Mike's Bike Blog

I've wanted to get out and catch a group ride with the Austin Flyers for sometime, but haven't found a Saturday or Sunday to get out. The Saturday ride starts at the North location of Bicycle Sports Shop and the Sunday ride starts from their downtown location. The Sunday ride breaks up into 2 groups a beginner ride and intermediate. I was expecting a pace of 17mph and the ride started out a little on the slower side, about 14mph. Since it was going a little slower I wanted to be sure I was near the front in case the pace picked up. Boy did it ever, I'm not sure what the trigger was but a couple riders had the bright idea that they should attack and the rest of our group was off. We were cruising along at 24MPH and they were still pulling away. I at least wanted to keep the group insight as I had no clue where I was. Next thing I know we're in Buda waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. The average speed back was 15mph, the route was relatively flat, total climbing of 2046ft. The riders were great and Sage has me talked into joining the Austin Flyers team to ride the Tour de Cure in May. I just might take him up on it as it sounds like it will be a fun ride. 

I'll be riding with them again, Sundays are hard for me to do, especially driving all the way downtown so I'll probably end up doing more Saturday rides from the North location, plus I love riding 360 and Bee Caves. 

The Austin Flyers are sponsoring a Family day at the veloway on Saturday (3/15) that I hope to pack up the kids and their bikes and go down and check it out. View the flyer.

This ride was the best ride I'll every go on, well there will be 2 more rides in my lifetime that will equal it. On Saturday Jack and I rode the 6 mile route. At 7 years old this was his first event ride.  Jack was pretty excited the entire week. On Thursday we went to Bicycle Sports Shop to pick up our ride packets. Jack wanted to get some Hammer products so I got him a chocolate Hammer Bar and Banana Hammer Gel. On Friday night we went over our bikes, put air in our tires and made sure everything was mechanically sound. I had planned to ride my mountain bike but Jack wanted me to take my road bike because it has 2 water bottle holders.

Saturday morning rolled around, Jack ate half his Hammer bar for breakfast, we packed up the Expedition with our bikes and we packed up the entire family and headed up to Liberty Hill for the Spokes N' Spurs ride. It was a bit chilly at the start of the ride, I think it was around 40 degrees, but it did warm up on the way back. The course was pretty flat, there were some very slight hills. Jack made it up all of them. One in particular had him huffing and puffing but he made it up it at the top we stopped for water and proceeded on. The turn around point was a rest stop. Jack was excited to get to the rest stop so he could eat his Hammer Gel. The rest stop was stocked with PB&J sandwiches, Chex Mix, homemade cookies, and water. Once Jack had his fill of Chex mix and water we headed back.

Jack averaged 7.7 mph on the ride and completed it well under 1 hour. Most importantly had had a great time and is already asking to do more rides, but he wants to bump the distance up a bit as 6 miles is too easy. Ethan is wanting to do a ride and wants me to find him a 6 mile ride he can do. I've been looking on Craigslist for a greared bike for him. 

 

 

 

Like most athletes I had dreams of participating in the Olympic games. In high school I was invited to the Olympic development camp for hockey, but due to some scheduling mishap I was not able to attend. I was able to represent the US twice playing hockey in Europe, but that was as close as I ever came. I almost forgot about the time I was training with the Romania speed skating coach while living in Salt Lake. I found an article about Kathryn Bertine an ESPN columnist/writer who is writing about her ordeals while trying to make the US Olympic cycling team. I picked the story up late in her adventure. If you want to start from the beginning then start here. I'm going to continue on so if you don't want to here what happens then go back and read the first entry and continue on. I'll wait... 

After placing 35th at Nationals her US Olympic dreams were dashed. Her next course of action is quite ingenious and not necessarily unheard of, find a different country. I've heard of this kind of thing before, I've heard of some Canadian and US hockey players representing other countries on their Olympic teams. Kathryn has started to look for a smaller nation to ride for. I'm surprised she didn't receive more interest in her offer than what she did. The marketing/PR opportunities for a small nation I would think would be a tremendous boon with her ties to ESPN. The last installment of her journey has her meeting with the St. Kitts/Nevis Cycling Federation and the ball is rolling. It sounds like she could have a good shot at being at the Olympic games this summer, I'm pulling for her. She's living her dream, just the training opportunities she is partaking in has me very envious. I like watching the videos on her site of her training with Gord Fraser and the testing she is going through at Carmichael Training System's Tucson office. 

 

I went out on Limecreek road to get up and down the hill a couple times. My legs were already a bit tired but knew I needed to get this workout in. The 3 mile start stretch time was 10:20 (avg. speed 17.4mph). My first run up the hill took 4:21 which was a 20 second improvement on my previous best time up the hill. Average speed was 7.2 mph, avg heart rate 167 and max heart rate was 176. The second attempt took 5:09. Average speed was 6.2 mph, avg heart rate of 162 and max heart rate was 174.

I hear/read how others hate riding rollers or on a trainer. I don't mind it, I look forward to my evening rides on my spin bike. Of course I don't put in a lot of miles on it, I just suppliment my outside workouts. I typically ride 1 hour on the spin bike per session, I have went as much as 1:30 to 2 hours but that's a rarity. I bet those that hate the trainer so much are those that can't get out at all during the winter. I've been eying some of the new fangled trainer workouts that hook a computer up to the trainer that will allow you to simulate courses. Hopefully when it becomes more mainstream in a few years I can afford such a system. I was thinking of building my own and I might if I ever get a camera mount for my helmet.

In the meantime I've come up with my own poor-man's version. I've started using Ascent  to download my rides from my Garmin Forerunner to my desktop. Ascent is really great, I've been real happy with it so far and have imported in my rides for 2008. My favorite feature is the ability to playback a ride in realtime. The animation playback will show the route on the map as well as the elevation. In the elevation playback you can also show all your stats, heart rate, cadence, speed and gradient. I set my laptop up right infront of the spin bike and started to play one of my previous road rides. I did a simulation of riding on 360 going to 2222 and back. On the hills I set the resistance accordingly and tried my best to make it feel like the real ride. I had a blast and will be doing this for a lot more workouts.