Racing?

Well, today was an interesting day.  Earlier this year, I decided I was feeling pretty good about myself, cycling-wise.  I was feel strong in the club rides with Lifetime Fitness, and on various event-rides I had been doing, like the Triple Bypass.  I had noticed that I always seemed to be leading out the group on the Lifetime rides, with maybe one or two others riding with me, while the rest of the group stayed behind.  It's not that the rides aren't challenging or fun, but I've been hoping for something more.

I decided to think about racing.  As may have seen in an earlier post, I looked around for races I could enter, but it's pretty late in the season and there aren't many road-type races left.  We're getting into cyclocross season, and road events are drying up.  I managed to get myself into a time trial, which was pretty fun.  And I was pretty happy with my results, considering it was my first racing event.

After that time trial, I started thinking about next year, and races I could enter.  I could just enter races unaffiliated with a team again, but I thought it would be cool to actually get onto an actual team, to get race training and advice.  So, I started looking around to find out what I could about local race teams.  I started by finding all the Colorado teams by looking at the USA Cycling web site.  From there, I narrowed it down to teams that were somewhat close to where I lived.  That left me with about 5 or 6 teams.  After that, I looked at their team rosters on USA Cycling, to see if it was a big or small team.  I was hoping for something with a decent-sized roster, so there would be a variety of people, with lots of ability levels.  Basically, that narrowed it down to just one team:  PSIMET/Zilla Racing.

I sent them an email to see if they were looking for new members for next season, not knowing that they had just posted an entry to the BRAC site saying they were looking for a few new riders.  They emailed back the other day, saying they were having a meet-up and ride for prospective members this morning.

This morning, I got up and headed over to Two Rivers Coffee in Arvada, where I met four current members, and two other prospective members.  We headed out on a 40-mile ride in the Arvada/Golden area, then back to the coffee shop.  We sat around and chatted for a bit over some delicious smoothies, asking and answering questions.  Basically, I'm in.  Just need to pay the membership dues and order my team kit.  I should be getting a team handbook soon.  This should make for an interesting year next year.

Hey, look!  I figured out how to embed Strava rides instead of the Garmin Connect version.  I like Strava better. 


After getting back home, my daughter and I went for a ride, with me pulling her on the trail-a-bike.  The ride was actually pretty difficult, considering:

• I had already ridden 40 miles today
• I was riding my mountain bike, still with big knobby tires
• Some rain started rolling in, along with a lot of wind.

Aside from all that, it was a good ride.  It's nice to get out with the kids one-on-one every once in a while for a good long ride.

That's all for today!

Commute, rain, crash, flat

I think the title of this post says is all.  Another day of bike commuting.  This afternoon, the rain started coming down, so I had a bit of a wet ride home.  My ride is mostly on a multi-use path rather than roads.  In a couple spots, there are a couple wood-plank bridges to cross, and one of those has a pretty sharp turn onto the bridge.  The bridge was wet, and when I made the turn at a pretty good speed, my bike completely slipped out from under me, sending me down pretty hard.

Other than a giant bruise on my ass, and a brake hood that was knocked out of place, everything is fine.  I made it all the way home without incident, but then ended up with a flat tire while riding down my street.  I patched it when I got home, and it was a weird one.  It was on a seam, but on the wheel-side of the tube, not the tire-side.  This has me a little worried that it could be a defect in the tube, and not any kind of puncture.  It's patched up good, so we'll see how it holds up.

On a brighter note, I received a photo today from the Best on Hess Time Trial.  They had hired a photographer to shoot the event, but when the date changed, it put this event up against the USA Pro Challenge, and the photographer was already scheduled to shoot that race instead.  So, one of the sponsor's employees was out there shooting instead.  Here is a shot of me at the starting ramp.

Best on Hess - ready to start my first race

Commute training

So, like I said yesterday, I decided to try to turn my commute into a training ride.  The plan, at least for the morning, was to do a 5-minute warm-up (or as long as it took me to get to 104th and Riverdale), and then alternate between 5 minutes of low-cadence work and 5 minutes of high-cadence work, until I got to work.  Well, that was going great, until I got a flat tire.  First time in years that I've gotten a flat during a commute.  It was pretty annoying, but I dealt with the heat and the bugs and got my tube fixed, and got to work.

On the way home, I just did a steady-state ride, trying to get home to get my daughter to soccer practice.  I'll try another interval workout tomorrow morning, and hopefully keep my tires intact this time.

Ride / run

Not much to say today.  I rode to work again today.  Then, I ran my usual 4-mile loop during my daughter's gymnastics class.

Something I'm looking into this evening... how to turn my daily commute into a true training ride.  Coach Troy, the guy who does the Spinervals videos I use for training, wrote a response to a letter in Triathlete Magazine that I thought was pretty interesting.  Basically, trying to turn what is normally just a flat, steady commute into some interval and technique training.  Maybe I'll come up with a routine and trying to incorporate it tomorrow.

USA Pro Challenge

On Sunday, the USA Pro Challenge came through Denver for their final stage.  We look forward to watching every year, and this year was no different.  The race started at 1pm downtown, so I figured I had a little time to get in a ride of my own beforehand.

Baseline-Valmont-Lookout
Lifetime Fitness was doing a ride in the morning, but they were starting at 8am, and I was hoping to start a little sooner.  Instead of riding with them, I decided to basically do their route, but I started at 7am from home, instead of 8am from Lifetime.  By the time I got to the first major intersection of their route, at Huron and Baseline, it was still probably about a half-hour before they were going to be starting, so I had a good head start.

I cranked through their scheduled route, then kept on riding, taking a bit of a long way home.  I ended up stretching their 40-mile ride into a 60-mile ride, and was still home by 10:30AM, with plenty of time to take a shower before heading downtown for the race.



USA Pro Challenge - Stage 7
We gathered up the family and headed downtown to catch the race.  After finding a parking spot, we walked to Civic Center Park to get some lunch, and hopefully weave our way over to the starting line.  Unfortunately, it apparently takes 20 minutes to make a quesadilla for some reason, so we missed the actual start.  The race consisted of 8 laps of a 9-mile circuit through downtown, so we'd still have plenty of time to see them.

We ended up finding a good spot around Colfax and Lincoln where the race would pass by twice on each lap.  We were in the middle of the road, so after the race passed by in one direction, they passed the other direction about 10 minutes later, and all we had to do was turn around.  It made for some pretty constant excitement.

After watching them for four or five laps, we started to wander closer to the finish line, looking for a good spot along Broadway.  We had a hard time finding a spot right along the fence, so we ended up a few feet back, behind some other people.  We put the kids on our shoulders, so they were able to see fine for the last couple laps.  And from this spot, we were able to hear the race announcers talk about what was going on, so we were able to get some race updates the whole time.

After the race finished, we were close enough to the finish that we were able to go and watch the final podiums.  That was pretty cool.  Well, actually, it was really hot.  Especially with kids on our shoulders.  The temp was approaching 100-degrees yesterday, and there really wasn't a breeze, so it was pretty stifling down there.  After the final podiums, we stopped back at Civic Center Park to get some ice cream and water, and wandered back to the car.

At home, we watched the race on TV, trying to see ourselves.  We actually got a few split-second shots of ourselves a few times during the race, and could see the back of the kids' heads during the final podiums.

All in all, a pretty fun day.  Here are a few photos.

At our pretty good vantage point, where we watched most of the race.

The breakaway, probably on about the second lap.

Between laps.

It's tough to get a good photo with a phone, so Lisa was pretty excited that she managed to get both Peter Sagan and Tejay Van Garderen's butt in this picture.

Waiting for the peloton.

The final podium.  Tejay, Tommy D and Matthias Frank.

And a quick video of the riders coming through on one of the laps.  This should give you a sense of how close we were, and how fast the riders were going.  They averaged about 30mph throughout the entire race today.

That's it for this year.  Looking forward to watching again next year!

My first race!

It's been a while since I posted anything.  Sorry about that.  I hope to start posting more regularly again.  But I'll use this post to get caught up.

Looks like I posted my Crested Butte report, then just one other post since we got back.  And that was just for some time on the trainer, which isn't that exciting.

You know what else isn't exciting?  Biking to work.  I've commuted to work quite a bit since I last posted, but it just doesn't seem worth it to write a whole post just to say I rode my bike to work.  That's not to say I don't enjoy it.  I love to ride to work when I get the chance, and it's a lot more enjoyable than driving.  I can typically ride to work in about 40-45 minutes, depending on how I'm feeling.  And driving usually takes about a half-hour.  So, riding takes a little longer, but when I get home in the evening, I feel like I actually did something, and don't feel the urge to get on the trainer that night.

So, I might use these posts to mention that I rode to work, but I don't think it's really worth it to post ride data or anything.  I mean, it's just the same ride day after day.  I'd rather post when I do something interesting, like today . . .

But before I get to that, I'll mention a couple other rides I did recently.  And before I do THAT, I'll mention that my office has sponsored a 10-person team for the Good Sam Bike Jam, a bike charity ride  that happens every year.  Last year, my office sponsored a 6-person team.  This year, we had enough interested that we are sponsoring 10 riders.  And it looks like we're actually going to have 11, which is cool.  Most of us are doing the very-difficult 100-mile route, and a few of us are doing one of the shorter routes.  The ride is on September 15, so stay tuned for a post about that.

Lookout Mountain
But on August 14, a group of Bike-Jammers decided to get in a training ride after work.  We rode from our office in Denver out west to climb Lookout Mountain.  The ride was a mix of busy Denver roads, country roads, and a big climb of Lookout Mountain at the end.  Then turn around and head back the same way.  I felt pretty good, except for riding on occasionally busy streets in the dark on the way back.

 

Pole Hill Road
The following weekend, I did a ride with Lifetime Fitness on Sunday.  We did a ride up to Carter Lake, near Loveland.  At first, I was a little disappointed at how short the route was.  Last time I road to Carter Lake, we started at Lifetime, for a nearly 90-mile ride.  This time, we were starting near the town of Hygiene, making for a 40-mile out-and-back.  After my initial disappointment, I took another look at the route and elevation profile and saw that we were tacking on a really big climb just past Carter Lake, before turning around.   That extra challenge made it worth it.  The ride to Carter Lake is pretty nice, and that climb up Pole Hill Road was brutal.  It was really hot out, with no breeze, which made it that much tougher.  All in all, a good ride.



Best on Hess Time Trial
Then, after another few days of riding to work, I just rode in my first race today.  A month or so ago, I thought I might want to try racing, instead of just solo or club rides.  I looked on the local racing calendar, but couldn't find much.  Most of the road races in the area take place in the spring, and currently the season is coming to a close, getting ready for mountain bike and cyclocross season.  But I did find a time trial that sounded like fun, called Best on Hess down in Castle Pines.  They had a separate category for folks like me that didn't have "aero" time trial gear.  And it seemed like a time trial would be a good way for me to race without endangering other riders due to my lack of experience.

Since this was my first race, I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I had one of the first starting times, so I had to get there pretty early.  The parking lot was pretty empty, so I got myself a good spot and started getting ready.  I kept an eye on everyone else, to see what they were doing.  First, I stopped up at the registration table to pick up my bib number.  Then, back to the car to get my shoes on.  Someone at work advised me to bring my trainer with me, so I pulled that out of the trunk at set it up.  I rode for about 15 minutes on the trainer, watching other riders slowly trickle in.  Then, I took a break, grabbed a Clif Bar and some water and walked around for a few minutes.  Then back on the trainer for about another 20 minutes.  Then it was time to head over to the starting ramp.  The start line was about a quarter mile down the road, so I rode over there and got in line.  We all got ourselves in order by our start time, then I just waited for my turn.  This race actually had a real start ramp, like I see on the pro time trials, which was cool.  I walked up the ramp, and someone held the back of my bike for me while I clipped into my pedals and waited for the countdown.  The timer counted down, the started said "go", and off I went.

It was a short but difficult course, about 9 miles with some tough hills.  If you look at the details of the ride below, you can see an elevation profile showing you what I was dealing with.  I was doing my best to use all my training from this year, and keep a close eye on my heart rate, to make sure I didn't overexert myself to the point where I collapsed before the finish.  I think I ended up doing ok, finishing pretty strong and leaving nothing left in the tank.  I didn't completely collapse at the finish, but I was pretty close.  I headed back to the parking lot and got off my bike, taking some time to walk around bit.  After checking out some of the bikes in the parking lot, and chatting with a few other riders, they posted the results.  I ended up getting 9th out of 26 riders in my "non-aero" category.  Top 10!  How about that!  I thought that was pretty good for my first race.  Not enough to win some beer, but I'm happy nonetheless.  Yay for me!

**Update:  The results were just posted online, where I could see more info.  Looks like other than one person, everyone who beat me was a Cat 2 or Cat 4, so that's pretty cool.  Online results HERE.


This week was the USA Pro Challenge.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go watch any of the race in person yet, but I've watched on TV every night after work.  Tomorrow is the final stage, and it's in Denver.  I'm going to go for a ride first thing in the morning, then the whole family is heading downtown to watch.  We've had a great time the last two years when we've gone to see the race, so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's race.

This is my longest post in a while, and that seems like enough for tonight.  Stay tuned for more!

Back home, and back on the trainer

Fun's over.  After a fun few days in Crested Butte, we're back in the real world and getting ready for work in the morning.  I enjoyed hitting the trails in Crested Butte, but today I took the morning off so we could head back to Denver.  We packed up our stuff and stopped for breakfast in CB, at the Paradise Cafe.  Then, a long drive back to Denver.

After a haircut, laundry and a very small grocery shopping trip, we heated up a few tamales for dinner.  Then, since I didn't get in a ride this morning, I decided I needed to get back on the trainer this evening.  I opted for a hard workout, Spinervals 32.0 - Extreme Threshold Training.  I just did this workout a couple weeks ago, too.  It is a really hard ride, good for power and anaerobic threshold training.  I didn't feel that good during the ride (if you're doing it right, you should definitely not be feeling good during this one), but after uploading my data, I actually improved on my previous rides with this workout.  Comparison of three workouts is HERE.  As you can see, my average speed was up and my average pace was down.  And I managed to burn fewer calories, too.  But that probably means I wasn't working hard enough.  And those results don't even account for the minute I had to jump off the bike when my chain fell off for some reason.  I quickly got it re-seated and was back moving again shortly.

Looking forward to a nice week of riding the bike to work.  I'll need to drive on Wednesday because of a meeting, but should be able to ride every other day.  And the kids are out of town this week, so we don't need to be carting them around after work, which makes things a lot less hectic.

Well, that was a tough workout, and I need to get to bed.

Crested Butte!

My wife and I shipped the kiddos off to visit the grandparents back in Ohio, and we decided to spend a few days in Crested Butte.  While we took the whole week off from work, the first few days were spent flying with the kids back to Ohio.  I managed to get in a ride with the Lifetime on the Sunday morning before I left.



While in Ohio, I wasn't able to ride my bike, so I decided  to do a little running instead.  On Monday, I did a run with my sister-in-law.  She's been doing the Couch-to-5k program, and the timing worked out perfectly that she was ready for her first 5k when I was visiting.  So, we ran a 5k together, and she did great!  After looping back to her house, I decided to keep going, and ran about another 4 miles.  On Tuesday, I did another morning run near my parents' house.


After a couple days back in Ohio, I flew back home on Tuesday evening, and packed up to go.  We left home on Wednesday morning, and drove to Crested Butte.  The weather wasn't exactly what we were planning on.  It rained most of the drive there, and it was really cold.  Way colder than it should have been at the beginning of August, even in the mountains.  The rain stopped as we arrived in town, but it was still pretty chilly.

We checked into the hotel, and locked our bikes in the hotel's bike storage room, then headed down into town for dinner.  We were staying up on Mt. Crested Butte, a couple miles from the town.  Fortunately, there is a great shuttle service in the area.  There is a shuttle loop from town to the mountain, and it departs every 20 minutes.  And there are bike racks on the buses, which is really convenient.  Wednesday night's dinner was at the Brick Oven, a pretty good pizza joint with a great beer selection.

Thursday morning, I got up early for a bike ride.  One of the people at the front desk of the hotel recommended a few local trails.  I decided to try the Snodgrass Trail, which started and ended a short distance from our hotel.

I am typically a road rider, and my mountain bike usually has some road-type tires on it.  I haven't done any actual mountain biking for years, so this was definitely a new experience for me.  I like to think I have pretty good legs and lungs right now, but I'm really lacking in the bike-handling skills.  The Snodgrass Trail seemed to fit my skill level pretty well.  The trail finished up on Washington Gulch Road, and rather than heading back to the hotel, I stretched the ride a bit by riding up Washington Gulch for a while.  Then, back to the hotel.  A nice way to start the day.

Snodgrass Trail

Self-portrait.  Mt. Crested Butte in the background.

Singletrack through the aspens.

After cleaning up, we headed down into town for lunch.  There is a nice recreational trail that heads from the mountain down into down, so we decided to ride bikes to lunch.  Lunch was more pizza - this time at The Secret Stash.  Oh man, it was good.  I think we got one called The Hampton or something.  Prosciutto, arugula and shaved parmesan on a lemon-pepper crust.  Holy cow, it was fantastic.  After that, we walked around town a bit before throwing our bikes on the bus for a ride back up the mountain to the hotel.  We relaxed a bit before grabbing a bus back to town for dinner at The Last Steep.

On Friday, I got up for another bike ride.  This time, I opted for a pretty easy ride called the Lupine Trail.  It sounds like this is a fairly new trail, and I really liked it.  Definitely matched my ability level.  After riding the trail, I headed back downtown and caught the rec path for the climb back up the mountain.

Lupine Trail wildflowers.

Lupine Trail

After my ride, we headed over to the ski area to take a lift up to the top.  A free lift ride was included with our hotel reservation.  The view was great from the top, but unfortunately, Lisa was feeling pretty miserable all week, and this morning was no exception.  We started a hike to the summit, but she felt terrible, so we turned around and head back down.  After getting back to the hotel, I showered up and we hopped on the bikes for the ride to town for lunch.  We both got gyros at Pitas in Paradise, then wandered around town again before catching a bus back to the hotel.  After relaxing a bit, I decided to go for a little run around the ski area.  For dinner, we went to town and got some Mexican food at a place called Donita's Cantina.  We heard a lot of people talking about how crowded it was, and hard to get a table, but we had no problems.

Lisa is not thrilled we're on a ski lift.

On Saturday, I decided to try one of the signature mountain bike rides in Crested Butte, Trail 401.  This involved driving a couple miles up Gothic Road to a trailhead, and parking the car.  From there, it was a long climb up Gothic Road to Schofield Pass.  At Schofield Pass, you take a right onto Trail 401, then keep on climbing up through the forest.  Once you break out of the forest, you are treated to some really spectacular 360-degree views.  It is seriously impressive.  I don't do a lot of mountain biking, so this isn't saying much, but it was definitely the most stunning bike trail I'd ever ridden.  After some easy riding through fields of wildflowers, the trail descended back into the forest.  From here, the trail got pretty difficult.  As I've said, I have pretty limited bike-handling skills.  I'm not gonna lie - it was a little rough going.  I managed to get a good gash in my leg from my chainring, and a flat tire.  There were some sketchy uphills, and some sketchy downhills.  Overall, I'm glad I did it.  The views were worth it.  But I was in a little over my head.

At Schofield Pass.

The spectacular view from the 401.

Another self-portrait.

Wildflowers along the 401.

Ouch.

After getting cleaned up after my ride, it was back to town for lunch again.  We decided to go to the Brick Oven again for some more pizza.  Dinner was at the Wooden Nickel.

Now, we're back at the hotel, thinking about trying to find something to watch on Netflix.  Getting up in the morning and packing up to head home.  Looking forward to hitting the road.  This has been a good vacation.  It was nice to get out of town for a bit.