Long Hill Climb

Did a 13 mile route from the house that took me immediately into a 400+ foot descent for a mile, then a relatively flat section. This was nice for warming up the legs. After that I re-ascended the hill on a nice steady Cat 5 climb. It’s a 400+ foot climb over two miles with no overwhelming steep portions (like the other options around here).

This one hit me more from a cardio standpoint than a lactic buildup standpoint. This is the first steep climb I’ve attempted since I’ve been at almost zero carbs for the past 3 days. I guess it’s possible to put out some effort on ketones… LOL. Heart rate recovery was pretty quick, but legs still feel like they did something this evening.

Some Hill Practice after a Nice Warmup

Went out and practiced on a hill that has intimidated me a bit.  Need to keep practicing though.  Did the Hill while doing an Intermittent Fast, so I was okay with the results.

Getting My Butt Use to the Saddle Again

Did a relatively easy 10 mile ride up on the plateau just to get a bit of  time in the saddle.  Nice way to learn some of the subdivisions in the area too.

30 Miles on the Little Miami Trail July 17

This is something that we missed out on last year…. riding any significant distance on the trail during summer.  We were just too darn busy remodeling our house we bought.

We started the ride in Newtown and headed to Loveland, turned around and headed back to the vehicle.  I’d put new Marathon Schwalbe Supreme tires on both our bikes….. 32mm on hers, and 42mm on mine.  I’d given her new tubes and re-used my old ones.  Unfortunately, I think I pinched my rear tube and it had a slow leak.  Didn’t realize it until I’d gotten to the park.  Too late… didn’t have the pump with me, so I rode with it low (had inflated it a couple of days prior).  The extra drag from a lowish tire is a real drag.  I honestly thought something was wrong with my bike… even had it checked out at the bike shop.  They pointed out what should have been obvious to me… that a low big tire causes a hellava lot more drag than a pumped up smaller tire… hence why Penny was able to dust me pretty handily.

 

After I got the bike checked out (great bill of health), I changed the tubes and also put my 37mm Conti Contacts back on for the hill practice I want to do around the house.  The less rolling resistance I can get the better for  climbing until I get the legs/lungs built up for it.  Even with the tire issue, it was fun to get out together and ride!

 

Light Road Riding around East Fork State Park

Penny and I loaded up our bikes on the bike rack of our Honda Accord around 7pm Sunday, and went out to East Fork State Park to ride around, and also scope out some low traffic roads that we can ride together in the future.

The “highlight” was the 100 ft drop in elevation from the top of the plateau to the boat ramp and then a climb back up.  Penny powered up it, but I tend to “hamster wheel” it in low gear.  My cardio endurance seems better than my strength endurance although neither are all that great.  It was a nice 8 mile ride though.  I expect we’ll be doing more of the roads around the State Park the next time, if we start earlier before sunset.

 

The new bike rack that we purchased is a Saris.  I noticed that the straps were loose when we got home.  I probably didn’t tighten them down enough, and the weight of two Surly LHT bikes probably caused a lot of twisting and pulling.  Took the rack off until the next time I need it so it wouldn’t fly off on my trip to work.  Will keep tinkering with it until I figure it out.  Otherwise, it seemed to hold the bikes very solid for the 15 mile round trip from home to the park and back.

 

Testing Driving A New Brooks Flyer Saddle

I got a nice Brooks saddle off ebay, and Penny gave it a 15 mile test ride while I tweaked the adjustments. Plan B was to put it on my mountain bike… I don’t think she’s going to give it up though…. LOL… Now she has a shiny black Brooks Flyer saddle and she was loving the springs when riding over the bumps.

Absolutely gorgeous day for a ride.  Outbound, we intentionally kept the speed below 10mph and gawked around at the scenery.  We even got passed by a Dad with two kids on their own bikes…. I tried to convince Penny that it was absolutely empowering to not react to that and lay the hammer down…. LOL.

We turned around in Morrow, but not before I tweaked the nose down on Penny’s new seat.  She immediately felt the positive effect of that change.

On the way back we started off relatively slowly, and at one of the stop signs got passed by three guys on mountain bikes, one of them with full suspension and large knobby tires, no less!  I commented to Penny that the guy with the full suspension was expending lots of energy.  Sure enough, he dropped back to the point where we were nearly drafting off of him.  I felt kinda bad because we were hardly putting any effort into it at all despite having our heavy steel touring bikes.  We kept creeping up on him and finally I told Penny to drop in behind me as I decided to pick ’em up and put ’em down.  We quickly passed all three and Penny caught the “speed fever” and bumped our speed to almost  18mph…. nice cruising speed, but not sustainable for our unseasoned legs.  Despite that, by the time we reached South Lebanon and looked back, the 3 guys on MTB’s were no where to be seen.  I could tell she enjoyed that! 🙂

Cycling Roundtrip from South of Morrow to Mathers Mill

After getting our condo prepped and listed on the market, it was finally time for us to get out and enjoy the wonderful weather and grab a relaxing ride.

We readied the Surly LHT touring bikes and started out at Stubbs Mill Rd… we’d never parked in that spot before, but passed it many times.  From here we cycled up through Morrow and then on to Ft Ancient, and finally Mathers Mill.  After enjoying a snack and soaking in the sunshine, we turned around and headed south.  We still had plenty of gas in the tank, but since we hadn’t ridden since that sunny day at the end of January, we decided to be prudent.

On the way back, we stopped at Ft Ancient to survey the work that had been done to stop the river encroachment under the trail.  The concrete abutment for the culvert under the trail, had been undercut by the river and partially collapsed into the river.  Subsequently, much of the earth next to the trail had slid down behind it.  Fortunately, a volunteer with the right connections and equipment did some temporary work and back filled the area.  Thanks to him, the trail isn’t in immediate danger and can survive until a proper remedy is executed.

Despite the benefit of a slight downhill grade on the return trip, there was a brisk headwind, so we kept the pace down and enjoyed the remainder of our 20 mile ride.  It was great to be out riding together again and a nice way to enjoy Easter Day outdoors!

Grabbin’ another night ride

As the weather turned cooler, we’ve been transitioning from Cycling to a stronger focus on Olympic Weightlifting (if we can improve flexibility and technique, we may get to compete in a USAW meet someday).  Even so, it’s great to still work in a ride from time to time outside that doesn’t involve using the bike on the trainer indoors.

Tonight we loaded up the Surly LHT’s and rode 15 miles on the Little Miami trail from the Kingsview Industrial Park up to Morrow and back.  There is something extremely peaceful about night riding that reminds me of the serenity of cave diving…. almost like riding in a tunnel with only the immediate illuminated.

I tested out a new brighter Niterider light.  It was almost too bright, so I used the dimmer setting to dial it back a bit.  It was still brighter than my older Niterider light, which I stuck on Penny’s bike.  If the new light didn’t have a bright flash mode, I would be happy with another mini-Newt like my older one.

When we got to Morrow, we rode down to the far end of the soccer field at the Veteran’s Park (how appropriate for Veteran’s Day!) and covered our lights to just stare at the stars for a while.

Aside from one deer, we saw a couple of small red fox and other gleaming eyes in the bushes along the trail.  Very cool ride!

 

 

First Night Ride of the Season

The time change occurred last night, so it got dark at 5:30pm tonight.  Given the limited daylight, we chose to start our ride at dusk and ride down to Loveland and back in the dark.

We parked at Kingsview Industrial Park and headed down the Lebanon Trail toward the Little Miami Trail.  The temperature was dropping quickly as the daylight disappeared.  We had our cycling tights on, full finger gloves, wool shirts, wind breakers, and even a light polypro skull cap under our helmet.  Things were still a bit nippy as the temp dropped to the low 40’s.  Penny is going to use her warmer full finger gloves next time, and we are both going to go with warmer tights and slip on the shoe covers to keep the toes warmer.

This was an incredibly peaceful 20 mile ride, and the maiden night ride on our Surly Long Haul Truckers.  Much of the trail was covered in leaves, the moon was full, the wind was still, and there was basically no traffic.  It just doesn’t get better than that.  It was kinda odd that the only traffic was two law enforcement officers in cars, a ranger and a local policeman, investigating reports of a deer down on the trail.

Hopefully we can continue to fine tune our layering and get in a couple more night rides before the weather prohibits any more…. in fact… we’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Surly Pugsley built up with 4″ fat tires for riding in many additional conditions than we can with our standard mountain bikes.

 

Cycling Windy Flats, past Marshlands, and Muddy Michigan roads

My original plan for the evening was to just pedal in the hotel room with my bike on the resistance trainer, but the sun came out in the afternoon and it turned into a beautiful day.  There was a light wind from the NNW, so I headed a couple of miles west and then started a due north course (easy enough on square grid roads).  The trek took me past some marshy remnants of the Great Black Swamp.

It’s truly amazing to consider that pioneers suffered such harsh conditions to travel through and even drain most of NW Ohio to gain access to such fertile land.

On the way northward, I was stunned to see the paved road come to an end at the Ohio line and changeover to muddy roads in Michigan.  What a dichotomy!

I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but I concluded that 25mm road tires weren’t the best option for muddy roads.  Perhaps a cyclocross bike would have been more appropriate.  lol

It took a bit more concentration, but for the most part, the bike fared okay.

On the way back, most of the mud flew off, and I wiped the rest down before I brought the bike back into the hotel.

I grabbed a couple of pics on the Ohio Turnpike overpass just a short jaunt from the hotel.  This is about a mile west of turnpike exit 13.

And the obligatory self-portrait!

There was a steady 6-10mph headwind on the way north, not much, but I could feel it.  This was supposed to be an “easy spinning” night, so I had to keep dialing it back to keep cadence high and effort easy.  However, on the way back, the wind was a great boon, giving me a nice pace on the way back, so I did push it a bit harder than I should have.

My legs are yelling at me now for 5 days of cycling in a row, but there aren’t many days like this left in the year, so I had to take the opportunity!  Awesome night for a ride!