On A Difficult Hill - an amendment

I found a couple pictures of myself from the Rattle Snake ride I wrote about earlier this morning.



I am in the blue BCC jersey at the front of the paceline.

And there is even a few seconds of me pedaling in the linked video.

On a Difficult Hill

I recall during this year's Tour at one point the pelaton was climbing some hill, must have been near the Alps, it was no HC climb, just a Cat 1 or 2 affair. Phil Liggett was giving a description, 7% for a couple kilometers than 12% for a kilometer or whatever it was and so on.

Yesterday the BCC did the hill at Rattle Snake Point for the first time in 2010. The first time I did Rattle Snake, Sunday June 22, 2008, I didn't actually do Rattle Snake. I bonked and cramped and wound up walking up to the top of the hill. I was such a wreck for the journey home Dan came up behind me and pushed me to help me catch up with the pelaton. At the time my steed was an almost completely stock 2006 Specialized Roubaix, except for two upgrades, she did have Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels, and blush, aero bars. Ironically that bike has a classic triple crank so theoretically was ideally suited for Rattle Snake a hill that seems to be, mostly 16% grade. (Okay for all you statistical junkies, the Stock 2006 Roubaix, my ride at the time, has a triple crank of 52/42/30 and a 9 speed 12-25 cassette, so in June of 2008 I could not hack Rattlesnake at 30-25.)

Well I did Rattle Snake yesterday and my legs, as one might expect, hurt today, but I did do said hill and could have made a second pass if I felt sufficiently masochistic (as well I hate the decent out of the escarpment, so I need to feel brave as well as masochistic) but anyway, it was the first time I did Rattle Snake on a standard double crank, granted I did have a swollen cassette, my crankset was 53/39 with a 11-28 ten speed in back.

So to the non technical folk, what do all the numbers mean, well its the number of teeth on the various cogs that make up a bike drive train, let me express it as a ratio, for every tooth on the crank on my old bike there are 0.833 teeth on the cassette, whereas on my new Roubaix (Jordan) for every tooth on the crank there is 0.718 teeth on the cassette now more cassette teeth do mean that you move slower climbing the hill, but that also means that there is less resistance so my new drive train is actually about 16% harder than the old drive train.

In short, I climbed the same hill that I could not climb two years ago. I did it with 16% more torque than I would have needed two years ago (not that I had that torque at the time). I made it to the top and still felt strong enough to hack the hill all over again.

I think I've improved a little bit, but lets be honest, its the machine, not the engine. I mean when a guy has a ride as sweet as mine, well I can't let the bike be disappointed in me!

Anyway I woke up this morning, checked the weather, saw there was a chance of thunderstorms and used that as an excuse to get another hour of sleep and drove to work. But I'm rather glad I got that sleep, and I think my legs are grateful I didn't ride today. I still hurt from yesterday, some things do not change.

On Red Lights

There is something about cold air and sudden stops. I was riding to work today and about 250m from an intersection (yes I just measured, with Google maps) the 'Do not walk' warning started blinking, according to the warning I had about ten seconds with, I would guess a 20km/h head wind.

Now that I'm in the compartive comfort of a desk, with all the trappings of computerized life, I can say that closing that 25m/s was quite impossible, it would have required ramping up to 90km/h. But being that I am a lousy judge of distance (or maybe it was 15 seconds? meaning a more reasonable 60km/h) I made a full on attempt at the light and wound up slamming on the brakes and down shifting all in the last two or three seconds.

The trouble with sprinting hard in the cold is it really, really hurts the lungs.

The following is from Road Bike Rider, it describes a lot of rides I go on.

Wicked Wednesdays

Every Wednesday evening, my bike club hosts an interval workout on a hill at the local university. The climb takes 5-6 minutes and we do it 6 times. Rain or shine. Darkness or daylight. Forest fire or student protest.

Our coach refers to these sessions as Level 5 or anaerobic threshold workouts. Even if you pace it perfectly -- negative splits, each interval faster than the last -- it hurts. I'm talking root-canal, tax-audit, "I-think-we-should-start-seeing-other-people" pain.

I begin dreading Wednesday evenings around bedtime Tuesday. By Wednesday lunchtime, I'm feeling nausea that has nothing to do with my midday meal of organic yam and raw kale from my Biggest Loser lunchbox.

Then I show up at the workout and scan the group to see what fresh dose of humiliation awaits. Last week it was the 65-year-old guy who dropped me like a tub of Grecian Formula. It was inspiring. Really.

A few weeks ago it was the one-armed dude. OK, he had 2 arms, but one was in a sling. He flew past me like a, um, person with fully functioning body parts.

Did I mention the 50-something mom? The 15-year-old lad who I swear was on training wheels last month? Both quicker than me. A fellow could choke on all this inspiration.

Why keep at it? Like most cyclists, I'm stubborn, masochistic and a little delusional. All this toil and trouble have to make us stronger, right?

Plus, I do eventually finish ahead of some people -- the ones who come to one Wednesday and never return.

I may not be fast, but I'm pretty good at one thing: showing up.

On Riding In The City

Saturday (August 21) Ian, Thi and I went for a quick ride around the city. The boys were fast and it hurt, in a good way. I will here try to summarize the route to the best of my recollection.

We first had to work our way to the bike trail from the Toronto Public Library Branch at Gerrard and Broadview. This involved a great deal of winding around street car tracks, bad drivers (question who is worse, pick-up trucks or taxis?), oblivious pedestrians and so on. By the time we got to the trail I was seeing red and started an attack, Thi held on and would not let go. Ian was still warming up and dropped off. I slowed down and by the by Ian got back on. Of course having set a speed Thi and Ian were now ready to run hot.

We went up Royal York and as per standard operating procedure missed the light at The Queensway. When we finally did clear Royal York and The Queensway I was feeling slow and it showed, 26 km/h, Thi and Ian started complaining and before I knew what's what, found myself desperately drafting trying very hard not to fall off their backsides.

When we got to St. Phillips I made a discovery, the entire run from Dixon to Weston I was never once going slower than the posted speed limit. Sadly there was no cop around to give me a speeding ticket. (A speeding ticket whilst cycling would be awesome!) I maxed out at about 55km/h just before hitting the brakes as I neared the traffic light at Weston, Ian and Thi both passed me going down the hill. We used Oak St. and Wendell to cross highway 401, which is probably one of the nicest places to cross the highway in the city, it is a minor side road with no interchange.

We used Bartor, Arrow, Signet and Weston Road to get up to Langstaff, while mostly keeping the pace down to the low 30s an occasional sprint up a hill left me hurting. But when we turned on Langstaff we got nailed by a good 20 or 30km/h East Wind, it was a fight to go east. We used Creditstone and took it to Rutherford and then down Keele, although looking at the map now, it occurs to me, one day we should just take Creditstone (becomes Melville) all the way up past Major MacKenzie - heck a guy could use this as a route to (or from) Klienburg.

The journey home was, with the exception of a rude driver (honked at for no good reason) largely uneventful. The trip down Russel Hill road from just below St. Clair to Dupont was, as always, a complete adrenalin rush. There was a Toyota SUV in front of us at Clarendon, by the time I got to Cottingham (about 500m down the hill) the Toyota was out of sight it was so far back. (It probably helps that I was taking a 30km/h zone turn at over 50km/h.)

On Rosedale Valley Road an entire car managed to pass us on the 2km run from Park Road to Bayview. When we got back to Dundas Thi decided he needed to log some extra miles so while Ian had to meet someone Thi and I decided to try to meet up with the Saturday Pickering group, on the way we found Jason Charette who rode with us.

We climbed the hill at Kingston Road between Birchmount and Danforth, Thi started hammering and while Jason and I were keeping a fine form at first, doing 35km/h up the hill I found the 90km already on my legs hurt too much and I decided to drop back a little and regain my ground later on. I think Thi was feeling generous and decided to stop at the Tim Hortons just past the Danforth merge. We waited a while and the Pickering group never showed, so we headed home. In short it was a good day, complete with a lot of proper burn your legs sprinting and hill climbing. Hopefully we will do another ride like that one again soon.

On Trojans

As I alluded to yesterday, I broke down and bought a Lezyne Micro Floor pump that mounts beside the water bottle cage on the downtube. I am still schleping around the Carbon Dioxide cartridges and pump while I decide how to do things in the long term.

Anyway a quick product review, from an end consumer who paid for the thing out of his own pocket. When I brought the pump home the first thing I did was try it on a deflated tyre, it takes a fair bit of hand action and it is a pain to bend over far enough to work the thing, but, it is a lot easier to use then the hand pumps and getting that high pressure that roadies like, 120psi, does seem possible. Although the pressure gauge seems a little flaky.

First I started inflating the tyre and the gauge stayed at zero for about ten or fifteen pumps, then suddenly the gauge shot up to 20 psi and quickly, four or five pumps hit 40 psi, the pumping steadily brought the gauge to 70 psi where it again stayed no matter how much pumping I did. Now this particular tube did have a leak, but it was a slow leaker and while the gauge said 70psi I did a pinch test and it felt more like 120, maybe even 140 psi.

So, in short, besides a flaky gauge this is an effective roadside recovery tool, except, the pump is all machined aluminum which is a good thing when it's a floor pump or when you want durability, but when you've got the pump mounted along side your $1000 to $3000 carbon fibre bicycle frame, just millimeters from your feet that are turning in the cranks 80 to 120 revolutions per minute you probably don't want machined aluminum banging up against that carbon beauty. Ultimately I took a leaky tube, which I have several, used a sharp pair of scissors and wrapped both ends as well as a wide point near the base of the pump with sections of tube and then kept the tube in place with elastic bands. My fix does not look pretty but at least my frame will not get hurt. That said, if someone from Lezyne ever does read this, a couple requests:

1. Please make proper rubber frame protectors that would mount on both ends of the pump and probably strap to each other so they don't fall off (maybe strap to the frame too so there is extra protection against the pump falling off?)
2. Fix that damned pressure gauge, it was brutal.

That said, the pump itself is pretty good, I don't think anyone would want to lug something like the Lezyne around in a race, but on a training ride, especially when you get far from home, it is a good thing to have around.

Now as for the subject of this post, yesterday I found three Trojan horses on my PC at work, they completely buggered up network file access. I don't visit those, cough, inappropriate, web sites, so I have to wonder how they got here. Must be Microsoft.com, sorry does that count as inappropriate? I'm beginning to think so!

On The Problems With Carbon Dioxide

I feel a little like a pro cyclist lately. Let me explain, a friend of mine was telling me, the higher up you get in the world of cycling, the more often you change teams. Yes sir, I am back in the job market, sorry to say, but the current job is too stressful. I think this is a function of entrepreneurs, they can start a business but cannot listen to the advice of others. Anyway enough of head banging.

So I have been horribly busy with work lately and haven't had a chance to post recently but here are some updates.

Friday the 13'th I rode to work, it was very nice, logged 79km and then went grocery shopping. Saturday Thi and I did a ride around Mississauga, ended up logging 110km. Later that day Thi and I sat around and drank a lot of beer while I changed the cassette on his Zipp wheel set, he was a 12-27, now an 11-28. (Actually I now know I'm an old fart, a lot of beer, was two bottles, actually we mostly sat around and talked, cycling, politics, economics, all sorts of random things.)

I was on call on Sunday so I stayed home. I did laundry, I made pasta, I swapped out tyres on Jordan, she's got Vittoria Open Corsa EVO CX now, she had Vredestein Fortezza Tricomps. Now in theory the Vredesteins are slower and heavier, they are a bigger pain to change than the Vittoria's, but, the Vredesteins almost never puncture roadside. The Vittoria's, well I found a staple in the on my very first ride after the change, I got to work. Didn't check through the day and when I went to go home, noticed my back tyre was flat. A road side change in the office!

So Monday afternoon, in the comfort of my office, 25km from home I changed a tyre, luckily it was a Vittoria so it was not a total war to get the thing off my wheel, unluckily it was a Vittoria so all it took was a rusty staple to puncture. Sigh. The first Carbon Dioxide cartridge did not discharge properly and got my tyre to about 40 psi, I need 100 psi on a road bike tyre. The second cartridge was even worse, down to 20 psi. I was beginning to loose faith in my pump. The third cartridge worked, about 80psi, enough to limp home.

I got home, put Jordan on the stand, had dinner with Lesley and went back downstairs to look at the tyres, maybe there would be a thumb tack?

When I got down to Jordan I found the front tyre to be in perfect condition and the back tyre was clearly, using my thumb and forefinger test, down to between 20 and 40 psi. I took the tube and tyre out and gave a very careful inspection of everything, I put the tyre and tube back and reinflated to 120psi. About a half hour later I rechecked, 100 psi. Yet another tube later and I was in business. The suspect tube I inflated on the floor until it was about six feet on it's side, by this morning, it was nearly flat, but no evidence of a leak. My pet theory, some dirt wedged into the valve from my pump and air was escaping from whence it came. So I am going to throw in the towel, I am completely fed up with the carbon dioxide cartridges, I cannot get to a good air pressure and all to often end up loosing a tube to the vagaries of the pump. I won't use a hand pump, I'm sorry, I am not good at masturbating in public (ever see a person use a hand pump? 'Nugh said.) Instead I will get a bottle cage mounted mini floor pump, obviously the ideal, well the ideal is a support car with spare wheels on the roof, but given that I am not riding Le Tour, I guess this is probably the best I can arrange, hey it beats walking home, or shudder, driving!

On Red Lights

I ended my previous post with a comment to the effect that I guess I am going to have to get my speed training on my daily ride to work. Well today would have to count. Now it is only about 25km from home (near Woodbine and Queen Street) to work (near Highway 7 and Leslie) - almost all uphill. But I averaged 29 km/h. Okay, so the guys in the Pro Pelaton do a lot better, but then they don't have red lights. I swear I think some traffic planner is looking at me from some camera (or several cameras) and timing the lights so I get red after damned red. (The sound you hear is my eyes rolling... blasted red lights.)

Yesterday the best manager in the world came by my place for a beer. Its funny, when I worked for Ian there were days I couldn't stand the guy, but looking back, Ian was the best. Anyway Ian came by, we talked about aviation (his father used to work for Pratt and Whitney Canada and his brother works at Embraer) we talked about old times, what my former colleagues thought of the restructuring - they are mostly actively job searching, eight months later than Ian and I, but at least they see the writing on the wall. We talked about Triathlons.

Ian told me something interesting. A woman he knows is a runner, she runs marathons and has even done so well in the famous Boston Marathon she's been invited to do a Triathlon. Only problem, she's a runner. Anyway she's high enough up the food chain that she landed herself a nice Cervelo of some sort (Ian doesn't know the exact model but I got the impression it's a proper Tri bike). Now this lady and her fancy Cervelo are training to do a Tri. I asked about joining a bike club, and Ian told me something that I've sort of always known but never really put two plus two together in my head. The lady doesn't want advice, most people don't want advice come to think of it. Anyway she doesn't want advice so badly that she would rather train by herself than in a club. I guess this is why so many women run or ride alone? Anyway I'll have to remember that the next time I see someone lift their heels whilst spinning.