Morning Stats
Distance: 13.40 miles
Time: 00:40:20
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 7:30a – 75F, partly cloudy, nice air.
Morning Ride
I was making excellent time. I had already made it 13.4 miles and I was only 40 minutes into my ride, so yeah, I was haulin’ ass. In Collinsville, I had to make the decision to take the old bridge and the trail, but that was a lot of up and down and bumpy stuff, so I decided to stay on the road and continue kicking ass … much to my dismay. About 100 feet past the old bridge on 179 I heard a sharp popping sound. By the time I was approaching the church acorss from Bridge St., I started feeling resistance from the bike … by the church door I felt the dreaded gachunk gachunk of a flat.
ANGER!
But lesson learned; just yesterday, another competitor in the challenge, River_rider, mentioned getting a flat, and I responded that I’d be sure to get a spare tube and pump and carry it. Of course, I didn’t, and this is where it got me.
Tonight, I hope to get to the bike shop before 7 so I can grab a new tube and get the bike back on the road tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m thinking about installing the Slime tyre liners again too, which is contra to the wisdom of the guy who sold me the bike at Bikers Edge 2 in Torrington. Let’s see who’s right.
life
Morning Stats
Distance: 5.90 miles
Time: 00:25:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 73F, sunny, slightly moist. Chipmunk index of 1.
Morning Ride
I made kind of crap time getting in, but I was riding right after eating a big breakfast of a veggie omelet with feta, 2 pieces of toast and 2 cups of orange juice. Not exactly your typical pre-performce power-up. But it was prepared by the lovely Sharry Revillini, a chef of limitless talent and lucky for me, my wife. I also got up late so I had to keep the ride short. Bummer – I felt like doing the 16 mile ride.
Incidentally, I’m still on the same tank of gas that I had on May 15, and that’s not even the day I filled up … I think I’d filled up like 5 days prior.
WOW! DAY 20 in the contest!
Evening Stats
Distance: 5.90 miles
Time: 00:35:00
Terrain: Road: Flat
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 5:30p – 75F, sunny, humid. Squipmunk index of 1.
Evening Ride
This evening I didn’t push hard, I just tried to work on technique and let the crank spin freely. My feet want to point at 45 degrees toward the ground all the time. This works certain muscles and doesn’t make the most efficient use of each turn, because it puts the most pressure on the downstroke. Ideally, I should make 75 – 85% of each turn on each side a working motion. The only time when it’s acceptable to have very little energy is transfered into moving the bike forward is just before it begins the next cycle from the top. By the way, don’t take my word for science. I’m just putting into my own words what I think I’ve heard from other cyclists.
Day 20 is done, man. I hope I can wake early enough tomorrow to ride the whole way to work. It’s the BAYYYST!
life
Morning Stats
Distance: 11.60 miles
Time: 00:35:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 8:30a – sometimes sunny, sometimes foggy and cool.
Chipmunk index of 7.
Morning Ride
Took a nice easy 11 mile ride to work. The road seemed to fly under me. I made really good time getting to work. I was dripping with sweat when I arrived, but I did not feel very tired.
Evening Stats
Distance: 11.60 miles
Time: 00:40:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 8:15p – 68F, dark. Chipmunk index of 0.
Evening Ride
This was my first ride at dusk in a long time. The sky was beautiful, but the bugs were out in full force. I ordered some eye-wear that should be arriving in a few days. It has replaceable lenses that sort of wrap around the eyes, so I hope to avoid getting pelted in the eyes with bugs.
life
The Stats (2 rides)
Distance: 11.60 miles
Time: 00:38:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 74F, humid, foggy.
Distance: 11.60 miles
Time: 00:47:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 71F, very humid, foggy.
The Rides
NOTE: I’m recording this a few days after the ride. Took a ride from Winsted to Canton visited friends, and then headed back. Not much to report except that it was humid as hell and there were torrential rains while I was visiting. It was probably good that I didn’t get caught in that.
life
Stats
Distance: 16.80 miles
Time: 01:00:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 9 – 10am – 73F sunny. Chipmunk index of 1.
Ride
I had to go return something to Lowe’s in Torrington. The ride was nice. That Stillriver Greenway is smooth as silk. I wish all the roads were like that. I made good time on the new bike … approaching 17mph.
life
Stats
Distance: 12.70 miles
Time: 00:55:00
Terrain: Road: Hills
Bike: Specialized Allez Road
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 74F, sunny. Chipmunk index of 1.
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Did the Burr Mountain thing again -12.7 miles. BEAUTIFUL! Added a swim to the mix. I’ll add details later. Saw some geese. ”Ah look at the ducks!”
Headed out to Kent Falls for hiking now.
UPDATE: added stats above.
life
WOW! 15 days in [to the the 2010 Terratrike Car-Free Challenge] already?
Today I put in 20.6 miles. 12.8 on the Sandblaster, 7.8 on my new Specialized Allez road bike that I picked up on my way home. I haven’t ridden a road bike in 18 years – not since the Sandblaster, actually – so it was a little weird, but holy smokes you can get up to speed fast on these things. And hills? What hills? I feel no hills in Winsted! I have to really be careful to shout my presence out to walkers on the trails way earlier. By applying the same amount of power to the pedals that I would on the Sandblaster, it propels me maybe 10 – 20% faster. Getting to work will be a snap! I’ll miss the mud and off road parts until I can score a cyclocross bike.
I have to thank my grandparents for this new bike. They’ve given me the financial foundation to be able to replace my broken junker with something so fine. So: thank you, Bumpa and Mimi! You’re always here for me!!!
Only thing that sucks is that now I have to start locking the bike up again. Worrying about having things ganked is so lame.
In my bikejournal.com club, Yort (Troy) slipped past me this morning, and I crept a little past him once again during my ride home, maintaining 7th. However, people tend to stockpile miles over the weekends and drop them like they’re hot on Sunday night, so it’s a real skinny 7th place. I’ve no doubt about that.
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UPDATE: put on another 2 miles by going to the health food store to get somethign for my legs. They’re not recovering from the ride on Thursday.
UPDATE: put another 2 miles on to get ice cream for my sister since she was insistent (and I secretly liked any excuse to freaking use the new bike).
life
Morning Stats
Distance: 11.60 miles
Time: 01:00:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Fuji Sandblaster SX XC Mtn
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 8:30a – 65F, sunny, cool air, no humidity, great vibe! Chipmunk index of 6.
Morning Ride
I sure wanted to bike today, but my legs sure didn’t. Even walking around the house, they were feeling stressed and tired. So I just did the 11 miles ride (Canton commuter lot to Tunxis) at a nice easy pace and just enjoyed the scenery. During this morning’s ride, I just barely snagged 8th position in my club, and if Yort doesn’t beat me while I’m at work today, I might just grab 7 during the ride to my car! It will be a precarious 7, though. Yort will probably get me this weekend, and chalisc is also gunning for my position.
The competition is great because it’s fueling us to push harder and farther, and in doing so, we’re doing better for the environment. I feel like I’ve made new friends through this, as we chat in the club news area about our endeavors.
Evening Stats
Distance: 17.00 miles
Time: 01:30:00
Terrain: Road: Rolling
Bike: Fuji Sandblaster SX XC Mtn
Club: 2010 TerraTrike Car-Free Challenge
Weather Conditions: 3-6:30pm – 78F-73F; sunny. Chipmunk index of 1.
Evening Ride
This evening’s ride was supposed to be a quick ride to the bank, then to the car. The trip to the bank was almost fine, but right toward the end, I came off a high curb and was maybe shifting gears or some thing and the force of coming down on the pedal broke the derailleur (it’s 18 years old, though, so it’s understandable). This caused the chain to hang too slack to ride … almost. I found that if I set it to the largest from cog and the largest rear cog, then it was still really slack, but ridable, if I put very little force on it. This gave me the ability to gingerly ride back to work where my friend and competitor in the Terratrike challenge, Mike (morebented), would graciously help me cut the chain down so the thing could be ridden on a single gear the rest of the way.
We set it to a medium gear, so going fast was impossible the whole way home. It was a long ride, but it gave me more time to take in the beauty. I met a guy who I thought was having bike trouble, but actually he was trying to scare a hawk away from some robins during his ride. Good man … looking out for the little ones.
Next move will be to find a new bike (or borrow one of Mike’s). Thanks again, Mike!
life
Morning Ride Stats
I’ll paste them in later.
Morning Ride
They don’t call them the northwest hills for nothing. I decided to try a different route, as well as to bike the whole way to work today. I followed the recommended directions that Google came up with, and let me tell you, they must really be trying to get the American population to get physically fit in a hurry. I was either tilted at a 45 degree angle pointed up or down the whole way crossing from Torrington into Canton. It mellowed out after that, but it was intense! I felt like I was in a Tour de CT or something. Turned out to be 25.9 miles.
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One really cool thing about the ride was that I got to ride down this closed road called Marsh Rd. which passed by what I think was a wildlife preserve / turtle hatchery. They had a sign about Spotted Bog turtles or something. Pretty cool. I hope to be passing my with a camera when they all start breaking ground and heading for the bog. I have to admit that while I was going along this road, I started wondering if I had made a bad turn. When I finally got to another road, there were no markings about what it was, but I took it and it was Niles Rd. after all, which is on the route.
I did miss a turn which would have shaved like a mile off the ride and would have taken me by a reservoir in Torrington, and instead I stayed on 202 which is OK but heavily trafficked and not much fun. I’ll try to do it right on the way home.
On the final leg of my trip, right outside Unionville, I spotted what i think was a wood duck nestled in the high grass. I circled back to watch her for a few minutes, then we said our goodbyes and I continued on.
Evening Ride Stats
Forthcoming
Evening Ride
I just took the longest effing route to get home ever. See for yourself:
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What happened was that as I got to Shadybook Road, which was on my google directions to get home, I started feeling like I was going the wrong way. About that time my friend also called to invite me down to the Brew Pub for a drink. Well, I thought, I’m pretty close to there (or so I thought). After I trekked up probably the longest uphill I’ve ever ridden (Rt 202 between New Hartford and Torrington) and coasted down the other side (fun!), I finally reached my destination. My wife was across the street and I thought I’d made it clear that if she wanted to go home that we should go together, but somehow that got lost in translation. She headed home to take care of the pets with the intention on coming back. I was damn tired after a Margarita and a fatty plate of veggies and pasta, so I hopped on the bike and peddled my ass home. I learned that a massive amount of bugs will hit you in the face when you ride at night.
Well, I’m sticky with sweat, probably dehydrated, and dead tired, so I’m signing off. See you tomorrow!
p.s. My legs are going to fall off.
life
Ride Stats
I’ll paste them in later when I have time.
Ride Descriptions
HOT HOT HOT. Riding through the woods was so much better than the road. However, my accomplishment was that I rode up that damn hill on 44 on the second set of gears, and did the whole 16 miles in just over an hour, which is good for me. I was panting and vocalizing my exhaustion at the top of the hill, but I quickly composed myself because two girls were jogging toward me when I reached the summit. :D
Sorry I don’t have many details, but I didn’t have time to journal yesterday, so all I remember is the heat and the hill. I then drank 2 margaritas to even out the health benefits of the ride. The end.
life
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