Hey James - Where HAVE You Been ? ?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted but hey, I’m busy. No really; I am, but that’s for another blog at another time (“Oh Noooooo….not another one!?!?!” yes, I can hear you.) Over the last couple of weeks I’ve made some positive progress and had a few setbacks…but all-in-all I think I’m on a good enough schedule to ride RAGBRAI in just about a month from now and that’s a good thing since my jersey just came today ! ! !

The 2015 RAGBRAI jersey and wrist/bike bands.

So; lets talk a little about my riding schedule, what rides I’ve taken recently and maybe toss in some ‘updates’ on some of the previous topics…how’s that sound?

Ride Schedule

I’ve ramped up my riding schedule so that I have been riding an average of three days a week and have recently gotten up to four days a week. Since RAGBRAI is a SEVEN day ride I’m planning to really increase my days/week in about two weeks when I go to the beach with several friends. A few of them ride and I’m hoping that I can get at least one to ride with me each day for EIGHT straight days. I doubt the rides will be long since there’s only one road to ride on but at least I’ll be getting consecutive seat days and that will be a big help as far as getting my butt ‘in shape’ for RAGBRAI. Lots of people have suggested that is a good plan so I’m staying with it.

Recent Rides

Display from my MapMyRide app at the end of my "Birthday Ride"

After a while it gets kind of boring riding the same route all the time or even in the same county so I’ve branched out to a few other areas to ride in and made a couple of ‘solo rides’ also. My first big solo ride was for my birthday in late May, I decided that I should go out early for a ‘self supported’ ride of 57 miles to commemorate my 57^th birthday. A self supported ride is one where you either carry everything you’ll need or stop at stores to buy it…there’s no super-stocked Rest Stops such as at the ones that you’ll find at larger organized rides. So I filled both my water bottles, made myself a peanut butter and honey sandwich and grabbed a banana and headed for the door – albeit 45 minutes behind my desired start time of 7am. I wrote down a few turns that would take me along one of the routes that the local club used recently but changed it slightly to match my mileage objective. All was going well until after a fun store stop at about mile 25. I missed a turn and ended up several miles off my route before I knew it. At that point I was headed towards a 75 mile ride but I managed to use Siri to help me plot a course back home and reached there at about 1pm after close to 66 miles and very sunburned. Lesson #1: use the sunblock, even when you know you’ll be back “soon”. 

 

In early June I decided that I needed to up my single ride mileage so I signed up for the “Jamestown Gran Fondo” ride near Jamestown, Va. I have no idea what “Gran Fondo” means in this context (I previously thought it meant that the ride would be timed and awards would be given out for the fastest riders but that wasn’t the case with this ride) but it was going to be a well supported 100 mile ride so I figured it was for me…my previous long ride was just a few days ago with the errant birthday ride that turned into 65 and I’ve done a few 62 mile rides (aka “Metric Century”) so this was a substantial increase for my mileage. We got a real early start at 7:30 and headed out for our first rest stop at 30 miles. The roads were great and the people riding along with us were lots of fun too. Right after that stop the people that were riding “only” 62 miles peeled off on their route and we found ourselves out in the countryside essentially alone. The second stop was at about 60 miles and was a welcome pause in the day. I looked at a nearby sign as we pedaled away and saw that it read: “Jamestown 44 miles”….ouch, we HAD to ride 100 to get back home! There were two more stops and they both were lifesavers as the temperature was beginning to rise. Despite about 5 miles of newly chipped sealed road (makes a mess of everything) the roads on the route were great! I finished the whole 100 miles in about 6 HOURS and 14 minutes….let that sink in – almost a full work day on a bike. Amazingly enough my average speed of 16mph  was one of the highest I’ve had in a long ride…much of it due to having a good coach and a good pace line from Maryland to ride with. Needless to say I was a virtual ‘wreck’ for a few days afterward and got dropped on my regular Monday night ride and the Thursday night ride after that. Here’s hoping I’ve recovered enough to ride sometime this weekend and/or not to get dropped on the next Monday ride!

Updates?

  ·  I think that part of my suffering after my 100 mile ride had something to do with not following my eating and hydration ideas as well as I should have..so I’m going to do a little more research into that and see what I can do to offset (or better yet – preclude) such a negative effect next time.

  ·  Several months ago I noticed that my bike wasn’t riding as easily as it originally did. Apparently I had gotten some degreaser and/or water into the bearings of my wheels and caused the bearings to need replacement. I remember ‘loose bearing’ wheels from my skateboard days and remembered that ‘sealed bearings’ replaced them as a better alternative. So I set off in search of some good sealed bearing wheels… Lesson #2: Buy good wheels when you buy your bike. I would have spent a lot less had I bought one model higher (with the sealed bearing wheels) than I have now but at least I have a spare set of wheels to take with me to Iowa.

  ·  Since it’s now gotten “North Carolina Hot” (IE: More Humid than Hell Itself) I am struggling with lots of sweat rolling into my eyes while I ride. Unfortunately I have yet to figure out how to mitigate that and it is becoming an issue as I have a hard time seeing sometimes and have to slow down in order to try and wipe my brow off and get the sweat out of my eyes. I would appreciate hearing from any of you who have been able to solve this and let me know how you did it!!!

Bye for Now….

That is about all for this posting…keep up the comments, emails and encouragement and please let me know of any ideas you might have for future topics. And Thanks for Reading!!!