Early Morning Le Tour Challenge Ride

So today, owing to various scheduling conflicts, I had to squeeze my Le Tour Challenge ride into the early morning. It wasn't easy to leave the house at 5:45, but it sure was worth it. After a week of intense heat and humidity, today we should finally get a break, with some thunderstorms, followed by cooler temps. Starting a ride this early meant that I avoided the worst heat of the day, as well as minor traffic woes, and it sure was a terrific way to jump start the old kicker. It made me think about all those hockey players who get out there at insane o'clock to get some rink time.

With limited time, I took on a familiar Lansing Route, and noticed to my dismay that my average speed when I reached the corner of Oakcrest and Triphammer was below 16 mph. It's usually just over 16, so I knew I had to make up some speed on the rolling hills heading to Terpening Corners. After pushing hard for the next 5 miles, I was feeling stronger than ever, and even a substantial headwind on the return trip didn't dampen my spirit.


I'm currently ranked 17th overall in the Le Tour Challenge, though who knows how that ranking will change as the Tour goes into the mountains. I vaguely recall that all these crazy Colorado cyclists start to really move up the rankings, as vertical ascent stats are taken more into consideration. It's really a fun game, and a great way to stay continuously motivated.












My love letter to the Saab driver that I encountered yesterday:


To the long-hair Saab-driving 20-something dude on Snyder Hill Rd.: I am very sorry to have cost you upwards of 15 seconds on your difficult commute to Cornell this morning. Also, I deeply regret causing you the stress of forcing you to extend your hand so forcefully on wheel in order to honk. Also, hopefully you didn't hyper-extend your right arm as you positioned it to flip me off. For a moment there, I totally forgot about the third-class status assigned to cyclists riding on Ithaca's lightly travelled rural roads.

First Ringwood Climb of the Year

After a fun father and son ride in Varna today, I was lucky enough to get my first 2-hour ride in for the year. This is a ride that I dream about, and sometimes lull myself to sleep thinking about. It's familiar territory if you've been reading this blog since last fall when I started this blogging adventure, and it will likely remain my favorite ride for years to come. There's plenty of climbing challenges, stunning scenery, and opportunity for reverie and reflection without having to think about traffic, particularly in Lansing and nearing Groton.

Random Observations:

• The street cleaners have already made a pass or two on Triphammer and Rt. 34 in Lansing.
• There are lots of deer carcasses of various vintages littering the culverts in particular.
• People who drink Arizona brand beverages disproportionately litter the highways.
• A car filled with Cornell undergrads think that there's nothing funnier than screaming really loud at cyclists as they pass within inches. (I know where you live, boys. Funny, I saw them all load into the car and just had this intuition that they would do such a thing, and I kept waiting for them to pass.)
• I didn't see a single road biker today on my ride. Puzzling...

I'm feeling pretty strong today, even though Ringwood really presented a challenge, especially the final 250 ft. Fairly brisk North winds also presented a challenge on the homestretch on Rt. 79.

Stats:

Distance: 38.97 miles

Avg. speed: 18.4 mph

Vertical ascent: 2500 ft.

Avg. heart rate: 142 bpm

Calories burned: 2041 kcal

Max. speed: 41.2 mph

Time: 2:07:10

Map your trip with EveryTrail

Big Dairies & King Ferry

As the king of hyperbole, I won't shy away from describing this ride as absolutely euphoric. It's November 15th here in Ithaca, and the high temperature on my ride was 67 degrees! Riding without a jacket in mid-November is most bizarre, but I'm most grateful to the cycling goddess for arranging such ideal conditions and facilitating the further extension of an already long season.

Today I passed the 2800 mile mark for the season—I carefully chose a route that would get me there, and since I haven't been up along the lake to the King Ferry area in a while, I chose that route. This was my first time on Ledyard Rd., and it is the perfect choice for heading east and turning back to Ithaca.

I'm so glad that I decided to bring the camera today. Usually I am reluctant to bring the camera along, since I am trying to get maximum miles in during my allotted cycling time, but today I had the luxury of some extra time.

As you can see, I saw some very noisy wild turkeys on Remington Rd., just a couple hundred feet from Boynton Middle School. The sun was only with me for the first half hour, then the skies darkened and I thought perhaps I'd encounter rain, but it just stayed overcast for the rest of the trip. With all of the trees bare, it was a great day to get shots of the lake in the distance, as well as old barns and some beautiful homes.

This route takes you through some very big dairy operations around King Ferry, Genoa, Venice and East Lansing, and I tried to imagine what the old farming days were like in this area. There are a few remnants from those days, but now, the only shiny and new-looking farms are huge, sprawling dairies. It's so sad that family farming is the exception, not the rule.

Drivers seemed to be less attentive toward cyclists now that it's mid-November, and on a couple of occasions, drivers almost turned into me while I was in an intersection. Good practice for the lungs (I don't shy away from shouting at drivers) and for the evil-eye-darting-glance, but moments like those are most unwelcome. Us cyclists aren't asking for much, just a little attention. Put those damn cell phones away, people, and watch the road!

You can also see that I was all about the data today. Regular odometer, heartrate cyclocomputer and GPS, not to mention the camera. I know that it seems like overkill, but I won't be using the heartrate unit as an odometer. I've read that it can easily get reset by accident, and I want a reliable odometer to keep track of my road miles. Furthermore, my basic meter has a thermometer, which is pretty handy. Still, I can't wait to get a new Garmin Edge with cadence, like a Garmin Edge 405 or 605. That way I can ditch the Polar unit and have my heartrate data integrated into my speed and elevation data. This will allow me to see how my heartrate changes during specific climbs. This would be very valuable information for training purposes. Too bad I'd have to shell out around $400...I'd much rather spend it on a new wheelset or something.

Speaking of heartrate information, I hit a max of 170 at the top of Ridge Rd. in Lansing. That was pretty cool. I averaged 144 BPM for 2 1/2 hours, which feels pretty damn good. I don't think that downhill skiing will come anywhere close. Sure, cross-country skiing would be similar, but I probably won't have many opportunities this winter. Who knows...snowshoeing might be a good middle ground.

My favorite part of today's ride was Gulf Rd. in Lansing. There's a short, steep climb where Gulf meets Conlon Rd., and it's a real pedal stomping heart pounding affair. That turn onto Conlon Rd. is so gratifying.

See the ride on Everytrail

Here's the data:

Distance: 46.13 miles

Elapsed time: 2 hours, 30 min.

Avg. speed: 18.5 mph

Max. speed: 46 mph (heading east on Ledyard toward 34)

Vertical ascent: 2566 ft.

Calories burned: 2431

Avg. BPM: 144

Forever Young

As an adult cyclist, every now and then I feel a bit self-conscious, riding with my tight-fitting fancypants gear on roads with drivers tucked in nicely in their cars. What are they thinking about these encounters? Are they mildly annoyed that they have to slow down for a little while and cautiously pass at the first opportunity, or are they simply amused at our peculiar costumes and mucus clearing methodology (don't ask)? I wonder, if they aren't adult cyclists, do these encounters stir some deep-rooted childhood memories of terrorizing the neighborhood on their chopper and performing dangerous stunts like standing on the banana seat as if it were a skateboard?

I can usually tell who's a cyclist (or cyclist sympathizer) and who isn't by how they pass me. Sympathizers usually go the extreme giving lots of room while passing, often crossing the meridian, and waiting very patiently. The alternative can be pretty damn scary. I've had too many close calls over the years with the oblivious, the angry, the distracted, and the purposefully indifferent, those who don't want to give more leeway than the law allows as a matter of principal.

As a young cyclist, I was pretty oblivious to my surroundings, but now I ride with a finely tuned sense of all potential hazards, including deer. (I've had an increasing number of encounters with deer of late, particularly on one section of Oakcrest and on Remington and Sunset.) As a child, I felt impervious to danger; as an adult, I feel on guard at all times, which is why I really like my Remington escape route [Remington must be the subject of a future entry].

Today I've been musing about why cycling is so appealing to me, and I think it's all about savoring and holding on to my childhood. So much of life gets complicated and conflicted, as we start swimming upstream, having kids, see our parents turn elderly, and started contemplating our own mortality. Maybe I'm just in denial, looking for ways to keep my young in body and in spirit, but I really don't think it's that self-conscious a decision. I just bike because it's more fun than just about anything. But maybe what makes cycling that much more joyful is the flood of positive childhood memories that it prompts. With all of the endorphins flowing, I tend to concentrate on the happier memories, and I often puzzle through what I did wrong in past encounters and life situations. I wonder if it's a coincidence that my best bicycle year in the late '80s is also the year that I've reconnected with so many childhood (and young adult) friends and acquaintances?