Biking Season Review So Far

The biking season is about a third over and here are some of the highlights so far:

April 20 - Folks-On-Spokes Easter Ride, University Park, IL - Was a good turnout of riders for this ride.  It was sunny and a crisp 58 degrees at the start. Did the 50 mile route and had a pretty fast ride. At the first rest stop, I had a 19.1 MPH average. Not to bad for riding by myself with all the stops and starts in Crete.

April 27 - Spring Forward, Union, IL - What a cold day.  42 degrees and a strong west wind.  Was a very small turnout of riders. Did the 20 mile route quickly and went home to warm up.

May 18 - Orchard Country Bike Tour, LaPorte, IN - Another cold day with 48 degree temps, strong north wind and a small turnout of riders. Did the 33 mile route. It was cloudy but no rain.

June 1 - Udder Century, Union, IL - Great day for biking. Sunny, light winds, and temp around 70 degrees. Had a huge turnout of riders with more fast riders than I've ever seen on a bike tour. Did 77 miles on this day. Got a little tired at the end of the ride, but the legs felt great all day.

June 15 - Swedish Days, Burlington, IL - Was all ready to go ride until the rains came. It's one thing to ride in rain and another to ride in a thunderstorm with high winds.

June 22 - Lorie's Ride, Chesterton, IN - Nice warm day and I dodged all the thunderstorms. Only did the 38 mile route due to time restrains but this is very nice tour with rolling hills.  This was my second time doing this tour and it will be on my ride schedule next year.

General - Only been doing the Wheeling Wheelmen Wednesday Night rides with the bike club so my club miles are few. Have ridden to WI a few times as training rides and have 5 rides so far over 50 miles.  Not to bad with all the rain and cold weather this spring.   Looking forward to doing Biking With Beanzie and Melon Metric in July.

2008 Biking Season is a coming soon
Since it is the middle of February, I thought I'd start blogging again.  It's only a month until the new Wheeling Wheelmen biking season starts.  It's been a tough winter for training.  I've been sick 3 times since Thanksgiving which has put the brakes on my CompuTrainer riding.  I'm now just getting over the third cold and with being sick and still having ankle and knee problems all Fall, I thought that I'd be lucky to even be riding this year or just have to ride at a slow pace. But at the beginning of the year I thought I'd stop babying the ankle and knee, and just get on the CompuTrainer and ride hard and try to ride through the pain.  I discovered that the pain in my ankle was caused by my knee not having the flexibility to bend back far enough to complete a pedal stroke causing my ankle to buckle on every stroke.  Changing the bike seat height helped with the buckling, but not totally stopping the pain.  I started to concentrate on using the right leg to do complete circles using spin scanning and use the right leg to provide 50% on the power.  After about 3 or 4 times on the bike in January, my ankle and knee started getting stronger and the pain went away.  It's been 5 weeks without ankle and knee pain, and my CompuTrainer speed has increase passed what I was doing last winter.  I have over 300 miles on the CompuTrainer so far this year, and it looks it's going to be a great year on the roads biking.  I'll be posting more blog entries and posting more pictures on the website shortly.

Back To Biking
The ankle surgery was a complete success.  Took a weekend to recover and rode on the CompuTrainer for 15 minutes 5 days after the surgery.  Yesterday, it was such a nice day I went out on the road and did a 12.5 miler.  Was able to keep a steady 20-21 MPH pace once on the open roads.  The ankle was a little sore while riding but I didn't want to baby it.  Today, the stitches come out and the doctor wants to talk to me about fixing my left knee.  I plan on building my mileage base back up pretty quick.  The Harmon Hundred, Apple Cider Century, Pumpkin Pedal and Hilly Hundred bike tours will be here before long.  Plan on riding with the Wheeling Wheelmen again at the beginning of September.

A Few Thoughts on RAGBRAI 2007
After doing RAGBRAI 2007, I'll probably will not do it again.  To many inexperienced out-of-shape riders on the roads causing this to be the most unsafe ride I've ever been on.  Lots of crashes.  At least Brian and I were not badly hurt when that fat bastard surved into our pace line. It's so much fun hitting the ground going 20 MPH.  The route was nice and flat, which allowed me to crank some high speeds but the crowded roads causing me to have to slow down.  The 70-plus mile days were no problem.  I was never tired and my legs felt great all week.  That must be because there was a town every 10 to 12 miles that you had to walk your bike thru.  The showers were a major pain and crappy.  The food was all the same in every town.  There were long lines for food, showers, restrooms, shuttles, etc.  Corn field after corn field on the rides. The shuttle service in the overnight towns was nice.  I got out to Field Of Dreams in Dyersville, and pitched batting practice for 40 minutes, and visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Lowell Walters House.  The week would have been better if my ankle had not cause me so much pain.  But that will be fixed this month with surgery and I'll be riding at full speed by Labor Day.  At least now I can say I did a full week of RAGBRAI. But for serious bikers, it's a big thumbs down.

RAGBRAI 2007
Leave for Iowa and RAGBRAI 2007 on Friday afternoon.  There are 6 Wheeling Wheelmen doing the tour and were staying in a RV for the week.  Should get to the start of the tour at mid-day Saturday with the tour starting on Sunday.  On Monday's ride, there's a loop to do a 100 miles that day and I'm planning to do it.  This tour easily will be the best week long bike tour I've done so far with the other guys being a lot of fun and strong riders.  Will be keeping a daily log and will post the info on this blog when I get back.

Biking With Beanzie
Went out to Dekalb this past Sunday and did the Biking With Beanzie tour.  The weather conditions were perfect. No winds and sunny skies with temps in the 70's compared with last years low 90's temps.  Did the 64 mile route and it was a really fun ride.  Was planning riding in the 21 to 22 MPH without pushing to hard just to enjoy the ride but when a pace line of riders caught up to me which consistent of 6 or 7 riders I'd already had passed I joined in to see how fast they were pushing the pace.  They were going around 21 MPH up a series of hills and I joined in to do some easy riding.  As soon as the downhill came one of the riders in the middle of the pace line decides to take off.  I waited to see if the other riders would follow but no one increased the pace.  The guy got ahead a couple of blocks and I decided to see if I could catch up.  I knew he couldn't keep up a 26 MPH pace for long, so I got my speed up to a little over 28 MPH and caught him after the downhill and went by him like he was standing still.  I got pretty far ahead of the group but they caught up when I stopped to fill up my water bottle and at road side SAG stop. I didn't think I could catch them again because they were so far in the distance I could barely see them, but I got my speed up to the 21-22 MPH cruising range and little-by-little I started to catch up until I caught and passed them again and never saw them again.  It was a real relaxing ride and I averaged 19 MPH without really pushing the pace.  The end of the tour was changed this year to come from the west into the school and it was better than coming up 23.  Was the most fun ride of the year so far.

The July hot weather is finally here

Headed to Indiana with the family for the a July 4th extended weekend.  Did a 50 mile ride in Laporte before going to Splash Down Dunes waterpark. We returned Saturday, so I planned a long ride for Sunday in the wind and the heat.  Thought it would be a good training ride for RAGBRAI 2007 in 2 weeks.  Decided to do the 62 mile Udder Century route plus an additional few miles for almost a 70 mile ride.  Got a little later start for the ride at 8:30 and battled the 30 MPH headwinds out there on the prairie at the start but had the wind at my back the middle part of the ride.  If I had to choose between headwinds or tailwinds, I'd take the headwinds.  With temps in the 90's the headwinds are cooling although my speed was knocked down to 15-16 MPH.  With the tailwind I could hit speeds in the mid 20's MPH but you can really feel the heat.  Had no problems doing the the ride in the heat and wasn't even tired after the ride.  I'm ready for RAGBRAI.

On June 30th, I did the Wheeling Wheelmen Honey-Do ride out of Hoffman Estates.  We had about 14 riders in the fast group.  There were a couple of crashes.  On one, which I didn't see, a rider miss a turn and went over his handle bars and landed on his feet without getting hurt.  On the second crash, I was the last rider in the pace line when the group came to a quick stop at a stop sign on Cuba rode.  A girl in the middle of the pack hit the rider in front of her and went down.  She hit her head, knee and elbow, and was banged up pretty good.  A SUV stopped to help and took her and her bike to her home.  I heard later the she went to the ER for her elbow.  After that crash, I dropped out of the pack.  Having crashed once this year in a pace line without getting hurt (only a few cuts and one big hip bruise) I didn't want to push my lucky.

This weekend, it's a family wedding on Saturday and I may get a 35 mile ride in the morning and Sunday will be my 4th Biking with Beanzie. I'll probably do the 64 miler. 

Leave for RAGBRAI on the 27th. 

Hot Biking Weekend
Saturday was the first time for riding the Wheeling Wheelmen Lake Geneva-Fontana 71 mile club ride.  The ride started at McHenry Community College thru the hills of Bull Valley and the first rest stop in Hebron.  The half way point is Lake Geneva-Fontana near the Abbey.  There were 4 riders including myself in our group and we had lunch on the shores of Lake Geneva.  The temps were in the mid-90's and with a light west wind, so for me it was perfect biking weather.  This was a good test of the conditions for RAGBRAI 2007 and I should have no problem with the heat of Iowa at the end of July.  Paul said he averaged 18.5 MPH for the 71 miles.  Somehow my cycling computer got reset at Lake Geneva so my stats where a little off.  Best ride of the year so far.

Good week for biking

Looks like the weather is finally going to be good for a full week.  

Did the Udder Century in Union, IL on June 3 and the weather was almost perfect.  No wind, sunny and mild temps.  Rode the 62 miler with Chad Niec.  Most of the Wheeling Wheelmen who rode the ride were doing the 100 miler and Chad and I wanted to do a fast ride and be finished by noon.  Near the end of ride, we could see thunderstorms building to the south and by the time we finished at 11:35 AM it had started to rain and by noon it was pouring.

 Only 6 people showed up at the Wheeling Wheelmen Wednesday evening ride, but it had rained about an hour before the ride started.  I had a breakaway at the 10 mile mark and nobody caught me.  I did the last 25 miles by myself.  I figured I take off and push the pace and get caught on the major hills, but no one wanted to push hard to caught me.  I only averaged 19.1 MPH, but was averaging above 20 MPH for most of the ride.  I let my pace slow at the end because I wasn't being chased.

Did a different type of ride Saturday morning.  Saturday morning was the Lake Trek Bike Tour which went through Marengo.  So I decided to do the reverse route of the tour and biked to the start of the tour at McHenry College.  I saw only about 40 people doing the tour and I talked to one of the ladies at the start and she said only 150 people had signed up to ride.  The riders on the Lake Trek tour had about a 20 minute head start on me but I passed most of them by the time I got to Union.  The weather was perfect for riding and I had to be finished my 10:30 AM to head to Indiana for the weekend so it a quick 40 miler.

 This weekend if may be Swedish Day ride in Burlington or maybe I'll just do the 71 miler with the Wheeling Wheelmen at McHenry College.

Near the end of June

The biking weather seems to be hit-and-miss lately.  A week ago, the Arlington 500 in Barrington was a cold cloudy 44 degrees. Did the ride with a group of the Wheeling Wheelmen but it was decided that with the weather conditions an easy 40 miler would be nice.  Then, for the Wednesday night Wheeling Wheelmen ride the temps were back up to around 85. It was an interesting ride because we ran in a movie shooting in Barrington Hills which closed down the road so we had to reverse the route.

 

For Memorial day weekend, I did the Triple Deerpass with the Wheeling Wheelmen out in Union, IL.  The starting temperature for the start of that ride was 54 and cloudy, and there were only 4 riders. We were going to do the full 66 miles, but it looked like it was going to rain so we cut the ride short for just over 45 miles.  As soon as we got into Union it started to rain.  Sunday, I had time for a quick 35 mile ride in Hoffman Estates. The weather was great; sunny and 64 degrees. Just did the normal Wheeling Wheelmen Wednesday night route as a training ride, but another rider passed me on Penny Road after I had passed him but had to stop for traffic so I just cranked the speed up to the 24 MPH range for 3 miles and he became a dot behind me.

This week's weather is looking good.  The warming the better.  The Udder Century is this Sunday and I'm thinking about doing the 100 miler if the weather is good.   I just have to remember RAGBRAI 2007 will be here shortly and the goal of doing a 100 miles a day for 6 days.