Saturday on Skyline

If I post it to the blog, then I have to ride it...

Front Royal to Luray and back via Thornton Gap. 75 Miles. 6800 feet of climbing (approximate).

Thinking about mountain passes

On Wednesday, I did 52k to the south and east of the Springs. There are a couple of reasons I ride that route frequently. First, it is into the prevailing south wind to start. Secondly, there is a place where I can do a 3 mile stretch that is mostly uphill. Good training for the ride.

Near the top of the climb, I took this picture:

This is one reason why I love to live in Colorado. This is a fairly typical view. I started to think about having to ride above tree line on RtR and how high that really is compared to where I was at the time. Red Mountain Pass is 11,018 feet and Wolf Creek Pass is 10,863 feet. My training has mostly been at about 7,000 feet. Now I do have a big advantage over Luke who is training at essentially sea level, but 4,000 feet is still a big difference. I need to get out and do some longer climbs at higher altitude.

National Arboretum training commute

Trying to ride 200+ miles a week means you end up seeing the same roads, a lot. So this morning I decided for a change of pace and rode to the National Arboretum on my way to work. Plus it makes for a much more interesting blog post than just how many kilometers I rode. At left is a view from the top of one of hills looking west.

The National Arboretum is located on 446 acres in Northeast DC and is bounded by New York Avenue, Bladensburg Road, and the Anacostia River. Inside there 9.6 miles of roads that wind around the Arboretum which makes for some great riding. Their mission is "To serve the public need for scientific research, education, and gardens that conserve and showcase plants to enhance the environment." Check out the garden list from their website:

Single-genus groupings include: azalea, boxwood, daffodil, daylily, dogwood, holly, magnolia, maple, and peony. Major garden features include: aquatic plants, the Asian Collections, the Fern Valley Native Plant Collections, the Flowering Tree Collection, the Flowering Tree Walk, the Friendship Garden, the Gotelli Dwarf and Slow-Growing Conifer Collection, the Introduction Garden, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, the National Capitol Columns, the National Grove of State Trees, and the National Herb Garden.

The National Arboretum also contains Corinthian columns from the original East Portico of the Capitol.

The columns began their life on the East Portico of the Capitol in 1828. They were quarried from sandstone near Aquia Creek in Virginia and were barged to Washington in the early days of our country, before the familiar Capitol dome was completed. Their stay at the Capitol was to be limited by an oversight. The dome of the Capitol, completed in 1864, appeared as if it was not adequately supported by the columns because the iron dome that was ultimately built was significantly larger than the dome that the designer envisioned. An addition to the east side of the Capitol was proposed to eliminate this unsettling illusion, but it was not constructed until 1958.

The rolling hills made for a great morning ride and I wish I could have spent the morning there walking through some of the gardens. I didn't quite get in the 40k I wanted, but it's close enough. The are even some hills there but they are all pretty short. This weekend I plan to get out west and do some riding on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We'll see how my hill legs are coming along.

Off Week

Last week was an off week for my training. After a big weekend last weekend I had a bit of a motivational slump. My achilles tendon was bothering me slightly as well. I ended getting abou 130 miles in last week. I did have one really nice afternoon of riding through Rock Creek Park on the way home:



This week my goal is 350-375 kilometers. I plan to start if off tonight with a 3 hour Spinervals workout: Have Mercy II. I figure 3 hours of intervals indoors is worth almost 4 hours outside on the road. If I can actually fight off boredom and ride for 3 hours it'll count for around 90-95km of riding.

Train, Train, Train

I don't mean railroad trains either. Last Saturday, my plan was to do 80k (50 m). The morning dawned cool (50), foggy, drizzly, and breezy. The weather didn't straighten up (as my wife likes to say). So, after a waiting bit to see if the weather might improve, and going outside a couple of times to see how bad it really was, I gritted my teeth and got on my spinning bike. Three hours and 20 minutes later I finished. Not sure how long that would have been on the road, but it was all I could STAND. How does one stand 3+ hours on a spinning bike? I watched The Fellowship of the Ring which runs 3 hours. Perfect. I like the movie, so it did help pass the time. Sunday was a rest day, although I did go to softball practice.

On Monday, I did 40k. The highlight of that ride was riding over a snake. I went back to look and it had been run over by a car, so I added insult to serious injury when I ran over. He was still twitching a bit when I went back, but he was clearly not long for this world.

I rode 40k again on Tuesday--pretty much the same route. The snake was still there, but this time I didn't ride over him. On my ride today I listened to "This America Life". The story for the day was baby sitters. It was in 3 acts, and the last act was the most amazing story. In order to escape from her home, a teenage girl invented a family with 2 small children that she had to babysit for. Her brother played along. The mother never caught on, in spite of some very implausible stories told by the girl and her brother. As you learned more and more, it got stranger, and actually quite sad.

Thanks goodness for iPods and podcasts. It sure makes the time go by faster.

Ride the Rockies -- 80s flashback

As I posted earlier, Day One of Ride the Rockies rides up and through the Colorado National Monument. What I neglected to mention is some of the history of that route. It was one of classic stages from the 1980's Coors Classic stage race. It was known as the Tour of the Moon because of the other-worldy scenery. It will be a thrill to ride the same loop with a big group of riders. The route is also use prominently in the cheesy 80's movie American Flyers. I wasn't aware of this fact until last night. I was riding indoors and watching a Spinervals DVD (Have Mercy 2) but had to cry for mercy because my legs were like wet noodles. So I did some light spinning and watched the second half of American Flyers. The film features a bike race called the Hell of the West. They used the Coors Classic as a back drop and the second stage of the fictional race rides the Tour of the Moon and has some really great shots of the route we'll ride on day one. Of course, it also has Kevin Costner with a bad moustache and a really seizure so it's not necessarily a great movie.

The best clip I could find on youtube is a really bad rip from what appears to be swedish tv. Weird.

52k on Wednesday

I rode 52k (32m) today. It was cool and a bit windy, but all in all a pretty nice day for a for a ride. I did 205k (127m) last week. My goal is to do at least 230k (143m) this week. So far, I have done about 70k. So, some hours on the bike are ahead of me. So far, my rear is holding up to the increase in mileage.

One good thing about riding in Colorado is that the views are often beautiful.

This is a crummy picture, but you might be able to detect the snow capped peaks of the Southern mountains (the Crestones?). This was at my turn around point (26k from home).

Ride the Rockies 2010 day one preview: Colorado National Monument

RTR2010 begins with a loop from Grand Junction, CO and rides through the Colorado National Monument:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23240330@N03/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

MapMyRide.com put together a map and a kml file for google earth. They also have a really cool 3D fly by using the google earth plugin. Check out the switchbacks that start around mile 7.5.

First post...133k weekend

When my dad (Chuck) emailed me and asked me if I wanted to come to Colorado and ride Ride te Rockies with him I was excited because it's an event I've always wanted to participate in. So I checked my adventure race schedule and made sure I didn't have any big races and said yes. It wasn't until after we'd gotten in that I checked the distance and the elevation gain. That's when I realized that living at sea level and in a relatively flat area meant that I was going to have to spend a lot of time in the saddle over the next several months.

This past weekend I got in 61k on Saturday riding out to Great Falls and back with a couple of repeats on the Mass Ave hill (approximate route). Sunday I got up early (for me) and went out with the Bicycle Place for their group ride. Lots of people decided to take advantage of the great weather and there were over 100 people riding. The main ride goes for about 55k but I opted to do the Rock Creek extension without about 7 other riders and we did about 72k. The ride is similar to my Saturday route and I've tried to approximate the route here though I'm a little fuzzy on how we got on Democracy Blvd from Oaklyn. I felt great on the hills after riding hard on Saturday and was keeping up with the front of the pack on the climbs.

This week my goal is to get in around 200 miles. The rider manual recommends 150-200 miles per week by mid-May. That seems really low to me considering we'll be riding 500+ in June and will have to do that at elevation and with some serious climbs.

Picketwire Canyon

On Monday, I needed a day off from the bike. I had accepted an invitation to go hike to the dinosaur tracks in Picketwire Canyon. It was actually a pretty good day for calorie burning, if not for riding. The total hike was about 13 miles, mostly flat. But, we walked it pretty fast so the heart rate was up a bit. We were a bit disappointed because we couldn't cross the river to see the tracks on the other side. There was just too much water running. Next time.

What follows is a picture of me and one of the raptor tracks. The track is between the ends of my walking sticks.

95k weekend

I rode 65k (40m) on Saturday and 30k (18.6m) on Sunday. That total is getting close to the distance for some of the shorter stages. I have a ways to go before I will feel comfortable about doing the ride. On Saturday, I lucked out. When I started, the wind for light out of the south. So, I headed south. As I rode, the wind picked up and got stronger and stronger. By the time I finished, the wind was pretty strong (at my back at the end). The only thing that beats that is to ride with the wind and have it change at the turn around so it is at your back the whole ride. I've never been that lucky. I have had the opposite experience. Riding into the wind both directions.

Here we go!

In February, as I (Chuck) was preparing to retire, I saw some information about Ride the Rockies.

http://www.ridetherockies.com/

In short, the ride is 7 days, 530 miles total, with some challenging climbs. I thought it would be a good goal to work for in the first couple of months of retirement. I entered the lottery to get in (they only allow 2,000 entries). I asked Luke if he was interested, and he said yes. I was very please, and a bit surprised.

We won the lottery (well, at least we get the chance to ride--keep reading as time goes on to find if that was a victory or not!).

So, we are registered and paid for this adventure. And, since we have paid, there is not backing our now. :)

Luke and I will post training and other information as time goes on. So, if you are interested in following our progress, check us out occasionally.