Riding on the Winchuck

Susan Roberts and I went on a ride up the Winchuck River today. We started at Nautical Inn and rode to the end of the pavement. It was a beautiful day but it was windy and cold. Probably high 40s or low 50s. We had planned to ride down into Harbor for a coffee but it started to rain so we cut the ride short.
I discovered a web site called Motion Based where I can upload the data from my Forerunner. The coolest part of it is that it will put your route onto Google Earth.



This is where we turned around.













The road on the way back.













Buddy the Beagle taking it easy while I was out riding.

Next weekend I'm doing my first mountain bike race of the year. Horning's Hustle up near Portland. I'm going to take the trailer and stay on the race site. Should be fun.

Crescent City?

Is this Crescent City? Starbucks and Home Depot.












This proves that it is really Crescent City. That's Susan driving by in our Volvo wagon as I was taking the picture. Coincidence in a small town.











While I was out on my bike I took a picture of the real Crescent City. Crescent Beach anyway.

Southern Oregon Time Trial #3

Susan Roberts and I headed over the hill to Oregon early this morning. As we were driving over Oregon Mountain in the dark it was snowing, hard. Snowing hard by our standards anyway. We thought "What the hell are we doing?".

Never fear, though. I had my new canopy and my propane heater. It turned out that the weather was actually okay. It didn't rain or snow while we were at the race. The race was fun. I was slow, as usual, but I beat Susan this week.

It was a hilly course on the back roads between Phoenix and Jacksonville, Oregon.







I dropped my chain again, dammit. That's where my speed drops to zero. The places where it's below 5 mph were just an old, fat guy going really slow uphill.

The charts are from Motion Based. I can upload data from my Forerunner. It will plot the course on Google Earth too. Cool.

Bad Ass Bike

I love my new Cannondale but I've never liked the way it looked. Even though bikers in the know would realize that this is a serious racing machine, it looks too much like something you'd see next to the Schwinns at your local bike shop. Well I've changed the look. I mounted some road tires on the carbon wheels I bought for my cross bike. I think that they make it into a bad ass bike. I'm going to race it in the time trial this weekend.

Crescent City, CA

I was out on my single speed one afternoon last week and took some photos along the coast. I wasn't very happy with the way they turned out but decided to post them so that Mary and Brooks can remember what they left.

If you make this one full screen size you can see the Pt. Saint George Lighthouse.






You can see the snow capped peaks in this one. This is as close as I get to snow except when I'm driving over these mountains to get to Oregon.











Castle Rock Island, taken from my bike on Pebble Beach Drive, Crescent City, not Monterey.

















Pebble Beach.














The coastline.













The coastline with the lighthouse in the background.












The lighthouse.













Just think, Brooks, if you still lived here you could be racing with me in Oregon instead of peddling inside on your trainer looking out at the snow.

TT #2

I did the second race of the Southern Oregon Time Trial series today. Brooks liked the charts last week and, since I think he's the only person reading my blog, I'm posting charts again. The race was short, 8 miles, but all climb and descent. I don't know why the elevation chart looks different between up and down. It was an out and back. Maybe because I was going 9.9 mph up and 26.8mph down. The down could have been a lot faster but my TT bike is pretty squirrelly in fast curves and I'm pretty chicken in my old age. I'm thinking of racing my road bike next week. The course is even hillier. My road bike is lighter, 18.5 lbs vs. 19.8 lbs for the TT bike, and the CAAD 9 frame should be a lot more solid on descents.

Here's speed and heart rate. I'm too fat for hills. I should lose weight but that would take cutting out wine. That seems a little drastic just to be faster on a bike.










Here's the profile of next week's course. It doesn't look like and out and back. I think I'll try the road bike.

TT

Susan Roberts and I did the Southern Oregon Time Trial yesterday. It was the first in a series of three races. Again, the race showed that I need to do some more hill work. Susan beat me by about 1 minute. I dropped my chain and had to stop to fix it. I thought that would be my excuse but she said she stopped once too when she thought she had dropped her chain.

I have figured out how to capture the screens from my Garmin Forerunner program. Isn't it interesting to plot heart rate against elevation?

Here's speed and heart rate. I felt pretty strong at the end. I figure I averaged13.4 mph going out and 21.1 mph coming in. I should be able to improve on that. I think I finished last in the masters group. It was fun though. I'm going to do the rest of the series. Next week is shorter but more climb.







I took my TT bike out for a ride on Thursday to make sure that everything was working properly and I flatted the front tire. I put some Stan's sealant in it and it held. I was a little worried racing on it but I really wanted to use the Cosmic Carbone wheels. It worked. The tire continued to hold air for the entire race and is still holding. I ordered some new tires though, with yellow sidewalls. Should look cool on the wheels.