Mike's Bike Blog

A little rain wasn't going to keep me from my Saturday workout, Tempo Intervals (5 x 6 minutes at CP90 w/2 minute recoveries). I should have taken a play from the MS150 page and canceled the ride or at least taken it indoors. Nope, I headed out Saturday morning. Although the rain did change my plans, instead of venturing out too far from my house I planed to stick close to home. In the rain I made my way to the Twin Creeks country club area where there is a 1 mile loop that I do  my FTP testing on that I would do my intervals on.

The rain would vary from a downpour to pack the Ark. I was drenched, on my last interval my PowerTap head unit lost connection to the hub. I've ridden in many rain storms with the PowerTap without any problems so I was a bit troubled with this latest development. After my last interval I figured it was a sign to head home and hop on the trainer. Plus it gave me a good excuse to give the Global Ride's DVDs a try.

After the intervals I really didn't have much motivation to ride even as the rain started to lighten up. I mounted the Fuji to the trainer and popped in a DVD. I'll do a full write up on the DVD, I liked what I saw, but I could only muster 20 minutes on the trainer. The motivation just wasn't there. I saw that the rain had stopped and the sun was peaking out. I gave the PowerTap another try and it was back among the living so I head back out. I headed down Limecreek Road but once again my legs felt like cement and couldn't muster the usual power so I figured I turn back and only put in 1'50 minutes. Well short of the 3 hours I was suppose to ride, but no sense if I couldn't hold the power I was suppose to be doing. I had already completed the crucial part of the workout with the intervals anyway so stopping early wasn't that bad.

Sunday's Ride:

The rain had totally subsided, the sun came out and the wind was back. At least Saturday in the downpour there was relatively no wind, haven't seen that in quite awhile. The makeshift plan was to head down Parmer to 2243 and head East to Georgetown and make my way to Barry Springs Park and then down to Weir and head back on 1431. The wind was brutal from the North so heading down Parmer was a slow undertaking. I was able to only avg 15.3 mph into the stiff headwind. Instead of going all the way down Parmer to 2243 I turned East on CR 177 to get a bit of relief from the gusts. Heading east in the crosswind still wasn't that great, but was a little better.

When I got to Barry Springs Park there were quite a few other cyclist in the parking lot. As I strolled in one of them asked me where I was riding to. It turns out it was the Cyclopaths of Texas and they were getting ready to roll out on a ride of their own. I refilled my bottles and took them up on the invite to ride with them. The only problem was I thought they were ready to roll, but they still had about 30 minutes till their roll out time. I ended up only riding about 6 miles with them down through Weir when they turned East towards Jonah, I kept going to make my way to 1431.  The crosswind didn't make the long ride on 1431 very enjoyable especially when the wind would gust up and change into a head wind it seemed. The only thing to note on 1431 was all the nails, it wasn't surprising that I got a flat. Luckily, when I pulled into the Wag-a-Bag gas station to refill my bottles I noticied the front tire was getting low so changed it before it went completely flat.

In the end I averaged 18 mph on the 70 mile ride.