Mike's Bike Blog

2008 was a great year on the bike I racked up a total of 6,577.91 miles. I climbed 256,046.2 feet and I lost 35 pounds in 2008, but more importantly I reached a long term goal I set for myself in 2007, that getting my weight down to what I weighed when I played hockey in Europe. Not only did I get back to my hockey weight but I ended up beating it by 10 pounds. Back in January 2007 I set the long term goal of losing 105 pounds to get back down to 190. When I reached this goal this summer I rewarded myself with a used PowerTap from ebay.

I'm a firm believer of rewards when goals are met, it helps to keep me motivated. In fact my reward for achieving the 2008 goal of riding 10,000 feet in 1 day was a new jersey. I actually bought the Twin Six King of the Mountain Brew Pub jersey during the summer when they had a 3 day sale. I didn't even try it on until I conquered Tour das Hugel thus reaching the 10,000 foot mark.

Another 2008 goal that I met was riding a century. Once I had 100 miles under my belt I upped the ante and set a time constraint of riding a century under 5 1/2 hours. I bettered that mark by 10 minutes at the Outlaw Trail 100. One last achievement in 2008 was getting up the Limecreek hill (the Sisters) in 3 minutes 30 seconds. My best time of 2008 was 3 minutes and 23 seconds. When I first set the goal my time was a little under 5 minutes (4'52).

2009 Goals

Where to go from here? In 2009 I'd like to try my hand at actual racing from road racing, time trials and ultra endurance races. I'll still do some event rides here and there but won't be a focus. Right now I don't have any dilusions of grandure so I won't be making any bold statements that I finish in the top 10. This year I'll just be content with competing and learning the ropes of racing while focusing on training. Without further ado here's my goals for 2009:

• A 40K Time Trial in 1 hour or less
• Ride 200 miles in 1 day
• Ride up the 3 sisters in 3 minutes flat, (2008 goal was 3'30 current PR is 3'24)
• Join a team/club
• Ride the Outlaw Trail 100 in 5 hours or less
• Increase my FTP by 20%
• Increase my 5 second and 1 minute power to balance out my power profile
• Get my body fat tested so I know how much to lose. In High School my body fat percentage was 11%. Ideally I want to get it down to 13%, I'll have to see how realistic that is, but at this point I'd rather focus on body fat than solely on weight. If anybody has recommendations on where to get a true body fat test in Austin let me know. I want either the calipurs or one of the newer tests that use professional quality dual electron machines, not the consumer level scales that give you weight and body fat.
• Raise $1000 for Team Fatty and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

 

There you have it, this is what I'll be focusing on this year on the bike. So stay tuned as this is what this blog will be focusing on as well. Just for the record in case anybody clicks on the Fat Mike picture I lost the weight through working out and changing my diet, I have been accused of getting medical procedures to lose the weight, nope it was all bike and no fast food.

 

On the way to Colorado we came across the Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico. The road to the top was closed and it was a windy and cold day, we got there around 4:30 pm. The road to the top is closed to bicycles from 8am to 4pm when it is open to cars. My bike clothes were packed away and I would have had to practically unpack the entire car to get to them that I wasn't able to ride up it.

We left Colorado for Texas on the 1st and we made our way into New Mexico and to the volcano again around 9:30 am. Initially the family just wanted to go up to the top and see the volcano, but due to the holiday the road was closed. This time I was better prepared and had my bike stuff right on top. I changed and got the bike ready to ascend up my first volcano.

As I started off my legs were a little tired from my trip up to Estes Park, but even worse was the churning in my stomach from breakfast. My first egg McMuffin in several years wasn't sitting well. Jennifer and the boys were walking up the road and I quickly passed them. Almost to the top I realized I didn't have a camera with me. I got to the top looked around and headed down.

The decent was a little scary, there were a few patches of ice on the backside of the volcano. I also made it a little more treacherous since I didn't have the rear break fully closed from when I took the rear tire off. This made breaking an issue, I stopped and closed the break to get a little more grip. I also need to change the break pads on the Fuji, they are quite worn and are in need of replacing. About a mile down the road I came to Jennifer and the boys still making their way up. I grabbed the camera from Jennifer and went back up to the top to take pictures.

From the visitor center to the top of the volcano it is 2.1 miles and the average grade is 5.7% with a max of 13.2%. The total climb is only 665 feet. It took me 17 minutes to get to the top averaging 7.4 mph. On the way down it took me 5 minutes to get down averaging 23 mph with a max of 39 mph. This was a great way to start 2009, it's not everyday I get to ride up an extinct volcano.

I ended 2008 with a great ride from Loveland, CO to Estes Park. The total climb was 6300 feet in 32 miles. This was a really different hill ride than what I'm use to. Austin's hills are a lot shorter, .5 to 1 mile in length, but they are a lot steeper. The climb up the mountain pass had an average grade of 3%, compared to the 12% of most the Austin hills. At the top of the pass there are several switch backs that were the steepest sections with an average grade of 12.6% in the .7 miles.

I felt really good the entire time, the altitude started to affect me on the switch backs as I started to get a headache and really had a hard time breathing. The scenery up the canyon was breathtaking. Just before Glenn Heaven I came across a Big Horn Sheep along side the road. He stared at me as I stopped about 100 yards before him as I got my camera out. The first thought that went through my head was weather or not he would think my bike was a skinny sheep with the handle bars and the yellow color. It could have went a couple of ways if he mistook me for a sheep and both of them would have been bad. As I approached he went up the mountain, he couldn't keep up, I dropped him.

View from the top looking down into Estes Park

Here I am in Estes Park.

This was a great way to end a great year on the bike, it was an epic ride and one I'll always remember. The family met me in Estes Park and we went into Rocky Mountain National Park and went sledding.

I've been up in the Rocky Mountains getting some altitude training. I've been riding around Denver the last two days. Today we made our way to Loveland and I got out for a ride and headed out West of Loveland. Since I didn't know what the weather was going to be like in Colorado I left the Orca at home and brought the Fuji. Since I thought I might run into snow I didn't want to expose the Orca to road salt plus I brought the trainer and I don't put the Orca on the trainer. I forgot to move over my saddle bag with my CO2, tube, patch kit and tire levers. When in Denver I went to Bicycle Village and bought a Blackburn AirFix CO2 inflator that has a tire lever and an assortment of allen wrenches and a chain tool. I was somewhat prepared for a flat, or so I thought...

When we arrived in Loveland the weather was 57 degrees, but when I walked out for the ride it felt a little cooler so I went back in and put on arm warmers. I got out of Loveland and at mile 7 I felt the wobble of my back tire that is the sign that I had a flat. I got off and verified that I indeed had a flat. I got out the Blackburn AirFix and got the tire lever and attempted to get the tire off. I quickly found out that it is very difficult if not impossible to get the tire off with only 1 tire lever. Not sure what Blackburn was thinking with only putting 1 tire lever on the device. I'm also questioning the functionality of the allen wrenches, it was very difficult to put on bottle cages with the Blackburn.

The sun went behind a cloud while I fumbled with my 1 tire lever predicament, the temperature was quickly dropping. My fingers were starting to go numb as I wore a pair of fingerless gloves. Luckily a roadie came along and he provided another tire lever. He also traded my tube for one of his tubes when he saw that I was only carrying a patch kit. We got the tire changed and with the dropping temperature I conceded defeat and turned around and head back into Loveland with my savior.

We chatted a bit as we made our way back into town. I gladly offered my rear wheel to my new roadie friend and pulled him back into town into a stiff head wind. I'm glad to see the brotherhood of roadies is strong in Colorado and the code of conduct of helping out a fellow rider is adhered too. Thank you Scott Gudmanson for the help.

On Saturday I was expecting about 6 or 7 other riders to join in the WFRR to Burnet that was called on the Hammerhead bikes forum. I was surprised to see a head count of 16 riders push off from the Leander High School parking lot. The ride turned out to be agnostic as well, there were several shop owners and shop teams represented. Out on Round Mountain we were joined briefly by Southwest Cycle Sport as well. The first 30 miles we averaged 19.2 mph with some spirited sections hitting 24+ mph.

I was still recovering from my head cold and at times was a little snotty, which was making it a little difficult to breath, but manageable. All and all I was feeling good. Then we hit Oatmeal, TX. I'm not sure if Oatmeal is really a town, it does show up on google maps, but as far as I can tell there's nothing there besides a church and a cemetery. Oh yeah and a steep hill. Oatmeal is the place where I almost sagged out during the Armadillo Hill Country Classic with mechanical problems. This time out of the blue, I started to have knee problems. My left knee froze up on me and wouldn't straighten up. As it slowly came back I found myself completely dropped from the main group. Luckily, Sol and Scott from Austin Bikes slowed up and got me back to the group. Whenever there was a roller of any size I couldn't put out much power without my knee hurting. I was fine on the flats and downhill for the most part.

As we approached Burnet some in the group called for a pit stop, but being so close the group ruled we would roll on. There was some banter amongst the group that real races don't need to stop to pee. Next thing I know Sol is preparing to relieve himself. That was all the motivation I needed to kick it up a gear and not to be hanging off the back.

We stopped in Burnet and the Shell station on Hwy 29 to refill. After a short break we headed East on 29. This was the busiest section of the route but there is a big shoulder for the 4 miles of riding on 29. Just outside of Burnet there's a pretty substantial climb that averages 7.5% and maxes out at 9.1%, the group lost me again as I had no power to get up the hill. This time Cody from Hammerhead Bikes was waiting for me to make sure I made the turn onto CR 333 and to get me back to the group. I told him about my lame knee and that I could get back on my own, something I would regret later.

I yo-yo ed back and forth with the group, whenever I had to put out more than 120 watts my knee would hurt.  There was a direct correlation between the amount of watts produced to the amount of pain. I'd catch up to the group whenever someone had a flat and the group stopped for repairs. I would unclip from the pedal and do some one legged pedaling to give the knee a rest. Somewhere along CR 1174 I finally lost contact with the group for the last time.

As if knee pain wasn't enough on CR 284 I got a flat tire which I changed and got on my way. Then the final nail in the coffin of the ride happened, another flat. This was a big problem as I seemed to only have 1 CO2 cartridge. With no means to inflate the tire I had to call for the team car to come get me. This posed another problem, I knew I was about 8 miles away from my car, but I didn't really know how to tell Jennifer how to get me. I knew I was at the intersection of CR 282 and CR 281 but didn't know how to get there in relation to Baghdad road. This is the biggest drawback to the Garmin Forerunner 305, when in navigation mode no streets are viewable. The small black and white screen only shows the path to follow. This is a good excuse to ask Santa for a Garmin 705 with the maps add on. After some google map work and Jennifer following the route on roadbikerides.com she was able to ascertain where I was.

I walked the bike down 281 towards Baghdad Road, the knee felt better to walk than ride. It probably was a blessing in disguise as not to further damage my knee. A warm soul in a gold dualie pulled over and offered me a ride. I took him up on the offer to Baghdad road where Jennifer and the rest of the pit crew picked me up.

In the past when my knee has went lame like this I was not able to walk up the stairs without the sharp pain. This time my knee did no hurt walking up the stairs so that's a good sign. Nor did I have any pain at night like I've had in the past. I'll spin an easy gear for the next few days to see how the knee holds up and start back up with the weights. I was laxed with the leg extensions the past couple of months. The leg extensions don't really offer a lot when it comes to cycling but it does help round out the quads and is involved with keeping the kneecap aligned.

Next week there's talk of a Dripping Springs WFRR ride in case anybody is interested.