Perfect Ride and a Perfect Day for Riding.

It was pretty much a perfect autumn day in November here.  The air was nice and brisk and there was a slight breeze.  With it being teachers convention this weekend, it meant that there was no school buses to watch out for.  Generally as a whole, there was not a whole lot of cars on the road today for some reason.  But what ever, I’ll take it.  Felt particularly inspired to get some hilly miles in today.  Legs felt great and pretty much attacked the whole day, and had the people who went with me in some form of difficulty.

November is one of my favorite months to ride, a lot of the people who ride for recreation around here have put their bikes away for the winter and won’t head back out until mid  April when things start to get warmer.  November is also the calm before the storm here in NJ.  The weather will start to deteriorate more rapidly come December and will stay crummy until late feb/early march when things start to improve some.  Sure I still ride December through February/March, it’s just that the nature of the ride changes a little.

I’m generally used to longer road rides from March through November, but December through to the end of February, I tend to cut my road rides down to 30-40 miles a day and more intense.  Which despite the shorter days, the cold temps will make your body work harder to keep warm which will result in more of an equal output when compared to my longer rides when the weather is warmer.

The bike setup does not really change much during this time.  Right now I just threw on a set of cheaper road tires in order to save some tread on my Grand Prix 4 seasons for the 3 cold months.  I expect that the tires I threw on will be used up by time of December 1st.  When things dry some, I’ll probably get something higher up the food chain tire wise.  Not about to use my Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CX’s for road use.  I have those for track use and don’t want to ruin them on the roads around here.

Anyways, back on topic,  my current rear wheel has hit the 20,000 mile mark during today’s ride.  The nice thing is that this wheel is still going very strong, thus having no plans on a replacement wheel just yet.  It was such a great day, that the sunset was even nice.

Seems I alway contradict myself when I say I’m going to ditch the mtb.

Because sure enough a few days later I wind up feeling like riding it and without failure, I wind up really enjoying the ride.  I seriously need to get that sorted out.  Biggest issue I think is that I need to accept the fact that I am no longer that competitive with it and I’m still trying to ride at a level that I just can’t anymore because I now have become more road oriented and have slown down reflex wise aka, I may have hit the wall.  Don’t get me wrong I love riding on the road, but the road miles after a few days does get to be mentally straining on me and physically hard on my back.  With that I guess I need to become a bit more balanced.

It struck me today that I am just trying too hard to impress people with my riding with the mtb, when the only person I really need to satisfy with my riding is myself.  What I’m saying I guess is that I am forgetting to have fun.  Which is a really bad thing, you have got to have fun with something in order to be willing to keep doing it.  Which is why I seem to keep falling back to the fixed gear, it’s fun for me.

So I guess what I need to do is to stop being so critical with my own riding and just have fun and not care what others critique my riding on.  After all, all one can be is them self.  Am I a better road rider now, obviously, but I never have any plans on racing or bringing that to a higher level, which is not putting any weight on me, which is why it’s fun for me.  Now that I’ve accepted this, I should be able to just go out and have fun on the mtb, which should equate to many more trail rides and urban sessions this year.

Just how devoted to cycling are you?

Been thinking about this one for awhile now and am just getting around to putting this up.  Just how devoted are you with cycling?

Do you go out and get a ride in regardless of weather? Yes, the weather has to be something that has traffic at a standstill or a full blown hurricane or blizzard.  Do I prefer riding in perfect conditions, well duh obviously.

What type of cycling are you devoted to? I used to be devoted to the mtb, but seeing as how the mtb no longer provides a smile for me and that I am thinking of parting it out, I have to say that I prefer my fixed gear to the point I am planning on building up two more fixed gears.

Are you the type of person to get a ride in even when it’s getting dark? Yes, that is what reflective clothing and lighting is for.

Do you get grouchy if you can’t get a ride in every day? Yes/no, if the weather is way too bad (and for me it has to be extremely bad) that I deem it unrideable, then I am not grouchy and can substitute it with working on the bike.

Would you consider using a trainer or stationary bike? No, no, no.  I’m the kind of person who needs to be moving and going somewhere in order to ride.  And with knowing my preferences with weather, I see no need for a stationary bike or trainer.

Do you ever see yourself breaking off from riding everyday? For certain I can’t say, but I can say that I am fairly certain that I have no plans on breaking from my routine anytime in the near future.  The road riding is proving to be perfect for me now, and if I want to change things up I can simply just change route, change pace, change the drop bars to the bull horns, drop the brake and go to the track for some track time.  So, not one of my road rides will ever be the same day in and day out where with the mtb, there was just so much one can do and I was no longer progressing and needed something new to take on.  With that I guess I will probably never really get tired of riding on the road seeing with how easy it is to change things up and make new challenges.

Yes, pretty much answered my own questions and yes I am very much devoted to cycling.  If you would like, you could answer them yourself.

It is here that I must put my foot down.

I’ve had it with people who think just because that they are great runners that they should be equally good on a bike right from the get go.  Plus when they discover that they are not equally as good they are quite whiny about the bike and say that it’s the bike and not them since you use the same muscles in your legs.

First from the get go, different muscles are being used as well and those other muscles just are not built up as much as the ones you run with.  Second, it is not the bike, trust me on this, the motor is weak, and the only thing operating a bike is your legs and arms.  Ok, it’s simple you are not going to be fast on a bike until you log on a lot of time on the bike.  Let me ask you this, were you fast right out of the box with running or did you get faster as you got stronger?

This Bothers Me.

Don’t know about others, but I feel the need to vent, and I have likely vented about this in the past so please bear with me.

It’s fairly often that I hear this come from a few really snooty individuals where I live and it’s not always aimed towards me, but of other people.  Putting one’s ride down because of parts spec, drivetrain type and frame tubing.  Just because it is not the latest or greatest thing.  I have one person who weekly bothers me that I should go get a geared road bike instead of that singlespeed that I have.  While it does bother me, I can take comfort in knowing that I have been on a road ride with this guy and made him look bad.  He’s bugging me to go geared because he knows that I would fly on a geared road bike and would make a great road bike racer.

While I have thought about getting one in order to shut him up, I’ve thought about the road bike racing and to be honest, it’s not in my cards.   The velodrome is a better fit for me and that the lifespan of a carbon frame with how I ride on the road and the road conditions here would equate to be about the proportional length of a Robot Chicken episode.  That and I just don’t have the ability to be that disciplined to take part in a road race.  I like to go hard for long distances and to go to the beat of my own drum and not listening to some coach who thinks his approach to things would be the best for me.  Sorry, I don’t believe in all this new fangled bull.  I just want to ride my bike for how long and how fast as I please.  However I would love to do an hour record attempt before I die.

What really irritates me though is when they try to steer people towards a bike that is going to be way too much bike for their needs.   For example had one newbie in deciding on a road bike and there is a guy who is trying to steer him towards a bike that was going to be way too much bike for him and for his budget, the guy isn’t  even an employee.  If he was trying to get a job by making a big sale, he wouldn’t have been offered a job.  The bike he was trying to sell was $10,000 to a newbie who had never used a road bike before and the last time he rode a bike was in the 1970’s on a schwinn stingray.

Fortunately, the person didn’t listen to him and wound up getting what fit his needs and budget at the moment the best and  what felt best to him with his test ride.

What a boat load of fail.

This isn’t about the Somali Pirates trying to hijack a French Naval Flagship, while true it was pretty funny to read.

This one is in regards to the weather again.  Forecast says sunny, high of 70.  Right now; raining, temp of 61 degrees.  Why do I even pay attention to the weather forecast anymore it almost seems like they are always wrong.

What’s this, a new post?

I know,  very rare as of late.

It’s been an utter disaster this year so far with the mtb weather wise.  As soon as things dry up, we get 3-4 straight days of rain and at times 7 days straight.  This pretty much means that I’ve been getting a ton of road riding in this year.  Which isn’t a bad thing really, it’s allowed me to improve some aspects with my riding that needed a little bit of improving.

My weekday rides are averaging 40 miles, and my weekend road rides are usually between 70-110 miles.  So it could be entirely possible that I may just put the mountain bike in mothballs for the rest of the year and ride road for the rest of the year.

In regards to the road riding, I’m still riding the pista.  Which isn’t much of a surprise since I can’t get myself up to getting a geared road bike.

The big surprise is that I have a girlfriend now.  She’s been great for me, she keeps me happy.

So with that.

Siu, I love you very much.

And for the rest of you, until next time.

Why don’t people get it?

This is really irritating to me and I just can’t stand it anymore.  Why skid when riding the trails?  I can understand if it’s an emergency stop, but come on do you need to lock the rear wheel up for every single corner that requires only light braking?   When braking, modulate the rear brake don’t just grab and lock up.  There is no need to skid on a trail, it is a sign of recklessness and can result in a greater impact on the condition of the trail.

To those that skid on the trails I ask why do you do it?  Are you following the lbs’s advice and running the tires at the max psi or are you going by the word of an old, out of date book?

Well this was a change.

And expect to see some changes here in the next day or so.

The bike setup has changed.  For the first time since 2005, I am using a Marzocchi fork, still singlespeed so no changes there.  The mountain kings I was using gave up the ghost. and replaced them for a pair of folding 26×2.35 Maxxis Minion DHF’s.  Went away from the blue scheme I was running with on the bike. I’m now running a red white and silver get up on the mtb.

I’m happy with how the bike rides now, gained a few grams on the bike’s weight, but nothing to lose sleep over though.

Lately, due to the rain, I’ve been riding the fixed gear, but the next couple of days look promising so it’s very likely that they will be spent on the mtb.

First post in awhile.

Haven’t been too much in the mood to type much  lately, but feel like making an effort tonight.  Been busy as of late with a bunch of projects and being that the trails have finally dried out from the snow, I’ve been getting a bunch of time in on the mtb as well and when not on the mtb been hammering out a bunch of miles on the fixed gear.

What’s new with me is a change in fork  and a change in preference with the  geometry, I’m finding myself now prefering a lower front end and have gone from a set of high rise handlebars to mid rise.  I’ve also made the transition into full time clipless from platforms.   I just feel a little more comfortable at speed and in rougher conditions when using the clipless pedals instead.  In the past, I’ve usually flip flopped with the pedals depending on weather and trail conditions, but now find myself at ease with one set of pedals.

Somehow, I’ve found some extra speed and am hitting corners harder than I usually did in the past, so there has been some progression over the winter months.

Speaking of winter, despite it being a complete PITA this year to plan trail rides with the weather conditions, when I was able to keep to a steady riding schedule, the rides were great, found my love for winter riding again.  So I’m glad to see spring be here finally, but I am kind of sad to see winter go.

So all in all, it’s been good.