Blackstar Motorway Observations
This last Saturday I rode Blackstar-Motorway with Troy, John and Andrew. I was able to set a new personal best by 5 minutes (2:42), which made me pretty happy. I could go on and on about the details of the ride, but I figured I'd focus on a few interesting things that happened during the ride.
In order of how they are coming to mind right now ...
1. Hyperventilation. I don't think I've ever experienced this on a ride until this past Saturday. After getting to the white ball after Beek's I started to breath irregularly. I had asthma as a kid and I remember having attacks and the experience on Saturday kind of reminded me of that.
I was watching a football game Sunday night and the topic of hyperventilation came up. I think that is more accurate in describing what happened to me. I was breathing really fast for no apparent reason. I wasn't pushing - in fact I had just stopped to put on my sunglasses - but I found myself gasping for air and taking a lot of short breaths. Not sure what caused this, but it subsided after 5-10 minutes.
2. I like to turn right. I looked at the tread on my tires and realized that it was worn down considerably on the right side of the tire. The left was virtually untouched while the right side was falling apart.
I guess that just means I'm considerably more comfortable turning right. I need to focus on left hand turns then.
This is actually good news though because for a long time I was afraid to lean into _any_ turns. I would replace my tires because the middle of the tread would wear out while the sides would be like new.
3. There is such a thing as warming up. About one third of the way up to Beek's I started to feel a lot of resistance on the bike. My legs weren't moving as freely and the energy I was spending felt like it might have been too much. Instead of backing off I pushed through it a bit and hoped for the best.
My time to Beek's wasn't the best (1:03), but the trip from Beek's to the Motorway was a new personal best by about 5 minutes. I can only attribute that to the concept of "warming up" on the climb up to Beek's.
Sometimes I get scared to push too hard for fear of bonking. I'm starting to learn that sometimes pushing hard just gets you warmed up. I'm still learning where that line is for me.
4. A funny story ... Andrew passed me early in the climb to Beek's and I was surprised and impressed at the same time. He took a pretty definitive lead in front and kept a consistent pace.
I debated in my head what was really going on. I figured it was one of two things. First thought was that he was pushing hard to take the lead. Second thought was that he was taking it easy and his "comfortable" pace was just that much faster than mine.
When I'm on the bike and thinking about catching someone (as I always am) I need to know which of the two options it is. If he is just cruising and I'm pushing a little, then I'll just give up. There is no joy in going as hard as I can to catch him - only to have him turn it up when he realizes I'm getting close. On the flip side if he is pushing hard, then it's a battle of wills. Who is willing to suffer more to stay ahead.
Since Andrew rides with such a high cadence (his pedals go around fast) it always appears as if he is just cruising.
I decided that I might as well try to catch him so I attacked in Hidden Valley and came close to riding up on him. Hahaha. Then the good times began. I was really close to him and was debating whether or not to try and unload to pass him when I turned a corner after Hidden Valley to find a cloud of dust. That's right. A cloud of dust.
The reason a cloud of dust is funny is that it just doesn't happen on climbs. I mean when I turned the corner it looked like someone had just gone DOWNHILL not up. I then looked up to see that Andrew had grown the gap between us. I wanted to give up right there, but I kept a fairly aggressive pace in the hopes that he would burn out. He didn't.
As it turns out he had pushed really hard for half a minute on purpose to space us out. Hahaha. He played mind games and won! Hahaha. Good times.
Next time I won't fall for it Andrew! :D
On a side note, I'm reading a book called "Lance Armstrong's War". I needed to kill a lot of time while waiting for an oil change, so I figured I'd read a book. So far as a whole it's not all that interesting. There are however several nuggets about bike racing in general that I find fascinating.
For example, the writer claims that pro road riders never walk anywhere. They refuse to walk because it wastes energy. Also they never walk up stairs because again - that wastes energy. They also apparently have insanely strict diets and some of them even shower in their jerseys because they think water on the skin will make their muscles weaker. Hahaha. Incredible.
In order of how they are coming to mind right now ...
1. Hyperventilation. I don't think I've ever experienced this on a ride until this past Saturday. After getting to the white ball after Beek's I started to breath irregularly. I had asthma as a kid and I remember having attacks and the experience on Saturday kind of reminded me of that.
I was watching a football game Sunday night and the topic of hyperventilation came up. I think that is more accurate in describing what happened to me. I was breathing really fast for no apparent reason. I wasn't pushing - in fact I had just stopped to put on my sunglasses - but I found myself gasping for air and taking a lot of short breaths. Not sure what caused this, but it subsided after 5-10 minutes.
2. I like to turn right. I looked at the tread on my tires and realized that it was worn down considerably on the right side of the tire. The left was virtually untouched while the right side was falling apart.
I guess that just means I'm considerably more comfortable turning right. I need to focus on left hand turns then.
This is actually good news though because for a long time I was afraid to lean into _any_ turns. I would replace my tires because the middle of the tread would wear out while the sides would be like new.
3. There is such a thing as warming up. About one third of the way up to Beek's I started to feel a lot of resistance on the bike. My legs weren't moving as freely and the energy I was spending felt like it might have been too much. Instead of backing off I pushed through it a bit and hoped for the best.
My time to Beek's wasn't the best (1:03), but the trip from Beek's to the Motorway was a new personal best by about 5 minutes. I can only attribute that to the concept of "warming up" on the climb up to Beek's.
Sometimes I get scared to push too hard for fear of bonking. I'm starting to learn that sometimes pushing hard just gets you warmed up. I'm still learning where that line is for me.
4. A funny story ... Andrew passed me early in the climb to Beek's and I was surprised and impressed at the same time. He took a pretty definitive lead in front and kept a consistent pace.
I debated in my head what was really going on. I figured it was one of two things. First thought was that he was pushing hard to take the lead. Second thought was that he was taking it easy and his "comfortable" pace was just that much faster than mine.
When I'm on the bike and thinking about catching someone (as I always am) I need to know which of the two options it is. If he is just cruising and I'm pushing a little, then I'll just give up. There is no joy in going as hard as I can to catch him - only to have him turn it up when he realizes I'm getting close. On the flip side if he is pushing hard, then it's a battle of wills. Who is willing to suffer more to stay ahead.
Since Andrew rides with such a high cadence (his pedals go around fast) it always appears as if he is just cruising.
I decided that I might as well try to catch him so I attacked in Hidden Valley and came close to riding up on him. Hahaha. Then the good times began. I was really close to him and was debating whether or not to try and unload to pass him when I turned a corner after Hidden Valley to find a cloud of dust. That's right. A cloud of dust.
The reason a cloud of dust is funny is that it just doesn't happen on climbs. I mean when I turned the corner it looked like someone had just gone DOWNHILL not up. I then looked up to see that Andrew had grown the gap between us. I wanted to give up right there, but I kept a fairly aggressive pace in the hopes that he would burn out. He didn't.
As it turns out he had pushed really hard for half a minute on purpose to space us out. Hahaha. He played mind games and won! Hahaha. Good times.
Next time I won't fall for it Andrew! :D
On a side note, I'm reading a book called "Lance Armstrong's War". I needed to kill a lot of time while waiting for an oil change, so I figured I'd read a book. So far as a whole it's not all that interesting. There are however several nuggets about bike racing in general that I find fascinating.
For example, the writer claims that pro road riders never walk anywhere. They refuse to walk because it wastes energy. Also they never walk up stairs because again - that wastes energy. They also apparently have insanely strict diets and some of them even shower in their jerseys because they think water on the skin will make their muscles weaker. Hahaha. Incredible.
posted by prevents email spam at
9:39 AM
2 Comments:
Dust story: Flipside perspective.. :)
At the beginning I decided to try to keep my pace at 6mph, which meant keeping it in my middle ring. It was uncomfortable on climbs, but I rested on the flatter sections. I could hear Ryan & Troy talk about my pace. Next thing I know, I can't see anyone behind me.
I stopped in Hidden Valley & got off my bike to tighten my rear tire to fix a ghost shifting problem. (Queue Ryan Discouragement, because I didn't tell him this) Next thing I know, Ryan is pretty close.
I know what's going through Ryan's head because I read his Blog, so at the next turn I decided to hit the gas. I pedaled as hard as I could until the point when I thought Ryan would be coming around the corner, and then I slowed down to regular pace. I Knew he'd see the gap after pushing so hard for so long & it would crush his spirit.
It pretty much did.
I told him about the plan and we had a pretty good laugh. Next time he won't fall for it.
OH NOEZ!!!!!!!
You stopped to look at your rear tire?!?! Everything I did to catch you is now worth _NOTHING_. Hahaha.
I'll just have to train harder to catch you now. I just got a spam email about performance enhancing drugs. Normally I would delete it, but now it's got me thinking ...
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