Not much has been going on of late, at least not much noteworthy. I’ve had the studs on the winter bike and cut through the wintry mix we had over the last few days quite well. Nothing strikes up a conversation in the grocery store on a snowy morning at 7am with a complete stranger better than walking around in bicycling gear. I get all kinds of questions about how I get around without falling off. For the most part grocery store rides and commutes feel so routine that I usually don’t have anything new to say about them. Guitar practice is in that strange area where it is progressing slowly, but I still can’t play songs, so nothing to share there. I don’t think I’d want to be that guy posting bad covers of Boston singles on youtube anyway… Strength training and diet are about as standard in my routine as waking up and going to work, and that feels weird to talk about. So the blog… it suffers… Until today. Bob emailed us all and came out with Justin and myself on the usual weekly hill training ride. I had doubts because my ankle has been hurting since Saturday but in the end it was my quads that gave out first. No photos again because I was too busy trying to continue breathing. I am officially the millstone around the neck of the group.

approximate numbers (did math because the computer wasn’t reset):
time – 1:20′ | distance – 13.5mi | elevation – ??? i dunno. alot.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Please don’t take it as a lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter. This week has been all over the place. Last Sunday I met the guys on the south side of Lake Montebello at sunrise for the latest and greatest installment of the Rando Ramble.

Weather was beautiful again for January at pretty much 40° all day long. No complaints, but there was a little bit of a headwind here and there. The only aggravation for the day came from the bike. I made adjustments to my rear shifter cable this week and somehow managed to botch it in such a way that I didn’t notice during my check-up ride to BBW on Saturday. First time we hit a hill I started skipping all over the place between gears. It took about 5 miles before I remembered I could just reach down and slide the lever into friction mode. That fixed the middle gears for the most part, but the top and the bottom of the cluster were still screwed up and I’d get a hop, skip and a jump every time I tried to climb out of the saddle. Despite the annoyance the day was far from ruined.

The beginning of the route left the city in a sorta-reverse route of the end of  ‘Charm & Grace’. It’s a great way north and I can only wish that the roads were so low traffic on the weekdays too, but I know they aren’t. We weren’t too far out of the city before we bid farewell to Peter and Harry who turned back early on.

On the way to lunch we rolled through some peaceful back roads skirting the East side of Loch Raven Reservoir, up past Bel Air on more back roads — a few with dirt — and into N. Harford County just below the PA line. Everything went to schedule and we pulled in to lunch right around noon. Thank goodness because I did NOT eat enough in the morning and was getting pretty beat up by Pylesville. We took our time at cafe 165 for an hour and I had another stromboli like the one from On-Again Off Again. Come to think about it, much of this ride was like that ride. Quiet back roads. Cool, breezy weather, hills that wouldn’t quit…

Slow on the draw with the camera. If I’d been quicker I would have caught the whole caravan cresting the hill.

Small westerly winds kicked me around a little bit on the return trip. I was zoning out, but just kept following the map and cue blindly. I was amazed at where we ended up when we finally emerged on Paper Mill Rd. — thought we were west of the reservoir by that point. The strong held back and the slowpokes (yours truly now raising his hand) “manned up” enough to keep pace all day and we ended up back in metro territory together for the first time in who knows how long…

I think we’ve visited every convenience store in the tri-state area now… Me, Justin, John, Ben, Dave#1, Bob, Charlie…

I ate my mini-mart ice cream and plans were drawn for a rendezvous at Alonzos a few miles down the road. After break we polished off the last 15 – 16 miles on the fast roads through industrial/suburban north Baltimore. No Picture, but we beat the sun by 4 minutes and the gps track time proves it. Then we split 3 pitchers of beer (which one?), some nachos and I had my chili while we talked about all manner of nonsense for an hour and change before they kicked us out, we switched on our lights and headed home.

Add your memoirs in the comments section! I’m zoning out again…

Photos: Check Bob’s flickr set for a great visual narrative of the day.

Numbers: time on bike – 7:33’ | miles – 94.5 | moving avg – 12.5 | overall avg – 10.8 | elev gain – 7347′

Few extra photos in my Flickr Set…

Data: Garmin pt1 | Garmin pt2

Ben, Bob, Charlie, Dave#1, Harry, John, Justin & Peter thanks for the great day out. Hopefully we’ll catch up next month! I wonder what February will hold for us…

As usual, I can’t let any bike just go away. I have to keep rebuilding it until there’s no parts whatsoever left in the take-off bin…

Of course, I would click send and publish “figures” for the end of the year and Bob would email the group asking if we wanted to ride to Annapolis on Saturday. Well of course I would say yes! Quick run-down. We met at the Washington Monument around 9am, (Bob, Isaias, Harry, and I) rode down to Annapolis – mostly along the trail system. Once there we stopped at Ram’s Head Tavern for lunch and a few beers. (I had Copperhead Ale – meh., kind of TOO light.) Then we turned around and retraced our steps to get back to Baltimore. The wind kicked up and we had to fight it most of the way home, but we could hardly complain given how nice of a late-December day it was for riding otherwise. I had a hard time separating the headwind lag from my post-lunch 2 beer coma to be honest. Along the B&A trail, we met up with Maxine and rode together for a few miles till we got back to the airport. Once out of the trails we came back into B-more using the familiar routes and chugged our way through the only real hills of the day downtown to make it back by 3-ish or so (4? – I forget). Thanks to Bob and all for dragging me out one last time, and congrats to Isaias for his 17343.91 mile (not a typo!) year.

Numbers: time on bike – 4:58’54″ | miles – 71.28 | avg – 14.3 | elev gain – 2482′ | gps data – trip there : trip back

Date	Long Haul Trucker	Blue 1×7	2011 Total
10-31	6308.4	3735.9	2174.8
12-31	6625.9	3735.9	2492.3

Just the long rides. Everything else got swept under the rug. Tired o’ keepin’ track.

I managed hill intervals twice last week with Bob & Justin, even dreamed up some elaborate biking plans for the winter break, and then… Well, nothing. I had a few days where I was predisposed with family gatherings. After that I took some time to do mechanical projects, then read some books I got for Christmas…

#1 – It’s All About the Bike by Robert Penn. The author goes on a quest to build his ultimate bike by visiting the makers for his dream components. Along the way he rationalizes his choices and makes many interesting historical observations. Ironically, having spent the better part of 2 years embroiled in a similar quest I spent a large portion of my reading time thinking to myself “oh, I’d do that differently” or “that doesn’t mesh with his central thesis”. At under 200 pages it was a quick read, and it would be a great book to give to anyone close who could use an explanation as to why you have bikes laying all over the house/garage/basement/shed and you’re still trying to find something “just right”. Conversely, one could also argue after reading that his travels and the people he met were more interesting than the bike itself, so maybe a cyclist could skip the middleman and just ride the bike he has to more interesting destinations.

Next up was “Cyclepedia” — a picture book with unique bicycle designs from the past 100 years. There are many interesting examples but every time I flip through it keeps falling open to page 30…

…an all aluminum Mercier frame caught my eye. Really like the classic silvery look.
Check out those sly wavy aluminum fenders. The next spread had a Rene Hearse touring model that was a second runner-up.

I AM a slow reader, but here’s what stole the rest of my time.

All I can say is my fingers hurt. It is not my first guitar because I also have an acoustic, but it is the first one I will play for any length of time. Be it courtesy for my neighbors and spouse or self-consciousness, I could never bring myself to force others to listen to me play scales and chords for hours on end every day. This solves the problem for me by letting me practice in peace. If all goes well maybe I’ll buy an amp some day. I’m stealing life lessons from weight loss and biking to see I get somewhere with it — namely, “a little bit of effort every day adds up”. I can steal 1/2 hour from the internet and television without missing a beat.

I’ve kept up with working around the house, stretching and light strength training — just haven’t been on the bike for a week — and feeling rather refreshed for it.  Maybe I’ll get out once again, but even if I ride any distance I doubt I’ll take my gps. Not like it matters anyway. I’ve got 100′s of miles of commuting that I didn’t log anyway. Going to put my Planet Bike computer on the LHT now, but I still don’t think I’m going to keep close track of my miles any more.

Happy new year all!

Well I’ve been on my commutes, but haven’t been out for a few weeks otherwise. Bob promised to lead us on training rides if we wanted and a few of us decided to take him up on it. I missed last week, but ventured out tonight with Justin and Bob for the Monday festivities. It was perfect cool December riding weather. His general plan was to take us to Mt. Washington and then lead us up and down each hill. Worked out great. I did ok on the climbs, but my brakes and the new pads are too grabby. Every time I’d try to hit a descent too hard they’d grab hold when I hit the brakes and the front fork would shake all over the place. Kind of strange since I’ve had these pads installed and adjusted for 350 miles with no problems. The ride got its name from me watching my headlight sway back and forth across the road while huffing up one of the many hills. Anyway, thanks for getting me off the trainer and let me know if you can do Thursday. I’ll bring fresh cookies as my wife promised. Here’s the data!

ride to the ride | the ride

Sunday was my 10th century for the year. This month Bob took us on another ride to D.C.. This time we didn’t see any monuments, we just went on a big loop and back for Beer, Fish and Chips.

I woke up on time, but lazed around the house for a little too long and nearly missed the start. Dave #1 was there and he hung behind while I got my act together so we rode the first leg of the trip solo. The day started out going west through Catonsville and across a few local trails into Ellicott City. There we picked off our largest climb for the day up Old Columbia Rd. Moving west and south on Clarksville Pike, we caught up with Justin, John, and Edward who had stopped along the way for a sec. We all rolled on together to the Dunkin’ Donuts rest stop.

The next section was the busy approach to D.C. Lots of roads with fast traffic. The route was broken up by many trails so we got a chance to relax between all the fast sections. The first was in Matthew Henson State Park, which led us in to Rock Creek park and some beautiful low-traffic and closed road/trails. There were lots of local roadies out doing training loops. We met up with Bob and part of the lead group who waited up for us here to roll into D.C. together. This was probably my favorite section for the day. Leaving the park and moving towards Mount Pleasant (I thought D.C. was flat…) the roads got busier, but traffic was fairly considerate. By this point we were all getting pretty hungry and the trip down 7th st. to lunch where we kept hitting all the lights was kind of maddening. I was out of gas, but kept going ok.

Lunch at Fado was great. We all sat around for a while and took our time. Food was good, only prob was that the tables were split up so there wasn’t as much cross-talk as usual.

Pulling my light before lunch I noticed that the left side of the bracket cracked, so I had to move it to the bars and stash the cue sheet for the second half of the day. The question du-jour was ‘how much further’? and I had no idea because I set up my garmin with just the next street name so I’d rely on the cue for distances and to maximize my map area. Coming out of D.C., the group took an unexpected turn and I got caught up enough with watching a turning car and avoiding Isaias’s wheel to roll sideways into a 1/2″ tall curb, pick my front wheel and bowl over on the sidewalk. Lucky for me my now torn up bar-wrap and brake lever caught the worst of it and all I suffered was ripped pants at the knee and a sore right palm/shoulder for the rest of the day.

On the way home we wandered through a few more parks, first Chillum, then Northwest Branch looking for an open porta-john for 10 minutes, then back to the main road through College Park. From there we aimed our bikes for the last rest stop of the day in Annapolis Junction where we bid farewell to Maxine who had left her car just up the road. Racing darkness home for the remainder of the afternoon, we plodded along at the same methodical pace the sweeps were running all day. We gave it our best shot…

Isaias, Bob, & Dave #1 enjoy the last 3 min. of daylight.

…but lost. It wasn’t long after the rest stop before it was pitch black out. I had quite a few miles out of my comfort zone in the areas south of Baltimore, especially along the on-ramps to the Arundel Expressway where I found myself thinking “WOW I’d really rather not be right-here-right-now” in traffic. As usual, I used the IXON as a daytime running light on low and switched to high at dusk. With technology advancing the way it does, my beam is dimmer than everyone else’s now, but it still has a useful pattern and lights up the road plenty for night riding out of city limits. I had “just” enough battery to get me home this time. Usually, I charge up before the ramble and I’m good until next month using the light for commutes on low. This month I didn’t even have enough juice to make it through the Monday ride home from work. Guess I should carry some AA’s till spring. That park section at the end of the ride would have been impossible in the dark. One by one the last of our group headed for their respective cars/homes. Soon it was just Bob, Dave #1 and I riding straight up Charles where we stopped off at ‘The Dizz’ for one round before heading home.

For pictures, you’ll notice there practically are none. There were some sights, but there was always something more pressing to concentrate on than finding a pull-off spot to take out the camera. Reflecting on the tempo, I was truly blown away by the times when I got home and looked at the eTrex. Never would have guessed that I rode the day with a moving average close to 13. Glad we all made it back home with no real incidents or mechanicals. Thanks to everyone for a good ride, have a happy holiday break, and hope to see you all next year!

Check out Bob’s writeup and pictures which catches the flavor of the ride better than my chicken scratch this month…
Bob’s Flickr Set here : His Writeup Here

Numbers: time on bike – 9:08’ | miles – 116.0 | moving avg – 12.7 | overall avg – 10.6 | elev gain – 5427′

Data: Garmin pt1 | Garmin pt2

I’ve been on a roll. Since summer I’ve had 14 uninterrupted weeks of success where I either broke even weighing in at the end of the week or came in lower. This week was no exception even though I pushed it up a day to compensate for Thursday being the ‘eating-holiday-to-end-all-eating-holidays’. For the most part I did well. I ignored the potatoes and biscuits and most starchy things, but treated myself to real desserts. I also made an effort to get out every day this weekend on the bike, even if some days were just a trip to the store or 20 minutes rolling around Bel Air on the folder. To cap off the weekend I wanted to get out for a real ride, burn some calories, and also push myself to see just how well my training has been going. I took the opportunity to plan myself a proper route and build a cue sheet again Saturday night.

I had planned to leave the house pre-dawn. I woke up at 5:45am with a raging headache, so I put plans temporarily on hold while I made breakfast and a cup of coffee. After being up for a few minutes I burned through the fog in my head well enough to move out only a little behind schedule. I did a quick loop of the neighborhood as a final test for my legs and headed up towards the trail through Timonium. My first stop for the day was to grab an Egg & Cheese sandwich at the Bagel Works on Ashland Rd. and take off up the trail. My on-road sections for this ride were probably even faster than my posted averages because once I hit the trail I really slowed down for all the runners and dog walkers. I also took some time to just enjoy the view at the rest stop where I ate my bagel 5 miles up the road.

Farm at one of my favorite vistas along the NCR

Trucker on trail – same spot

I pulled away from my rest stop only 1+ miles or so shy of Corbett Rd.. After warming up, I got back to pavement and it was ‘all business’ where I pushed myself as hard as I could. Most of the remainder of this route was stolen from Bob’s ‘4 Reservoirs Tour‘. The only difference is I kept going on Seminary to the Falls Rd. intersection where I went south. I could modify the route a little to start at the Druid Hill Conservatory and call it the ’2 Reservoirs Tour’ when my plaigeristic tendencies flare up again.

Safe in my own zip code again I had a little extra energy to spare so I did 1 or 2 diversions up hills on side streets and headed home to get on with the day. I felt good throughout the ride and only noticed being tired about 2 hours afterwards. 14.3 mph moving average on a 50+ mile route with 4k of climbing is just fine with me. A nice ride and a good workout on a beautiful day was just what I needed to end the weekend right and get me back on track for (hopefully) another good week.

Numbers: time on bike – 3:44’49″ | miles – 53.49 | moving avg – 14.3 | overall avg – 13.0 | elev gain – 4110′

Data: Garmin Data

So a few months ago I came to the conclusion that 1 long ride a month just wasn’t enough. I really needed to get out a little more on other weekends for mid-range rides here and there. The problem since then is that I’ve found myself getting up early with good intentions and then doing something else, like making coffee, reading, chores or what-not. Earlier this week I set in motion a chain of events to try and guarantee that I would actually walk out the door for a change by asking others to go out with me! Figured all I needed was one person to say even maybe and I was on the hook. Dave #1 came to the rescue, agreed to get up, and even suggested a route south of the city that led to Isaias and Maxine being able to get out as well. I played the diligent part of a puppet ride leader and created gps tracks and a cue (even though we all knew where we were going) and we all synchronized our watches to meet Sunday morning.

I met up with Dave in the morning at the Common Ground to start out. I had dressed expecting a 30° morning after being out Saturday at 6:30 am. I was shocked to find that the temps outside were closer to 50 or 60 when we got to coffee. Most of my clothes just rode around in my hydration pack for the whole day. Dave and I had some bagel sandwiches and got ready to take off around 7:30. Jumping on the bikes he asked me “why do you want to go through downtown? It’s much quicker to cut across the park to Monroe St. and take that all the way…” Well, I’ve never been that way so I said what the heck and followed his lead. It felt a little quicker to ride down the west side, but I still think I like the views downtown in the morning when it’s quiet better. We met up with Isaias at Carroll Park at 8. Looking at the cue and getting ready to pull out Isaias says “why go that way, Hollins Ferry is all bombed out”. I bowed to his wisdom and took off after him.

Half way through the ride we met up with Maxine on the south side of the airport. We continued on and finished the airport loop which was a first for me (never been on the west side of the airport before).

Taking a quick break at the BWI Dorsey observation area/trailhead while I try and get a picture of a plane. L-R Maxine, Dave, Isaias.

Emu by the airport. No they are not indigenous to Maryland.

We looped back around and muddled our way through a bit of stadium traffic for the Ravens Game. Weaving around downtown we found our way to Fells Point where we stopped at Slainte for lunch and the few beers (heavy seas loose cannon…) I had just barely earned. Lunch was a leisurely affair where we gossiped about the BBC and the group questioned the wisdom of my road choices all day. Isaias and Maxine left for home from the pub. Dave #1 and I did the same—once again ignoring the cue and going a completely different way than advertised up the still-in-construction bike boulevard on Guilford. In the end, I think we were on the published route for about 10% of the time not including the trail. Dave peeled off for home on University and I decided to bail on my little loop and hill at the end since I was already drowsy from lunch.

In the end, it turned out to be a great ride and a great day. There was no set pace and the route was short enough that we didn’t have to go all out to try and get anywhere. Just a nice time.  Thanks all for coming out on a rare balmy November day. I’ll have to practice cues and build my confidence back up a bit before I try to lead another ride

Miles 40ish? Average ?? – forgot to turn on my gps after lunch. Nothing impressive in the numbers anyway. Here’s the gps track…

As mentioned in my last post there were quite a few little changes afoot the week before Sunday’s ramble. I was trying to hold off until after the end of the year to fix everything up, but since I’ve been riding the trucker more, stuff just wears out.