Tomorrow is the first race of the collegiate season: the NCSU Wolfpack Classic. I've been kind of tapering the whole week - here are the rides I did:
Last Saturday: OCS speedway race - about 20 miles at high intensity.
Sunday: pre-rode the road course - 36 miles at low intensity.
Monday: penny lochmere loop at TT pace. Posted my fastest solo 25 mile average speed: 20.4 mph.
Tuesday: penny-lochmere again at recovery pace. Very windy.
Wednesday: tried to do hill repeats but discovered my legs were not up to it - I had been riding fixed to campus Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - it's like resistance/strength training.
Thursday: mountain biking class, recovery pace
Friday: hopefully nothing :-)
In other news, I discovered my back wheel is out of dish. This explains some handling idiosyncracies, and also why I constantly feel like my handlebars are crooked. I'm going to correct this later today, and hopefully I don't FUBAR my wheel the day before a race.
Tomorrow morning we have to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am to roll out at 5 am, to get there in time to set the race up. Ugh. And instead of mentally preparing for the race and resting, I'm going to be doing homework.
Showing posts with label maintenance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maintenance. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Finally, some warm weather!
Today was the first day since the fifteenth that I was able to ride outdoors, and man did it feel good to break my "cabin fever"!
To keep from going crazy, I had been riding the trainer a lot over the past week, concentrating on z3 intervals. I've found that I can tolerate about an hour on the trainer before I start to get bored. This normally works out to two z3 intervals at about 15 to 20 minutes long, and one or two shorter higher-power intervals as well. This certainly doesn't wear me out properly, but it takes the edge off my twitchiness.
On the 21st I re-wrapped my bars and put completely new cables and housings on. While I had all the control lines off, I took the opportunity to flip my stem over and drop my bars an inch or so. The new bar tape (bright orange, in keeping with the original color scheme) looks very pro. I also took my time to run the control cables properly, and I am very pleased with the result - shifting has tightened up noticeably.
Today I hooked up with Brian K., whom I've ridden with before. This guy weighs pretty much nothing, so in the past he's completely stomped me going up every hill. We also had a new-ish guy tagging along (no helmet, no water bottle for a 40 mile ride!); he did okay for most of the ride, but at about mile 30 he really started dragging. No more will be said of him :-)
Anyway, throughout the whole ride Brian had a lot harder time putting the hurt on me than in the past: on every hill he was chasing me, rather than vice-versa. This really, really felt good: I could clearly see an improvement in my power output from the intervals I had done in the past week, and my general volume of training. Brian is a strong, predictable rider: after just a couple rides with him I can predict how he will act pretty well, and how hard he's going to go in certain sections. I think he's going to end up racing C's with me, so it will be nice to already know how he rides.
The lowered bars felt really nice - I had no back or neck problems during or after the ride. The bike handles a little differently, a little "sharper", if that makes any sense. I could tell I hadn't been on the bike enough, though: my rear end was complaining by the end of the ride, and my handling skills had deteriorated a little bit. That's one downside to riding the trainer: you lose the feel for the bike.
One of the other things I've been concentrating on while riding the trainer is pedaling smoothly and in circles. There's a mirror on my bathroom door that I aim so I can see myself and observe my pedal stroke. I've noticed, at least on the trainer, that I do not keep my hips very stable. During the ride today, if I felt myself flagging on a climb, I would concentrate on pedaling in circles, and pushing all the way through the bottom of the stroke. Like magic, more power would come from nowhere, and climb would seem to flatten out! I need to work on pedaling in circles all the time, but the difference in power is nice to feel on a tough climb when I need a mental "pick-me-up".
In other news, I've been following the blog of Avery Wilson, little brother to an apparently fairly successful racer. He wants to upgrade to B's, so I asked him what his 10 minute power and weight were, to compare him to my own numbers. Turns out he produces 215 Watts at 55 kg, for a W/kg of 3.91. I produce 255 Watts at 68 kg (150 lb), for a W/kg of 3.75. So he's got me beat by a little bit. However, my wattage numbers are a tad old, and I would guess I could produce around 260 or 265 Watts for the same interval now, which yields 3.90 W/kg best case. Not half bad. Depending on how the season goes, an upgrade to B's once I satisfy the upgrade requirements is a definite possibility.
I am seriously psyched for this season - I feel good, my training's going well, it looks like I'll be in the top tier of the C field power-wise, and my class load is light enough I have time to train, rest, and race like I want to.
Bring the rain.
EDIT ---------------
Today's ride stats:
Distance: 44.4 mi
Avg. Spd: 19.0 mph
Duration: 2:30
I'm rather proud of that average speed.
To keep from going crazy, I had been riding the trainer a lot over the past week, concentrating on z3 intervals. I've found that I can tolerate about an hour on the trainer before I start to get bored. This normally works out to two z3 intervals at about 15 to 20 minutes long, and one or two shorter higher-power intervals as well. This certainly doesn't wear me out properly, but it takes the edge off my twitchiness.
On the 21st I re-wrapped my bars and put completely new cables and housings on. While I had all the control lines off, I took the opportunity to flip my stem over and drop my bars an inch or so. The new bar tape (bright orange, in keeping with the original color scheme) looks very pro. I also took my time to run the control cables properly, and I am very pleased with the result - shifting has tightened up noticeably.
Today I hooked up with Brian K., whom I've ridden with before. This guy weighs pretty much nothing, so in the past he's completely stomped me going up every hill. We also had a new-ish guy tagging along (no helmet, no water bottle for a 40 mile ride!); he did okay for most of the ride, but at about mile 30 he really started dragging. No more will be said of him :-)
Anyway, throughout the whole ride Brian had a lot harder time putting the hurt on me than in the past: on every hill he was chasing me, rather than vice-versa. This really, really felt good: I could clearly see an improvement in my power output from the intervals I had done in the past week, and my general volume of training. Brian is a strong, predictable rider: after just a couple rides with him I can predict how he will act pretty well, and how hard he's going to go in certain sections. I think he's going to end up racing C's with me, so it will be nice to already know how he rides.
The lowered bars felt really nice - I had no back or neck problems during or after the ride. The bike handles a little differently, a little "sharper", if that makes any sense. I could tell I hadn't been on the bike enough, though: my rear end was complaining by the end of the ride, and my handling skills had deteriorated a little bit. That's one downside to riding the trainer: you lose the feel for the bike.
One of the other things I've been concentrating on while riding the trainer is pedaling smoothly and in circles. There's a mirror on my bathroom door that I aim so I can see myself and observe my pedal stroke. I've noticed, at least on the trainer, that I do not keep my hips very stable. During the ride today, if I felt myself flagging on a climb, I would concentrate on pedaling in circles, and pushing all the way through the bottom of the stroke. Like magic, more power would come from nowhere, and climb would seem to flatten out! I need to work on pedaling in circles all the time, but the difference in power is nice to feel on a tough climb when I need a mental "pick-me-up".
In other news, I've been following the blog of Avery Wilson, little brother to an apparently fairly successful racer. He wants to upgrade to B's, so I asked him what his 10 minute power and weight were, to compare him to my own numbers. Turns out he produces 215 Watts at 55 kg, for a W/kg of 3.91. I produce 255 Watts at 68 kg (150 lb), for a W/kg of 3.75. So he's got me beat by a little bit. However, my wattage numbers are a tad old, and I would guess I could produce around 260 or 265 Watts for the same interval now, which yields 3.90 W/kg best case. Not half bad. Depending on how the season goes, an upgrade to B's once I satisfy the upgrade requirements is a definite possibility.
I am seriously psyched for this season - I feel good, my training's going well, it looks like I'll be in the top tier of the C field power-wise, and my class load is light enough I have time to train, rest, and race like I want to.
Bring the rain.
EDIT ---------------
Today's ride stats:
Distance: 44.4 mi
Avg. Spd: 19.0 mph
Duration: 2:30
I'm rather proud of that average speed.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
So it begins...
Finally, done with exams and into Christmas Break.
I am way behind on how much riding I should be doing, so the goal for the break is to crank out the miles.
I brought my road bike, commuter bike, and fixed gear home, the latter two because they need a little work. After I got back today I spent several hours stripping, cleaning, waxing, and reassembling my commuter bike. It's not quite done yet - I need a new shifter cable, and I think some new tires - the current ones I have, Specialized Armadillos, rub the arches of the brake calipers >:-( I have not been impressed with these tires: they feel slow, have no "road feel", don't corner particularly well, and have never seated properly. On top of that, I don't think they're much more flat resistant than my Conti GP 4000s - I almost never get flats anyway (knock on wood!). In general I am not a fan of Specialized tires, but I can't articulate exactly why.
The fixed gear came home because the chainline needs correcting, and I want to wax the frame to give it a little bit of protection against the elements. Part of me thinks I should flip the wheel around and run (or rock) the 22 tooth to make it useful for training, but the other part of me is lazy and thinks it won't work anyway because the dropouts are vertical, and I got really lucky with the 14 tooth working out, so there.
Alright, off to bed to try and break my habit of getting up at 10 am. Ugh.
I am way behind on how much riding I should be doing, so the goal for the break is to crank out the miles.
I brought my road bike, commuter bike, and fixed gear home, the latter two because they need a little work. After I got back today I spent several hours stripping, cleaning, waxing, and reassembling my commuter bike. It's not quite done yet - I need a new shifter cable, and I think some new tires - the current ones I have, Specialized Armadillos, rub the arches of the brake calipers >:-( I have not been impressed with these tires: they feel slow, have no "road feel", don't corner particularly well, and have never seated properly. On top of that, I don't think they're much more flat resistant than my Conti GP 4000s - I almost never get flats anyway (knock on wood!). In general I am not a fan of Specialized tires, but I can't articulate exactly why.
The fixed gear came home because the chainline needs correcting, and I want to wax the frame to give it a little bit of protection against the elements. Part of me thinks I should flip the wheel around and run (or rock) the 22 tooth to make it useful for training, but the other part of me is lazy and thinks it won't work anyway because the dropouts are vertical, and I got really lucky with the 14 tooth working out, so there.
Alright, off to bed to try and break my habit of getting up at 10 am. Ugh.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday + Friday + Saturday
Thursday I didn't get a ride in, partly because of the pretty lousy weather we were having, and partly because there were some other demands on my time.
Recently I helped a cycling teammate track down a drivetrain noise that turned out to be his freehub - it was rusted up and needed to be lubed quite badly. He said he (gently) hosed his bike pretty frequently, which was probably the source of the water that had gotten in there.
Anyway, I decided to check my bike's freehub because I had recently given it a bath. So I spent a few hours Thursday tearing down both freehubs (mountain bike and road), lubing them up and re-assembling them.
For me, working on bikes is theraputic, it's relaxing, calming. I can almost hear the parts talking to me, telling me how they're doing, how they're feeling. Maybe I'm weird, but I find the more I work on bikes the more I can "hear" what they tell me when I'm riding them, and when I'm working on them. In some ways it's a very intimate language: no spoken words, it's all communicated in the play of the bearings, in the roughness (or lack of) of the surfaces as you re-grease them, in the action of the locknut as you run it down the threads. It gets me very tuned-in to what the bike is trying to tell me as I ride it: what noises come from what, what those noises mean for my safety, and the bike's performance. Like I said, maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy working on my bikes (and other peoples') immensely.
------------------------
Friday I got out for a very pleasant LSD ride from my parent's house (I'm visiting home for fall break).
Dist: 22.4
Avg: 18.1
It was a little overcast, but still warm enough to be fun, and I didn't mind the wind much since I wasn't pushing hard. There's not much to report, except that I felt really good.
When I went out to get one of our cars inspected (a story all of its own), I grabbed some new Ultegra chainrings from Performance Bike. My current set is getting a little worn, and when I replace the chain I'm going to need to put new ones on. Since 9 speed stuff isn't getting more plentiful, I went ahead and bit the bullet. My bike is slowly turning from a "full Dura-Ace" bike into a "Frankenstein" of different level components. Yeesh.
------------------------
Saturday was my traditional Paceline "B" group ride. I always look forward to this ride: it's a great group of people and the pace is perfect for me.
We got a little bit of a late start, and rolled out in chilly but comfortable temps. The ride was pretty uneventful for the first 5 miles - I was warming up a bit slower than usual (the ride leader warms up instantly and always hammers up the first "real" hill of the day). Climbing out from crossing Lake Townsend I shifted from my big chainring into my little one and was rewarded with the chain jamming up on me for about a half second before freeing itself. Since the pedals were not turning the bike dove right, fortunately there wasn't anyone there. I kinda shook my head and got back to the business of climbing, thinking nothing of it.
Somewhere in the next 7 miles or so I ended up in my big ring again, and went to downshift climbing another hill. I hit the lever, come off the gas for a half-stroke as is usual, and realize the bike hasn't shifted. Now there's a funny noise coming from the front derailer, but I can't really diagnose it because now I'm getting passed by riders and there's traffic back. So I mentally shrug, gear down in the back, and start for the front to tell Forrest (the ride leader) I have a mechanical I need to look at at the next intersection.
When we stop, I find the outboard half of the front derailer cage has been broken free and can now no longer push the chain over onto the small ring. I do a quick check to make sure it's not going to fall into the pedals or something dangerous, then remount and keep riding: there really wasn't a whole lot I could do.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, except for one chain drop onto the cranks on a blistering nasty headwind stretch, and I rode on my big chainring the rest of the ride.
Back at the shop after the ride, I buy a new 105 derailer ($50) and head home after meeting an old (elementry school1) friend of mine. After taking off my D/A derailer I decide to have a go at fixing it with some JB Weld. The design of it allows the broken section to carry minimal load, (Sorry, no pictures), so I think I have a chance of making it work. Seeing as I'm going back to school tomorrow I will probably keep the 105 derailer just in case.
As for the ride stats:
Dist: 41.0
Avg: 19.6
For a B group, that's not too shabby.
Recently I helped a cycling teammate track down a drivetrain noise that turned out to be his freehub - it was rusted up and needed to be lubed quite badly. He said he (gently) hosed his bike pretty frequently, which was probably the source of the water that had gotten in there.
Anyway, I decided to check my bike's freehub because I had recently given it a bath. So I spent a few hours Thursday tearing down both freehubs (mountain bike and road), lubing them up and re-assembling them.
For me, working on bikes is theraputic, it's relaxing, calming. I can almost hear the parts talking to me, telling me how they're doing, how they're feeling. Maybe I'm weird, but I find the more I work on bikes the more I can "hear" what they tell me when I'm riding them, and when I'm working on them. In some ways it's a very intimate language: no spoken words, it's all communicated in the play of the bearings, in the roughness (or lack of) of the surfaces as you re-grease them, in the action of the locknut as you run it down the threads. It gets me very tuned-in to what the bike is trying to tell me as I ride it: what noises come from what, what those noises mean for my safety, and the bike's performance. Like I said, maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy working on my bikes (and other peoples') immensely.
------------------------
Friday I got out for a very pleasant LSD ride from my parent's house (I'm visiting home for fall break).
Dist: 22.4
Avg: 18.1
It was a little overcast, but still warm enough to be fun, and I didn't mind the wind much since I wasn't pushing hard. There's not much to report, except that I felt really good.
When I went out to get one of our cars inspected (a story all of its own), I grabbed some new Ultegra chainrings from Performance Bike. My current set is getting a little worn, and when I replace the chain I'm going to need to put new ones on. Since 9 speed stuff isn't getting more plentiful, I went ahead and bit the bullet. My bike is slowly turning from a "full Dura-Ace" bike into a "Frankenstein" of different level components. Yeesh.
------------------------
Saturday was my traditional Paceline "B" group ride. I always look forward to this ride: it's a great group of people and the pace is perfect for me.
We got a little bit of a late start, and rolled out in chilly but comfortable temps. The ride was pretty uneventful for the first 5 miles - I was warming up a bit slower than usual (the ride leader warms up instantly and always hammers up the first "real" hill of the day). Climbing out from crossing Lake Townsend I shifted from my big chainring into my little one and was rewarded with the chain jamming up on me for about a half second before freeing itself. Since the pedals were not turning the bike dove right, fortunately there wasn't anyone there. I kinda shook my head and got back to the business of climbing, thinking nothing of it.
Somewhere in the next 7 miles or so I ended up in my big ring again, and went to downshift climbing another hill. I hit the lever, come off the gas for a half-stroke as is usual, and realize the bike hasn't shifted. Now there's a funny noise coming from the front derailer, but I can't really diagnose it because now I'm getting passed by riders and there's traffic back. So I mentally shrug, gear down in the back, and start for the front to tell Forrest (the ride leader) I have a mechanical I need to look at at the next intersection.
When we stop, I find the outboard half of the front derailer cage has been broken free and can now no longer push the chain over onto the small ring. I do a quick check to make sure it's not going to fall into the pedals or something dangerous, then remount and keep riding: there really wasn't a whole lot I could do.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, except for one chain drop onto the cranks on a blistering nasty headwind stretch, and I rode on my big chainring the rest of the ride.
Back at the shop after the ride, I buy a new 105 derailer ($50) and head home after meeting an old (elementry school1) friend of mine. After taking off my D/A derailer I decide to have a go at fixing it with some JB Weld. The design of it allows the broken section to carry minimal load, (Sorry, no pictures), so I think I have a chance of making it work. Seeing as I'm going back to school tomorrow I will probably keep the 105 derailer just in case.
As for the ride stats:
Dist: 41.0
Avg: 19.6
For a B group, that's not too shabby.
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