Day 3 and the Driectionally Challenged Biker

My Dearest Readers,

Today is day three of the official training regimen. In the past, one of my most difficult days. Usually it’s the day when I start gorging on junk food and decide not to work out… I’m sure some of you know the feeling. Well, I already pigged out on grotesque amounts of Oreos yesterday and the day before so that’s out of the way and my route is planned out so at this point there really is no excuse to not ride. There. It’s officially on the blog for all to see so I must ride.

Now that that’s taken care of… Yesterday’s ride was my first “official” training ride by myself. I mapped out a route similar to the one we rode on Monday but this one had a few alterations. For one, I nipped out the unfortunately large hill on Gilbert. I also cut out Kellog on the way back and decided to try something new. Fortunately, I did not get lost once and actually spent a few miles of the ride along side two other cyclists. They were part of a larger group of “casual” riders so eventually I had to move on.

A few things I noticed in comparing Monday’s ride with Dr. Jayne to my solo ride yesterday: On Monday, Dr. Jayne and I worked quite a bit on drafting. I don’t think I fully appreciated the extent of energy that saved and how much easier it made the ride for be. Tuesday’s ride was quite a bit harder without another rider to break the wind for me. Instead of averaging around 18-19mph, I probably averaged 14-16mph. The entire ride out had a fairly decent head wind and just my luck, it didn’t become a very good tail wind when I began heading the other direction. In addition to having a more difficult ride speed-wise, I also struggled quite a bit with my cadence. Monday I was pretty consistently above 90rpm, spending most of the ride around 93-96rpm. Today, it was a struggle to hold 91rpm on the flats.

After Monday’s ride, Dr. Jayne talked to me about the way my left foot bows in when I ride. He asked me if this was a natural pigeon-toe or if it was something that occurred mostly when I ride. I don’t have a pigeon-toe naturally but I definitely noticed yesterday that my left toe turns in when I get tired. I struggled to adjust this for most of the ride. If it persists, I am going to try adjusting the float on my left pedal. Hopefully a little less float will limit the amount my foot can turn without effecting the way my body naturally moves. I will play with it and see what happens.

Time for a mini rant: I try to be understanding of other riders on the road but there are just some people I do not understand. For instance, people that insist on biking in the middle of the road but refuse to go at a reasonable pace… Yesterday, I encountered a gentleman riding towards me, in the wrong direction, down a bike lane. Let me explain what I mean by “gentleman”. This wonderful sir was riding a bike that was clearly too small for him, wearing an oversized t-shirt and cargo shorts, and listening to music on his very “stylin” beats head phones. As we approached each other on the painted in bike lane with special arrows to explain which direction you should ride in, he turns off at the last second, smiles, and waves as if he too is just another jolly cyclist out for a ride on a beautiful afternoon. I am completely baffeled by this. If anyone can explain the insistency of novice bikers to ride in the road, in the wrong direction, in my way, please tell me. I would LOVE to hear it. This is why we have to have “share the road” signs. This is why cars don’t like bikes on “their” roads. Because half the people out there don’t know what the heck they are supposed to do the second they put their two wheels on the pavement! Well let me explain… Drive the same direction cars drive!! This is America. We drive, bicycle, whatever on the right side of the road. Not the left. Also, for all those drifters out there, stop. You will make cars angry and make them not like cyclists. A rage which they will likely release on us law-abiding cyclists by driving uncomfortably close to us.

Thanks for bearing with me through that much-needed rant! Hope you are all enjoying your summers as much as I will (one more final exam on Thursday and I’m free for a whole week!).

Yours Truly,

Naomi

“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” ~William Eardley IV

This is the route I took yesterday. It's about 23.4mi. (Route 4 on my google maps at the url below)
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
204824175833049123999.0004c1c2ccec0f6e00e17

Cadence, Confidence, Consistancy

This is the trail that goes by Lunken Airport. We rode the length
of the trail during our ride today.

Hello Fellow Readers,

It’s been a while. How have you been? Well that’s just dandy. I’ve just been studying my butt off over here getting ready for final exams so please excuse my recent lack of posts.

Today was my first ride with Dr Jayne, my official advisor in the realm of road cycling. For those of you new to my blog, Dr Jayne is also the faculty advisor and coach for the UC Cycling Team. I received an email from him today at 11:30 about a possible noon ride which, due to the imminent three drops of rain that were expected to terrorize the city within the hour, was postponed to 6:00pm. It’s a good thing too because those three drops… ended up being 9.

I decided with all of the newfound time before the ride with Dr Jayne, I would set aside my manic studying for an hour (as thrilling as Material Balances is…) and attend to a few bike needs I had discussed with the Doctor at our last meeting. I packed up my tiny saddle bag, hiked up my padded bike shorts, strapped on my helmet (safety first!) and headed out the door. Only to return immediately for my forgotten cell phone and money… As my roommates probably know, this is a regular occurrence for me. I generally expect to leave the house twice on account of forgetting something.

As I was saying, I headed over to the Campus Cyclery, the local bike shop, to get pick up the goods. After some discussion with an employee about cost and possible future maintenance, I walked out with a new tube, glue-less patch kit, speedometer with cadence reading, and a brand new water bottle.

Being a person who is not very good at waiting, I immediately biked home and began setting up my new speed coach. After a couple adjustments, the use of every zip-tie in the package, and a thorough coating of chain grease on my hands and shins, the speedometer was up and running! I must say I’m a little bit proud of that one.

I met Dr Jayne at 6:00pm in his office for the ride. After a short chat about safety, we took the elevator down to the garage level and hopped on our bikes. On the ride out of the garage and onto Martin Luther King Dr, Dr Jayne ran through the signals he uses, a safe distance to maintain from the curb (1 arm’s length), and a quick run through of the beginning of our ride.

I’ll spare you all the gory details of the ride but here are some things we discussed as well as the route we took. It took us around 1.5 – 1.75hrs to complete this route.

The main focuses of this ride were cadence, drafting, and giving Dr Jayne an opportunity to examine the way that I ride so he can better tweak and assist my technique. In the past, I have had some knee problems while biking so per the Doctor’s orders, I have been working on increasing my cadence from 75rpm to around 95rpm. It is a big adjustment that I can honestly say I struggled with most of the ride. A higher cadence requires different use of your gears, different reasoning behind your decisions to shift, and more attentiveness to your pedal stroke. It is very cerebral in a way I was entirely unprepared for from a bike ride. Learning to draft is a whole other animal. It does take some level of mental understanding but for me, most of learning to draft is being confident in your awareness and reflexes. Knowing that if something were to happen, you are giving yourself enough distance to stop and you will react in time. Also, it also takes a steady path and the ability to ride consistently. This way, the cars and other riders on the road will be able to predict your moves, an important thing when drafting and riding closely to other cyclists.

For those who don’t cycle regularly, drafting is when you ride close to the rider in front of you, allowing them to break some of the wind and decrease the amount of work you have to do. It can lower the wattage you output by 30-60%. On longer rides, this is a completely invaluable skill needed to preserve energy so I was paying close attention to it today.

I am by nature a fairly cautious rider and it usually takes me a while to overcome any new scenarios. I found myself constantly having to pull forward and push my comfort boundaries in order to get into a position to draft. A good distance for drafting is usually no more than a wheel diameter behind the rider you are drafting off of. You also want to be about the length of your handle bars to one side. This gives you more time to react if the rider in front stops abruptly or falls.

On the return to campus, our ride took us up Gilbert Ave. For those in Cincy who know downtown a little, you understand. For everyone else, Gilbert is a steady 2mi climb of 300ft. Not the most giant climb for a seasoned cyclist but for a beginner, it’s quite the little beasty. Fortunately however, with the increased cadence and the use of my absolute lowest gear, I made it to the top successfully and with the approval of one Dr Jayne. In the words of the Doctor, I have the potential to be “quite a good climber” if I continue cycling consistently.

After we returned to campus, we went over a training plan. Starting this week, I will be riding 5-6 times a week with 4-5 of these rides being around 20mi and the last ride being a longer ride. The long rides will start at 30mi and increase by 5mi each week until the week before my century ride. By this point I should be at 75mi.

That’s all the news for today. Wordy and long as always but I guess you can say long-windedness and talking runs in my family… mine is just a little more confined to "paper" than to general conversation.

Safe and happy travels and remember, dreams are pointless unless you choose to make them reality.

“Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” ~Napoleon Hill