Mike's Bike Blog

For the last few days my wife has had to endure me calling a couple times a day. Normally she would not mind, but she knew I was just calling to see if the Orbea had arrived. Yesterday it finally made it's way from the Orbea US headquarters to my house.

Like a kid at Christmas I frantically opened the box and peered inside. I really didn't know what I was going to get besides it being an Orca. I had sent over a bike I created using the Orbea Made to Order Web site, but RoadBikeRides.com had already arranged a deal with Orbea. Luckily I got the size and color I wanted. The bike came with Dura-Ace components, I was hoping for Sram Red, but hey I won't argue with a free bike. I'll probably end up selling the wheelset that came with it as well. The Mavic ksyrium sl that it came with are a $1,000 wheelset, but my powertap won't lace to it.

I also made one other change at least for the time being. When I took the bike down to Austin Bikes to get built I had them take off the Dura Ace cranks and put on an Ultegra SL Compact crank. I might put these back on later, but for this weekend I'll need every bit of help up the hills.

Yes you read that correctly, I'm going to break my own rule about riding new gear in a big event. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt the Tour Das Hugel with the new bike. In all actuality I'll probably have fewer problems with the new bike than I would have with the Fuji. With the Fuji I couldn't shift into my 26T cog because the shifting mechanism was problematic, it has difficulties shifting off the cog. I really have to finesse it. Plus I've always have had shifting problems where the chain will come off and lodge between the cranks and the frame.

Maiden Voyage

All I can say is wow. The bike is fast! With the Fuji I really have to work to get my speed above 22 MPH, when I hit 24 mph on a flat I'm at my threshold. Tonight when I took out the Orca I was going between 24 and 29 MPH with ease, well at least it wasn't taxing my heart rate. With the PowerTap, the old wheels and the Ultegra crank the bike weights 18 pounds. The shipping weight was measured at 15 pounds. The Orca is lighter than my Fuji without wheels but a good 3 to 5 pounds I'd guess.

Twitter

If you haven't noticed I've started using Twitter. I'm using it mainly to update on my rides and bike related things. Tomorrow during the Hugel I'll be twittering my progress. On the right side of the blog page you'll see my twits. Follow me on Twitter.

The Tour Das Hugel organizers have posted the route for Saturdays ride on the Hugel yahoo groups page. No big changes from the 2007 route, the order has changed for a couple hills Adorondak Trails has been taken off the route this year, but the entire length of Big View has been added. This year's route appears to be about 107 miles, 1 mile more than last years route. If anybody is planning on doing the ride but are not part of the yahoo group leave a comment and I'll email the 2 PDFs to you.

The countdown to the Tour Das Hugel has began, the ride is this Saturday. Last Saturday I did a couple laps on the Volente Loop, plus I threw in 3 climbing repeats up the Twin Creeks hill. In total it was 3700 feet of climbing, a pretty good tune up. On Sunday I was going to for an easy ride, but it turned out to be a little more energy intensive than what I had wanted to do. The ride down 620 turned out to be harder than I was expecting to ride due to the wind. None the less it was a good ride.

Everything seemed to be coming together, legs feel great, however, this morning I woke up with a head cold. As the day progressed the aches and pains started to settle in and it seemed to be turning into the flu. I was planning on taking this week somewhat easy anyway so I should be good. I can concentrate on recovering from all the training along with water loading.

If you're not familiar with water loading, it is mainly making sure that I'm not dehydrated before I even start on Saturday. An interesting "Did you know?" is that most people are dehydrated and don't even realize it. When we are in a chronic state of dehydration our bodies try to compensate. I try to drink enough during the day normally, but this week I'll make sure to drink appropriately. Just so you know you can't just drink a gallon or two the day of your race or event, like everything it will take a few days or weeks for your body to react.

Starting tomorrow I'll start the loading process with Hammer Race Day Boost. I had great success with Race Day Boost coupled with Hammer Anti Fatigue Caps when I did the Outlaw Trail 100. Race Day Boost has antioxidants and glutamine which will hopefully help in my fight with the flu. According to Steve Born at Hammer Nutrition, "One of the benefits of glutamine is that it helps support optimal immune system function, which is highly desirable during your taper, a time when many an athlete finds themselves getting sick."

On another note, I got word from Tyler that my Orbea Orca is ready and Orbea should be shipping it out tomorrow. I doubt I'll get it in time for Hugel, but even if I do I probably won't ride it. I don't want to be introducing new variables at the last minute, I know all the nuances of the old bike. Like I said I'll be surprised if it gets here in time anyway.

Over on Road Rash Jason had an entry on ex-Pro Racer Kevin Livingston's PedarHard.com site. He has a good number of instructional videos worth watching. What really caught my eye when the first video popped up was how familiar the scenery looked. It looked a lot like the Mt. Bonnell ride. Not only is the ride video shot here in Austin but when Kevin talks one on one with the camera it was shot on location at Mellow Johnny's.

See any other portions of your favoirte Austin routes in the videos?

I spent yesterday afternoon down at Austin Bikes checking out the Orbea Orca, they have 1 in my size with Dura Ace components. I road 2 other Orbea's the Onix models. The Onix in and of itself was a great ride, but my goal was to ride Ultegra and SRAM Rival compact cranks. Both of these bikes were in compact crank configurations. This was my first time trying out compact cranks.

My Fuji has triple cranks, I typically don't use the small ring very often unless I'm going on a mega hill attack. My knees like the lower gearing that the third ring offers. In my testing I went up 7th and 9th street over by Austin Bikes several times testing all 3 groups. 7th is the steepest around the shop that I was able to ride, it averaged 6% with the max at 10%. The compacts offered the low end that I was accustomed to with my current triple. The double of the dura ace still got me up the hill, but I definitely had to work harder, not sure how my knees would hold up with repeated climbing with the double.

The problem with the compact I seem to be giving up a lot of the medium gearing. It seems that with the compact I'd be in the large ring for most riding and only using the small ring for steep hills. I might be giving up too much with the compact.

So the question is, if I went with the double and then had multiple cassettes that I swapped out for hills, maybe a 12-28 would I have enough range for the hills around Austin? On the flip side, should I go with the compact and get a different cassette for flatter rides?

I'm open to suggestions and insight that will give me the best options.