Back on the bike!

This weekend (2008/08/09) was a great weekend to be out on the bike! It was a little chilly (for summer and me) at around 65 - 78F but tolerable for me (I like it hot). We rode out of Cranbury to Pemberton. We did a 70 mile ride as I've been off the bike for two weeks with school work and wasn't about to attempt a century. I was listed for 70 - 110 miles (normal for summer) so I was good. I know it's a large range but it gives me the freedom to venture all around the state. We did a new derivation of my Pemberton route called Pemberton - via Mangolia Rd. (69 miles). It was slightly breezy but not nasty. Seems this summer has been pretty breezy, odd. Anyway, I've also created a few new routes, a Cranbury - Batso (125 miles) route and a Cranbury - May's Landing (147 miles) route. The Cranbury to May's Landing will have to wait until next year as I don't think I have enough daylight to complete it right now. The Batso ride I may attempt in September. I also have a Cranbury - Tuckerton (130 miles) route that I haven't been able to try. I had it scheduled for May but we had strong winds (18 mph + gusts) out of the West both times so I rode something with less than 30 miles of head winds. I've also noted that I'm missing a few routes (Mt. Misery), so I'll add those soon. Anyway it feels good to be back on the bike.

Ow, what a ride!

Well, I'll post a short summary of our ride yesterday (2008/6/15 - the Longest Day - 208 miles). A longer version should be posted on my page within the week. We left at 4:48 AM (according to my watch) and arrived at 8:28 PM (again according to my watch). I don't have an average speed as my computer was messed up (I forgot to turn it on) but we're certain it was close to 17 mph as the other teams were reporting this and we left close to when they did and arrive before most of them. There were two reasons for the long length of time. The first was we lost our SAG, the second was the heat and humidity in the Pine Barrens. At our lunch stop the SAG was supposed to meet us in Allentown. He stopped in Kingston at a local deli to get lunch and he didn't see us pass him (we where doing pace lines and flying onto Allentown another 20+ miles ahead). So we ended up waiting in Allentown for 45 minutes for him to arrive. I made the mistake of not giving him my cell phone number and he didn't have mine (oops). So our lunch stop took around an hour instead of 30 minutes. Next we really suffered in the Pine Barrens, actually we began to suffer on Four Mile Rd (just below Browns Mills) and knew we needed more stops. So I modified the route to include another stop in the Pine Barrens. Earlier we added a stop early in the ride so we now had at least 20 extra minutes there. In the Pine Barrens we also hit heat, humidity and wind. It was reported that Woodbine, NJ (southern end of the Pine Barrens) had a high of 89F. I'd guess the middle of the Pine Barrens were higher yet. Add the humidity and the direct sun and we were riding in 100+F adjust heat index. The wind did us no favors as it was quite strong. We all suffered (every team, not just mine). I can honestly say that I think our team could have gone much faster as the last 23 miles were our fastest. We managed to up the pace to 18.4 for the last 23 miles.! I'd hav e to say this ride has caused me to doubt my leadership abilities. I'll have to work on that. More about that later (on my web pages).

On the road again ...

Well it's the day before the Longest Day and the training is done. If we're not ready now we won't be ready tomorrow. ;-) The weather looks good for tomorrow. We'll start out at 4:30 AM and it looks like it will be in the low 60's. When we get to the Pine Barrens we'll be looking at the low 90's. When we get to Cape May it should be in the low 70's with a head wind of 12 mph out of the south. This is to be expected and I don't think I've seen one of these rides where we haven't had a head wind on the lower half.

I've tried to figure out how to access the blog and Facebook via my cell phone but I haven't quite figured that out yet so I'll not worry about it. The cell phone has a camera and I'd like to remember to take pictures but I'm not that good at it (shaky pictures usually). I'll see what I can do. Anyway I'm off for my big ride and I am excited.

Back to back rides, final training for the Longest Day.

This weekend (5/31) my friend Mark and I did back to back rides (one on Saturday (5/31), one on Sunday(6/1)). This was the final preparation for the Longest Day (6/14). The idea is to do a Century followed by a Metric on back to back days, at the pace you wish to keep on the Longest Day. If you can do this then you're ready. Well we're ready! :-)

Because of weather we needed to reverse the two days. Tornadoes were predicted for Saturday so we rode the Metric using this route: Cranbury Griggstown Allentown II and Sunday we did this: BBC Manasquan Reservoir. We rode at 18+ mph avg on Saturday and 17+ on Sunday. Though we did take it a bit easy on Sunday as we knew there was going to be a lot of head winds (typical 16 mph and out of the West).

While I am tired from both rides I have recovered nicely. Oddly enough my naps after the rides was very short and I wasn't as tired as I have been. The single change was that after the rides I continued to drink as if I were still riding. I'm guessing that I was getting dehydrated after the rides and didn't realize it until now (some 10+ years after doing my first long distance ride). My legs held up real well! I still have the strength to ride further and I didn't have any problems with loss of strength as I have on the past 4 rides. This was my primary concern and it seems my last minute changes where exactly what was need to remedy the problems. I'm now confident of at least holding a 17.0 mph avg speed for the 208 miles of the Longest Day.

... and your little doggy too!

Weather-wise we had an interesting Saturday (5/31). The predictions were for sever thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain around noon. While watching the news the night before they showed the radar models for the tri-state (NY-NJ-PA) area and the area I was riding in was going to have the most severe weather. The kind that could spawn tornadoes. So I decided to err on the side of safety and cut the ride back to a Metric (Cranbury - Griggstown - Allentown). This was actually Sandy's and Mark's idea and this turn out to be a good idea. We managed to get back just before noon and while Mark and I did our cool down ride we got rained on. While driving home it came down heavy. When I finally got home I took at look at the weather service and found this:

 Forecast for Trenton, NJ 1114 am EDT Sat may 31 2008 ...Tornado Watch 402 in effect until 5 PM EDT this afternoon... .This afternoon...Mostly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce heavy rainfall...large hail...frequent lightning and damaging winds this afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80 percent. 

I'd say that pretty much sums up the day. While the winds were strong they really didn't give us too much trouble.

Now onto our training. Today was a good day. I've lowered my seat about a millimeter or two and my left leg feels okay. I did push the pace today which Sandy wasn't too happy with. Sorry Sandy, I promise that on the Longest Day we won't keep that pace all day long. We ended up with a low 18.2 mph avg. pace. That's pretty good but not a pace we can keep for the entire Longest Day (we're expecting 17 - 17.5 mph avg). Over all I'm pleased with my progress and tomorrow will give me a clear indication about the condition of my legs. Tomorrow Mark and I will be doing a Century out of the Manasquan reservoir. It's a derivative of my BBC ride (which I'll layout later). Starting that ride out of Cranbury would mean we finish with a 35 mile head wind (we return West and the wind is out of the West). I'll check that so that we don't have to do that but instead end up with a 25 mile tail wind to finish. Hopefully I'll feel just as good tomorrow. If I feel good then I know I'm ready for the Longest Day. At the moment I'm very confident that I won't have any problems on the Longest Day (6/14 - 208 miles, Port Jervis, NY to Cape May Lighthouse, NJ).