Saturday in Frederick County

Great ride with some AVC members!

Lots of climbing (some long ones) including Harp Hill and High Rock, lots of time on the bike, great scenery, some FAAST descents, and if that wasn't enough lots of yellow sign sprints for those who were so inclined. Stephen wrote 5700 feet of climbing and 67 miles in his e-mail; I have not pulled the data from my Powertap yet. Over five hours, but riding time was actually closer to four. The faster climbers had more rest as they waited at the top of the climbs, and we also had a couple of other rest stops, including a stop to assist an older lady who was having car trouble and was stranded in rural Maryland.

Lance's workout had him trying to stay under 300 watts, which made the long climbs a challenge. For extra "difficulty" points Lance was riding an 11-23 (I use an 11-26 and was wishing I had brought a 10-28 (does that even exist?)). Seems like a good way for Lance to get a big gear workout! How about a fixed gear, Lance! I thought Kyle was doing a similar workout to Lance, but given the climbs and yellow line sprints I don't think he stayed below 300 watts much :-)

Nat was having an easy day except for a few climbs and sprints where something tempted Nat to actually turn it on. New Latitude member Brian makes long climbs look incredibly easy (well, he was making it look easy for the relatively short times I could stay in sight of him), despite riding an old heavy aluminum bike. He's going to be even faster on a light CAAD9. New Latitude member Stephen also climbs really well, rolls really well, and apparently LOVES to sprint too. Kyle just loves to sprint, and then sprint some more. There are WAY TOO MANY yellow signs in Frederick County! And Kyle and the AVC guys seem to know where each of them is, especially the ones just around a corner!

AVC'er John Olinski goes downhill like a missile, he uses an interesting aero position, sitting on the top tube underneath the seat. I have no idea where his knees and hands go, or how he steers.

Wheelsucker data:
Ride time: 3:57:16 (slightly shorter than Kyle, 'cause I was waiting at the top of the climbs while he was still riding up)
67.1 miles
2736 calories burned
climbing ~ 5700 feet
watts average = 195 watts, max = 977 watts
speed average = 15.7 mph, max = 49.8 mph
number of yellow sign sprints > 10

Fixie=Russian Roulette?

Question: When is riding a Fixie like playing Russian Roulette?
Answer: When you ride it for the Saturday D'ville group ride.

Yesterday after ACE asked about who was riding today, there were a few exchanges about the possible pace for the D'ville ride. I think I proposed "sane and steady", whatever that means, but Ian responded correctly with "Give it up, old habits die hard". Having been riding my fixie a bit, I think sure, I'm ready to give it a try, especially if others are doing the same (Ian, Doug, Greg et al). I'll just take my chances with the pace - Russian Roulette.

So I show up at the park and ride with my Steamroller. Given that I have a Corolla and no rack, I can only bring one bike, so I am comitted. At this point, I'm feeling like I have a revolver against my head with 1 bullet somewhere in the rotation. I'm looking around and not seeing any other fixies. I try to talk Tom Aga into riding his fixie (he's smart, he brings 2 bikes). No dice. Uh oh. Luckily Ian and Doug roll in on theirs. Click. Nothing. Whew.

We roll out down the hill and onto Patuxent River Road. Then the pace starts to ramp up with some of the ususal "we have to go at some ungodly power level (for me anyway) beacause that's what my coach says" types on the front. Uh oh. Then as the gap opens up they go off the front and the rest of the groups sits back, "steady and sane". Click. Nothing. Whew.

The pace continues sane and steady, even Bill Neumann appears to be enjoying it! Then we get to Brooks Woods; towards the latter part of it, I'm starting to spin pretty hard, some gaps start. Uh oh. After the turn, it slows and regroups, and I make it comfortably to the store. Click. Nothing. Whew.

We leave the store with ACE leading the charge. All of a sudden I realize that I'm working really hard to keep the wheel in front of me. ACE is doing an interval. Uh oh. He finishes before we get to Boyds turn and I catch my breath. Click. Nothing. Whew.

At Boyds Turn, there is some quick talk about who, if anyone, is doing the shorter route. Looks like no one is, so I keep following. The tandem goes by and I'm on the wheel. We start going down the first big roller, I'm spinning at a gazillion rpms and about 37 mph. Uh oh. Big gap. Click. BANG!

I'm gone. Oh well, I made it 4 rounds. I figure its all for the better anyway as it will spare me the indignation of being left for dead over the wall. After the first roller, there's a cut in the road so I quickly do a 180 and high tail it for Boyds Turn as the north wind alone all the way from North Beach would not be pleasant. I'm enjoying my "sane and steady" pace through Fairhaven, up the horse farm, over the wall and as I come the stop, I see some ABRT jerseys up the road. Sweet, I guess some people DID take the short cut. I work hard to catch them. It's Ian, Doug, Heff and John. This will really help with the wind. Nice to have some company all the way back.

The "beach crowd" gets back a few minutes after us, so they must have been hauling the mail to make up 6 miles in a little over an hour as we were not lollygagging. All in all, a nice December ride, and I'm better for the bloody experience.

The NOT Bill Neumann Ride ;-)

After Bill posted an e-mail saying that while others might do the ride this week, he would not be leading it, I showed up anyway.

So I get up at 5:20am, drive 2.5 hours ... I was in NJ .... and at 9:00am I am sitting in my car in a snow and ice covered parking lot, watching the snow-driven wind....and no one else is there. Hmm. Plan B is a fixie ride at noon with Alex Pline.

Alex and I rode most of the Pete Penzell Saturday ride route, on our fixed gears, starting from Alex's home at around noon. The temperature was above freezing -- barely -- and it was windy. We made up for this by cutting the ride slightly short, and heading to downtown Annapolis and hot chocolate at The Hard Bean.

For those keeping score, both Alex and I are currently running close to 74 gear inches.

The Original Snow [Patapsco] Valley Ride

Greetings all, Today the MTB team banded together once more and made a terrible, windy, cold and brutal day into a very very solid ride opportunity.

After arriving at the CCBC tennis courts on my cross bike, the Raleigh RX1.0, I tried hard to tell myself the pain was just weakness leaving the body. After standing in the cold, we rolled and thankfully, gracious Mike did not take us on the technical loop right off. The technical stuff isn't a problem for me on my normal bike, but on a road bike, a little much.

After a few hard, hard diggers, I finally got into a rhythm. This is basically how the ride would go:

First the fat tire boys would fly down the hills like they were supposed to. The snow that was on the ground didn't seem to slow Kidd or anyone else down. I would find myself off the back, yes off the back of a mountain bike group.

Typacially I made great time on the climbs, even the technical ones and was actually clearing stuff on the 700x32's (in the snow) that I have trouble occasionally with on a nice day with my 29x2.2's. At one point on the ridge trail I was just tearing it up the side of the hill till my admittedly worn-out rear tire finally just refused to grab the earth any longer. I'm almost certin that I climbed better because this bike weighs 21 lbs, and my monocog flight 29er (SS I might add) weighs 27 on a good day.

Logs were of little problem for the RX1, the reasons I hate this bike on the road, were the very reasons it took so well to the dirt. Namely its very high bottom bracket gave mondo clearence over stupid stuff and the forward position made bunny hopping easy.

Biggest tip for riding a cyclocross bike at Patapsco-Avalon, THORN RESISTANT TUBES. Yes my cross bike has clinchers, cause I tend to break nice stuff. These tubes are 10x the thickness of what most recognize as a road tube, making it **Impossible** to pinchflat. I was actually bottoming out on my rims a few times (at 45psi) and still no problems. The one drawback is weight, they are very heavy but I noticed this less in the woods then I did in a cross race or on road.

Last point, cross bikes are slow as a turtle going down. Its their nature unless you're Jeremiah Bishop. Because of the carbon fork, high pressure tires and narrow contact with the ground (on a muddy snowy day) you have to just deal with it. The benefit, center pull brakes were the original anti-lock devices and I never skidded out, at all.

My wrists, forearms and neck all hurt from going over the bars about twice, crashing into a tree once. However I would certainly try riding out in the woods on my X bike again, let me just true my wheels up again first.

or

You Decide.

Bill Neumann’s Howard/Carroll County Ride On a Fixie

The wheelsucker was on his way back from Collingswood NJ early Sunday morning and decided that since Bill Neumann’s ride was North of Annapolis, it would be better to go straight there, rather than go home first and do some other Sunday ride. But the wheelsucker’s coach was calling for a fixie ride, so the wheelsucker rode his fixie. He had checked this with Bill earlier:

"Is your Sunday ride still on? 9:00AM? Can I show up on a fixed gear?"

To which Bill had replied:

"Yes, yes, and yes!"

09:00 start time? You’re kidding, right? It was rather cold (26 degrees) and windy, but not as cold or as windy as Saturday morning in Philadelphia. The ride had a convenient starting point from a school parking lot, on route 97, a couple of miles south of interstate 70. After driving into the parking lot, the wheelsucker immediately noticed that no one else was riding a fixie. The wheelsucker became mildly concerned when some of the other riders expressed surprise that anyone would try it on a fixie.

Bill described the ride as "rolling". How long does a climb have to be before it stops being "rolling" and starts being "a lot of climbing"? The ride seems to cross the Patapsco River an inordinate number of times, mostly so one could enjoy the climb out of the valley. In theory one should enjoy the descent INTO the valley, but in practice, on a fixie, fast descents are not that relaxing. The ride pace is less than a hammerfest, which is consistent with what the wheelsucker’s coach was telling him to do, get good sub-threshold hours in, with a bit of pushing on short climbs. These are not "junk miles", but the ride generally avoids the frequent crossovers into anaerobic territory that the Saturday Davidsonville ride has. The course is much more rolling/climbing and turning than the Davidsonville Saturday ride, but at a slightly easier pace. This makes it a great winter training ride. This is NOT at a recovery ride. It is more like an Ellicott City ride at less than race pace.

The route is available on bikely.com at: http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Western-Howard-County-Carroll-County. Bikely.org reports elevation gain as 2793 feet.

There is somewhat of a cumulative damage concept riding the fixie on a "rolling" ride; each time one forces one’s way up a hill at a slow cadence, the legs complain a bit more, and the next hill is a little harder. The wheelsucker was finding it hard not to think about this, as the other riders would urge him on with encouragements like "there are only two more walls to go." But a determined wheelsucker found that going slowly up a hill on a fixie was worse than going medium-hard, so the wheelsucker attacked most hills and was pleasantly surprised to find himself in good shape at the top on most of the climbs. Being a civilized ride, those to the top first would wait for the others. As per the wheelsucker’s coach, most climbing on the fixie is done seated, at least until that stops working and one HAS to stand.

Wheelsucker data: (no Power data on the fixie) 49.33 miles, time 2:57:38:

	Average	Maximum
HR	126	170
Cadence	74	163
Speed	16.66	36.2

Whe wheelsucker reports that doing 36.2 mpg with a cadence of 163 on the fixie is VERY exciting; but not relaxing.

Just Who Was that Mystery Latitude Rider

Several members of the 20-20 club (20 degrees, 20+ mph winds) gathered at the Dville park and ride to set off for a few hours of misery. Ace rolled in a bit late having been the only one to show up for the 45 mile Annapolis ride. Dave B rolled in with a couple of friends, and several other riders rounded out the group. It was a pretty good turnout given the weather. Notably absent was Lance who was supposed to be there collecting money.

The ride set off at a pretty good clip. There is significant motivation to go fast when the weather is so nice. Just before we got to the light there was a yell about riders off the back. Ace, Dave, and possibily a few others doubled back. The rest of the group sat up for awhile, but they never rejoined. Adding to the confusion was Kyle who's coach had told him to go fairly hard today (where have we heard that one before?) We rolled at a fairly good clip into the rest stop. At that point there were five of us left. Tom "fixie" Aga, Michel, Rick P, Kyle, and myself waited around for the others to join us. No one else showed, and we made our way back into the impending doom of a stiff headwind. The group did some pretty hard pulls into the wind even on the downhills, and Rick P finished it off with a nice piece of tempo work up Leetch Rd. It was at that point just before the wall that we encountered the "mystery Latitude" rider. He had to be fresh because both bottles were full. He did a quick 180 and joined the group up the wall. Actually he drove the group up the wall, and then doubled back at the next intersection. Rumor had it that it was Heff 2, but that was impossible since he was out with Chris "the ice man cometh" Harshman several miles away. Perhaps it was Heff 1, perhaps we'll never know. It is hard to recognize anyone in this weather when they've got 20 layers on.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful with Kyle taking the sprint just ahead of Rick P. Then the one legged pedaling drill competition started.

The parking lot was empty when we returned so we're assuming everyone else got back safely, and took shorter routes.

The weather is bound to get better. This would have been a marginal day for January, and was totally unexpected for November. The good news is that the long range forecast calls for a cold early start to winter with a much warmer ending. This means we might actually see Fabrizio in January this year!

The Wheelsucker Rides the Vino Velo Ride in Philadelphia

The wheelsucker’s girlfriend is very tolerant. So tolerant that even when the wheelsucker visits for one day on the weekend, he can go for a bike ride (the wheelsucker claims his coach forces him to do this). So tolerant that she says nothing when the wheelsucker heads out at 8:00AM when it is significantly below freezing and very windy.

The Vino Velo ride meets at the Art Museum in Philadelphia on Benjamin Franklin Parkway; of course ALL rides in the Philadelphia area start there. A small group, a surprising number of whom were first timers, followed an overly energized Bryant out of the circle behind the art museum. The wheelsucker was cold; everyone was cold. It gets worse first as the windchill takes its toll, but eventually the wheelsucker’s body warmed up, blood started to flow to extremities, and the feeling in his thumbs and fingers returned. The ride is apparently somewhat of a hammerfest in the warm season, but this was at a civilized pace. Riders joined on at some points, and dropped off at others. Though the wheelsucker was warming up (and congratulating himself on buying and wearing the ABRT warm winter jacket), it was still rather below freezing, as evidenced by the frozen-solid water in the gutters, and ice on the roads. While the group rolled through a number of intersections with the leader yelling "clear", the group also stopped at many; the wheelsucker noted with regret that Bryant was happy to jump after every such stop, forcing everyone else to jump to stay with him.

The ride returns along the river, and was partly into the wind. With only four riders going the distance, the two leaders pulled off and the wheelsucker and a still-recovering-from-some-horrible sickness Brit on a folding travel bicycle pulled through and took the lead. The wheelsucker had been careful to watch his power and his pulling all ride, but with the barn door in site, he held 240-300 to the Art Museum dragging the dying Brit with him, and somehow dropping the other two riders, without ever going hard.

This would be a great ride, thought the wheelsucker, if it was 45 degrees warmer.

High 36, low 27, WINDY, 44 miles, averages: 18.27mph, 168 watts.