Monday, November 24, 2008

A Sunday Ride in November

Every ride outside now is a bonus ride.  Snow is a constant possibility and, after whiffing the endless hours of sitting on a trainer or rollers in a back room, sun and 40 degrees is downright delightful.  As I did last week, road in on Hwy 3 to meet the guys from Dubuque in Durango.  Nine o'clock on a Sunday morning is pretty uneventful, mostly folks going to church in Luxemborg or Holy Cross, and they offer plenty of room, most of the time an entire lane, as they pass.  Is it the Sunday sermon effect?  or maybe they're just used to seeing me on the road now.  The exception is the evil milk truck driver.  He drives a blue milk truck and hurtles down the highway, probably to the Swiss Valley plant in Dubuque, at various and unpredictable days and times.  Today he caught me just past Holy Cross, waited impatiently for some churchgoers to make the turn and then passed me.  He now gives me plenty of room, but then deftly rides squarely on the gravel shoulder with his right wheels.  Over-correction?  Naw, he stays there for a good 200 yards, spewing gravel and dust into my face.  If that's the worst of it, then I'm OK and I meet my buddies at the crossroads in Durango.

guys1 Stitch

Mike, Spahny, John and Lance, good company on a nice November ride

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Winterish Morning

 

Workouts - In a Binder for Indoor Cycling (Workouts in a Binder)

One of the pleasures of living in Iowa is waking up to snow flurries, wind and 10 degrees on the thermometer.  What to do after downing a bowl of oatmeal and a double shot of espresso?  Hop on the bike.  But not outside, not today.  Today is reserved for the rollers.  My setup, an old set of Kreitler Dynolytes, sweat-induced rust pushing through the red paint on the frame, paired with a Headwind fan running off the front roller and a 10 pound weight spinning off the rear drum, this setup has seen me through hundreds of winter hours over the last ten years.  Most of the time, the rollers are reserved for fast cadence recovery spins, but sometimes, like this morning, they need to take the place of a real base-building ride. 

A great resource for figuring out what to do is Dirk Friel's Workouts book.  It's a little binder stuffed with variations of indoor trainer workouts to add some variety to the hours that you should be spending on the rollers if you're one of the poor blokes not living in southern France this winter.  Friel separates the into Endurance, Force, Speed Skills, Muscular Endurance, Anaerobic Endurance, Power and Mixed.    I'll be highlighting a few that I've incorporated into my routine over the last two years.  Oh, and best of all, the pages of the book are sweat proof!

This is low volume week for me.  Typically, I've been doing about 15 hours a week of base work with a spinup thrown in for three weeks and then I'll do a week with half the volume.  These half-volume weeks typically correspond to bouts of tremendously crappy weather where my MWF commutes to work aren't possible.  This frosty morning I'm going to do the strangely named (I'll be riding on rollers afterall) Rolling Hilly workout, E1 in Friel's text (the first exercise of the Endurance section).  I also set up Cycling TV on the ol' computer.  Today's selection is the 2008 Amstel Gold.  My goal is to recognize some of the towns we rode through during our visit in 2007 (our friends live in Rjemerstok). 

The goal of the workout (besides avoiding frostbite) is to develop endurance and hip strength by imitating cadence and pedal force encountered on rollers.  After a 15m warmup where Friel has me spinning, stand, sit and then do single leg work, we get to the meat of the workout.  Two sets.  First set is 6 reps, 2m each.  Each rep is 2m at 70rpm in Zone 2.  The recovery interval is 1m at 100rpm in Zone 1.  After a three minute rest interval between sets, the second set expands the low cadence interval to 3m.

This sounds ridiculously easy, but after the first set I realize that my hip flexors are killing me.  During the three minute rest interval, my legs feel fantastic, smoothly spinning away at 90ish rpm.  The second set finishes me off by the sixth rep.  The workout's a success: an hour has passed and no frostbite.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Memories of Versailles Chambord 2008

Long delayed in posting a report about my ride with Jean-Manuel in the 30th anniversary of the randonnee, Versailles-Chambord, on September 21st.  While I was flying in the day before from Iowa, JM drove his car down to Chambord, parking it near a police station to keep it safe.  The end of the 140 mile ride was about 10k from a train station and the thought of sitting on a train for two hours after a 6 and a half hour ride and then riding again to get home didn't sit well.  Thanks to his effort the day before, we were able to ride home in the comfort of a Peugeot 405 and stop for a decent meal near Orleans.

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This fellow followed the riders to each rest stop on the way.

 

 

 

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Registration at daybreak in front of the Palais de Versailles didn't dampen these ladies' spirits.   

 

 

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Maybe it was the coffee?

 

 

 

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Riding in the early morning light through the Chevreuse Valley, home of the famous Gran Prix des Nations time trials for many years.  Our route retraced some of the same roads I first raced back in 2004 in the Versailles-Chartres road race.  Memories of being pegged at 31mph in a long line and the Cathedral of Chartres miles ahead on the horizon.  This morning was more of a surreal experience as groups of riders faded in and out of fog and light.  JM and I leapfrogging from one group to the next in search of the 'just right' tempo for the day. 

 

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Rest stops were spaced at about 40k intervals and provided an opportunity for regrouping.  JM and I were the only riders from his Houilles club, but we quickly became comrades in wheels with others.  This particular stop was at a bakery, and we had our choice of a large croissant or a bun.  Next time, take the bun.  Nothing like burping up butter in a paceline.

 

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JM in the lunch line. For a six euros we got a bag stuffed with an egg sandwich, couscous, fruit, chips and flan.  After the croissant earlier in the day, the chips and flan were gifted to another rider.   

 

 

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Nice hunting shack!  And one of the most chaotic profiles of a chateau in France, the Château de Chambord is a must see.

 

 

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With the sunlight fading and the quads still burning, JM and I wandered around a magical place. 

 

 

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A good ride with a great friend.  140 miles with nearly 6000 feet of climbing helped make jet lag a secondary consideration.

 

 

 

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With over 650 riders participating, the variety of bikes on hand were something special.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

No Snow Today!

The wind is out of the west, southwest, the temperature is threatening to move past 30 degrees and there is a break in the snow flurries that have been falling for the past few hours: time to ride.

nov16ride 002 Stitch
I'm zipped, velcroed and generally bundled against the cold. The effect on the bike is a bit like riding in molasses. The gravel/dirt road that leads the half-mile from my house hasn't been graded since the last precipitation and is now frozen into a hard, brown surface that isn't too bad on the tubulars.
The muted colors of winter, slate skies, browns of harvested fields and the stubborn dark evergreens. The cranks turn and the muscle memories of yesterday's interval workout on the rollers make themselves known in a series of achey messages in my head. Only a few miles, but I know that by Luxemborg the spin will be back, and a rhythm will take the place of the aches.


Off-season riding in Iowa is tough in its own way. The speeds are slower, the risk of frostbite is always there; you can be feeling nice and toasty all over and then the sun slips away, the wind shifts and suddenly you can't feel your fingers anymore. Harder, though, is the doubt that creeps in when the average speed dips into summer's touring range and the top speed for a ride doesn't break thirty. Am I still fit? Will I be fit in the spring? Two antidotes are always on hand, however, your experience on the bike, the meso-cycles of fitness that happen annually, over and over (you've been here before) and your love for riding (I like being on my bike; who cares if I'm going slow?).

nov16ride 004 Stitch
One way to measure how fit you are is to ride with others, push the pace up a hill and spend some time swapping stories, commiserating about riding in cold, wet weather, in cold, snowy weather or fighting a 35 mph headwind for a few hours riding home last week. This makes you feel better in the end and you realize that the community of the bike is as important as your average wattage for the ride.
Bonne Route!

Monday, November 17, 2008

No snow today!

The wind is out of the west, southwest, the temperature is threatening to move past 30 degrees and there is a break in the snow flurries that have been falling for the past few hours: time to ride.



I'm zipped, velcroed and generally bundled against the cold. The effect on the bike is a bit like riding in molasses. The gravel/dirt road that leads the half-mile from my house hasn't been graded since the last precipitation and is now frozen into a hard, brown surface that isn't too bad on the tubulars.



The muted colors of winter, slate skies, browns of harvested fields and the stubborn dark evergreens. The cranks turn and the muscle memories of yesterday's interval workout on the rollers make themselves known in a series of achey messages in my head. Only a few miles, but I know that by Luxemborg the spin will be back, and a rhythm will take the place of the aches.

Off-season riding in Iowa is tough in its own way. The speeds are slower, the risk of frostbite is always there; you can be feeling nice and toasty all over and then the sun slips away, the wind shifts and suddenly you can't feel your fingers anymore. Harder, though, is the doubt that creeps in when the average speed dips into summer's touring range and the top speed for a ride doesn't break thirty. Am I still fit? Will I be fit in the spring? Two antidotes are always on hand, however, your experience on the bike, the meso-cycles of fitness that happen annually, over and over (you've been here before) and your love for riding (I like being on my bike; who cares if I'm going slow?).

One way to measure how fit you are is to ride with others, push the pace up a hill and spend some time swapping stories, commiserating about riding in cold, wet weather, in cold, snowy weather or fighting a 35 mph headwind for a few hours riding home last week. This makes you feel better in the end and you realize that the community of the bike is as important as your average wattage for the ride.

Bonne Route!