Post-ride radar. The red band hit while I was in Freeville.
I hit the road yesterday, in spite of the fact that a band of mixed precipitation was heading our way. It was in the mid-30s, so I was achin' to get out there. I've developed a full-fledged allergy to the trainer. I though I could get my ride in before snow started to accumulate on the roads, but my desire to tack on some extra miles, combined with the intensity of the slushy, icy wintry wet stuff led to a tricky situation.
I should have worn goggles, and more importantly, I really should have put the studded tire on, but no, I wanted the road wheel to take on the hills faster. I won't make that mistake again! By the time I reached Lower Creek Road, the snow was really starting to stick, and as I neared Hanshaw Rd., it really got dicey. Fortunately there was almost no traffic and drivers knew to give me lots of room.
Grit and grime, but I beat the salt trucks!
By the time I reached Bush Lane in Lansing I was officially waterlogged and started to get the chills. Boosting the RPMs really helped to warm me up, and then it was time to face the tricky descent down Sunset and Remington. Talk about an adrenaline rush!
On Hanshaw Rd., wondering what the hell I'm doing.
If Punxsutawney Phil is correct (let's call him P-Phil to give him some more street cred.), we only have two more weeks of winter! Even if he's off by a few weeks, our chubby little lowland marmot friend has me all fired up about endless days of spring cycling. So let's welcome all the snow, sleet and freezing rain and bide our time, as we notice the days getting longer and sooner than we can imagine, the local roads will be filled with beaming cyclists breathing in large gulps of warmish air, taking in the beautiful roadways of the finger lakes yet again.
My trainer isn't quite gathering dust, but it's seeing a lot less use than last season, thanks to inspiration from Keith T. and Andy G., who remind me via Facebook that winter cycling is a viable option. I somehow managed to log 170 road miles in January, and those short hill climbs have me feeling so great. I find it so challenging to get motivated for a cold weather ride, but the payoff is always huge.
So thanks to P-Phil for the boost...time to take stock of the spring cycling wardrobe!
I can't think of a better adjective than "zesty" to describe today's wintery road biking adventure, after a week of the flu and no exercise. Temps were in the mid 20s, but the 10-15 mph winds and the occasional snow posed somewhat of a challenge. Ski goggles were and absolute requirement today. Roads were mostly clear, though there was a lot of fishtailing on the lesser-maintained roads behind the airport. I'm glad that I'm not riding a studded tire in the rear, in spite of the decrease in traction on the sloppier roads. Studded tires really do add quite a bit of resistance.
19 miles, a little over 1,000 vert. ft, 16.1 mph. Not bad for a heavy touring bike and a studded tire.
Fingers were freezing on the way up the hill, though they finally thawed by the time I got to the airport. My left foot was an ice cube by the time I got home, but curiously, none of that mattered. Here's hoping for a mid-winter thaw so I can take the road bike out again...
After resigning myself to the dreaded trainer, Andy Goodell inspired me to reconsider winter cycling after I read about his ambitious adventures. During the holiday break I broke out the crappy old mountain bike and surprised myself. I guess the hard work is really paying off, because in spite of only being able to use the large chainring (lots of chain slip), I was able to still climb up to Lansing and Forest Home with relative ease.
I started off the winter cycling routine somewhat modestly, but thanks to dry roads and sufficient winter cycling gear I kept upping my distances. On Dec. 26th I rode in 16 degree weather, and managed not to freeze, thanks to my dreamy new mittens and the fact that climbing was involved. On yesterday's ride, lower back pain was a clear indication that the mountain bike wasn't the way to go, so I pulled out the trusty old Miyata 1000 touring bike. I was surprised by how good it felt—it's been almost two years since I rode the Miyata. Then today I decided to test the brand new Mavic Ksyrium front wheel on the 28-year-old touring bike, and it was a truly revelatory experience.
Today was a glorious day, with temperatures in the mid 40s, and after my hillclimb, I met up with a FLCC group organized by Andrejs Ozolins for a short ride to Buttermilk Falls. How great to spend the last day of 2010 on the bike! Final mileage for the year: 5220. It was nice to see Jim, Wayne, Ron, Andrejs and Andy.
Tomorrow's weather promises some rain and continued moderating temperatures, so if the rain washes the salt off the road I'm taking the road bike out on Sunday, my first ride of the new year.
It's been an embarrassingly long while since my last blog post, and though my priorities have been necessarily elsewhere in the last few months, the cycling blog will undoubtedly continue. As the season wound down, I was seizing every last opportunity to squeeze in a ride, but the writing is on the wall—I have perhaps half a dozen rides left before road salt and ice will drive me to off-season activities.
Last season I felt a certain amount of panic toward the end of the season that I didn't want to see end. This year, however the addition of some carefully selected winter cycling wear has led to a much more relaxed tail end of the year. I know now that I can comfortably go riding in the low 30s without getting too cold, and damn, do those cold weather trips feel great!
My goal for the year was 4500 miles, which I easily exceeded, thanks to my obsessive quest for yet another ride. What a satisfying season—lots to reflect on in the coming three off-season months. Hopefully I'll be back on the roads in early March, if next spring is anything like this spring. In the meantime, I'm off to Glenn Swan's to get my second chain of the year, and then in a month or so, I'll be upgrading to a Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheelset! I can't wait to see what happens when I lose close to 500 grams (.88 pounds) of rotational weight...
The off-season has been quite a trial, but if I lived in Hawaii, there wouldn't be an off-season, and you know what they say about the importance of yearning! My strategy of combining once or twice-weekly rides on the trainer with daily workouts with EA Active (for Wii) has really worked out well, and now I really understand the value of cross-training. I was really strong on the hills today, and felt in as good a form as mid-summer last year.
The roads were in surprising good shape for early March, even before the heavy rains have come to wash away all the salt and grit from the shoulders. I was reluctant to take my precious bike out, given the destructive power of the road salt, but a quick bike bath put things back in good order once again.
Without a doubt, the highlight of today's ride was seeing the brilliant sun reflecting off of vast fields of snow in Lansing. This time of the year, as the sun's angle shifts, the snow fields rapidly melt in angled patterns, resulting in almost blinding shimmery seas of snow. The Cayuga lake views are equally stunning without the foliage to obstruct roadside views.
I'm so thankful that I'm back on the road again. There is no substitute for cycling outside, and all of the unknown variables like sun, rain, wind, unexpected roadkill, and oblivious drivers who are too busy texting to notice you. No close calls today, just some to-be-expected obliviousness from drivers who aren't expecting to see human powered transportation on the roads.
Today was my first road test of my upgraded drivetrain and new helmet, and I'm happy to report that my new shoes and pedals exceeded my expectation. The Shimano 105 pedals and Louis Garneu road shoes were incredibly comfortable and stable. What a difference it makes to have a larger and less wiggly pedal platform. It makes standing on the pedals so much easier, though the toe box is a bit looser than I want it to be. Thicker socks might be in order.
Now I need to convince Chuck, Jean, and Karl to smash their piggy banks and buy an entry-level road bike. Come on guys, it's SO worth it, and I'd love some more riding partners! I'll be your personal bike mechanic, and that's a promise.
It's stats time...I'm really happy with my ride today, given the stiff headwind as I headed north. It will only get better!
Excuse me, Accuweather. "Dreary" is a very subjective adjective. If the high temp on March 12th is actually 48, I'll call it "Dreamy." I'm targeting this date as my first hill climb of the year. Remington, here I come.
It's never too early to make plans for the cycling season, so I'm considering taking on five finger lakes this year. Don't hold me to it, but I'm certain that I'll circumnavigate at least Cayuga, Seneca and Owasco this year. Keuka and Canandaigua are the wildcards. I did the Keuka loop back in the late '80s, and really enjoyed that ride, especially the northern dual tip. It's definitely the coolest shape of all the lakes. I've also done Owasco once and Cayuga at least eight times.
The multicolored lines in this picture represent my finger lakes area rides from last season, and it's immediately apparent that I did lots of repeat treks, especially around Lansing, Dryden and Ellis Hollow. There's a certain comfort in repeating well-worn routes, and this also allows you to assess your performance from one day to another and focus on improving hill climbs. On the other hand, I think it's really helpful to get out of your comfort zone and face unpredictable elements, though thanks to online mapping sites like MapMyRide.com and Everytrail.com, you can preview your hillclimbs and be better prepared for the challenges. Still, factors like road conditions and weather are wildcards that alway make road biking exciting and unpredictable.
In the meantime, the winter drags on, and for the first time in many years, I am desperately looking forward to spring and clean, salt-free roads. After taking a few weeks off of the trainer, I grudgingly climbed on the trainer twice in a week. This morning I pushed really hard, and burned 660 calories in 35 minutes, averaging 160 bpm. My plan has been to stay in form so that there's hardly a transition to the road bike season, and I'm confident that I will succeed, after all, my first ride last season was March 20th! Yeah, it was an anomalous spring, but I'm hopeful that I'll get at least one or two rides in before April 1. I continue to study the accuweather 15 day projection tea leaves every day, looking for a sign.
I've got the February blues, and I'm looking for a sign. The road bike sits in its basement bunker, waiting patiently for it's moment to attack the twisting roads up to Lansing, Dryden, McLean, Groton, Trumansburg, Ellis Hollow, Richford, Brooktondale, Spencer, Candor, and beyond. Yet these are desperate days for me, as I realize how I'm in complete withdrawal from road biking addiction. Sure, I see brave cyclists on the road in winter climbing up East State St. and elsewhere, but I have no intention of breaking out the road bike until the bulk of the road salt is washed away.
Every day I visit Accuweather and check out their 15-day forecast temperature graph, hopefully looking for signs of a warming spell, but today's graph offered no encouragement. The anticipated high temperature has essentially flatlined for the next two weeks, so I guess I just have to face the inevitable, and prepare for some more indoor riding with the trainer. It's so hard to get motivated for indoor cycling, but it will surely pay off.
Speaking of indoor training, my friend Joe sent me the link to a story that ran on the radio show Only A Game about an annual event called Bikes and Beer. This event sounds like a blast, and if I lived closer to Boston, I would definitely participate. Nearly 300 cyclists visit the Harpoon brewery for an indoor time trial, a stationary bike race that simulates an eight-mile course. Imagine all these riders riding on trainers that are all networked to an electronic scoreboard. The software is so sophisticated that it allows for drafting! Somehow an event like this appeals to me (in theory at least) much more than a spinning class, not just because you're using your own bike, and it's not just because of the beer reward afterwards. As one of the participants pointed out, if your a recreational cyclist participating in a race with Cat 1 riders, you'll only see them for a minute or two, and then they'll be out of sight for the rest of the race. In this even, however, you see them for the whole race, which might offer some inspiration and some performance tips. Here are some pictures of the event.
If you're starting to think of cycling events to participate in for the summer, I recently heard about an event called BikeIt! Here's a blurb from their web site:
Imagine 5,000 bicyclists riding into Detroit, the Motor City, to help bring about a different world. We see thousands of cyclists coming from every direction converging on the United States Social Forum next June, voting with their legs for a greener, cooler, fairer society. We’re taking that ride, and we invite you to join us.
The first U.S. Social Forum took place in Atlanta from June 27 to July 1, 2007. Like the annual World Social Forums, the Atlanta event brought together activists, organizers, people of color, working people, poor people, and indigenous people from across the United States. They built unity around the common goals of environmental and social justice, formed alliances to broaden the social justice movement, and had a blast while doing it. Now the second U.S. Social Forum is organizing. It will open in Detroit on June 22 and run until June 26, 2010. We are now looking for organizers to recruit squads of cyclists and biofuel-powered support wagons to ride from wherever they are to the Opening March.
Hopefully I'll be chatting with the organizer soon and providing more information about the event. Lots of rides are being organized around the country to head to Motor City and participate in what looks to be a really important event that will hopefully initiate grassroots activism on a range of environmental and social justice-related issues. If you're interested in joining the Finger Lakes BikeIt Ride, check out this link. This group will have a max of 50 riders from Ithaca, Syracuse, Binghamton, and smaller towns in Central NY. The ride will be about 500 miles, and here's the map of the route:
If I had the time, I'd love to participate. The Canadian section of this ride is spectacular. There's very little traffic for most of this stretch, and the views along the Lake Erie shoreline are spectacular.
It's another beautiful winter day in Ithaca, and snow drought seems like such an aughts concept. The ski conditions at Greek Peak have been terrific and the season looks promising, with lots of snow on the ground and no warming trends in the forecast for the next two weeks at least. If you're a winter sports enthusiast in the Northeast, there's nothing to complain about.
This time of year, I look at the messy, snow-covered roads, littered with potholes and contaminated with grit and road salt and am having a really hard time imagining what it was like to bike up the magical hills on my road bike only a few months ago. Sure, I could get the old beater mountain bike out of the garage and do some sloppy winter cycling, but it's just not the same. Winter cycling in these conditions is a much different aesthetic than road biking, and it just isn't as appealing as it used to be. A few years ago I turned a pair of mountain bike tires into studded tires, thanks to a helpful online tutorial. While I can't find the exact one I used, this one is essentially the same. The trick is to screw sheet metal screws into the tire so that the tips stick out, and use tire liners or just old tube rubber to prevent the screw heads from poking into your tubes and giving you a flat. It turns out that you really only need to have a studded tire on the front wheel, though it doesn't hurt to have the rear studded as well.
I think I'll just stick to skiing and the trainer, and keep following the latest crazy experiments of Lance, as he swallows thermometers to measure his core temperature and experiments with cooling vests and other high tech silliness, as Team Radio Shack looks for whatever competitive edge they can find. And then there's the snide hilarity of Bike Snob NYC, my favorite bike blog by a mile. Oh yeah, and there's EA Active, which continues to be a fantastic way to burn calories in the living room. The 2010 road cycling season is only a few months away...
Armin Heurich is an educator and sustainability advocate based in Ithaca, New York. He has served as a Teacher-Librarian at Ithaca High School within the Ithaca City School District since 1997. He promotes youth engagement in climate justice, in partnership with educators, school Board of Ed. members and administrators, and integrates information-literacy-based climate education into the curriculum. Before his 30 year career in education, Heurich studied at the Center for Media Study at SUNY Buffalo, graduating with a BFA in 1985. He actively engaged in the early Western New York independent media scene, exhibiting his single channel experimental video work and participating in media collectives such as the Media Coalition for Reproductive Rights and the 8mm News Collective. In the ‘80s and into the 1990s he served as Technical Director for the media arts center Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo. In recent years, Heurich has shifted significant focus toward systemic climate optimism, municipal accessibility, and youth environmental outreach. He partnered with fellow educators, school board leaders, and students to co-draft a comprehensive Climate Action Plan for the Ithaca City School Di
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