meant to be. I just felt like I was going to have a good ride and I felt good getting ready to go. I was excited to be going out on this ride. It had a purpose, something so few of my rides have most of the time.

I started easy, jumping on county route 512 and taking it west to Califon. I kept a moderate pace while listening to my music. I'm one of those people who listens to his iPod on the bike now, though often I listen only for the first hour or with 1 earbud in. There are so few cars on the roads I ride I've never had it be a problem. My playlist:

The Black Keys - Rubber Factory
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards
Wheezer - The Red Album

I got to Pottersville and the store was closed. Same deal with Califon - not opened until 8:00. I wasn't in dire need but I was being aggressive with my water and food intake for the first hour. When I got up to the town center I saw a Dunkin Donuts, and jumped in to see what it had to offer. Luckily, it was a combo DD and convenience store, and I grabbed 2 bottles of water and a Luna bar. Shortly after I was on my way into roads never before ridden.

The Unknown

Coming out of Dunkin Donuts I was heading into unknown territory. It was generally a short foray there, as I would be in familiar areas soon enough. But it was cool nonetheless. I immediately climbed up and out of Califon, and while I didn't click down into the granny gear I was close. The pull out of there is steep, and you know when you leave. I had picked this route up from MapMyRide, so I knew it was reasonably bike friendly, or so I thought. I would soon find out differently but for the time being I was on roads that were reasonably paved and peaceful.

I hopped out onto 57 south of Hacketstown and it was like gliding on ice. The pavement was so smooth I wanted to just blast my way down 57 for the next 20 miles to Phillipsburg. While I knew it wouldn't be all nice pavement and soft downhills the entire time, it felt good to be out of the hills and the rougher gravel roads that accompany them. The bliss was short-lived, as I soon turned right and headed up to a town I had never heard of, Port Murray.

Soon my route took my left onto a road that looked much less friendly than the road I was on. Aside from the obvious pavement quality, there was a sign at the head of the road. This is not a picture of it, but this is just what it looked like:



What does this sign mean, exactly? Well, the MapMyRide link went through here, as did Google Maps. Interestingly enough, NJBikeMap did not. In fact, there was a dead space where I was going to ride. Why did it not click that this might be an issue? I think the MapMyRide link assured me that I would be ok. Here is the road in question on Google Maps itself: Warren Rd.

If you pan out you notice that it's an area totally bereft of roads, except this one, the one that "isn't a through street".

At first it was fine, despite the house that looked as if it hadn't been lived in for 40 years. There was some sign of civilization. The road wasn't totally paved but it was ok, then I got to a split in the road and one way was dirt and the other clean pavement. Ok, I figure, this is all good and I'm good to go. I take the right on the pavement and immediately see a closed gate, a private drive. I then knew that I was going down the dirt road. It strikes me quickly to wonder who would have barred iron gates at the end of a half mile of ragged pavement in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But the bigger concern is that I'm going to be riding the Magic Bike on a dirt road, which I'm not thrilled about.

Quickly the dirt road turns into this:



And it got worse. If I have to guess I'm on this dirt paved road for a good solid mile. At points, this road was approaching the quality of a Ringwood fire road. Certainly it was no better than a jeep road. My car would never have made it down it. Now that I'm in the comfort of my own home, I can explore Google Maps a little bit and see that this is apparently what was behind those locked gates: a major estate of some sort.

I would love to know what was up there. If you look closely you can see what appears to be a large pool next to the house. At the top of the clearings, I couldn't begin to guess what that stuff is. Your guess is as good as mine as to what is up there, but it's intriguing as hell, I'll say that.

Eventually I spit back out on the road and was greeted with smooth pavement and nice scenery for the next little while. I was slightly distressed that my bike was full of grime and grit but I wasn't about to let it ruin my magic day. Shortly after crossing 31 I came across another deli and I stopped to stock up on water. This was a bonus as I did not know what was on the route. I was quickly approaching the meat of the journey.

The Goods

Fiddlers Elbow, the reputed nastiest climb in NJ.



This hill starts out steep, as you would expect. But it's not that bad. The real pisser with this hill is that as you go further, it gets steeper. Or at least it stays really steep and then at the end, it pitches up. I got to a point where I was sitting in, and my front wheel kept hopping off the ground every pedal stroke. So I stood up and leaned way, way forward and at times my rear wheel spun out in the gravel. There wasn't a lot of gravel on the road, but enough to make it tough for the bike to bite on the climb with my weight forward.

This was by far the toughest climb I've ever done in my life.

I got to the top, and then took the downhill. Down, down, down, and way down. Eventually my GPS told me to go left. Left, huh? Here? For the second time Google Maps led me astray but this time, at least it had the decency to try and send me into oblivion from a main road as opposed to leading me halfway into the woods before dropping me off. At this stage I was in familiar territory so I dropped down to 519 and cruised out past the county fair I used to go to when I was a punk ass kid:



I then hit 57 and headed towards Washington, around the south side of Merrill Creek. This wasn't what I wanted to do but I had actually added some junk miles at the end of the planned route in the event that something like this happened. So I took the alternate route up to the reservoir entrance, in the process climbing back up the hill I went down previously, and took a break at the reservoir:



Tibet

I've never been to Tibet. But I have been to Taiwan, and the Buddhist influence there is greater than what you might imagine. Religion in the East is different than what you see in the West. It is more subdued yet more prevalent and accepted at the same time. It's a strange dichotomy, and somewhat tough to explain. While I'm not a religious guy by any stretch, I do embrace the peacefulness that is Buddhism and I was pretty excited to find out that there was a Buddhist learning center so near.

As I turned on to the road, things seemed to be more tranquil, quiet. I passed a driveway that had numerous stacks of firewood lining the drive, neatly organized. The neighborhood was old, quiet. I knew it was impossible for the people here to not know the center was there, so it held a kind of acceptance of it's existence, a harmony almost. I was excited and nervous to see what would be there.

When I came upon the entrance it was obvious:



As I rode up the driveway, there were banner-like streamers hung in the trees. I don't know enough about the religion to say what that means, but it was familiar to me in a way which I can't exactly explain. I must have seen something similar before in Taiwan. This is what the Internet has to say about what they are:

Tibetan Buddhists string prayer flags between trees and from poles on stupas, high mountain passes and other places. These flags are printed with mantras, and every time they flutter in the breeze they are spreading the merit of that mantra's message through the air to all living beings.

As I rode up there was a guy doing some yard work and we talked for a bit. We discussed the center, the hours, programs, and an upcoming festival that anyone is welcome to attend. Like I said, I'm not a religious person but it is intriguing. Part of me has become very enamored by the East, and this was a way to reach out to that without having to fly halfway around the world to see it. I look forward to going back someday when there is more activity there.

While the architecture wasn't like what you would see in Taiwan, there was some flair:



After I left I felt really energized. I dropped down the mountain and back onto route 57 and felt like I was as strong as I've ever been on the bike. It made me wonder, what is it like to really, truly believe in a god? I don't mean the token belief that most of the world gives to some deity, but to truly believe that there is a god riding with you every day, that you've got someone watching over you. Does it lead you to do stupid things on the bike? Do you just hammer forward with the idea that if it's your time, then so be it and the world will either protect you or move on without you?

While wondering this I was passed be a rather large and noisy truck, and decided that good feeling or not, I better watch out for myself.

Childhood Memories

Shortly after I turned on to the old street I used to live on in Washington and cruised up to my old house. I used to live next to a 1-legged girl who lived in the blue house on the right. Her dad was a cop and she had an insanely hot older sister who once asked me to rub suntan lotion on her. I was in 2nd grade at the time, and I think that was the moment in my life when I finally understood what a woman was. I cannot for the life of me imagine what she was looking for with that request of me.

I used to live on the left side of the white house. As I look at it now, the neighborhood is a total shit hole. The entire town is more or less rundown, and it was understandable why my parents moved out. At the time that 1-legged girl was my best friend, and I didn't want to move. We said we would ride our bikes back and forth to visit. Of course, I never saw her again.

When I came up to the house, an extremely fat woman was turning around in the doorway to go inside.



I rolled on and went past the Blue Army Shrine, which is just something I would often see in the distance as a kid. I don't think I ever went up into the grounds:



The difference in religion between the East and West cannot be better stated from the 2 pictures. One is a modest gateway, the other a sprawling 1000 acre estate. It was striking at the time and begged for comment.

I rolled into Asbury and came across my next surprise deli, which I almost rolled past but decided to hit anyway. I grabbed a bottle of water and a peach Snapple before the half mile roll to Iron Brige Rd. The people there eating breakfast seemed a little startled to see me and my bright superhero outfit there, and the old timer across the street watching the world was trying not to let me catch him staring at me. As I rolled away I gave him a nod.

Iron Bridge



Like Fiddlers Elbow, this is both brutal and relentless. After 75 miles of road riding this is not the hill you want to be climbing. While this does not punch you in the gut at the end like Fiddlers, it seems to go on just a touch longer, and doesn't want to end. When you reach the actual iron bridge, you can't be more than 1/3 up the hill, if even 1/4 of the way up. As you hit the top, or what seems to be the top, it still doesn't let up and merely eases up a bit as you struggle to get up to 6 mph and spin your legs out just a little bit.

Despite that, my legs never tried to cramp and I made it up, which is the important thing. I crossed the top of the hill and shot down 173 at mach speed, taking up an entire lane since I was going as fast as the cars on the road. I hit the bottom and kept cruising and blew right into Bloomsbury, which came up faster than I could have imagined.

More Memories

I looked down and was doing 28 mph on 173 as I came into the town. I don't know where this mass of energy could possibly have come from, but there it was. I felt like I was just about ready to line up for a race and have at it. I knew it was fleeting, but I felt on fire, just blasting down the road. I remember there was a day when the truck stop seemed so amazingly far away from downtown where we used to hang out at the Cracker Barrel all day. It took all of 3 minutes to ride my bike between the end of town and there.

Everything was so small, so beat down. I hadn't really lived there since high school, summer of 1990. I guess a lot changes, and having spent a lot of time across the world and having jobs in NYC changes what you consider up-to-date and rundown. But I was really surprised at how beat up this town is. I don't think the street I grew up on has been paved since the first time it was ever paved. What I used to think was a far walk from the store to my house was maybe a minute on the bike.

When I pulled up to my old house a woman was taking pictures of her daughter, and I asked, "Mind if I take one too?" She was taken aback, to be sure. But when I explained I grew up there she opened up entirely, as these are the people who bought the house from my parents. We talked briefly, then I snapped a picture of the old house and was off and up the hill.

This is where I grew up:



I climbed up to the old railroad bridge and stopped for a minute. A car went over when I was on it, and the way the rickety old bridge made noise when someone drove over it was like an echo from the past, so distant yet so familiar. The whole bridge creaked and shook, nothing had changed a bit. This is looking down the tracks to Pine Hollow, where we used to have colossal parties with major bonfires. Once a freight train stopped to warn us the cops had been called by the previous train. Like idiots, we kept drinking and hopped on the train. Next thing we knew half of us were sitting in the back of cop cars:



At this point I decided to jag across and climb up Bloomsbury Mountain, which Maurice thinks is tougher than Iron Bridge Rd. I was this far, 85 miles in. What the hell is another 700 feet? Along with Iron Bridge, this is also on the list of major climbs in NJ. I did this one slow & steady and aside from the sun beating down on me, I didn't think this was nearly as tough as the previous 2. Hard, no doubt, but not in league with the others. This is from the top looking down, which doesn't give you a good perspective at all as the hardest part is the first half up to the hairpin turn.



Wrapping it Up

At this point it was a matter of hopping across the mountain then coming down to the paper mill where my step-father worked years, until the economy caught up to it and it shut down. Currently the owner lives on the property in his RV. From there it was a straight & flat shot out to the river. It was all in the sun, but my legs had a lot left in them as I was able to ride out this last section at 20/21 easily. Finally I hit the border, and the Delaware River which was apparently flowing directly from Wonkaville this day:



I shot up 611 and wrapped it all up at 101 miles and 9100+ feet of vertical for the ride. This is the token shot, lovingly referred to as the money shot. I guess this is my 4th this year and slowest of the bunch, but by far the most rewarding and enjoyable.



The magic bike was great on this magic day. I have yet to give it the proper photo shoot and I may now have to clean off some of the grit from that non-through street before I do that. But there it is, waiting for me to dish out more of whatever I can. It was more than ready to abide:



And your truly, at the end of the ride:



This was a keeper, an absolute magic day on a magic bike. It may be a long, long time before I put together a ride as meaningful as this. But all we can do on a day to day basis is try. And when I wake up tomorrow and roll out of the driveway, I'll know that while it's unlikely, you just never know when you're going to knock one so far out of the park you might just remember it for the rest of your life.

Rain is Fine

Starting this post on the train this morning. It's Friday and still raining but I'm not going to be among the myriad of people whining about the rain. Seems like half the Facebook status updates of the last 24 hours are complaints about rain. It rains, these things happen.

I however feel good. I got out for a ride in the rain. I'm now living under the premise of No Excuses. It's too easy to make excuses for everything. I think Nike had it right: Just do it. Stop making excuses and live your life.

It's Friday and I'm strongly considering a day off Monday. It's supposed to be 52 and I need a colossal bike ride, in the 5 hour realms. Nat said, "Go for it." Maybe she's adopting my No Excuses philosophy. As long as I have nothing that needs attention Monday I think I'm going to pull the trigger. It would be really neat to put on the summer shoes again for a day and not wear the big gloves and winter jacket. Even if it's a single day I think it helps the soul.

I have some time tomorrow since Nat and Julia are going to a shower so I can get a 3 hour ride tomorrow and maybe 1-2 Sunday then bang out a huge Monday.

At 181 today and hoping to see 179 before the year is out. The 4 dozen cookies may have hurt the cause a bit last week but the entertainment value there has faded and we've stopped eating them. It's a tough time of year to lose weight but so far I'm still dropping a little each week.

On a lark this year I did another fantasy football league with some old high school friends I found on Facebook. Well the year ends and the guy is like, "Ok pay your $40 now." And I'm like fuck that, I don't gamble. So he said he would pick it up since I didn't know it was a money league but I'm sure this just severs the tenuous connection I had reestablished with them. No big deal I suppose since I hadn't talked to anyone in over 15 years.

That's all I got. In Penn Station now so I'm off to see if I can find dried cranberries and walnuts in this dump. Admittedly, I get a little OCD about some things. So sue me.

Monday After

Big ride yesterday, just short of 82 miles in 4:20 and change. Lots of good things going on yesterday but the 2 that stand out are that 1) I didn't break and 2) I quickly learned how to paceline without fucking anything or anybody up. This will help if I want to do some road races next year, which I do.

We were supposed to go out west from my house but before we started Fred locked his keys in his car. So our destination was obvious - Fred's house in Dayton to get the spare. I think Ben dubbed it the Tour De Keys. And so it was.

Good ride, and I would be remiss in not saying how much more enjoyable the long rides are with other people. I don't mind long solo rides but 4+ hours tends to press your brain to the limit.

I'm tired today. My 4 signs are all blaring at me: 1) My legs hurt, 2) I had to scrape myself out of bed, 3) I am +1 pound today which always happens when I overdo it, and 4) my resting heart rate is +11. Not that you need a math professor to tell you this but it was a big ride yesterday.

Almost surely totally off the bike today, unless Julia goes to bed at 6:30 which is possible since she stopped napping a few days ago. Tomorrow back to working from home so another few miles in the pipeline I'm sure.

Saturday Night

It's Saturday night and still raining out there. In theory it's going to clear up while I sleep and be nice tomorrow morning. The longer the rain holds out the warmer it will be when I wake up. I'm hoping for 50+ so I can go as little clothing as possible.

Going out for 4+ hours tomorrow with Ben and Fred. This will be my longest ride of the year. Could be interesting to see how it goes after the 3.5 hour mark. You could see me totally break. Doubt it but you never know.

Got my winter shoes. And it was over 60 today. Oh well the cold will show sooner or later so I'll have plenty of opportunity to use them.

Silence

They say silence is golden. My wife says my blog sucks now. Hard to argue either point.

I'm off to buy top of the line winter shoes which will help me ride through the winter, no matter the temp. I'm pretty excited about it. Shoes.

And socks.

I'm excited about shoes and socks.

The Plan

So here's my current biking plan. I've toned things down for now. After going back and forth with Ben I finally got the message that I need a goal. And when I assess everything my goal is that I need to drop weight. Going as fast as I can doesn't address that goal. Going as long as I can does. So the plan is to go longer, not harder.

I mentioned I now WFH Tue/Thu. I ride the weekend plus Tue-Thu. That means I only have Wed where I need to get up super early (4:40 today) to get bike time in. The idea would be to limit my trainer time to Wednesday only. All other days I go outside. Today I didn't have it in me to hit the trainer for night riding in the 30s. Maybe next time, which will be in 2 weeks since I'm WFH next week.

This will last as long as it lasts. When it's 22 and dark out, we'll have to see. Right now I'm getting good miles in and chipping away at the scale. The aim is 175 right now. Actually the aim is 186, then after that I can reassess, but I'll be shooting for the 170s either way. Ideally this gets close towards the end of the year.

After that I can start to think about the 2009 race season. Right now I'm getting as many hours in the saddle as I can. When there's snow on the ground, I'll have to adjust. Right now there's not.

Pre Dawn Rides

When it gets colder, you're not supposed to start the majority of your rides before the sun comes up. But I find myself doing that recently. Today was 6:20. Saturday was 6:05. Same story last week, and tomorrow, and Thursday no doubt.

The temps are supposed to bump up for Thursday morning and it may be 50 when I ride. So I may extend this one to a solid 3+ hours just to enjoy what little warm mornings I have left. Before long it will be dipping well below 37 degrees like it was today. Not sure how well I can handle an hour at 25 in the dark. But if the goal is worth it the answer should be easy enough.

The one thing about riding on these cold days, when the sun comes up it feels so amazingly refreshing. It's just great to be out on the bike at that hour of the day. It's also great to have been out for 2 hours and think, "I'd just be getting to Penn Station right now."

Blog No More?

I have been very lax in my blogging lately. I figure that's a good thing for me, maybe not such a good thing for the readers. It's good for me because it means I'm not looking to waste time on the way to work as much. It also means I'm not going to work as much.

A few things going on here:

* I'm working from home almost every Tuesday and Thursday. I use that commute time to ride my bike.

* We bought a portable DVD player for Julia so we can go on long car rides. That means I get a DVD player to watch on the train.

* I picked up a base building book which is interesting to me.

Add it all up and my blog time is less than ever. Like I said, it's a good thing that I only go to Brooklyn 3 days a week, and every 5th week I'm home the whole week since I'm on support. That will be next week. So that amounts to 12 trips to the office every 5 weeks, for an average of 2.4 days a week, compared to what used to be 25 days a week. That's rich, and phat, and all that good stuff.

On the bike, my season is over. I've revised my goals. I now have 2:

1. Drop into the 170s. Enough of this bouncing around. I'll explain more about this someday but it's time to start living long-term with my plans.

2. Have fun.

That's it. Ok, in NYC now. Enjoy your Monday.

Football and Sharks

As usually happens, fantasy football has jumped the shark by week 3. I'm 2-1 in 2 leagues and 1-2 in another. I'm 2-1 in the primary league and my team currently looks pretty solid but I've just lost all interest in football at this point. I knew it would happen so it's no surprise. Just saying it's so, I guess. I'll stay interested so long as my primary team keeps winning. But I didn't even consider watching any games this week.

Rutgers has already jumped the shark, starting out 0-3. Looks like this team may totally fall apart, or maybe this qualifies as already having fallen apart. They play some sort of St. Mary's for the Blind school this weekend so they may get a win but who cares. This past Saturday their game started at 3:30. We went to a farm, then for pizza, then to see the horse, then to get ice cream. They're not worth wasting my day for at this point.

After the race Sunday I'm motivated to ride and race more again. It always happens this way. This is good, because it's not getting warmer out. So these races at the end of the year often serve to motivate me through part of the winter.

So Now What Happens?

So I think I may have done my last race of the season yesterday. I'm not sure yet. There's one more series race up at Blue Mountain but I don't know if I want to make that trek. I want to race again but I may need to find another outlet closer. The obvious alternative would be CX, aka Cyclocross for those of you non-bike folk. Jay said I could borrow his bike.

Yesterday was great, a 6th place finish to wind out the year. If I go to Blue I think I will struggle to break 10th because it's an unknown. But who knows. This year my results were 7-6-15-7-6. The 15th was a shit race for me. I was a total idiot that day and that week.

Yesterday was a blast, probably the most fun I've had on a bike in a race. Now I'm motivated so I need to keep some race avenue open. This coming weekend is the picnic but the following could be a race. Or it may be vacation. Nat's call at this point but it's pretty obvious she's sick of my biking stuff.

Either way it's time to strap in. Winter is coming so you have to roll with it and stay on the bike. I think I need to come up with a more consistent way to stay on the bike since I'm way too streaky right now. I need to hit the race season firing next year.

Today I'm still tired though. We can start tomorrow.

Not Much to Say

I don't really have a whole lot to say this week. This is ok I guess because sometimes you just need to take a week off. I'm taking this week off. Went out Monday after work and that knocked me out completely Tuesday and still lingered Wednesday. I think I'm at an all-time low in my ability to drink beer. My nickname becomes less appropriate every year.

Race this Sunday up at Jungle Habitat. I enjoyed this last year so look forward to it again. It's a tough course in terms of the tight trails. It's a biker's course not a racer's course. This means you have to focus and keep your head in the game or hit a tree.

But I'm refocusing my bike energies lately. This may be the evolution of a Norm 2.0 in the bike world. We'll see. I'll still race but I may be expanding and downsizing at the same time. Expanding venues to add CX and road races, but downsizing the amount of travel I'm going to do for the races. With that idea, this may be my last H2H series race. I would like to give CX a shot.

I also need to be more involved in the scene in terms of trail maintenance and group rides. This is all a work in progress. We do what we can.

NYPS, train ride is over.

Ready for the Offic

Never thought I would say this but I'm so ready to go back to the office tomorrow. I'm not a WFH kinda guy, I just don't do it well. The week started off poorly with me being up until 1:30 then I just stayed up longer and slept later each day.

Like I said to Nat, I used to be able to get up and ride 40 miles and come home in time for the family to wake up. Friday and Saturday they woke me up. It's going to be a stretch waking up at 5:45 tomorrow and getting out the door in time. It's also going to be a shock to Julia when she wakes up and daddy isn't here. Ditto for Nat who will have to get up when Julia does.

On one hand, I played it wrong by staying up too late every night and watching the install logs roll in. This was my first week so I'm still getting my groove on. On top of this, I worked far too many hours during the day then ended up working another 2-4 at night, and thus the cycle goes. I should have let them call or email when something was wrong. Instead I was overly proactive, to my own detriment.

Next time I should have a better groove down but this was a good learning experience. One thing that kinda sucked was that I missed the race today because of this. I just so happened to get the weekend when there was a huge rollout that everyone was hoping would go out when someone else was on-call. Well I got it, so I was on a conference call most of yesterday morning and tied to the house all of yesterday.

As of this morning they weren't sure it was going to stick, and a rollback is the absolute nightmare scenario. So I was still on the clock as of this morning, and couldn't make the race today. No big deal I guess, life goes on.

I ended up on the road today, and got 4 flats. This on top of 2 Friday and 1 Thursday. I have a tire/tube problem of some sort right now. More on that tomorrow.

Getting Your Money's Worth

I think I got my money's worth out of these tires. This happened about 30 minutes into my ride yesterday:



That's from the outside, and this is from the inside:



Amazingly I was able to boot it with a pair od dollar bills and it got me home. I pumped it up to 50 PSI and it got me there. Last night I put new shoes on it.

Monday Cares

I think ordinarily I would be going on about how useless I am right now, it being Monday morning and all. But since I went through the "no magic this year" post a few weeks ago let me just wake up today and tell you that yes, I have affirmed that there is still no magic in 2008 like I had hoped. I think I'm prepared to say that this year is more or less a failure in what I set out to do.

So you wake up one Monday morning. It's the first full week of August, you have about 10 weeks left in the biking season so most of your work is done for the year and when you look at it, you've done a fair job but you're fatter than any time in the last year and change and you know your goals are out of reach. Sure, you can get on a bike and go fast but not as fast as you want. So where does that leave you?

I don't care anymore, I can't care. I was supposed to do a race yesterday, the Dark Horse 40, but I simply didn't want to. No desire to do it so I said fuck it and passed. Why go do a race you just have no motivation for? Why force yourself to do something just for the sake of doing it, especially if you know it won't be worth the payoff?

So I did what any sensible person would do and drank heavily this past weekend. I started the weekend by riding with Bill Saturday morning, then doing TM up at Mahlon after the ride. Got home, grabbed a haircut, then off to South Jersey for lots of beer. I also played Guitar Hero for the first time ever and that game fucking kicks ass!

Then last night I had more beer. I'm just sliding right now. Well I was. Maybe this weekend will be a kick in the ass and I'll get going for real again this week. Well, let me rephrase that. This weekend has already been a kick in the ass to get things moving but the question is, will it move in the right direction or not?

Against all logic, I'm now considering the 24 hour race again. Those of you who really know me know that I make questionable decisions and this would be yet another one. But then you have to ask, why not? Well, I can think of a few reasons but I'm also thinking that maybe I'm going to say fuck it and go for it.

Cycle 46

Vinny asked me this weekend if I had come to any conclusions with my experiment and I have to admit that no, I have not. I'm about ready to wrap this up for now. Maybe in September when the train is full again I can open it up.

Victim: Summit, white, male, 40-49, married, not regular, not fat. Bad breath, almost bald but tries the combover. Dressed for NYC business. Listens to his IPod.

Assessment: Good, keeps to himself.

No Magic in 2008

Today I opted for the lower level of the double decker. I'm shifting hours this week to align more with when my boss is here. He never made it yesterday because his plane didn't leave Chicago until 1:00. I guess he went right to the hotel and called it a day. The lower level is also a new perspective because you're lower than normal. Still comfy and smooth.

I find people who sit on the outside of the 2 seater obnoxious. They clearly don't want to share with anyone and often time put their bag on the other seat and sigh when you ask to sit there. What's wrong with people?

But that has nothing to do with the magic. The magic is the biking magic. I had fairly high hopes coming into this year and I think today I'm going to go ahead and say that those lofty hopes are not going to bear fruit, or at least the kind of lush, tropical island fruit I was hoping for. The plan was to come into the season really hot and compete for a top 5 spot in each of the first 5 races. Well I bagged Tymor but in those 4 races I did compete in 3 but came up empty, getting 6, 6, and 7. Not bad by any stretch. But not what I was hoping for.

Of course a lot of my spring momentum was stalled by going to Taiwan and going from 186 to 195 and even above, at one sad point seeing 200 again. So understandable I would drop a few spots out of the top 5, no big deal. This still left the second half of the season, and right before Chicago I saw 189 again and things were looking good.

But then a week out there, drinking before, drinking after, and a scale which read 195 yesterday and 194 today tells me I'm just not going to get there. I thought I was back on track last week but then I jumped from 191 to 195 in 2 days. I need to string together some reasonably healthy weekends but this summer shit and the gatherings with the neighbors suck the life out of any momentum I build during the week.

It's not like I'm having a bad time of it. I'm totally enjoying myself on the weekends (obvious), getting in huge rides and then having fun with some friends after. But following up a 50 mile ride with 5 beers and pizza leaves me all sorts of beat up, unable to consistently make a push for those much needed lower 180 scale days I need in order to compete for a podium.

And it's not like I'm slow on the bike either. This morning I went out at 5:25 am. Without question when I ride at that time of day I'm unable to pull the same average as mid-morning or afternoon. But I did my long 24 mile swamp loop and pulled a 20.3 average. That's goddamn fast for a fat drunk. 2 years ago a 17 would have made me happy now I'm doing 20+ at 6:00 am. All in all, not bad.

But I don't think I'm going to take that magic step this year. It's not an awful realization but it is a realization regardless. So there I am. I don't think that changes anything but maybe I need to come to grips with the fact that I'm never actually going to see 179 like I had hoped. Maybe I make it to expert after next year. Or maybe I get sick of waking up at 4:30 and 5:00 am and dial it back and enjoy things more and push myself less. Or maybe I get on track, hit 182 by September, and podium the last 3 races. Either way as long as I'm enjoying the ride, literally and figuratively, I guess I have to take what I can get.

Weekend Riding

Another Sunday post about my riding weekend. Nothing of note for those of you who come looking for the chicks on the train or my musical tastes or even my general observations on life. So you've been warned.

WFH Friday so was out on the mountain bike and did some local boy scout trails, repeatedly sprinting up hills until that got boring then found the one dirt road in town and did repeats up that hill. Today (Sunday) was hill repeats on the road bike. 24 minutes Friday and 30 today. Saturday was my long ride.

Did almost 50 miles up in the Mendham Hills yesterday, MB link here. Overall had a really strong ride considering the vertical on that ride. The middle third was just ridiculous climbing. I didn't hit any sort of wall at 2:40 this time, though by the end I was starting to fade. I think I have my 3 hour pace down fairly well though yesterday was too hot for the DH40 pace.

I used my lap button on the GPS and once I got out of the hills I managed to pull a 19.8 average in the 2:00 to 2:30 time range. That really picked up the average which had fallen quite a bit from the climbing. I have been making myself stand on hills more and more and I found myself more comfortable than ever out of the saddle yesterday. I decided at 2:10 to not stand anymore because I was starting to feel it, but then just got out of the saddle again less than 20 minutes later.

The ride today was in the dead middle of the 97 degree day and it didn't bother me at all. So I think I'm getting used to riding in the heat. In all the GPS tells me I did 1400 feet of climbing in 6 miles and 30 minutes of actual "on" time. The other 30 minutes and 9 miles were going down and between hills.

Weekend Rides

Going to actually put up a training post this afternoon as a record for myself. Unless you have an interest in my training I'd suggest skipping it.

Was out in Chicago all week so I was 5 days off the bike. Didn't go nuts out there but came into Saturday at 193, feeling pretty tired and bloated and so on after a pretty rough Thursday night of eating and drinking and drinking. That was a +2 on the trip and +4 on my recent low of just over a week ago. For the record I'm just not concerned with weight at this point because I'm very happy with the results of my balanced protein intake and how much easier it is to keep eating stable.

Saturday

Rode out to my parents house in PA. Motionbased link is here.

Started out pretty slowly as the off week certainly left me lethargic. Didn't really pick it up until after about the 2 hour mark when I started to get some more legs under me. That's when I was able to creep the average from 17 to 17.7 until the last few short climbs to my parents dropped me down to a still respectable 17.6 for the ride. At the 2:40 mark I started to really feel it, which makes sense roughly. That time is pressing my limit so it was expected. Was able to bang out the last 15 minutes though so hopefully I'll be able to knock out a 3 hour Gilligan tour next weekend.

The total vertical on the ride is respectable at 4570 over 51 miles. That clocks a 9k vertical over a century so I have to be content with that. I was hoping to pull the 18 average but didn't realize just how much I was climbing at the time. I didn't love the route from the 512/513 intersection to the base of Jugtown Mountain. I think next time I'll shoot a little north of Califon maybe through Long Valley and head south of Washington and miss route 173 entirely. Another option is to shoot south to Round Valley and then up through Pittstown to Holland and the back way up the Delaware.

Sunday

The ascent of Warrenville Road, Motionbased link here.

Started really slowly Sunday and crept my way down towards 22 and decided to do Warrenville Rd, which is about as steep as it gets. Looking at the elevation chart this was just a series of ups and downs, and not knowing a whole lot about those roads I was not smashing the downs so much so I lost a lot of average there. After the climb itself I was at 15.1 for the ride and managed to bring it up to 16.3 over the last 40 minutes or so. Not terrible but not amazing either. Didn't feel fantastic though.

My official Warrenville numbers, using the lap button, are .57 miles in 5:48 with 338 feet of vertical. I guess my aim would be to get that under 5:00 by the end of the year but not doing it the day after my longest ride of the year would likely give me 20 seconds or more right there.

In all something like 80 miles in the 2 days. So even though I had a 5 day break I managed 6 rides in the last 11 days for a total of 240 miles and about 13.5 hours of saddle time.

A little Ketchup

So here's a little bit of stuff from last week I never got around to posting.

Back to working from home on Thursdays for now, which is really nice because it splits up the week solidly. As mundane as it sounds the trip into the city is mentally taxing. So getting to sleep in and being able to work from 6:30 until 3:30 allows me to go ride my bike in the dirt, which is what I did yesterday afternoon.

Bill, Chris, Chuck, and I met up at Lewis Morris for a little more pre-riding action. For those of you scoring at home that would be 2 experts, a semipro, and 1 fat old sport rider. I thought I was struggling a bit at times yesterday but when all was said and done we did 3 laps that just crushed last year's race time. If I can keep that pace for Sunday I'll be wildly happy. We turned 1 lap that was in the 30 minute realm which is crazy fast for me, 2:30 faster than my previous best. Riding with these guys helps me push myself. But I need to be careful on the start of this race as it's so easy to blow. I may try a slightly different approach Sunday. We'll see.

Ran the tubeless for the first time yesterday and right now I don't feel that confident with them as they lost all their air overnight and the sealant was still coming out wet. That could be bad but they did hold up yesterday for the ride. I'm going to need to cut the sweep of the bars at some point to put me in a more aggressive position with my weight further forward to get more bite on the front tire as I'm washing out more in the front than I'd like to. I'm also going to go 1x9 in July since I never change gears in the front.

I'm thinking of another 2 lap pre-ride tomorrow, 1 slow and 1 fast, to get the legs opened up for Sunday. I don't respond well to racing after a light day. I may also stick to the road for an hour. I suppose there's still a 2% chance I go down to Gloucester for the Summer Sizzler race but highly unlikely. We have a birthday party at 11:00 tomorrow which I'm lukewarm about. Then I think my parents are coming over to hang in the afternoon.

Cycle 10

Lots of scruff today so I may be seen as slovenly. But perhaps my boyish good looks and sleek physique counter that. Or maybe some the Miami Vice look works. I am dressed like this today:



Victim: New Providence, white, woman, not fat, married, non-regular, 40-49. Bright red/pink fingernail polish. Short dirty blonde hair. Opened laptop, 84 new messages in her inbox. Strong perfume, glasses. Possibly used to be very attractive at one point in her life but time has done its thing. She is wearing a shawl that brushes against my arm. Her name could be Carol. She seems to have a low-level Gaudy addiction. The shawl, the fingernail polish, dangly light lime-green earrings, extra rings, the donkey she brought on the train.

Oh shit, her name is Judy Ice. She is VP and National Sales Manager of McGraw Hill Higher Education. This was the footer of an email she was sending. I would publish her email but that's not a nice thing to do for the Spam Bots out there. Besides I'm sure you can find it if you want to interview her. The name Judy Ice fits with the gaudy look, I think. It sounds like a stage name to me. Her real name is Judimentary Icenlingerdooble.

Assessment: I appear to be the king of the middle-aged woman from New Providence and Murray Hill. Despite the shawl-rub and the stronger than average perfume, she was a solid co-rider. Space respectful and not obnoxious. We had another 20 minute NJ Transit delay today and the cohabitation was fine.

Comment: Terren says, "Norm, your train experiment reminds me of my commuting days, driving down to Eatontown. I came up with an experiment to monitor what percentage of left-lane drivers were women. It was kind of interesting, but let's be honest, it was just an excuse to ogle pretty women. BTW, I don't remember the results, which further undermines whatever quasi-legitimacy that experiment had."

There are lots of pretty women on the train but when they sit this close it's hard to get your ogle on. I'm not sure I see the utility in this experiment aside from occupying my brain and bringing interesting content to the blog. When it gets mundane I'll either scrap the experiment or add a new twist, like spreading mustard on the seat next to me. Though it has made me see the usefulness of the 2 seater. People will grab coupled 2 seaters while there are 3 seaters open. I always wondered about this but now I see that it's actually a more comfortable way to sit when you never have to pack a middle rider in your seat.

Cycle 11

Friday Night post work out of NY. Plenty of people leave work on time to end the week so you should have someone sit here. But you never know.

Victim: Male, Indian, 40-49, not fat, married, regular, New Providence. He got in the seat with much fanfare, always annoying. Dropped his big load of mail and newspapers on the seat along with his soda. Immediately on the phone. 2 calls before we're out of NYC. I'm not sure this guy is Indian, but he has a hell of a dark complexion. Fluent in English either way. Makes a joke to the ticket guy. Not funny. Reads the post.

Assessment: not bad. Kept his space after the initial phone calls.

Back to Tubeless

On Monday's ride at Lewis Morris I flatted 20 minutes into the ride which ushered in the 29er tubeless era for me. I wanted tubeless from the door but the tires weren't available and we were looking to get the bike on the trails sooner than later. So we went with tubes and they lasted all of 5 rides. Well, not even 5 rides as the 5th was hardly a full ride at all. So about 55 miles for $50 of tires.

I made my way down to the shop and inevitably spent 90 minutes there, which is probably an all-time low for a trip there. My wife thinks it's a good thing that the shop isn't in town because it would be way too easy for me to fall into a time warp. The way I see it I could bring Julia there and we could spend all sorts of time destroying things.

For all the bad things I've said about other bike shops, this shop is the complete opposite. I love this shop. Jay and Chris not only know their stuff, I enjoy just blowing time there. Not that any of you don't know what I'm talking about but I might as well mention that it's Halter's Cycles. If you don't go there, go there. All other shops suck in comparison.

Bike

Back to Indiana Jones and the Trainer of Doom this morning. It's warm enough now to ride outside in the morning but I don't have lights on and with only an hour to ride I'm going to keep pounding the intervals and stick with the plan. Maybe mid-June I can start piling up some serious saddle time and go out for 2 hours before work once I'm back in the mode of losing weight and building a bigger base for the second half of the season, as well as prepping for the Darkhorse 40 which is probably replacing the 24 hour race this year.

Jake says, "dude, this is great stuff. keep up the good work on the train experiment. by the way, whatever your FGI is, you're flying, so throw it out the window. maybe two (three?) years on the bike consistently is the magic number."

I'm thinking a few things here. On the road I have the new bike fit which makes me faster. Off road I have a new and much better bike which makes me faster. But I think the key is the constant riding. Since Julia was born I've basically ridden 4-5 times every week. That's 100+ weeks of continuous riding. This year I've really focused myself better to get the most out of my workouts and I think the 2 year baseline is really helping me maintain that. I do feel pretty solid on the bike these days. Just keep at it.

Cycle 8

Wednesday morning. I was thinking of just having 1 post a week with all the accumulated numbers from the week but decided that tacking it on the end of my daily crap is better.

Victim: White, woman, 19-29, not married, regular, Murray Hill, not fat, long blonde hair. Possibly the most attractive "victim" yet. But to be honest it's hard to tell when someone is sitting right next to you. It's kinda rude to turn and look right at someone as they sit an inch away. She's reading Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. I thought I smelled cigarette smoke when she sat down but now I think it may be the guy in front of us. Oh! Oh! It's the smoker from yesterday in front of us. Goddamn smoking is gross. Anyway, granola bar and water, then to the book. Strokes her hair with her left hand while she reads.

Assessment: All in all a good co-rider. Even though we were delayed (what a surprise, NJ Transit delays) she was quiet, kept her space, and just read her book. No phone, no makeup, no space violations. Score another one for the Murray Hill women.