Skip to main content

Riding is good

This morning I went for a recovery ride at Blanket's. Temps were in the 30s and it was a beautiful sunny morning.  I was up at 6am and spent an hour and a half looking for a TV. Pretty ridiculous. Finally mustered up the gumption to brave the cold and I'm thankful that I did because I had a true moment of zen on an isolated South Loop. About 100 Canadian geese were heading south for the winter but they seemed to hover overhead.  I paused and looked up at them for a few minutes. They seemed to fly with me for the rest of the ride and after a while I no longer heard their calls, until they stopped. I'm glad I decided to go outdoors today.  I think it's important to take these pauses every so often. So much time I spend outdoors on a bike, the world seems to be whirring by.

I knew today would be an easy ride because my knees are still trashed from the road bike metric century (62 miles) on Saturday. Not so much from the mileage but my bike fit. Shoulders and just above elbows are also twingy. This is a bike fit issue I know. I think I'm reaching to far to the bars so I need to:
A: Move the saddle forward.
B: Raise the bars and stem.
C: Raise the saddle
D: Get a $$$ bike fit

Speaking of road biking, I am quite enamored with it to this point. Granted I've only been on the Silver Comet but I really like how quiet the bike is and how aerodynamic it can be. When I go back to the mountain bike, it feels like a fat behemoth. My 3 rides on the SC have been epic and rewarding. Last Saturday I pushed to a metric century with Steve Whittier. I definitely had more in the tank. RPE (rate of perceived exertion) was 5-ish so I could have gone harder.
 The week before I put in 54 hard miles. RPE was 7 that day with mixed in interval sprints at the stop signs.
Week before that was a 3-hour ride with Renee, my 1st road ride on my new bike. 30-ish miles.
Looking forward to making it to Rockmart next time for a 76-mile round trip.  Also looking forward to branching out on some isolated country roads.

Popular posts from this blog

Allatoona Creek trail run race report

First year doing the Allatoona Creek race. Missed it last year because I had a duathlon on the same day. This course is sneakily difficult with the most challenging being the Mason's Bridge section.  On a bike, it's easier and more fun because you can roll through all the dips but running through those is really tough.  There aren't very many climbs and no big hills but that course is a grinder.  There was a torrential rainfall a few days before the race so the first 3 miles was a mud run through open cross-country.  I really liked this part though felt I got off to a slow start.  Pacing is so difficult because I don't know how much energy I need to spare.   Feet were wet out of the gate but it was no big deal.  There's a twisted part of me that prefers adverse conditions. Went in to the singletrack section at Rusty Bucket and shuffled through twisty sections, not very fast through there.  In fact, I felt leaden the entire race. I had ran the da...
Read more

Solar Eclipse 2017

The solar eclipse just happened and it has me feeling cosmic and appreciative of our wondrous universe. It makes me feel pretty small and realize that most of my concerns are really trivial. I was amazed at how the quality of light changed and how the crickets began to chirp.  Not to mention the crescent-shaped lights on the ground beneath the trees.  We had a colander out viewing crescents on the patio because we had no solar glasses.  Briefly, a cloud covered the sun and we looked up for a few seconds at the eclipse.  Then some neighbors let us borrow their glasses.  They are neighbors who for some reason we have never even spoken to, but people realize this is a rare event, so it makes us more human, more kind. This is an amazing time to be alive, with my daughter just turning 1 year old and now this truly inspiring event of nature. One can't help but feel gratitude and a sense of contentment. One of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes: “The surface of the Ea...
Read more

Thundering Silence: Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail

Ventured out on my first backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail, or AT as its known in the hiking community.  I hadn't been backpacking since I was in the Scouts, when we did a 10-miler at Kennesaw Mountain. My wife Renee had never been backpacking although we had both been primitive car-camping before and we each share a love of the outdoors.  This trip had been in the making for a few years with us sharing a "Wouldn't that be awesome," conversation or two.  I also recall my dad saying how neat it would be to hike the entire AT when I was a kid, a lofty goal to be sure. Renee and I are both in pretty good shape from running and bicycling so we figured that a 2-night trip on the AT would be feasible.  We were right...mostly. We purchased our backpacking and camping gear the week before and took a practice hike at a local trail. We did a trial run at Sutallee Trace in Canton to test the waters and get the packs dialed in.  I felt some new muscles being wor...
Post a Comment
Read more