Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Monday Ride

So after fighting on parts and stuff I re-greased my jockey/chainwheels and finally hit the road around 2 yesterday. I ended up only going up to Schaeffer Farm but still had a good and enjoyable ride. I did 9 miles out there in a bit over an hour. Not a great pace but not horrid. I spent a lot of time figuring out lines and what features I could handle and what I couldn't. Normally I'd be pushing to get outagain to even just Cabin John but we've got a pile or three of things going on this week, and I need to set my schedule, so we'll see.

Schaeffer is a rolling slightly winding stretch of singletrack in Germantown MD and its a good series of trails. Their are 2 or 3 loops, though the main trail (yellow) has a loop at the end of an out and back that can be varied by taking side trails (ORange and Blue). Kudos to MORE for providing an excellent riding spot. I hope to be able to contribute some trail work sometime this spring.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Bike Maintanence

Oh the other hand my free year of support from my bike shop is now over and I've got to do it or pay the $$. So on my ride home yesterday I heard a LOT of chain/gear noise and new that it was high time for a good cleaning.

My chain and Jockey Wheels were disgusting. The cassette and front sprockets were varying stages of gross. So off came the chain. Got it good and clean but used up the last of my finishline de-greaser and my jockey wheels were gross and all. So out they came and they were bad. I'm gonna either have to re-grease them or replace em. A lot of grit and stuff inside the metal covers on em. So I'm gonna go by City Bikes on the way home for some advice.

Monday I'm off to either Greenbriar (Checked out the race course) or to Shaeffer - Just ride like hell. :)

See ya'll on the trails!

Woot for Nice Weather!

Thank the weather god for nice weather returning to DC. I was going stircrazy in general, and especially in wanting to hit some trails on my Sunday/Monday days off. Well the weather was nice, traffic wasn't too bad and so I've officially opened my cycling season (EastCoastStyle) as of Friday April 20.

I got home re-kitted out the bike, my car and myself and drove to my launch point a mile or so away from teh WOD Trail. I bombed the steps down from McAuthur Blvd near the bridge down to the trail only having to walk the 3 worst steps (GRRR!). A few adjustments later I was off down the trail. My pace at first was a nice and solid 17 or so till almost little falls. I let up a bit then and averaged down to 15 slowly by the time I hit George Town. A quick stretch break and I was headed back. I dropped down to the capital cresent and hauled ass back up the trail following some roadies, holding 17-18 for a while. A detour to Little Falls went for about 10-15 minutes of wheelie practice. Some of my better wheelies. Still can't go as far/fast as I want. But it was better. I need to work on my 1/4 crank and balance drills a bit. A quick rest stop and it was back up the rest of the way. 16.5 miles round trip in about an hour 10. Nice ride and felt pretty good.

Soon I will start loading my rides from the GPS data to Motion Based but the basic tool from Garmin isn't bad I just wish it's mapping was better (Overlay onto perhaps googlemaps instead of its own). My heart rate was solidly in zone 4 for most of the ride so I'm pleased again. (Vs when I went spinning for the first time Wednesday and was in oh zone 5 the whole frickin time).
Being able to watch my cadence/hr when riding especially on flats is very good for my training goals currently.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

With the shit weather here in DC the last few weeks I"ve been either running or hitting the exercise bike at the gym. I'm working on my cadence but I'm just not solid, so instead I'm trying to just maintain a solid 90-100 most of the time except on the hell climb sections. It looks like my first op for a nice ride will be either Saturday afternoon, Sunday (hmmm probably not) or Monday.

2 weeks from Sunday marks the Greenbriar challenge that I had wanted to race, and if I go ride it and find myself acceptable on MOnday then so much the better...we'll see.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

D'oh....I missed the date/punchline....April Fools on me, 4 days late. ugh.


As also posted to my LJ, I offer this.
http://www.fatcyclist.com/2007/03/31/pileup/

I feel bad for all the guys, but honestly, I'm probably like the idiot on the otherside laughing.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Moving In, slowly....

Well we got the gear in Friday and on Saturday J and her family unloaded most of the trailer, Sunday afternoon we finished up the last pieces with the couch and the monster mattress.
We cleaned and put way a lot of Sunday and put way a bit of stuff. Yesterday I got a late start on stuff after a lengthy trip to the hardware store.

The neat thing I did discover is i have a good 1/4 crank drill area in my basement by looping the workbench or even the outer area. I couldn't do it for long as my legs are worn pretty low from all the moving crud. So I did about 5 minutes of those on Sunday, today I'm gonna try and do that and some trackstands. Later I might try some hop-offs push/pull drills out back. Wheee for back lawns!

I want to ride soon so I'm looking at a ride either Thursday or Friday. Then I'm definetly going next monday somewhere cool like greenbriar or such.