Bicycles!

[NooDle]

God damn climbs have a big impact.
Did a longish ride today (66 km) but climbed for nearly 400 m....

Not being able to stand up on the pedals properly (broken wrists, remember). Means that every climb is a sitting climb. And I fucking hate it! It does mean that I get all those hills back going down, which is nice.

Still, did manage to get my average around 23 km/h which is fine for me

 

[DanRoM]

Funny, I absolutely loathe standing up, it totally ruins my rhythm. But then again, I think you do mountainbiking, while I do roadbiking?

 

[CraigB]

I'm a 99% in saddle rider, except when I need to maneuver weight around, starting out in a high gear or sprinting away from dogs.

BTW, last three weeks I have put in over 100 miles per week on the not-a-road-bike. I hope to be near 450 total for August. But at some point, I've got to get away from roads/gravel and ride some dirty, dirty singletrack.

 

[altoid]

It's been a strange few months. I restarted riding in mid-April and that looked like May below, with the same easy dash to the beach and back every day. Then I got a bit more creative in June, and consistency dropped as effort soared. Lately it's been tough to get a groove going at all, what with strict keto and intermittent fasting sapping a lot of that endurance energy and moving sapping the number of fucks given.

I did a fun 24-miler with 770 feet of elevation gain today, which was alright. I miss doing real climbs, so my next ride is likely Mandeville take 3 (takes 1 and 2 started in Palms). Maybe Nichols this weekend, if I'm brave dumb enough?

 

[NooDle]

I'm a 99% in saddle rider

Oh don't get me wrong, I am too, it's just I feel that climbing steep inclines goes a LOT quicker and doesn't wear me out as much when I'm standing.
It's just that I've mainly been doing flat ground lately.
Also, when MTBing sometimes you gotta stand to absorb the bumps and crashes in the road. Especially rocky downhill sections will murder your bunghole if you sit down.

 

[altoid]

Massively unamused today. ?

After the successful chill ride Monday, I decided to tackle Mandeville yesterday.

But then, before I even left:

I think I found it:

OK, fine, I have spare tubes, all good. No time for the ride, but ready for today. Ordered Gatorskins as well, to replace these stock Vittoria Zafiros.

And then today, except this time 10 miles from home, right before the actual climb:

For fuck's sake… ?

On the plus side, CO2 is wicked:

So, uhh, is it time for tubeless yet? ?

 

[altoid]

Ignoring the flat tire issues, might as well celebrate the riding itself with some porn.

First real climb:

This machine calls out fascists:

Marina Del Rey, new neighborhood:

Somewhere south of me, maybe 20 miles or so:

Two of my favorite things:

 

[Redliner]

You need a tag on your bicycle?

 

[bone]

i assume that's to participate in some sort of race...

 

[altoid]

You need a tag on your bicycle

i assume that's to participate in some sort of race...

1312 stands for ACAB, aka "all cops are bastards". I originally wanted a Black Lives Matter fist sticker, but the number plate came with numbers, and this works for now, at least.

 

[Redliner]

1312 stands for ACAB, aka "all cops are bastards". I originally wanted a Black Lives Matter fist sticker, but the number plate came with numbers, and this works for now, at least.

Ha!
Clever.

 

[altoid]

Update: Gatorskins are on, test ride tomorrow morning. ?

 

[Eye-Q]

I "test rode" my road tires as well - one hundred friggin' ninety Kilometers (118 miles), by far the furthest I've ever ridden in a day. Before that I had a maximum of 135 km, but that was on my cargo bike with 30+ kg of load (chocolate and my stuff for 9 days) and the last leg on the way home from Amsterdam so pretty slow-ish and with being home as incentive to power through it.

 

[CraigB]

Great ride, @Eye-Q ! Congrats!

 

[DanRoM]

Holy shit @Eye-Q. Mad respect for this. Considering I barely manage 2.5 hours without getting in serious trouble, 190 km in one go seems totally unreachable.

 

[Eye-Q]

I have to say it did push my envelope. I had a colleague of mine with me who is triathlete, has loads of sensors on his bike and so on so he held me back from pushing too hard. My legs began to hurt about 30 km from home...

We started around 7:10h and arrived around 16:30h which brings the gross average including stopping at the highest natural point in Schleswig-Holstein (Bungsberg at a measly 168 meters above sea level), a bakery and various bus stops to around 20.5 kph. Net average on the move was around 26.5 kph, we cycled 7:08h.

Oh, and to @DanRoM: since I have an insulin pump I turned the basal rate to just 25% of the normal rate but the blood sugar level barely rose for the first 110 km, even though I ate a couple of cereal bars and drank apple juice. Then I was a bit adventurous, ate a breadroll and a Mandelhörnchen without administering any additional Insulin as I didn't want to risk a hypo, then 30 km later the blood sugar level was way too high (300 mg/dl) so I administered a single unit of Insulin. When we arrived home the blood sugar level dropped to just 52 mg/dl, usually one unit lowers my blood sugar level by about 40-50 mg/dl. In hindsight the pretty quickly declining blood sugar level might have been the cause for my legs hurting so next time this happens I'll just administer just half a unit...

 

[Redliner]

You guys...damn.

 

[RdKetchup]

You guys...damn.

This!


My total for 2020 is 212 km, with the longest ride 25 km.

 

[CraigB]

Rode my longest ride ever yesterday. Managed to put in a little over 50 miles/80 km and did pretty well non-stop (minus clearing downed limbs and trees off the trails).

This brings me to a grand total of about 450 miles/ 720 km for the month of August. I think I'll take it easy for the next couple days, but who knows what I might do.

Sadly, the next two weeks I'll be busy with track stuff and out of town, so I might ride less, but as much as I can, I will go for a ride.

I have nearly killed this rear tire though. It's about 1/3 tread compared to the front. Looking at the Panaracer Gravel King to replace them. I've heard good things and they have good reviews.

The bike has been pretty good, but it is time for a bottom bracket and a good cleaning. The dry gravel I've been riding has been sticking to the water bottle sweat causing quite the buildup of gunk.

 

[Eye-Q]

Nice! Actually, if I hadn't done the 190 km yesterday I'd have 640 km in August so it seems you are doing shorter rides, only more of them instead of occasionally doing long rides.

The continuation of that old railroad track between Carl Junction and Brooklyn Heigths looks funny on satellite photos on Google Maps: there are empty freight cars parked on the tracks, but of course the road crossings had to stay clear so the train is separated into three pieces...