Cascadilla Hill Climb

The annual Cascadilla Hill Climb was my last race of the year. Much like a tennis tournament, Glenn Swan paired up riders with similar abilities, and they faced off on the .35 mile, 204 vertical ft. climb up Cascadilla Park Place, the prettiest street in Ithaca, with plenty of switchbacks and steep bits. 


I won the first round, lost the second (against Peter Ozolins with an electric assist bike), won the third and fourth rounds, and finally lost my 5th round. By then I was just thankful that it was over. I love hills, but riding full bore on this ascent over and over was fairly brutal. I can't wait 'til next year, however!

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.

Mid-Season Assessment

Yesterday we were blessed with perfect cycling conditions, with temperature in the upper 60s, low humidity, a nice breeze, and endless views for miles from the top of Ringwood Rd., unobstructed by the haze so prevalent during the summer months. I enjoyed a fun training ride with my friend Bruce, who is new to road biking. He's a remarkably quick study, and soon he'll be burning up all the glorious hills in the region.

As I was advising Bruce on his setup, adjusting seat height and handlebar angle, swapping saddles,  and cleaning the drivetrain, I was reminded of how much I have yet to learn in the realm of bike mechanics. I noticed that when I move the handlebars from left to right, my wheel locks into the middle position, which can't be good. After a little bit of online research, I found out that this problem is referred to as "indexed steering." The headset bearings tend to remain in one position (straight in line with the frame) much more than any other, and the bearings wear depressions in the bearing races. While I'm stressing a little about causing more damage or losing the ability to easily turn, I also welcome the opportunity to learn about headset bearing maintenance and replacement.

Now that I'm four months into the nine month cycling season, it's time for a mid-season assessment. My goal is to at least ride 4500 miles this season, but of late, vertical ascent stats have become even more important to me than mileage.

Overall Stats, March 6-June 29, 2010:
Mileage: 2180 miles
Vertical Ascent: 124,827 ft.
Calories Burned: 146,700 kcal

Here's where I've cycled so far this season:

Mileage per Month:

Vertical Ascent per Month:

I'm fairly pleased with these stats, and look forward to some longer summer rides. Tomorrow it'll either be Cayuga Lake or Keuka Lake, though Cayuga is the more likely choice. This is to fulfill my random goal of biking at least five of the finger lakes this season. Owasco is already crossed off the list, so now comes Cayuga, Keuka, Seneca and...to be determined.

Yesterday's ride with Bruce:

Rookie Racing Revelations

What a goofy Tuesday race night, filled with confusion, an unwelcome puncture and an unexpected climb. Chaos is good for the spirit and makes you grow, so I'm certainly not complaining.

First of all, if you're a semi-serious road biker, you take really good care of your equipment and keep your drivetrain as clean and as perfectly lubed as can be. You also check for wear and tear and make sure that critical contact points (cleats, pedals, crank, etc.) are properly tightened. I've been doing what I think is a pretty good job in this department, so I've become increasingly alarmed about noises that I'm hearing while pedaling. At first I thought the issue was worn out cleats, so I replaced them, but the noise didn't go away. Next up, I checked pedal, bottom bracket and crank tightness, and yet the noise persists. Now I'm thinking that it's either the pedal bearings or the bottom bracket bearings, but in any case, it's as distressing as hearing some kind of persistent noise in your car, and a certain amount of unease has pervaded my cycling in the last week or so.

So starting out tonight's informal race, I was already thinking excessively about this problem, trying to calculate when it would be best to live without my bike for a day. (Yes, the addiction is so far advanced.) The race started off very, very slow, up Ellis Hollow Creek Road to Ringwood. I didn't understand the leisurely pace and I should have asked, but instead, I pulled ahead of the group and started making my way up Ringwood. I kept slowing down, but nobody was passing me, which was most confusing. Then, as luck would have it, I got a front puncture. I think I set a personal best for roadside tube replacement, and quickly got back on the bike. I was a tad too hasty, because after a bit of climbing I realized that I left my helmet behind! After recovering from my stupidity, I made my way up to Midline, and was delighted to see that the B group had yet to start the Midline descent.

Catching the B group was very good fortune, since I wanted to learn better race strategy, and the A group is just too challenging for me to really figure out how and when to attack. I moved my way up through the B group and was right up front with the leaders as we turned onto Rt. 79. I foolishly assumed that we would be doing the same route as the last time the Tuesday group did this route, but I was taken aback when I found that we would be looping around and doing the Ringwood climb again! Turns out that the first Ringwood climb was treated as neutral—if I had only asked, I would have managed my race strategy differently and saved more fuel for the climbs.

I got dropped by about 10 riders on the second Ringwood climb, but those of us left behind formed a very effective paceline and clawed our way back to the lead group. Finally, on the Snyder Hill return climb I somehow found an energy reserve and was able to pull past most of the B group and finish strong. What a terrific feeling to pull out a good finish after a challenging middle section.

My bike is now in the infinitely capable hands of Glenn Swan, who will surely get to the bottom of my crank noise issue. It'll be hard to live a day without my trusty bike, but I think I'll manage!

3 Big Climbs

Every now and then I encounter a previously unexplored road that just floors me, and on this ride I had the good fortune to turn onto Level Green Road, where I found one of the most gorgeous climbs and super-fun descents in the region. Level Green is most definitely a misnomer, as the road climbs from around 1300 ft. up to just under 1800 ft. in three miles, a 500 ft. ascent. That's kinder than Ringwood and Yellow Barn, but  certainly no slouch. What distinguishes this climb from the other two is that unlike Ringwood and Yellow Barn, you don't feel as closed in. The views are spectacular, with open pasture on one side and forest on the other. Road conditions are terrific, and somehow the climbing feels easier with the open spaces.  Halfway up, I turned left onto Blackman Hill Rd., where the climb continued, and then the descent began in dramatic fashion.

Some local descents are challenging due to either road condition or blind turns, but Blackman Hill Rd. is a glorious exception, nearly 500 ft. of drop with great road conditions and only a few mild turns, allowing me to get up to 45 mph, even with a headwind. This is one memorable descent that I'll be revisiting again and again.

If you look at the above image, you'll see that this ride includes three big climbs, all of which climb to more than 1500 ft. There's a nice symmetry to this elevation profile, which offers up over 3100 ft. of vertical climb over a 43 mile stretch.

A new training route is born!

Ringwood Slaterville Level Green Loop

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Hollenbeck's Road Race Preview

I drove out to Virgil this afternoon, feeling very businesslike about previewing the Hollenbeck's Spring Classic course. It was a stellar weather day, partly sunny with highs in the mid 60s. The ride gave me a pretty good sense of how to approach the course on race day—specifically where to push and where to conserve energy, and how many false summits there are on the biggest climb before I really hit the top. All systems go. I felt strong, and I was fairly well prepared for the course, thanks to many trips up Remington, Ringwood, Cascadilla Park, Yellow Barn and others. Once you complete the Parker St. climb at the 6.5 mile mark, there is no significant climb remaining, except for the 1/4 mile stretch at 17.5 miles on Babcock Hollow Rd. that is around a 15% grade. After that, it's a swift push to the finish. I averaged 20.7 mph over the 22 mile course.

I've been studying the elevation profile and even drove the course once, but it's so much different when you ride it. The roads that I worried about were no longer a concern, the climbs were suddenly very real and therefore less intimidating, and it turns out to be a really beautiful loop. There was even a little bit of snow left on top of Greek Peak, which is a bit hard to fathom.

After the ride I did a quick hillclimb up Van Donsel Rd., which takes you up 600 ft. in 2 miles to just above Greek Peak. Nice way to round out a scouting mission.

Yellow Barn Rd.: A Cleansing Experience

First Yellow Barn climb of the year. I like taking it on from Rt. 13, heading south, and it's by far my hardest regular climb. Today wasn't pretty, but I got the job done. I was imagining being passed by dozens of elite cyclists on the 800 ft., 2 mile climb. Today is the Paris-Roubaix race, considered one of the toughest bike races in the world, and I was imagining what it would be like to be in the mix there. I'd get flattened and publicly humiliated, so my solo cycling adventure was probably a better choice.

Since spring is exploding all over, I brought the camera to document the greening of the landscape. I never get off the bike to take pictures, which should explain the primitive framing of the shots. Garmin  needs to integrate a digital camera into their next generation of cycling GPS units—I think it would sell like hotcakes. Perhaps a helmet cam would be a better idea. I'm hoping for one for my 50th.

After the Yellow Barn climb, I decided to extend the ride a little and take on another climb, so I took the Brooktondale extension off of 79 and headed up Banks Rd. to Coddington. When will I ever learn about Coddington? There was a terrible motorcycle accident on that road the other day which resulted in a fatality, and I couldn't help but think about that awful event while riding on what must be one of the most dangerous cycling roads. The road is narrow with many blind corners, huge potholes, and fairly aggressive traffic. If you look back through my entries, you'll see previous promises to avoid this road like the plague, but hopefully I will remember to avoid this until the road is resurfaced. Given the controversy regarding widening Coddington, along with the dreadful state of budgetary affairs for NY State, this probably won't be happening any time soon.

Today I felt like I really turned a corner on my season. I'm ready for some longer rides now, and I'll probably be joining the Finger Lakes Cycling Club for some of their Tuesday evening rides. Amateur racing is still a distant thought—hopefully I can find a kind soul to mentor me through the process.

Stats:

Distance: 39.17 miles

Avg. speed: 17.6 mph

Vertical ascent: 2815 ft.

Avg. heart rate: 145 bpm

Calories burned: 2491 kcal

Max. speed: 41.7 mph

Time: 2:13:41

Commuting Season Begins in Earnest

Spring has truly sprung, after a trying few days of cold, rain and fog. Today was therefore the perfect day to begin my circuitous bike commute, followed by a longer after-school ride, which is what I did regularly last spring and in the fall.

The day started off on the chilly side, 38 degrees to be precise. You warm up quickly when you climb up Cascadilla Place and up through the Cornell campus to Warren Rd. The only bother with this ride is the campus traffic and poor road conditions in the Northeast.

After school was blissful, a jacket free day in the upper-50s with sunshine and a north wind. Today I took 34 to Lansing, then back via Gulf Rd., which has a very steep and short uphill connecting back to Conlon Rd., a nice little add-on ascent before the long downhill along East Shore (34B). Best avg. speed of the season thus far, 19.8 mph, so all of the cross-training and indoor cycling seems to be paying off.

Today on my morning route, I passed a fellow teacher and district colleague on her bike (with trailer in tow), heading in the other direction toward her school on the hill. I rarely get the chance to chat with her because she's always on the move! Then, on my way back up the hill for my afternoon ride, I passed her yet again on her way back down the hill. I loved the symmetry of our encounters. I so admire and respect this teacher for her great work in the classroom, and also for her incredible athleticism. She is both a very competitive nordic skier and super-strong cyclist and runner, and quite the inspiration.

Today I received the bad news that a friend and colleague was injured in a car accident yesterday in Lansing. He was driving at 55 when someone not very far ahead of him pulled out of an intersection or a driveway, giving him next to no time to react. He ended up in the ditch, beaten and battered, with a totalled car. My thoughts are with him and his family, and I'm so thankful that he wasn't hurt worse. While I have no information about what led the other driver to make their unsafe turn, I can't think about the shocking statistics about distracted driving and texting while driving. A study released by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truck drivers who were texting were 23 times more at risk of a crash or near-crash event than non-distracted driving. Also, the average teen sends close to 3,000 text messages a month, and many of those messages have been sent or received while driving. These are particularly scary things to think about for us cyclists. No matter how safe we ride, we are at the mercy of drivers. I just hope that chronic cellphone users realize that no text is worth a human life.

Random photo time...it was bath night for the boys and for the bike!

Big Dairy Afternoon

No, I didn't gorge myself at Cayuga Lake Creamery, taking on their intimidating but delicious 50 flavor challenge. I left that task in the capable hands of one of my library colleagues. Instead, I headed to the land of big dairy, namely 20 miles north of Ithaca, around King Ferry, Genoa and Venice. This area reminds me so much of midwestern farming towns, with feed stores, silos, large open pastures and chip seal roads. It was a very sleepy Saturday in dairy country, with next to no traffic and nobody outside. It felt more like a Sunday than a Saturday.

Yesterday was somewhat raw, with temperatures starting out in the upper-40s, then gradually cooling down as I made my way to Terpening Corners and beyond. My heart rate was unusually high during the Remington/Sunset climb, probably due to the fact that this was my first ride in a week, and I was fighting off a virus. However, by the time I got to the hillclimb out of Lansing toward King Ferry, I was feeling pretty strong. This was an illusion, of course, as I had a massive tailwind all the way past King Ferry to Ledyard. Of course, this meant that I had to face a wicked headwind on the homestretch back toward Lansing and all the way down 34B to Ithaca, and I was certainly feeling it when I got home. This was my longest ride of the season, and I'm looking forward to ramping up the distances in the coming weeks.

Stats:

Distance: 44.83 miles

Avg. speed: 18.1 mph

Vertical ascent: 2367 ft.

Avg. heart rate: 147 bpm

Calories burned: 2525 kcal

Max. speed: 44.1 mph

Time: 2:29:02

I bought a pair of Pearl Izumi windblocker gloves yesterday at my LBS that slip over the regular summer bike gloves. This is an excellent alternative to padded full-finger cold weather bike gloves, which are twice the price. By the time I climbed the second hill out of Lansing, my hands were so toasty that I had to take them off.

While I was at the LBS, I noticed an absurd product that served as a reminder that there is no end to the development of niche market products. It's called the gel-bot from Hydrapak, and no, it's not a gelatinous robot. It's a 2-in-1 water/gel bottle that allegedly allows easy consumption of a gel without having to struggle with opening the gel pack and suffer from dreaded sticky finger syndrome. While this $16 item gets some decent reviews online, it's RIDICULOUS! I imagine the thinking of a triathlete who imagines that they might gain a five second advantage by not having to unzip a gel pack while racing. The product must be finding its market, since gel-bots have been selling for almost five years, evidently.

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

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Healing Rays

This afternoon was beyond gorgeous. After a long winter and a series of gray, gloomy days, an afternoon ride in the sparkling sunshine is almost more than I can bear.

This was my first ride of the year on Turkey Hill Rd. and Ellis Hollow territory. A student today told me that his mom was crazy because she gets up some insane hour to ride up Quarry Rd. (the steepest section on the elevation profile). I tried to explain that folks of a certain age desperately need to do such things, but he'll just have to wait a while to really understand! Anyway, I took mom's advice and did the Quarry climb, which is the first time I've gone up that hill. It certainly won't be my last. It's not as challenging as Yellow Barn Rd. and Ringwood Rd. in Dryden, but it does get the heart pumping.

Stats:

Distance: 17.29 miles

Avg. speed: 17.6 mph

Vertical ascent: 1539 ft.

Calories burned: 1257 kcal

Max. speed: 37.1 mph

Time: 59:04

Lansing, Turkey Hill, Quarry Rd Loop

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Last Minute Ride and Tread Issues

It was an off kilter day, with one boy in survival mode after a nasty tummy bug, and half the family awake through most of the night and stumbling through the morning. Luckily I at least got some sleep. Though I wasn't planning on riding today, two days of rest had me itching to go.

Somehow the inevitable rain was slow to arrive, so I hopped on my trusty ride for a quick Lansing climb. What lucky timing! The gusts in Lansing nearly knocked me off the bike, and halfway to Searles Rd., I started to get pelted with rain. Fortunately the heavy rain held off long enough to not make the final descent too worrisome, especially considering the state of my rear tire. It was one of those memorable rides that almost didn't happen, and turned out to be a pretty fun and intense ride, battling fierce winds and rapidly changing weather conditions. It was gratifying to see the odometer click up to 105 miles...good to be ahead of my expected pace for this time in the year.

This pattern of tire wear is partly the result of just so many miles on hill climbs and spinning my rear tire on some climbs. The trainer did equal parts damage as well, and I was waiting to replace the rear tire until indoor cycling season was clearly over.

After a thorough cleaning, I struggled mightily with the cursed new rear tire, and kept pinching my superlight butyl tubes. Three patches and two wicked thumb blood blisters later, the bike is ready to go again. Sometimes I feel like a total fool when I keep messing up a simple tire and tube change. You'd think I'd learn something after so many years of this, but these Vreds are such a tight fit.

Stats:

Distance: 20.07 miles

Avg. speed: 18.7 mph

Vertical ascent: 967 ft.

Calories burned: 1103 kcal

Max. speed: 33.5 mph

Time: 1:04:28

Odometer: 105 miles

Cool, gusty, rainy Lansing loop

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