Tour de Fire Roads

Lots of fire road climbing yesterday; some of it pretty steep. My Edge 305 is massively on the fritz. It gave me the mileage it collected (when it wasn't shut off - which it did about 15-20 times), and total ride time.

I have no idea if the HR/speed info is accurate. I burned 100 calories over 23 miles and 3,500 feet of climbing. The elevation profile on Training Center shows up as 2.2 miles. Which is odd because it didn't actually shut off until probably 12+ miles into the ride? I guess I will have to "borrow" an Edge until I can get mine fixed. Luckily I have a buddy that took his apart and fixed this very battery shut off issue that every unit seems to get after a year or so of use.

Either way, the small group of us climbed quite a bit, and descended some fun singletrack. We even had a few water crossings. I wound up riding midpack (except when descending) most of the day. Felt really good on the climbs, actually. When the fast guys were chatting and riding at social pace I could hang on their wheels and nearly hold a conversation.

I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm thinking the leg workouts in the gym might be doing some good. If I'm getting some muscle that isn't built up by riding alone it could be helping my strength/stamina on the climbs. It probably also doesn't hurt that I've been doing a good amount of climbing lately. Climbing begets climbing, right?

High country riding is soon coming my way, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. I need to get myself to a better place for numerous reasons, so the hard rides and (hopefully) long miles might do me some good. 9 rides in 11 days. If I'm able to average around 20 miles a ride that's just shy of 200mi. Sweet. Add to that a good bit of climbing (let's say 3,000 feet a ride?) and I've got myself a good week.

Random quotes

"To get anywhere in cycling takes patience, consistency and motivation. Nothing happens overnight. That, and control what you can, which means everything that has to do with you."

"You can stand up all you want. You can eat all the ice cream you want. Just don't let Eddy Merckx catch you doing either."

"Memorize ten exclamations from Phil Liggett's Tour coverage. Recite them at the top of your lungs, complete with suave British accent, substituting your buddies' names for the names of the Tour riders are your next group ride."

Riding at the speed of pregnancy

I have a friend that's pregnant, but who also likes to ride bikes. Only, she can't ride too fast or her heart rate will jump up and it isn't good for the baby. The fix? Ride at the speed of the pregnant woman.

The small group of us started out not long after Carlos Sastre rode down the starting ramp and onto the tarmac for the ITT at the Tour de France; all resplendent in yellow and hoping for a miracle. His teammate, Frank Schelck was 3 minutes ahead of him. Just before Frank was Bernard Kohl, who had fallen off the start ramp before his "go" time. Cadel Evans was a few miles gone by that point, and the great American hope - Christian Vande Velde - was hitting checkpoints with speed and efficiency.

It's easier to ride faster, harder, and longer while there is, arguably, the greatest sporting event in the world going on. Men (flesh, bone, blood) ride for 21 days on a circuitous route around France (and sometimes Great Britain, usually Italy, and other surrounding countries), and cover over 3500k (2,200~ miles). They climb through two mountain ranges (the Pyrenees and the Alps). The stages are typically over 100 miles each. Show me a baseball player that burns 10,000 calories a day. Cyclists work really hard. They're also fairly masochistic.

So, we took off, but we couldn't do a time trial down the road. The warm up was nice, actually. When we got to the base of the only climb of our journey I called out to see if we were playing "King of the Mountain" today. Without waiting for an answer I changed gears and sprang off the front. I didn't even look back.

Halfway up I was passed, but only for a minute. I was really happy with how I did the climb. It was the first time I hadn't dropped into the small ring (double compact), and I managed to climb the lower slopes at 12-14MPH. Awesome.

We completed a few more flat to rolling miles, then turned around descended. Dropped the pregnant one off at home, and climbed another hill. Unfortunately I didn't feel nearly so good the second time. Probably lack of calories.

My Edge 305 shut off once again (after following their instructions to the letter). Don't buy one. It will eventually begin to shut off uncontrollably and at random.

Despite the unit shutting off:

41.48 miles
2:43 ride time
1,267 feet climbed.

Tomorrow: time to hit the dirt. Soon there will be lots of dirt. But for now there's still plenty of time for pavement.