Mike's Bike Blog

The drama for the Hugel started Thursday evening, for me anyway. At Ethan's soccer practice, I coach his U8 team, as we were working on shots I dribble down to the goal and fired off a shot. Not a hard shot, but a decent shot and as I plant my left leg and kick the ball with my right, but the muscle in my left leg shrieked with pain and I instantly knew something was wrong. I don't believe I pulled the muscle in my quadriceps, but it was strained none the less. It hurt to walk on it, on a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being excruciating pain that warrants morphine it was only a 4.

When I got home I stretched it and used the foam roller on it. It felt alright on Friday when I tested it out, but that was on the flat road of Shoal Creek and Great Northern. I didn't know what to expect when the grade went past 12%.

One last thing that is a crucial piece to my ride was on Friday night when I was getting everything ready for the ride I come to find out I only had 4 Endurolytes! That's no good as I typically take 3-4 an hour. I barely had enough Anti-Fatigue capsules and Energy Surge.

Now for the ride, there were a lot of riders again this year and clogged the roads as we started rolling. Things started to thin out a bit once we hit 360. I worked a bit harder on this section so I could put some space between myself and a lot of people for when we hit High Road. My plan worked as High Road was not littered with riders, there were still a few stoppers and people pushing their bikes but at least there was more space to maneuver around them. My plan for the first section was to carry to bottles of Perpetuem for fueling and Espresso gel when needed for some added calories. I didn't plan on stopping at any of the rest stops but go the entire 38 miles and refill my bottles back at Zilker Park. This plan worked and my quad posed no problems at all during this section.

Loop 2 is the doosie for the ride with most of the climbing packed into this section. I'm not sure how many of the starters go onto even attempt the second part, but I'd say 3/4 of the people go home after the 1st part. The first real challenge is Smokey Valley with it's 24% grade and then up the remainder of Ladera Norte. It's quite the 1-2 punch. I made it up both with little difficulty. I opted not to stop at rest stop #3, the rest stop house, as I had enough water to get me to the rest stop at River Place.

Then came Beauford. Beauford gave me a near knock out blow. Right at the base my right quad started to spasm and cramp up. I think I was over compensating with my right leg to make up for the injury on my left. Boy did I pay for it. Whenever I would stand and put any power to my pedal my quad would hurt. Somehow I made it to the top. Courtyard came too soon though, the lower sections I was able to sit and spin at about 60 rpms, but the top section was more of the same. Courtyard tried to inflict it's misery on me. I so wanted to zig zag up it but there was too much traffic coming from both directions. I did try a little weave but it was more like a drunken stagger. At the top I stopped to relax the legs a little and to take 2 of the Endurolytes, which didn't kick in till I got to the top of City Park.

Onward I pedaled to the River Place rest stop. Once you get on Big View you go down it for a little bit, but at this point you don't go all the way down that's a special treat saved for the return. Well I somehow missed the bright orange arrows for the right hand turn off of Big View. I got practically all the way down to the bottom. I got all the way down to the base, where the steep grade warning sign is. NOT GOOD, I had to go back up and find the turn. Back on track I finally made it to the River Place rest stop. I refilled my bottle with more Perpetuem, I had packed up 3 bottle servings into ziplock baggies so I could refill. I stopped long enough to refill grab a couple fig newtons and chat with Andy Webb for a bit to swap stories of the ride so far. Luckily the rest of this outter section was good, I ended up dropping the 2 guys I was riding with at that point. One guy on Bullick Hollow and the other one on 620 near Steiner ranch on the return leg. I stopped at River Place again to refill my bottle again and stretch a little. I also downed my last 2 Endurolytes.

Since I didn't get all the way down to the bottom of Big View I decided I'd better get my monies worth and do the entire Big View. Plus I wanted to take the chance that the park at the bottom would have a bathroom. I could have made it the entire ride without stopping to use the restroom, but I want to go up Jester with as little weight as possible. My hunch paid off and the restroom was open. A small price to pay of climbing up Big View, plus I didn't want to cheat and not do the entire route, I want to earn my t-shirt. On the way to Jester there was intermittent cramping in both legs now. I would try to sit and not stand as much as possible.

On a good day Jester can be difficult, even when fresh. I said a quick prayer to get me up to the top, oh yeah, I'll call on the big Guy in times of trouble. I sat as much as possible which was a bit past the strip mall, actually to a drive way, I think it's an office complex. I stood and managed the pain switching back to the saddle to relieve some of the pain. Didn't help much. It wasn't pretty, but I was able to get to the top.

All I had to do was get my tail the last 10 miles back to Zilker Park. This proved to be a hard path to the finish. Once I got on 360 I had a complete full on cramping. It was so bad it was not something I could get through or at least want to get through. I immediately pulled over at the Buddha Temple driveway to catch my breath. The pain subsided after a minute and I pushed on. The rest of the way was kind of a cat and mouse game to see how hard I could ride without red lining and overdoing it. I was able to catch and pass 4 or 5 riders on my way back to Zilker Park.

What when right:

• I bettered my time from last year. This year I had a time of 7 hours, with a 7 hour 31 minute duration. Compared to 8 hours 24 minutes of active time and a total duration of 10 hours.
• I vastly minimized my rest stop time, I went in with a goal of only stopping when needed and not sit around at the rest stops. I had more time spent at stop lights then I did restng at the rest stops.
• As long as I didn't have to stand I had ample power and my endurance was spot on and felt I could have kept riding.

What went wrong:

• Not enough electrolytes. It was way too hot, 80 degrees. In retrospect I should have brought along Heed which does have some electrolyte components. Not sure if it would have been enough but might have minimized things. Yes I could have taken in some Gatorade or Pickle Juice, but 1 it's not advised to mix Hammer products with a simple sugar drink like Gatorade. Since I had not tried either scenarios during a race is not the time to experiment.
• Forgetting to press start  on my Garmin 705 for 2.5 miles into the ride.
• Last year I had a lot of lactic acid build up, it would hurt on the down hills and my legs would get tight. This year I had no lactic acid build up in my legs, again which leads me to believe to think my conditioning was way better and I was better prepared for the ride.

STATS:
1st Loop (38 miles)
Average Speed 18
Max Speed: 43.6
Average/Normalized Power: 184/260 watts
Ascent: 4064 feet
kJ (Calories): 1344

2nd Loop (71 miles)
Average Speed: 15
Max Speed: 45.7
Average/Normalized Power: 167/229 watts
Ascent: 9708 feet
kJ (Calories): 2887

Footnote: The above accents would mean a total climb of 13,771 feet. However when I run it through some software that supposedly throws out bad Garmin data it comes out to 10,050 feet. 209 is the total number of times while in my 25 and knew I was in my last gear but still tried to shift to an easier gear to  see if I miraculously had one more gear to help spin up the hills.

The first real test to Hugel comes at High Road. It is a short but steep hill. The hill itself I don't find to challenging, it's early in the ride so the legs are fresh and have had ample time to warm up. However, I suggest surveying who is around you when you approach the end of Toro Canyon Rd. Last year when I hit the base of the hill and looked up it was total chaos. People up near the top were zig zagging from shoulder to shoulder, riders were falling over or stopping, chains were breaking. It was a mess. Be ready for this and if you can time your approach do so. If you are weary of the riders in your group it might be advantageous to get some distance between you and them.

One other thing to look out for on High Road is this section is a lolipop route, you come down Toro Canyon take a right onto High Road, go up it, it loops around in sort of a circle and comes back out on High Road. Thus there is potential for mishaps if riders coming down Trail of the Madrones Rd. fail to stop at the stop sign and cross in front of riders going up.

For the past year I've been on the lookout for a road bike for the boys. The options for an entry level road bike for the 9-11 year old group is slim pickings. Redline, Felt and Fuji are the only current manufacturers that produce a 24" road bike. Trek discontinued their offering in 2008. Fuji a larger bike with 650 wheels as well. The other option was to purchase an extra small road bike, but the geometry is just a bit off for a kid, it really stretches him out when in the drops. I really didn't want to buy new so I'd been scouring craiglist and other boards.

Last week a used Felt F24 showed up for sale on Txbra.org classified at a great price. I quickly jumped on it and the next day the steed was in our stable of bikes! Jack was quite excited about the purchase as he's been hounding me for a road bike the past year. Jack was extra excited to learn the pedals were clipless platform pedals. He's been wanting to go clipless for the last year as well.

When we were in Southwest Cycle Sport getting extra tubes for his bike he found a pair of road shoes on the clearance table that fit. I really wasn't too keen on him going clipless at age 9 and was surprised to find that they actually fit him. He was willing to put down all the money he had on them along with me being a softy when it comes to sports equipment for the boys, he walked out of the shop with new road shoes. I took the SPD cleats off of an old pair of my shoes and installed them on his.

Earlier in the morning I set up the bike on the trainer so he could do a dry run of clipping in and out in a controlled environment. In the afternoon we headed over to Georgetown to ride the flat country roads departing Berry Springs Park. I had mapped out a 13 mile route for us. In the parking lot he was practicing getting a foot clipped in while I was airing up my tires. He had a couple crashes in the few minutes waiting for me. But he was undeterred from riding clipless and did not want to ride with his regular shoes.

Once we got out on the road he was fine, he did have trouble getting clipped in. The pedals are not double sided, so he has to flip it over and that did prove to be a bit difficult for the maiden voyage. We practiced stopping and starting along the desolate back roads. There were only a few stop signs on the route, but I'd give him ample warning about them so he could unclip well before them.

When we were about 4 miles away from the finish we could see 2 riders a mile or two ahead of us on the small rollers. I said we should go catch them. He thought they were too far ahead, I said "nonsense, if we catch them I'll get you a milkshake". With the reward of a milkshake as an incentive we picked up the pace and started attacking the hills. For the next 1.61 miles he averaged 13.5 mph over the next 4 rollers. We were cutting their lead, but he still didn't think we would catch them. I said if we kept pushing this pace we would catch them on the final hill, I pointed up to it and pointed to a couple big telephone poles near the top. I said that's where we'd catch them. On the final hill the 2 were starting to separate, the rider in the back was struggling up the hill. We caught him 1/2 way up the hill shortly after he dismounted and started pushing his bike up the hill. The other rider we caught at the exact point I pointed to.

At the base of the hill I let Jack get in the lead and I told him as we approach them to say "On your left" as we pass, it's the right thing to do. The look on their faces to see a 9 year old kid on a road bike go effortlessly up the hill was funny. We crested the hill, the big grin on my face was obviously causing a severe drag effect. Jack was so happy with himself as well. He's definitely hooked!

After his brother's were in bed I made him a small milkshake for his reward.

On Saturday I set out for one last Hugel tune up ride. I wanted to get in some hills and distance for final preparation for the ride. The Gawd Dam Loop is my own creation that basically follows the traditional dam loop, but I throw in a sprinkling of the Hugel route hills of Bluegrass, Beauford, Courtyard and Cuernavaca. I also threw in Alexan just for fun.

The Garmin reported back 5695 feet of climbing in 59 miles. It took me 3 hours 17 minutes of riding time. I stopped for 10 minutes, that includes 1 water stop and stop lights. I averaged 17.9 mph for the ride. Most of all I felt great the entire time even going up the Austin cobbles of Beauford. I also did this ride with my 11x23 cassette, not really the gearing I'd want to do the full Hugel with. Next week I'll switch out my cassette and put on the 12x25. I have been contemplating purchasing a 11x26 for my hill and all around cassette and leave the 11x23 for most racing. One last noteworthy piece to the ride was on the home stretch on 620 I opened it up a bit for a 5 minute interval I still had enough to average 23.9 mph and maxed it out at 30.8 mph.

Next week will be business as usual, I'll have hill repeats and intervals just no rides over 3 hours. I will pull back the week before Hugel, the number of intervals will be cut down along with the time. Since Hugel is not one of my A priority events I won't be doing a full taper. I'll just take a week of tapering to lower the fatigue and be fresh and ready for November 14th.

This year one of my goals is to ride up the 3 Sisters in under 3 minutes. Throughout the year I've been whittling away at that time. I started 2009 with my best time at 3'24 and set times at 3'16, 3'11 and finally I had gotten it down to 3'09.

My last few times when I set out to try and beat the 3 minute mark something would happen. On one attempt I got almost all the way up to top of the 1st sister and I came unclipped. Another time I went to shift from the big ring to the small ring 1/2 way up the 1st sister and it didn't shift thus I lost my momentum. Today, I got a good warm up riding out to the water treatment plant and back to the base of the sisters.

On all past rides my time up the 1st sister is 1'20, today I was surprised to see it at 1'06! I knew with a good split at this point the goal was well within my grasp. I was feeling good, I hadn't overcooked myself at this point, I averaged 516 watts and 12.6 mph on this section. For the second sister I tried to keep the effort consistent but also to pace myself a bit so I have enough in the tank for the final sprint. I averaged 420 watts and 7.8 mph. On the last sister I averaged 473 watts and 8.6 mph for the final 36 second sprint to the top. For the entire effort I averaged 424 watts and 10.5 mph.

Now that I've beat the 3 minute mark (2'53) next year's bar will be set at 2'30.

As you may recall from a recent post for preparation for the Tour das Hugel I wanted to go from 177/174 pounds to 165/170 pounds. I'm happy to report on yesterday's weigh in I tipped the scales at 168. That aspect of my training is coming along perfectly.

I've been able to do this by cutting out not necessary calories. Since I already eat fairly healthy to begin with I cut some calories out of each meal. For instance at breakfast I would have 2 bowls of cereal and a skim milk latte. That would be about 500 calories. I've cut the latte out and on a recovery day or a complete rest day I only have 1 bowl of cereal. Actually I look at what my training for the day will be and that will dictate how many calories I will consume. If I know it will be a lighter day than I try to pull back the calories a bit.

Other ways I've cut calories is by watching the amount of bread that I eat. An example is we had tacos one night and 1 flour tortilla is 130 calories. I can eat 2 easy if not 3 tacos. After 1 taco instead of having another tortilla I opted to wrap it in lettuce. 15 calories for the lettuce versus 130 for the tortilla, plus I cut out other crap that is processed in with the flour.

I believe it is these 2 combinations of cutting some calories overall plus cutting back on days I don't need to consume a full plate of calories is having the effect I'm after. It hasn't been that hard either, I'm not walking around hungry.

The other side of Hugel training is riding up as many hills as possible and I've been doing that as well. I've got my 11x23 cassette on for an added resistance training. I've been doing repeats up Far West and Mesa along with some sweet spot intervals in between. Last Sunday Dan and me did a little hill ride. We started off on the road between Hippie Hollow and Bullick Road and climbed that one and then took the LCRA access trail off of 620 down to the river and up and back up 620 to Steiner Ranch Road. Back up Steiner Ranch Road and ended the day with some hard pulls back on 620. We finished with about 2800 feet of climbing in 2 hours.

If you haven't seen the latest contest put on by the Fat Cyclist here's the skinny:

• The winner gets an Ibis bike of his or her choice, color and size.
• We’ll fly you to the best possible riding spot in the US, according to you (and ratified by us).
• You’ll get to ride with Chuck, Fatty and Andy Hampsten

Pretty cool, bike, airfare and a great ride with 3 legends. What I propose if I win is I would have them come to Austin and ride here in Texas. I would then invite all my friends that donate to my LiveStrong challenge page to come ride with us. So if you want to be a part of this, go donate to my LiveStrong page.

You're probably asking yourself, wait Mike's already won a bike what would he do with another bike? Good question, I'd have it built in a size for my kids, Jack is starting to race and a Silk SL would more than make a decent race bike to say the least. Once Jack has outgrown it Ethan or Zeb will be waiting in the wings to take over ownership so we'll get 3 boys use of it before donating it to a team/club.

Every $5 donated at my LiveStrong page gets us a raffle ticket and a chance to win, but hurry the contest ends at midnight the 20th. This will be a great invite only group ride with the Fat Cyclist, Chuck Ibis and the winner of the 1988 Giro d’Italia and two-time winner of the Tour de Suisse, Andy Hampsten.

Don't get lulled into the rest stops for an extended period of time. The rest stops above Oak Knoll, at the house and the River Place will be inviting. The River Place rest stop will have warm potatoes with cheese and bacon. No food has ever looked so inviting than the warm cheese goodness on that brisk November day. Just stick to your plan, get water and get out. Take 5 minutes, maybe 10 tops. Don't stay any longer and let the lactic acid build up in your legs. 

By all indications the course favored the climbers and all the chatter on the TXBRA.org Forum reinforced this. The storyline was that the fields would get strung out in the first 10 miles on the hills. However, this was not the story that was written on Saturday. The only field to get any break up was the P12. All the other races stayed together.

As I was getting ready I talked with Scott Dalhover (AT&T Brain and Spine) about the Cat 4 race and he said nothing was getting away and for me to just sit in. If I felt good I might be able to give a go about 7 miles out at the Iraqi village. He kept telling me to sit in and not to do any work, the same exact insider info I got from Peter). He said if he heard that I was up front doing any pulling he would punch me.

On the way out we had a small headwind, enough to keep everything together. In anticipation for the hills I switched out to a 11x26, but at the rate we went up the hills it was not needed.  In the race the pack climbed the hills at a slow and steady pace. In fact the entire race was this way, there was really no part where there was an all out effort, nobody went up the road and with the downhills anything that did get up the road was easily brought back.

With about 13-15 miles to go there were 2 up the road, #529 and a UT rider. Since I had been sitting in all day I felt really good and thought this would be a good time to see if I could bridge up to them and see if we could get a break going. Me and the Sun and Ski rider made a go of it, but as we were closing in on the 2 I looked back and saw that we were just pulling the entire pack along so I shut down my effort.

I'm not sure how many were in the final group, but it was big at least 30 guys, we started with 60+ I believe. This made for a jam packed field sprint. My second plan was to go on the hill leading up to the finish. I found myself third or fourth row back in the middle and I couldn't maneuver to the right or left so I was at the mercy of those in front of me to clear a way for the final sprint. The winning lead out came up from the left but I was still boxed in. At the 200 meter flag the rider to my left lost control and went right into me. I had to bend over and with my shoulder protect my  handle bars. With the guy leaning against me I bumped into the rider on my right a little as I was still holding up the other guy. Luckily there was a little crack of daylight that opened up to the right. I shot through it just as the guy on my left hit the ground.

There was still chaos and carnage in the lead out group as I tried to close the gap to them. Not sure exactly what happened but after the fact I heard one rider was pushed and he ended up doing a face plant into the dirt. His teammate was yelling as we wound up the sprint for the line.

In the end I placed 10th and was able to stay upright, by far my best placing in a race this year. Andy Webb (Simpler-Webb) who rode up to Copperas Cove with me placed 13th in the race. It was a great finish to my inagural season of racing. Now I can't wait till February when the season starts again.

One of the ideas I was kicking around for the weekend was to get up to Copperas Cove and pre ride the State Road Race Championship course. Well Sunday morning Chuck sent out a tweet that he was thinking about riding the course. He was closely monitoring the weather patterns and was confident that it would be clear in Copperas Cove by the time we got there.

I met up with Chuck, Scott, and Tim, all really strong Cat 4 racers for AT&T in Cedar Park and we packed the bikes up and headed out in the rain and drizzle. Just as weatherman Chuck had predicted the clouds were starting to part the closer we got to our destination.

The course is outside of Copperas Cove on Ft. Hood and is considered "open range". Meaning not only is there livestock roaming freely, but also the military regularly shoots artillery over the road! Luckily for us there were no cows on the road and no sounds of mortar or AK47 gun fire, but the Iraqi village was interesting scenery. The course particulars: there's about 2900 feet of climbing on the 33 mile loop. I rode the course with a 11x23 cassette and was OK. For the race I'll opt for something a little taller though, I have a 12x25, but Peter from Southwest Cycle Sport hooked me up with a 11x26. With as many descents and the few flats I think the 11 will be beneficial as I was spinning out the 11 on several sections as it was.

The course definitely favors climbers, the talk after the ride was the predictions that nobody over 170 pounds would win any of the races and the climbers weighing in below 150 would probably take the win. Hopefully I can drop 3 pounds by Saturday to have a chance at 170. I do have a couple plans for the race, not sure how it will play out with 75 other racers in the field. My goal is to be in the front group as everyone gets strung out on the hills. Word is the promoter is looking for more follow vehicles to help SAG people in.

This should be fun!