Steering Blues; Hills and More Hills

Headset cartridge bearings

A few months ago I was having steering issues, and Keith was very helpful in showing me how easy it was to take apart a contemporary threadless headset. The problem was that my steering was notched, so that the steering had a tendency to mildly lock into the default straight-ahead position. This problem could be caused by a number of factors, but in retrospect, it seems to be the result of ovalized bearings, caused by repeated poundings on my fork over the 7,000 + road miles on my bike.

Keith disassembled the headset and cleaned the inside of the head tube and the outside of the sealed bearing systems, which had accumulated a bit of rust. After the reassembly was complete, the notched steering was barely in evidence, but in the last few weeks the notched steering problem has come back in earnest. My paranoia is that one of these days I'll have to quickly steer to avoid debris or a pothole and won't be able to due to the tendency for my wheel to stay straight.

Yesterday I disassembled my headset and took one of the cartridge bearings to a local bike shop in hopes that they carried them as a stock replacement item. No such luck, what pissed me off is that rather than offer to order the bearings, they suggested I order a replacement headset! I've done enough research to be fairly convinced that the only problem with the headset is the bearings, and the set of two bearings can be found online for $25 including shipping, while I'm fairly certain that the local bike shop would sell me a replacement headset for at least $75. I feel like so many local bike shops count on clueless riders. Yeah, I know that they need to make money to stay afloat, but this business approach alienates experienced cyclists. If I felt it could have waited, I would have waited until Monday to go to Glenn Swan's. Surely Glenn would sell the bearings. This is precisely why Swan's has such a loyal customer base—they meet the rider at their level and don't talk down to you. I won't mention the local bike shop, since I have no desire to trash talk local businesses, but come on guys! Expand your tire collection, while you're at it.

I ended up rotating the top and bottom bearings, since I read that the bottom bearings are likely the ones that were ovalized, and sure enough it steers much better now. With the new bearings on order and much smoother steering, I feel much more secure as we head out to Vermont and the North Country of New York State for a family vaca and some great bike riding up Killington Mountain a century ride starting in Plattsburgh called the Way North Century. I did the ride last year, and here's a video I made about the event:



On Friday, after a rest day, the weather was perfect and I was seeking out the hills. I have a tendency to ride the same routes over and over, and I felt like changing things up in order to break the monotony. This is one terrific route! As I headed east on Rt. 79, I took Snyder Hill Rd. in a direction that I usually don't go. After merging back onto Rt. 79, I continued east, then took Level Green Rd. to Speedsville, then back along Old 76 Rd. The Buffalo Hill descent was stellar, and I was able to get up to 48 mph before having to break as it intersected with 79 again. Then back up Snyder Hill Rd., down Genung, west on Ellis Hollow Creek Rd., north on Turkey Hill Rd. to the NYSEG building, then up to the airport, north to Asbury, and back home down East Shore Dr. This ride was a fun way of connecting lots of shorter rides together, and now that I'm familiar with so many roads in our area, it's really fun to explore and experiment. This ride was just over 4,000 ft. of vertical ascent spread over 53 miles, and in comparison, the Cayuga Lake loop is the same amount of climbing spread over 100 miles.

Group Ride Debate

I've been following a fascinating discussion on the listserv for the Finger Lakes Cycling Club regarding the tendency for the bulk of the group to drop slower cyclists. There are many valid viewpoints, but I side with the all-inclusive approach to group riding. Yes, I ride as fast as possible during the AIDS Ride for Life as a personal challenge, but if I join a weekend group ride, I fully expect to sacrifice speed for camaraderie and coaching. For what it's worth, here's what I wrote:

At the risk of further extending a lengthy discussion, I just wanted to add a little personal perspective to this fascinating debate. When I was 15 and growing up in the Endicott area (mid '70s), I bought a crappy department store 10-speed, which was still way better than my tired, rusty 5-speed. My best friend's dad was a serious cyclist, and I wanted to ride long distances just like him. Sadly no one in my family really supported or encouraged my cycling obsession, but then I heard about the Southern Tier Bicycle Club, and started joining them for weekend rides. These were some of the best memories of my teenage years—there was always a small group of faster riders, but without exception there were patient adults who rode at my pace and encouraged me. I learned so much from these strong riders who sacrificed riding with a faster group to coach and guide me. If it weren't for these experiences, I would have never pursued my many subsequent cycle touring adventures and beyond. I obsessively studied their technique and their gear and asked a million questions, and they were unfailingly kind and patient.

While I haven't participated in any FLCC Sunday rides in a long time, it seems to me that a primary objective of these rides is to nurture and encourage those new to cycling. I happily sacrifice my need for speed to coach my 9-year-old son at a sub-10 mph pace, and have supported several friends as they have prepared for the AIDS Ride for Life. I believe that this kind of guidance is critical in encouraging young or new cyclists, and it will also cause our ranks to swell. I sincerely hope that there will always be special consideration given to the up-and-comers!

July Recap: Piling on the Hot and Humid Miles

Some of my July rides in the Finger Lakes region.

This July has been recognized, at least in North America, for being one of the hottest on record, and given my anecdotal evidence from many hours on the saddle, it certainly seems to have been the case. Now that I'm down to one bib and one pair of bike shorts and really only three jerseys that I regularly wear, it's been very hard to keep the bike wear clean and odor-free!

Many loads of laundry, several dozen Clif  Gels and several complete drivetrain cleanings later, I must say that I'm quite pleased with this past month of cycling. The Le Tour Challenge really kicked my ass, and that event really got my numbers up. There were certainly times that I struggled to get on the bike—it's always hard to get motivated to ride hard the day after suffering on the hills and in the heat and humidity, but inevitably my spirits would be soaring after the first climb of the day. Still, it's a relief to head out for a long ride now and not obsess about my average speed and vertical ascent statistics, in an all-out effort to rack up more stage points in the Le Tour Challenge.

Cook Rd. is at mile 28. Beware of the dogs!

Today's ride was a case in point. With a massive tailwind as I headed north through Lansing and on up to Genoa and points north, the first 27 miles of my ride were almost effortless, but I knew that I'd be fighting that same wind on the return trip. But since it was August and I didn't really care about pushing harder for a higher average speed, the ride was even more enjoyable. Also, on days like these, I find myself randomly exploring different roads in an ongoing quest for new sights and route possibilities, something I avoided when going for maximum speed. Today I ended up on Cook Rd. in Venice, getting chased by two unfriendly dogs (no owner in sight) on a chip seal road with an overwhelming amount of loose gravel. While I doubt that this road will be part of any future routes, I have no regrets, and it caused me to study the map some more to look for further alternatives.

This July I've biked more miles in a month since my last big cycle touring adventure in the early '90s, and more vertical feet since...ever. All this hillclimbing has me feeling stronger than ever on the ascents, and ready to take on bigger and better challenges.

Total July Distance: 880 miles
Total Vertical Ascent for July: 52,250 ft.

Today's ride to Venice and Genoa.

Le Tour Challenge Recap

This year's MapMyRide/Le Tour Challenge competition was a memorable experience and certainly a high point of my summer. Thousands of people around the world took part and were encouraged to ride every stage day of this year's Tour de France and submit their gps data to compete for stage points. Only verifiable (gps) data was considered for stage points, but I suppose someone could mount their Garmin unit on a moped and fake it!

Obviously not everyone took this very seriously, but there were a bunch of us submitting rides almost every day of the Tour. I did this event last year and was the lucky winner of a Polar unit with heartrate and cadence. While I was dreaming of winning something fabulous like a new bike, a carbon wheelset, or a trip to France, my primary goal this year was to get as high up the leaderboard as possible, and while I didn't win anything, I'm pretty pleased with my results.

This year I rode in 19 of the 21 stage days (all solo rides, squeezing my expeditions between family obligations and work), and finished in 10th place overall and 2nd place in the 46-50 age category, accumulating 103 stage points. My highest stage ranking was 4th, a lap around Cayuga Lake in ridiculously high humidity and temperature in the mid 90s. (Stage winners get 25 points.) MapMyRide kept tidy track of my stats, comparing them to the pros in the Tour. I averaged around 19.8 mph over the 678 miles, which obviously pales in comparison to the ridiculous 24.7 mph pace of Contador over 2260 miles and an unfathomable 428,000 ft. of ascent!

My Stats:
Stages Completed 19 (between 7/3 and 7/25)
Total Distance: 677.87 mi
Total Time: 34 hours, 18 minutes
Total Ascent: 29,518 ft

Alberto Contador's Stats:
Stages Completed 21
Total Distance: 2260.34 mi
Total Time: 91 hours 30 minutes
Total Ascent: 428,182 ft

I tried hard to mix it up, taking on the hills during the mountain stages and looking for flatter, faster routes for the sprint stages, since it seems to matter—I don't know if they're relying exclusively on software or if there's a human element used to determine stage rankings, but hills mattered a lot more on the mountain stages and much less on the flat stages. Distance always mattered, so if you took a long ride at a brisk pace, you stood a good chance of winning points. I visited Ringwood and Snyder Hill a bunch of times, suffered through a Yellow Barn climb, rode around Cayuga Lake, and even climbed Bear Mountain on a family trip to Putnam County.

Here are three of my favorite rides over the last three weeks:

Cold Spring/Bear Mountain

Cayuga Lake

Lansing/Yellow Barn/Willseyville

Ringwood twice/Snyder Hill

Now that the exhausting Le Tour Challenge adventure is over, I no longer feel the need to push as hard. After a rest day, I've been back on the bike, looking for hills that I haven't climbed yet and enough miles to make my goal of 3,000 miles before the end of July. With 3 days and 25 miles to go, it'll be an easy goal. Then hopefully, coming in later August, I'll be doing some riding in the Adirondacks and Vermont. Perhaps the 5 finger lakes goal will slip by the wayside for this year...too much time away from the boys.

Finally More Le Tour Stage Points

Ringwood climb, 2 X

While the Tour de France cylists endured their last day in the Pyrenées, ending their final mountain stage by climbing up the brutal Col du Tourmalet, I sought out my own toughest stage, desperately seeking more stage points in an all-out effort to solidify my 17th position in the Le Tour Challenge. After a rest day, I was feeling strong, and the conditions were ideal, with low humidity, temps in the upper 70s and a nice breeze. In fact, I hadn't felt so strong in weeks—the cumulative effects of weeks of hard riding in high heat and humidity has started to pay dividends.

Yesterday I started with the familiar quick exit out of Ithaca, heading up Remington to Triphammer, then Triphammer Extension, Asbury and Benson to Lansing. I was looking for extra miles as well as extra climbing, so I decided to do the Ringwood climb twice, once from each direction. After climbing Ringwood from Rt. 13, I headed down Midline to Rt. 79, then back up Ellis Hollow to attack Ringwood from the south. After the second Ringwood climb I was still feeling good, and I was joined by a friendly competitive cyclist who joined me for most of the return trip up Snyder Hill Rd.

Without a doubt, this was my favorite ride in a long while, and I came home feeling very hopeful about gaining Le Tour stage points and solidifying my position. Sure enough, when I refreshed the leader board this morning, I was thrilled to learn that my ride earned me 14 place and 12 stage points. While I may end up dropping a few overall positions in the next few days, it looks like I'm safely going to remain in 2nd place overall in my age category. While my hopes of winning merchandise are fading, this has been a great experience. The Le Tour Challenge is a terrific motivational game, at least for me.

Stats:

Distance: 49.45 miles

Avg. speed: 19.1 mph

Vertical ascent: 3391 ft.

Calories burned: 3499 kcal

Max. speed: 39.5 mph

Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

Moving Up Again in Le Tour Challenge

With only five stages remaining in The Tour, things are heating up both in the Pyrenées and among participants in the Le Tour Challenge. While I'm still pulling for Andy Schleck, things aren't looking too good after yesterday's chaingate. Contador's decision to attack certainly caused a great debate among the riders as well as the viewing public and punditry. I don't have a strong opinion on this one, but it's clear that this will cheapen a presumed Contador victory.

Meanwhile in the Le Tour Challenge, it has been sad to see Jeff K slip in the overall standings, down to third. I was really hoping that someone in my age bracket would win it all, but still, he really represented us 40-something riders well and can still move up in the ranks.

In my last blog entry on 7/15, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in 15th place overall after a long, hard Yellow Barn Road climb. At that point I assumed that I'd be slowly moving down the leader board through the rest of the last week. I took a break day on Sunday while a bunch of weekend warriors fought hard for stage points. I was quite surprised to learn that I only lost one position as a result of my rest day, and I was emboldened to fight to move up a few spots during the week. I looked at typical winning weekday stats and realized that there is a lot to be gained by riding hard during the week and riding easier on weekends. Sure enough, I'm back up to 15th overall, and looking for more points through the week.

Yesterday I did my typical Lansing Ringwood Midline Snyder Hill loop with an added couple of twists in order to get good vertical stats and keep my speeds up high. I added an extra loop of Thomas Rd and around to Ellis Hollow Rd., and also added some extra flats at the end, down Aurora to Cayuga. I believe that these add-ons resulted in getting me further up in the standings, and today I'll be scrambling for a few more points. Also, hopefully I'll be doing another 80 mile ride before the weekend in my desperate last efforts to move further up the standings. While this is a blast, I'm really looking forward to a break in the action after the weekend!

Moving Up the Leaderboard...By Accident

At this stage in the Le Tour Challenge, I fully expected to continue my slow slide down the leaderboard, but I was buoyed by the news that as of this morning I'm now ranked 15th overall out of over 1600 participants, and 2nd in my age category. Woo hoo! I'm delighted to be the Alberto Contador to Jeff K's Andy Schleck. This all came about as a result of an error in calculating yesterday's route, combined with a last-minute decision to climb the nasty Yellow Barn Road.

Yellow Barn never seems to get any easier, no matter how many times I take it on. It's a very deceiving climb, since it takes you on a number of turns in which the road ahead is shielded from view by the Yellow Barn Forest. My trusty Garmin tells me the real truth, as I watch the altitude and curse my way up to 1800 ft. Then I think about the climbs that those poor souls in France are experiencing, and it's all put back into perspective. The truth is that like most crazed cyclists, I really do love the struggle, and the there are few purer, more simpler pleasures than cresting the last part of the hill and switching back into the big chainring for the rewarding descent.

As you can see by this screenshot, Yellow Barn is over 700 ft. of climbing stretched over two miles, with sections of 12-16% grade. I sometimes wish there were more rural climbs in our area that were much longer at a consistent 6-8% grade but not quite as steep, but you have to take what you get. I'm hardly complaining though, since I believe that we have some of the greatest cycling roads in the northeast.

I'm working at Ithaca College all week, so I've been looking for fun roundabout ways of getting there. For yesterdays mini-epic ride, I totally miscalculated how many miles it would take to add on the Brooktondale-Willseyville-Danby-IC portion of the ride, and my total was just under 50 miles. The good news was that the mysterious MapMyRide/Le Tour Challenge software liked my combination of distance, average speed, vertical ascent and climb categories.  Interestingly, the software automatically assesses and categorizes the biggest climbs, calling the initial Remington/Oakcrest climb Cat 4 and Yellow Barn a Cat 3. I'm guessing that Connecticut Hill might be a Cat 2, but I'm not trying that one anytime soon.

Today I took Ringwood Rd. from the Ellis Hollow side, and I just can't get enough of that buttery smooth new asphalt. There was a light mist for the bulk of the ride, which was just a perfect treat and antidote to the humidity.

Le Tour Challenge, Stage 9 (7/13)

Le Tour Challenge, Stage 10 (7/14)