Mike's Bike Blog

I'm not sure if this is a written rule but crashes usually happen in 3's, celebrity deaths happen in 3s. My last 3 rides fell to this pearl:

Sunday
First thing in the morning Jack and I got out for an hour of pace line work and decending drills. After that I was going to ride for another hour. I headed out on Limecreek Road towards Volente Beach. 2 Miles into it I hear a loud pop and the hiss of the air being released from my back tire. Upon inspection my tire had a severe blowout. I booted the tire with a dollar bill and changed the flat and rode home. That evening at the boys' soccer practice I changed out the tires with a set of Hutchinson Fusion tires I've had for awhile and got a 20 minute ride in.

Monday
This day will probably be remembered as Chaingate from the Tour de France. The day Andy Schleck lost the yellow jersey when his chain came off. I had my own chain issue. I had the TT bike and was planning on doing a 45 minute Sweet Spot interval (SST) which starts at the base of Courtyard and up City Park Road and down to Emma Long Park and then back up City Park and finally up the backside of Courtyard and finishes at the top. I was making my way up and was on the final part where it kicks up to around 20% grade when I hear a click and see the shifter for the rear derailleur move! Since I was out of the saddle when this happened the unexpected shift caused me to fall forward a bit. In the mealy I didn't realize the chain had came off so when I sat back down and started to peddle I got 3 or 4 spins in until I realized what the lack of resistance meant. By the time I realized the chain was off I didn't have time to unclip and braced myself for impact. There was no support vehicles for a bike swap nor any fans to give me a push so I had to go down a little on the hill and go back up. With the phantom shifting I decided not go up City Park cause if it happened again I didn't want to risk rolling into traffic and getting run over.

Tuesday
Still had the TT bike and was going to get a full 40 minute SST workout in but was going to play it safe and doing 40 minutes of down and backs on a 1 mile stretch of road on Rivercrest Dr. For this type of workout I'll usually do Bunny Run Road, which also runs parallel to Capitol of Texas Hwy and is right behind BreakingPoint Systems.  The nice thing about Rivercrest is it's a little flatter then Bunny Run and offers more shade. The downside is the road is much narrower and on some days there's too much day worker traffic (landscapers/construction, etc). I usually give it a ride as a warmup to gauge the amount of traffic and if it's light will ride it or go back up Hillbilly to Bunny Run. Today, the traffic was really light and was a perfect setting for a 40 minute SST interval. 10 minutes into it as I was approaching the turnaround point a truck that was parked on the left side of the road, facing the wrong direction starts to make a Uturn. I'm approaching at 23 mph and see the impending collision and hit the breaks. There's no way to swerve around him. I'm still not sure how I was able to stop as fast as I did. Instead of hitting him straight on I turned right a bit. I grabbed his big side mirror with my left hand and my bike came to a stop with a small thud against his passenger door. The left side of the handle bars are the only part of the bike that made contact with the truck. The left bar end shifter left a small dent and a scratch. There was surprisingly no damage to the bike, luckily all that happened was the impact caused the front derailleur to shift.

I took the bike into Southwest Cycle Sport and the culprit for the phantom shifting was more than likely a bent derailleur hanger. Peter made some other adjustments and I should be as good as new again. I rarely ever get into the small chain ring on the TT bike but hopefully the next time I try to go up a hill like Courtyard it won't fail me again. Now I'm ready for some good luck after getting the last 3 days out of the way.

Here's a different twist on my lunch ride as I was heading over to Limecreek Road for a 40 minute SST interval when I'm on Anderson Mill warming up. I started to ratchet up my speed a bit. I shift up to the 53T and start to pick up speed. I'm going about 21 mph when I hear someone shouting at me. I look to my left and there's a big truck with the passenger window rolled down and the driver leaning over to yell at me. My first thought was one of despair as I thought for sure this could escalate into a confrontation. However what he says next leaves me stunned. He says "I'm impressed, you're going over 20 mph, Good Job!"

I gave a little chuckle and tell him thanks as he speeds off. So was this a cyclist in a Bubba truck or a real Bubba who's turning over a new leaf?

Jeff's not the only one that got a Personal Record today. I got 2 on today's ride. For my lunch ride I left my house and went down Limecreek Road to Volente Beach for a 20 mile out and back. Today's goal was form sprints, 6-8 x 8-12 second sprints at 516 watts and NOT to do them all out.

When I got to the turnaround point in Volente I was close to my fastest time, this was good news since I was into the wind on the way out. I knew I wouldn't be able to do the 20 miles in 1 hour which is my overall goal, but I thought it would be close. I continued back doing my sprints, but not really concentrating on speed, but just riding.

As I approached the 3 Sisters I had a decision to make, I could either try to go for a record time up it but then not have enough in the tank to finish the overall ride strong. (After going all out on the 3 Sisters it takes a minute or two to recover). Or I could go up it at a steady pace, albeit slower but at the top be able to get back up to speed. Looking at the time as I hit the Sisters I decided to give a go at a fast time up it. I calculated that I would be 2 minutes off my 60 min goal.

At the base I was in my large ring, I usually spin 1/3 of the way up or around the Fisher Hollow road and then I shift down to the smaller ring and continue up. This time I wanted to try a different strategy. This time I didn't shift to the small ring at all till I hit the 2nd sister. When it was all said and done I finished the climb in 3'11",  5 seconds faster than my previous best.

Surprisingly I was able to get back up to speed relatively fast. Like I suspected I finished in 1:02. A bit faster than my previous best time for the Volente Down and Back. So I got 2 PRs for the price of one today. I like that math! Plus I didn't have to endure any pesticides.

Ride Statistics and Power Data

Today after work I headed out on Limecreek road down to Volente and back. I passed several other cyclists enjoying the afternoon. As I came up to the 3 Sisters hill I really didn't have a plan, at least I wasn't out to try to break my personal best of 3 minutes and 23 seconds that I set back on Christmas day. On the first sister as the climb started I got out of the saddle and proceeded up. I think I went a bit too hard on this sister as I got to the top I took a little rest and let my power drop to 245 watts (Avg). The rest is short as the second sister looms.

Once again I got out of the saddle to attack the second sister. Again I paced myself and felt good on the way up. As I crested the second I looked down at my Garmin and was surprised to see the timer was at 2'20". This lit a fire under me as it seemed the 3 minute mark was put into perspective.

For the 3rd and final sister I rose out of the saddle for the final attack. About 1/2 way up I did sit back down to catch my breath for a few revolutions and then attacked one last time. As I got to my finish line I hit the lap button and the Garmin displayed 3'15.96". That's 7 seconds faster than my previous best.

I plugged my data into the Hill Climb Power Calculator to play with the numbers a bit to see what kind of power I'll need to get down to 3 minutes for my years goal.

Working the the Power Calculator there's 2 values that I can control, my weight and Power. My bike weight is something I could play with but about all I could do is spend at least a couple grand on lightweight wheels to get the weight down 3 or 4 pounds or so. The weight savings isn't enough to spend that kind of money. I'll just have to shave the weight off me plus improve my power.

What kind of power will I need to produce and what will I have to weight to do it? I plugged some numbers in and came up with this combination that seems realistic.

As you can see the main thing I'll need to increase is the power that I can hold for 3 minutes. As I sit here and write this I went back to the data for today's climb and looked at the 3 hills, in particular I looked at just the climbs not where the hills crest and turn into short decents. On the 1st sister I averaged 454 watts. On the 2nd sister I averaged 440 watts. Finally on the 3rd sister I averaged 488 watts.

From this data it would appear I can output the required wattage so it's not so much about boosting my power I think the better approach is to increase my anaerobic conditioning so I can sustain the required power for the full 3 minutes and not take the 2 breaks at the crest of the 1st & 2nd Sisters.

Anybody have any thoughts or suggestions on a short hill time trial such as this? Word on the street is there is going to be one in June, father's day weekend to be precise. The race would be a hill climb TT and a circuit race. The hill in question very well could be the new road across from Jester that leads up to the newly finished apartment buildings. I haven't had a chance to ride up there, but it probably has a very similar profile to Jester.

This week I put together my training plan for the year using Traing Peaks Annual Training Plan Wizard. I penciled in a few of the races I know about along with a few event rides that I plan to enter as well. I started my training in the foundation stages as I want to build a solid base to build off of later in the year. This will help me as I progress through the year with speed work and give me the endurance to go 200 miles in a day. Right now it's a mix of lifting weights and riding. The riding is a little less than what I've been accustomed to so it's a little hard to take a step back as I've been wanting to get on and hammer it. All in due time though, this Saturday will be hammer time in the Copperas Cove race.

There was a little doubt as to my participation in the race come Saturday. It so happens that Jack and Ethan have their Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby that same day. Luckily Jennifer will take the boys to their race while I go to my race.

The rides this week were pretty good. Lauri and me did a lunch ride that left our office at Far West/MoPac down to Mellow Johnny's. This is good as we have a client right down there so now I know if/when I need to ride down there that it can be done. I also rode Volente loop on Saturday. It was suppose to be a hard effort, the wind that morning made sure of that. Once again I got a flat. I think that makes the 5th consecutive time that I've gotten a flat. They are almost all in the same spot, I'm beginning to think that one of the home owners there is discarding broken glass or nails to discourage bikes of pedal and motor powered. Although I haven't seen anybody else running into flat issues, it might just be me.

Sunday I went to the Austin Road Riders Sunday ride up Parmer. I really like riding with this crew. Chuck chimed in on the email list that this was going to be a training ride for him and let us know that we didn't have to keep his pace that everybody should ride how they want and to ignore him. Right from the start heading into the wind it was on. I found myself and Scott in somewhat of a break, Scott was a bit ahead of me, I knew the City Limit sign was coming up, I thought it was a ways further than what it was so he easily one that one as I didn't even contest it. Note to self, the Leander City Limit Sign is green. The Cedar Park City Limit Sign is white. The pace started so fast as we were averaging 22 - 24 mph the group split up fairly quickly. We waited at Hwy 29 and 3405. At 3405 Scott went back to see if he could see the rest of the group but at the pace we were laying down they weren't going to be coming along anytime soon. Scott decided to wait for the others while Chuck, Bruce, Andy and myself made the turn onto Indian Springs. The 4 of us regrouped again at Andice Road (RR 2238). At this point it was getting late in the day, everybody had on long sleeves, jacket, full finger gloves and tights. I on the other hand just had on a short sleeve jersey and bibs. I wasn't cold yet, but at the start everyone was saying how it was going to get cooler as the sun set.  I didn't want to get caught out in the cold, I really wanted to get a move on. I decided I wanted to see if I could ride the 17 miles back at/near thereshold. As I turned back down Parmer I started ramping up to 24+ mph. Andy and I rode together till about 3405 and then I was on my own. I didn't let up at all, my goal was to not get caught, to see how long off the front I could stay. I had hoped I could keep them off me all the way to the City Limit sign coming back in. For most of the time I was 24 to 29 mph, there's some big hills that I wasn't able to maintain that speed up of course so in the end my average speed back in for my solo effort came out to 21 mph (also factoring in slowing down for the stop lights). This was the longest sustained threshold attempt I've made. It would have been even greater if I could have captured the data with my power meter. However, as the ride started the hub wouldn't wake up so I was unable to record the ride with it, I only had my Garmin. It turns out the batteries in the hub died. I replaced them when I got home. Really bummed though that I didn't get the data, I guess I'll have to do it again.

That was a brief look at last week. This week should be another good week leading up to the race on Saturday.

What a great day for a ride, it was nearly 70 degrees and for the first time in awhile there wasn't an obnoxious amount of wind. Just a great day for a spin. I had to take Zeb to his skating lesson, which he passed Snowplow 2. Next was the leaves, I got those mowed and mulched. Finally around 3pm I was able to hit the road.

I got everything ready, turned on the Garmin Forerunner and as it turns on it starts freaking out about low batteries. I turn it off, take it inside and plug it in. I don't need it, the PowerTap keeps track of everything but the route. Finally I shoved off and the first few pedal strokes I hear a weird clicking noise. I unclip a few feet from my driveway, narrow the noise down and find a staple sticking out of the rear tire that was rubbing when the tire rotated. I pulled it out, luckily it didn't seem to puncture the tube. Off again, heading down Anderson Mill to Limecreek for a down and back to Volente Beach.

Heading down the 3 Sisters I get into an aero tuck, I'm flying down the road. My goal is to not touch the brakes at all on the decent. At the peak of my speed near the bottom of the sisters it happens. There is an unmistakable sound of metal clanking, however it sounded oddly familiar, but in the heat of the moment I couldn't place the sound. In my peripheral vision I see something, a spoke flying off perhaps. In a matter of seconds the air in my front tire was out and I was rolling on the rim.

If you know the sisters, you know at the base of the hill there is a sharp turn to the right. There was no way I could make the turn on the rim, I quickly glanced ahead to see if I was about to be struck by a car coming the opposite way or if I needed to pull the emergency shoot (i.e. take my chances with road rash and hope I didn't roll into oncoming traffic). Good for me there was no cars coming, so I kept it straight and came to a stop in the dirt.

I checked to see if I had a spoke sticking out of my leg, negative. I then looked over the wheel, no broken spokes. I set out to change the tube, a fellow biker rolled by, asked if I needed anything. I thanked him and said I had it covered. With the new tube in place I pulled out the CO2, twisted on the quick inflator head, but no air was coming out. Gave it a couple shakes, twisted it, but no air. Untwisted it and low and behold it was empty. SHUCKS!

About this time the thoughtful rider came bombing down the hill, he didn't slow. Can't blame him as I had just told him a few minutes prior that I was fine. So there I stood with no air I was about to succumb to defeat and call the wife to come get me. I call and get "the machine", everybody is outside! The good samaritan comes back, I flag him down, he gladly offers to let me use his frame pump.

I get it pumped up, it feels firm. Good Samaritan says he has a PSI gauge. He digs in his bag and pulls it out, he slaps it on and says I only have 60 psi. Darn that's not enough. I go back to pumping, man my arm is getting tired and then it happens... The valve busts off and shoooosh, out goes the air.

Once again I have to phone home, again the machine. I start walking up the Sisters, it's only 3.78 miles from the bottom to my house. I get to the Fisher Hollow Rd and prop the bike up against the mailboxes and walk down a bit to see if I can find what I ran over. On the side of the road I find the culprit.

A broken tape measure. The yellow metal tape was broken into 2 or 3 sections. I think this is the section I more than likely ran over and it explains what I saw in my peripheral vision. It also explains the familiarity to the noise I heard. Finally I get ahold of Jennifer and the SAG wagon is on the way.

It was a great day for a ride, but it wasn't in the cards for me. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for a ride.

If you've been following along you know one of my goals is to ride up the hill on Limecreek (the 3 Sisters) in 3 minutes and 30 seconds. On Saturday I rode up it in 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Today I rode out Limecreek for a couple of climbs up the Sisters.

My first go up it I clocked a time of 3 minutes and 30.38 seconds! Thus by rounding down, which I'm told is the norm, I've met the goal! I'm pretty stoked, now it's time to get it even lower. I'm thinking 3 minutes flat.

Even though there was a burn ban in effect I was on fire going up the Sisters!

This week I only racked up 124 miles. On Sunday I brought out the mountain bike and road the trails around my house for 6 miles. That was a great change of pace. The entire week was a bit different than what I have been doing. Going forward for the rest of the month Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be my intense workouts. They will be short yet focused, I'll alternate hills with intervals. Back to this week though, On Monday I was able to get out on Limecreek for a 15 miler. I hit the hill and made it up in 3 minutes and 46 seconds, which is 1 second off my personal best. I really attacked from the base, I set a 1 minute Peak Power Record at 501 watts. However, I went to hard at the base and could feel it on the other sisters.

On Tuesday I did my Graystone/ 360 / Mesa route route. As soon as I get up to Mesa and Graystone I start the timer and do a 20 or 30 minute Time Trial. The goal is to keep my power at or above my function threshold power. On tuesday I went for a 20 minute effort. I set a Peak Power Record at the 5 minute mark on the ride (336 watts).

Wednesday I went out on Mesa and did 4 climbing repeat intervals. Once again on this day I set a Peak Power Record at the 10 minute mark at 307.

Thursday I was back on doing the Graystone / 360 / Mesa route, this time a 30 minute effort. Thursdays ride felt really good, it was hard, but the effort felt like it went a lot better than the Tuesday ride. On Tuesday I seemed to struggle a bit to keep my power and speed up. For the 3rd time this week I set a Peak Power Record. This ride at 10 minutes the power was 307 and 30 minutes at 263. The normalized power for the ride was 305.

Now for today's ride, I got a late start so my plan of riding out to Volente twice was cut in half. I only had time for 1 time out and back. Since I only was going to do it once I wanted to make it count. For the first 10 miles out to Volente on Limecreek I averaged 20.31 mph. On the return trip I averaged 18.14 mph.

On the way down to Volente about 2 miles from Volente Beach I passed a guy on a mountain bike heading the other way. Judging from the squeaks coming from his bike I estimated I'd catch up to him around the Sisters. I nailed it right on, I caught him and passed him right at the base of the Sisters. Since I learned a good lesson of not going out too hard at the base after some pleasantries with the guy on the mountain bike I proceeded to jump out of the saddle and head up the hill, but not too hard. Before I knew it I was at the top of the 2nd Sister. As I'm going up the final Sister I thought to myself how much flatter the hill felt today. It was really crazy, but the hill didn't look as steep as I crested and hit the lap on my Garmin I almost fell over when it showed my time up the hill was 3 minutes and 35 seconds! I'm 5 seconds of from my goal time of 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

That was a great way to cap off a good week. Tomorrow I hope to get out for a long distance tune up before the Outlaw Trail 100.

Lucky for the Austin area Hurricane Ike didn't bring much wind and no rain. It did get the Tour de Florence cancelled, so I was left to my own devices for coming up with my own ride. It was overcast in the morning, I waited till 8 am to hit the road. Since it was overcast I swapped out the lenses on my sunglasses to the yellow tinted lenses. The yellow lenses made the world of difference, it really cut through the overcast day, I didn't notice how dark it was with the yellow tint shades.

I didn't want to venture to far from home in case the weather turned for the worse. That meant I would ride down and back to Volente on Limecreek. A down and back is 20 miles. I did 3 of them for 60 miles and then threw another 10 miles in for good measures. I ended with 2 climbs up the hill behind Twin Creek Golf Course.

One observation I made when climbing up the Hill on Limecreek... I've heard the hill called the 3 sisters, the 3 witches and the 3 b!tches. I came to the conclusion the first time up it's the 3 sisters because it's not too bad up it. The second time up is the 3 witches, it puts you in more trouble. Finally the 3rd time it's the 3 b!tches, by the 3rd time it's all you can do to stay vertical. Not sure what to come up with on the 4th time up it.

Ike did bring a bit of wind, today was not the windiest conditions I've ridden to Volente, but I'd rate it as the 2nd windiest time I've ridden the route. One thing I like about Volente the exposure to the wind is limited. Due to the curves in the road and the tree line on the lake side and the hills on the other keep you isolated from the majority of the wind. There were a few spots along the route where the wind was whipping, more so on the way back in from Volente. I noted a particular section where I was into the brunt of the wind going downhill pushing 300 watts and only going 10 - 11 mph.

Ride Stats

Today's workout called for a race simulation. "There’s not really one specific task for this ride; there are a few. Find two of the hardest climbs in your area and ride a loop that includes the two of them. Ride each of the climbs at the highest pace you can sustain." I went out and did the Volente Loop, I tried to keep the pace at 20 plus miles per hour. I've yet to compete in a real race so I was just winging it, mainly concentrating on keeping my speed up and powering thru the rollers and steeper climbs. I figure this was more like a time trial effort as the power and effort were too consistent. A real race would probably be a bit more chaotic with huge power surges to either stay with a group or to jockey for position.

As I came to the big climb on Limecreek Road had been averaging 19.75 mph. If you recall my fastest time up the Sisters is 3 minutes and 47 seconds. I hit the base of the hill, which in my opinion is the hardest part, and I was out of the saddle giving it my all. Not sure what gear I was in, but I know I had a few gears to shift to if needed, but I was attacking it like nobodies business. I then went up the middle sister, as I crested her I shifted down one to speed up my cadence a bit to give my legs a little rest before the third sister. I then shifted one more, stood up to sprint up the last portion and then it happened.

The chain came off the cassette, I immediately sat back down and looked down to see what was going on. I was quickly slowing down from 8 mph. When I realized the chain was completely stuck between the hub and cassette and as such it was like applying the break so I didn't have any time to release from the pedals.

Now I would like to point out the finer points of crashing:

• Don't tense up, you'll want to be as pliable as possible so your body is not so ridged that it can freely move. You'll get hurt more if you are fighting your body.
• Don't stick your hand out to try to catch yourself. Keep your hands on the bars. When you stick your hand out to try and catch yourself you're more likely to break an arm or wrist. Plus you will be in a prone position that can lead to a broken collarbone or separated shoulder.
• Roll with it. I'm not sure exactly how to describe this, but when I hit the road I immediately roll up into a ball. This keeps me from sliding on an one body part. For example I went down to the right, my right knee hit first and as I made contact with the pavement I rolled up into a ball and rolled on my back. This allowed me to distribute the blow with the pavement. Granted I probably ended up with more bruises on my backside and back, but my knee only sustained a scratch and a bump. I think it could have been a lot worse.
• This might be the most important nugget of advice I can give you grasshopper. Once you do a quick inventory of all your vital parts, now it's all about saving your pride. Of course as soon as I'm laying there in the dirt I hear a car coming around the bend. I quickly got off my back and onto my knees and had my bike upright again. Last thing you want to do is get caught looking stupid. I did a google search and youtube search and luckily I was the only one in the vicinity.

The chain was stuck good, it wasn't budging and I couldn't do much with it, I had to call the SAG wagon to come pick me up. I walked up the rest of the way up the Sisters carrying my bike over my shoulder like a wounded soldier. This workout turned out to be more race like than simulation as I got the big 'Ol DNF (Did Not Finish). Hopefully when I do jump into my first race I've got the DNF out of the way and I can race in peace.

The diagnosis for the bike was good, Eric at Spin City was able to fix it up. He also said the rear derail er was out of alignment which caused the over shift.