Rest Day Relief

It's a rest day in the Tour de France, which mercifully also means a rest day for me in the Le Tour Challenge. Yesterday was the worst day for Lance in any tour since '99, with three crashes, one of them at the worst possible time. This happened just before the hardest climb of the day, just before heading up the Col de la Ramaz, and he was moving at around 40 mph when he clipped a pedal and went down hard. It wasn't surprising that he bonked after that, initially reaching the tail end of the peleton with the help of Brajkovic and Horner and others, but before long the group split apart, and there were some awfully grim looking teammates slogging it out for the rest of the stage. Those sure are the breaks, though now Lance gets to do something uncharacteristic and ride hard in support of Levi Leipheimer, and move him up in the GC standings. While I'd love to see Levi win a Tour, I don't see it happening. I'm rooting for Andy Schleck all the way, who has been riding a sensational tour, and seems to have Contador's number.

While Lance is diving down the leaderboard, I'm slowly slipping down the Le Tour Challenge leaderboard, though it's not at all surprising. If I could find the time to ride 80+ miles every day, things would be a little different, but I'm pretty pleased to be in third overall in my age category and 22nd overall. My last two rides have been utilitarian, and I've been trying to squeeze as much climbing out of the limited time available.

Yesterday I headed up Remington and Oakcrest, then headed straight toward the airport, slicing off a bunch of miles to get to Ringwood fast. The weather was spectacular, cool with low humidity when I left before 6:30. I saw something like 20 rabbits, as well as around a dozen deer. Those critters are fairly unpredictable, and with the recent bike/deer accident in mind, I'm very cautious in those circumstances.

On Saturday, I did something a bit unusual for me, changing my route at random and taking a road I've never climbed before. After climbing up Renwick and Wycoff to quickly get up to the Cornell campus, I took the familiar Game Farm/Ellis Hollow Creek route to get to the newly resurfaced Ringwood Rd. Wow, what a difference smooth asphalt makes on a climb. The roads were still wet after the welcome Friday night rainfall, and the water was beading off of the smooth surface. After turning south on Midline, I turned left on Irish Settlement road, a road that I've been on in the car before, but for some reason never tackled on the bike. Irish Settlement takes you right to the heart of Hammond Hill, a fantastic locale for nordic skiing. I took Irish Settlement all the way to Yellow Barn Rd., then meandered back via Triphammer and East Shore Dr. for that welcome long shallow descent.

The team covering the Tour on Versus have been talking a lot about the impact heat and humidity on riders during the climbs, and it's so true—taking on a big hill with cooler temps and low humidity puts you in a completely different mindset, and you feel so much stronger and more optimistic as you reach the final climb.

Stage 7 of Le Tour Challenge

Stage 8 of Le Tour Challenge

Cayuga Lake Loop in the Humid 90s

My quest to bike five of the finger lakes this summer encountered a roadblock last Thursday, due to yet another mechanical problem. I drove off to Watkins Glen to take on Seneca Lake, but only made it 25 miles when one of my rear spokes broke. I haven't broken a spoke in years, but I think the numerous rude railroad crossings did me in. 20-spoke racing wheels go way out of true when you lose a spoke, so no amount of loosening of brakes allowed me to proceed. Thankfully the amazing Chuck bailed me out, driving all the way to the Mr. Twistees in Dresden to pick me up. It was a perfect day for a ride, with low humidity and temperatures in the low 60s, so I was actually chilly while I waited and took in the view of the Seneca Meadows landfill in the distance. I marveled at the steady stream of garbage trucks heading toward the enormous landfill, and wondered how long it took to get so big.

After calling around ten bike shops around the state in vain for an aero spoke for my Mavic Aksium wheel,  I was pleased to learn that once again, Swan's had just what I was looking for. Keith was incredibly helpful in getting my wheel perfectly trued, and he used his very cool Park Spoke Tension Meter to set spoke tension accurately before doing the final truing. I love learning new things about bike repair, and Keith is incredibly talented and very willing to share his knowledge.

Today I continued my finger lakes quest undeterred, with the goal of tackling the Cayuga Lake loop, a long but familiar ride. If I really spent the time to study the forecast, I might have reconsidered, as the temperatures were blazing in the mid-90s with no relief from the sun. On balance, I'm glad that I went, in spite of the fact that I was suffering quite a bit between miles 50 and 75. I packed a sandwich, clif gels, power bars, and two bottles, and made just two stops along the way, one in Union Springs for liquids, and one at Taughannock for water and a quick dip in Cayuga Lake.

Somehow I thought that substantial weight loss meant that I could handle intense heat and high humidity better, which is probably the case, but I don't remember hurting so bad on a ride in a long time. In spite of stretching, I cramped up in my thighs and in my stomach, and generally flailed around for an hour or so before recovering somewhat. While I'm still a bit cramped, I'm not even close to understanding what cyclists in The Tour de France are going through daily, as they punish their bodies and ride to the edge of exhaustion, only to line up the next day for more pain, and that's not even factoring in all of the crashes in the early stages. It may sound foolishly romantic, but I think that regularly riding to the edge of your abilities is good medicine for the spirit. Perhaps that's what I'm really addicted to, in addition to the endorphins!

Stats:

Distance: 86.28 miles

Avg. speed: 19.8 mph

Vertical ascent: 4059 ft.

Calories burned: 6069 kcal

Max. speed: 37.7 mph

Time: 4:21:14