Category: cycling

I’m riding again, sort of…

For the 1 person out there that reads this, you may have noticed that my Cycling Log has some new entries in there in the last couple of months.  I have been doing some riding (and some, little, running) lately.  In May, my brother-in-law and I were talking about running in the Columbus (Half-)Marathon in Oct.  Unfortunately, shortly after we decided to do that, I tweaked my knee in one of my very early runs and was basically unable to do any training for nearly 2 weeks.  As a result, we’ve scrapped the half-marathon idea, but we do plan to ride a century in 2012 (not sure which one yet, part of me wants to do the first day of TOSRV, but part of my wants to do the Hancock Horizontal Hundred, we’ll discuss it when I visit my sister in Oct).  So, since the knee stopped hurting I’ve run a few times (including a couple of 5Ks, the first with Erin, Shane, and Jen, and Sherry and Maggie walking about 2 mi; the second I thought was going to be with Jen, but she and Sherry ended up walking with the dogs and I ended up running it alone).  Given that I hadn’t done a competitive run in well over 25 years (and I was at least 40-50 lbs lighter then), I guess I can’t complain too much about the results.  In the meantime, the legs are feeling a little better the last couple of rides, and the avg. speed is picking up, though not yet back over 15 for a full ride yet.  No, I won’t ride through the winter (at least not outdoors), but it has been kind of nice riding again.  I’ve ridden the Trek three times and the Stealth twice.  I need to get a new saddlebag for the Trek, I’m not sure what ever happened to the one I used to have, but I can’t find it now.  I also need to fix the fairing on the Stealth, I lost a nut during the last Stealth ride.  I’m also seriously considering getting a RoadID, that would be an improvement over the 15-year-old business card I carry with me now.  The new HRM is a Garmin with GPS, so I’m getting accurate maps/distances (including elevation changes that I never had before).  Maybe sometime I’ll post a route map like my flight tracks.  I’ll have to think about that some.  I probably won’t do that for any rides/runs that start from home, but if I do anymore competitive/organized runs/rides, I might do it then.  Here’s a picture (coming in to the finish line) from the Dash for Donations 5K in July.  I look better than I felt 🙂

Update: I’m including links to both of those 5Ks (neither of which were actually 5K).
Dash for Donations
Dog Jog

Hoops OD and first ride of the year

Yesterday, I enjoyed the Buckeyes win over Michigan State (after upsetting Wisconsin in the quarters) in the Big Ten tournament semi-finals.  Today, the temp is around 60°F, so I decided to get the bike out and take my first ride of the season.  You can see the info in the column to the left.  It was a bit chilly and I probably would have gone a bit further, but I got a headache about 0.5 miles into the ride, so I settled for the 6.4 mile loop.  Fortunately, the tail wind was for the last half of the ride (I like those), so it overall felt pretty good for the first ride of the year.  Now, I’m sitting down to watch the Big Ten championship game (Purdue-OSU), then the NCAA tournament selection show and later this week will be the annual hoops overdose days Thursday and Friday from noon-midnight (half days of vacation both days, so I don’t feel guilty).  Spring must nearly be here.

A bad day flying beats a good day doing just about anything else

Wow, I didn’t realize it had been so long since I had posted anything here.  I got the chance to go flying on 17 Aug.  I originally hoped to fly down to Charleston, WV to visit a friend from college that I haven’t seen in about 20 years, but at the last moment, she couldn’t get away to meet me for dinner, so I flew locally.  One of my goals, when I get the opportunity, is to land at an airport I’ve never been to.  On 17 Aug, I got the chance to fly KVTA-4I3-4I9-KMNN-KVTA which added 2 new airports to my list (which now totals 37, I didn’t land at 4I3, but I’ve been there before).  I was, however, reminded of why I prefer not to fly in the afternoon in August.  Even though it wasn’t as hot that afternoon (28°C, atl 30.04, winds calm) as it has been this week, it was still pretty bumpy at 3000 AGL.  It was a pleasant way to spend 1.2 hours (on the Hobbs).  I’ve also been trying (though not succeeding as much as I should) to ride my bike (I’ll have to put a picture of it up here soon).  My last ride wasn’t too much fun, for some reason I felt lousy before I even started and my legs felt like crap for the whole ride, but I still averaged over 15 MPH, so…  I didn’t get lots of sleep during the Olympics, often staying up to watch some of the live coverage until 01:00 or 02:00 (occasionally 03:00) EDT, I haven’t watched much of the Democratic convention, but I’ll probably post something political tomorrow.

TdF

I probably first heard about the Tour de France when I was a kid, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it until Greg Lemond won it in the early 80s.  I sort of followed it during the Lemond/Hinault/Indurain years, but it didn’t get a whole lot of coverage here in the US.  In 1996, one of my co-workers at the time was into it and it was much easier to follow then after the arrival of the internet.  Of course, there has been a lot more coverage of the race in the last decade with Lance’s arrival on the scene.  I must admit I haven’t been following it as closely this year as I’d like to.  I haven’t watched every stage on Versus like in past years, though I still check the results everyday.  I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed that Contador and Leipheimer won’t get a chance to defend their podium positions.  Especially since about half the Astana team are ex-Discovery.  I am, however, enjoying the fact that both American teams, Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle are doing very well (Kirchen rides for Columbia, and Vandevelde rides for Garmin-Chipotle).  I hope they keep it up, but things should really get interesting starting tomorrow (the first mountain stage) with  its finish at Hautacam.  That one, I will watch live.