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

2K Goal Met

It sure felt good to make my goal of 2,000 miles before summer vacation. Last night I chose a longer solo ride over racing—riding alone felt like the right decision, given my state of mind and my desire to make an arbitrary goal. Conditions were rainy and blustery, but the rain was intermittent, so it wasn't miserable at all. Once again, I chose the lovely lightly trafficked rural roads of Lansing, Locke and Genoa with a small extension to the previous ride in this direction.

In addition to topping 2K, I'm just under 115,000 vertical feet of climbing for the year, which I think is the more valuable stat. While I haven't set a goal for the year, I'm hoping that I'll be closing in on 4,500 miles by November.

Soaking, Windy, Gritty and Great

It's never easy to hop on the bike and head out on a ride when it's rainy and windy, but this one felt necessary, as it's my last chance for a long training ride before Sunday's Lakefest Race in Whitney Point.  Lots of Ithaca riders heading to this one, so it should be a friendly event and a good time.

Tonight's ride felt pretty utilitarian until I reached Ellis Hollow Creek Road. Finally, after getting away from traffic (which is unpleasant and a little intimidating in the wet) and loose gravel, the rain tapered off and the familiar and comforting rolling hills lulled me into a meditative state. The Ringwood climb just keeps getting better, and I barely noticed my freezing feet.

The good thing about working hard in the rain is that after a while you don't even notice it, you're generally warm enough even when it's in the 50s, and you don't have to worry about getting dehydrated. Of course, the down side is that when you return, your bike is gritty as are your clothes. I had the customary rings of grit around the my ankles and socks from all of the road junk getting thrown off of the drivetrain. Rides like this necessitate a complete cleaning and degrease, and tonight I adjusted the rear derailleur and brake cables and even trued the rear wheel, yet another meditative practice that yielded great results. Hopefully that will resolve the cursed chain-jumping-whilst-mashing-the-pedals-on-big-hills syndrome. I've done so much micro adjustments, so tonight I started from scratch and carefully adjusted the derailleur  to hopefully resolve the problem for good. The're are few things in the realm of cycling that are more frustrating than being inadvertently shifted to a higher gear in the midst of an intensive climb, and it really throws your concentration, confidence and timing.

Today I topped 1700 miles for the year, which started in early March. Vertical elevation thus far this year is just under 95,000 ft., and according to Garmin's questionable caloric data, I've burned around 105,000 calories in the last 3 months! No wonder I keep shedding pounds...

Oil slick Fishtail Fiasco & Double Puncture

What a strange cycling day filled with unexpected minor mishaps! First, on my morning workout/commute which takes me up through the Cornell campus, past the airport and back down the hill again, I experienced a most bizarre complete loss of traction. Roads were wet, with a noticeable oil slick on the shoulder for a two mile stretch along Pleasant Grove Rd. When I took a right on Hanshaw Rd. and stood on the pedals, my rear wheel started fishtailing violently back and forth. I stopped to see if I had a flat, since I had one yesterday, but the tire was fully inflated. So I stood once again, started fishtailing once more, and looked down to see my rear tire spinning in place and getting almost zero traction. It sort of reminded me of a scene from a Roadrunner cartoon. So I sat down, road through some gravel, and gingerly finished my ride, being extremely cautious about banking turns and descending. For the rest of the ride I thought about the horrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and about what happens to all of that oil released onto our roads. So sad to think that all of that nasty mess eventually makes its way down to Cayuga Lake. All the cars in the world spewing and consuming petroleum products can't be good living things. Sadly I fear that it will be a long time before our public transit infrastructure is as robust as it needs to be, and electric cars constitute the majority of vehicles on the roads.

The other incident involved an evening ride in the South Hill/Danby area. After dropping off my son at his Karate class on East King Rd., I headed East on East King, south on Ridgecrest, southeast on Nelson, then east on Danby Rd. until my time ran out and I had to turn around to do the pickup. I must have had some sort of premonition, because I prepared him for what to do if I didn't return in time, and that he should just assume that I had a flat. Sure enough, one mile before my destination I rolled over some shiny metallic object, resulting in a rare double puncture. I can't remember this ever happening to me before, and when I realized that I had less than ten minutes to pickup time, I just started running alongside my bike for the remaining mile! Luckily a new tire just arrived in the mail, since one tire was totally trashed with a blown out sidewall.

In addition, I had a puncture yesterday, so I'm hoping that this series of mishaps will leave me free and clear until at least after the Tour de Syracuse, especially considering the fact that I can't afford a spare wheelset for the race!