Orny's Cycling Journal

I was so proud when I completed all 25 of Zwift’s course achievements that I wrote about it in a December 1st blogpost.

Six days later, Zwift decided to add 42 new course badges, including ones for all their most difficult routes. Sigh.

I guess the upside of having 42 new carrots to chase was that completing them gave me enough Experience Point bonuses to rise from Level 29 to 33 over the course of December and January.

And all that riding helped me reach a new all-time record level of fitness, as measured by a Chronic Training Load score of 98.18… in January!

By February 1st, I'd earned 65 course badges, with only the two hardest routes left to do: the hellaciously hilly “Über Pretzel”, and the tedious and repetitive 11-lap “PRL Full”.

Both of those wound up being “Zenturies”: indoor Zwift rides of more than 100 miles. Since I post about each ride that surpasses that distance, here’s a little about how they went.

The Über Pretzel is beastly. It finishes at the summit of the Alpe du Zwift, an accurate copy of the real-world Alpe d’Huez. But when you hit the Alpe you’ve already got 72 miles in your legs and 4,200 feet of climbing, including the Radio Tower: the steepest climb in Zwift. And yes, I only have an 11-28 cassette and always ride with the trainer incline realism set to 100%.

Although the route finishes at the Alpe summit, there’s no reason not to coast down the descent to earn more effort-free XP. And once you reach the bottom at Mile 88, why not ride the extra 12 miles to complete a full imperial century?

I rode the Über Pretzel on Thu Feb 13. It was sheer, unadulterated torture, taking 6h52m and leaving my legs and knees shattered. The upside: I reached Level 34 and got halfway to Level 35, and completed my 17th Alpe (you get the “Masochist” badge after 25 ascents). Plus you never have to ride that brutal route ever again!

The PRL Full is Zwift’s longest and only imperial century route. It’s a stupefying eleven and a half laps of their “London Loop”, which includes a (comparatively) gentle ascent up the Box Hill climb. But after eleven laps, you’ve actually done more climbing than the Über Pretzel, albeit spread out more evenly. I undertook the PRL Full on Feb 20, a week after the Über Pretzel with a couple easy recovery rides in-between.

It started very inauspiciously. First, I forgot to consult when London was on Zwift’s calendar, so I had to use the World Hack to get in. That in turn meant an empty course, with no one to draft. Considered running a TT bike instead of my usual climbing bike, but didn’t want the climbing penalty, so opted for the Tron Bike: a rare instance where I’d consider using it. Then, about ¾ through my first lap (after my first ascent of Box Hill), I was sent off course by the “repositioning the camera with a turn coming up” bug, and rather than turn around, ride 100 miles hoping Zwift would still recognize the route, I simply quit and started over.

After that, it was just plod on, for another eleven ascents of Box Hill. Combined, the two rides took 7h45m for 116 miles. But with so few riders on course, half the ride I had the special “fastest lap” jersey, and I had both that and the KoM jersey another 25% of the time: a cheap victory, but rewarding. Along the way I also earned the Italy Challenge’s Pinerallo F8 bike.

In completing the PRL Full, I had done Zwift’s longest route, finished my second “Zentury” in two weeks, and finally completed all 67 of Zwift’s badge-earning courses: an arduous and challenging achievement. And the XP bonus bumped me up to Level 35, which means I can buy the fast Zipp 808 & rear disc wheelset.

In the larger scheme of things, I’ve done my first two centuries of the year already, but have no more in-game carrots to chase. That’s okay for now—I could use a few days’ rest!—but it puts me in the strange position of peaking in January/February, with months before the road season begins! What to do? Mind you, I’m NOT asking Zwift to add more course badges... I’ve had enough of that, thank you!

My only remaining carrot is the Masochist badge, which requires eight more trips up the Alpe du Zwift. Not very fun, and not something I will achieve before outdoor rides relegate the trainer to the closet. But I guess it couldn’t hurt to knock out a couple more ascents before then...

But first, some incredibly well-earned rest and recovery.

… come and join the Zwifting party!

So four months after buying a new indoor trainer, how did my winter training go?

It went well, according to my stats in Zwift. I rose from Level 0 to Level 20, completing the California and Everest Challenges, earning 32 out of 40 achievement badges. I finished the 9-stage Tour de Zwift, and 5 monthly fondo rides. I climbed the Alpe du Zwift (their facsimile of the real-world Alpe d’Huez) 5 times, and even earned an orange jersey for setting a fastest lap time on their Innsbruck course. I took 2 Step Tests and 2 20-minute FTP tests; in the former set, my Functional Threshold Power rose from 212 to 221; as measured by the latter it went from 198 to 210. And I finished with my first ever indoor/virtual century (more below).

Taking the start/finish banner

April Fools brought flaming roostertails!

Climbing the Alpe…

My first “Zentury”

Our Hero riding off into the sunset

I also made use of Zwift’s social element, joining a supportive team called “The Herd”. They have members all over the world, and I hope to join a gathering of them in September at the Leelanau Harvest Tour century in Traverse City MI. It’s cool having an open group audio channel with other riders who might not be in the same area (either on the virtual course or in the real world). I’ve befriended folks and have projected my usual offbeat presence. I created coroplast examples of Zwift’s thumbs-up “Ride On” symbol and posted a photo of me riding with them, which earned 115 Likes.

Let’s compare this winter (December, January, February, and March) to the previous two years. In the winter of 2016-2017 I rode 282 miles. In 2017-2018 I rode 535. Although Zwift miles aren’t quite the same as real-world distance, this past winter I logged over 1,900 miles (only 24 were outdoors)! That’s equivalent to my usual summertime riding volume. According to the Fitness (Chronic Training Load) charts I keep posting, I retained more Fitness this winter than ever, and by mid-January, I was back at a Fitness level I wouldn’t normally reach until the beginning of June!

This past Sunday was the final step of my winter training regimen: completing a “Zentury”. It was my first time ever doing a hundred miles on an indoor trainer. Obviously, it was my first century of 2019, and also the earliest in the year I’ve ever done a century (by 10 days).

In some ways, indoor miles are easier. There’s no traffic lights, no need to ever stop, and no wind to battle. For those reasons, indoor rides are generally faster; I completed 100 miles in 5h20m, when an outdoor one would usually exceed 7h. However, many people feel trainer miles are harder. After all, you can never rest or coast, which grows hard on the legs. In terms of TSS (Training Stress Score), my Zwift century ranked as my 14th most difficult ride, which puts it respectably among my harder centuries.

Thanks to Zwift, this winter has been an unqualified success. Back in December, when I set my annual goals for 2019, I came up with two: getting over the post-Dirty Dozen malaise that plagued me throughout 2018, and using Zwift to begin the 2019 season at a high level of fitness. As far as I’m concerned, we can check those two goals off already!

But all the positive numbers in the world don’t mean anything until I put them to the test outside, in the real world. Yesterday’s indoor century was part of an overall plan to be ready for 2019’s first outdoor event.

Next weekend is the longest ride of the year: the Pittsburgh Randonneurs’ annual spring 200k. Climbing 7,500 feet over 124 miles, it’s a massive challenge, and the perfect way to test whether all this Zwifting has improved my early-season form. I’m relying on it, because over the past 5 months, the only outdoor riding I’ve done was a casual 21 miles on New Years and one 31-mile ride last week.

I think Zwift has set me up for early-season success, but stay tuned for the pudding…

April and May is the time of year when you go out and suffer, laying down the miles and gaining the fitness which will serve as a base for your major summertime events in June, July, and August.

April was a good month for me. I covered 425 miles, including two 72-mile runs (down Bunola Road to Monongahela, and up Sun Mine to Saxonburg), earning both my Strava Gran Fondo (100 km) and Climbing (24,600 ft) Challenge badges. With respect to making up for five months off the bike, I’d describe my fitness level then as: not feeling strong, but not feeling weak anymore, either. But boy, Western PA sure likes to put up detours for road work in the spring… Closed roads *everywhere*!

My improvement continued this past month, when I covered 567 miles, including regular group rides and three Tag-o-Rama pickups. I finished the month out by bagging the monthly Gran Fondo and Climbing (29,000 ft) Challenges. The only noteworthy event in the entire month was the ceremonial Ride of Silence in memory of cyclists killed and injured by automobiles. By Memorial Day I’d finally caught up with last year’s pace for distance, climbing, and time in the saddle. I’d also surpassed 1,200 miles for the year and 12,000 miles on my four year old R2-Di2 steed.

One new development is that I am participating in the summer-long National Bike Challenge, which I never bothered with before. The competitive nature of the game has gotten me out for more frequent and longer rides, and logging rides is easy now that they just scrape your Strava data. After one month of point-gathering (20 points per day of riding, plus 1 point per mile), I’m 90th percentile among Pittsburgh riders, 88th percentile in PA, and 90th percentile nationally.

As a segue into June, yesterday was the Western PA Wheelmen’s annual Spring Rally, a picnic down in Washington County which included really pretty road loops of 39, 14, and 11 miles. I did all of them (and all 14 ridge climbs, accumulating 4,550 feet of ascent), and generally felt pretty good except for the sitbones.

So despite my abnormally long winter layoff, after a few months of hard riding I feel pretty much back up to an appropriate fitness level again. That’s good, because next weekend is June’s big event: the Escape to the Lake MS 150 ride. It was brutally hot and hard last year, and this year I’m going to ride both days instead of just one.

The one thing my training lacked this year was completing a full century ride before June. Last year I did the Pittsburgh Randonneurs 200k in April, but that was out of the question this year, and I just haven’t chosen to tackle a 100-mile ride recently.

Fortunately, Strava’s incredibly useful Fitness & Freshness chart confirms that I’ll start the MS ride at a higher fitness level than last year. And so long as I taper my training properly this week, I should be fresher and in better form overall. Stay tuned for the results!

Coming back from four and a half months of forced inactivity is decidedly *not fun*. And I know from not fun.

Back on October 2nd of last year, I rode the first of this year’s Dirty Dozen group training rides. Then my mother got sick, and I had to go to Maine to care for her. Over the following 19 weeks I only managed one trivial ride, while my previous peak strength and fitness plummeted. I only resumed training on February 14th, about a week and a half ago.

Fortunately, my homecoming corresponded with Pittsburgh’s warmest February ever, with a record nine days in the 60s, and a couple well into the 70s.

After jonesing for the bike all winter, last week’s weather allowed me to ride five days consecutively, and in those five days I rode more often than I had in the previous five months! For the week, I rode six days out of seven, covered 167 miles, climbed more than two vertical miles, and burned a spare 7,800 kCalories.

From a training perspective, I was trying to alternate between long, hilly days, and “off days” featuring short but hilly rides, to permit muscle recovery but maintain the training impulse. I hit Center Ave & Guyasuta (the first Dirty Dozen hill) twice, and took the opportunity to go exploring up a very hilly Field Club Road and the gravel outer segment of Old Mill. It felt great to finally put the body to use after endless months of inactivity!

But ironically, that intense desire to be on the bike post-layoff quickly evaporated, being overshadowed by the frustration and immense painfulness of rebuilding my fitness from nothing. It always surprises me that a short ride that I’d normally consider a mere warm-up in the summer can be so excruciatingly painful as to be almost impossible following a short winter break. And this was the longest that I’ve been off the bike in eighteen years!

Normally I’ve valued my off-season, eagerly anticipating the opportunity to relax, do something other than pedal, and eat whatever I want. I’ve always laughed at the muscle-heads who train year-round, caught in the perpetual hamster-wheel of compulsively needing to be faster than all their buddies. While I do enjoy riding fast and long, I don’t have so much ego at stake in my performance. Age and experience give you perspective beyond such adolescent traps.

But shockingly, I’m starting to appreciate the idea of training all year round. Not so much out of a vain compulsion to avoid losing competitive fitness at all costs; rather, it’s to avoid having to endure the muscle-searing pain of rebuilding the strength and endurance one loses during the off-season!

Or, to put it more succinctly: springtime riding still sucks hard! I mean, it’s beautiful and delightful… but it hurts so much that I’d consider giving up my off-season just to avoid that torture.

Thankfully, even in Pittsburgh February heatwaves must come to an end, giving weak, out-of-shape cyclists a breather, and a good reason to sit back and write about the trauma of early-season training.

Will I see you out on the road sometime?

For cyclists, spring is the time to put in some base miles to get your fitness and stamina back up. It’s a time when your riding ramps up from pretty much zero, increasing to what might be 100 to 200 miles per week.

Of course, on April First you can’t just jump on the bike and ride 200 miles. It’d be a recipe for injury, since your body isn’t ready for that. Instead, you need to increase your workouts gradually. The rule of thumb for both runners and cyclists is to increase your mileage by no more than 10 percent per week.

I’ll come back to that in a sec. Now let’s switch gears.

I’ve always been discouraged by how quickly one loses fitness. Stop weightlifting for two weeks, and your body reverts to its old sedentary self. Stop cycling for a month, and your performance and stamina drop like a stone.

But that’s not the whole story. I’ve been cycling for 13 years now, and each year my body has grown more and more used to riding long distances. While ramping up is still an arduous, painful process, I begin each year with a little more of a head start, at least in terms of my ability to do long miles.

Let me show you what I mean.

2013 has been a very haphazard spring for riding. If I told you how many miles I rode each week (starting in March), it would look like this:

For the first four weeks, that looked like a fairly okay progression, with mileage increases of 77%, 38%, and 18% (adding about 20 miles per week).

But look what happened next: two really lax weeks, followed by a sudden jump to nearly 200 miles. That’s 300% more than my biggest week this year, and 740% more than either of the previous two weeks! And the best part is that I don’t feel particularly crippled afterward.

So much for the Ten Percent Rule I was telling you about!

But one year doesn’t prove anything. Looking back, last year (2012) was even stranger. With only one 16-mile ride under my belt, my second ride was 57 miles. Coupled with two commutes, the progression went:

which translates to an instant 638% increase in mileage in week two!

Next let’s look at 2011. After a couple 20-30 mile weeks, I basically took a month off and then jumped into a 63-mile ride:

Oof. That’s a 336% increase, following a month of not riding at all!

Was 2010 any better? Nope. First ride of the year: 70 miles, with no ramp-up whatsoever. Zero to 70? What percentage increase is that? I’ll tell you: that’s an *infinite* increase in mileage, baby!

Obviously, I couldn’t have done anything like this when I first started cycling, but after years of riding, my body expects—and has adapted to be able to handle—big miles, even after an off-season of complete idleness.

Although that’s not the whole truth. Back in 2009 I bought an indoor trainer from a friend and started working out on that each January and February. Of course, I never did a lot of miles on the trainer, but it’s likely that my indoor workouts made it a little easier to pull big miles once the weather permitted my transition to outdoor riding.

But if you ask me, the Ten Percent Rule is probably a good idea for new cyclists, but it’s not the law. Winter training and the body’s ability to adapt year after year render an experienced cyclist immune to the rules that govern the feeble efforts of mere pedestrians!

Unfortunately, while I might have built up massive reserves of endurance, I’ve never developed the other two main factors in overall cycling performance: speed and power. So I can’t sprint and I can’t climb very quickly, but I can ride at a pretty brisk pace for millenia.

And so it goes…

Please come to Boston for the springtime? Not bluddy likely!

Back on April 13th I said that spring was late in coming, but that cycling season had finally begun. I was wrong. Basically, that was the only nice day we've had all year.

It's currently May 21th, and it's 52 degrees and overcast, which is as good as it's been for a long time. We just finished Bay State Bike Week, and it has been rainy and cold for more than a month. Needless to say, the 2011 cycling season has pretty much been a washout so far.

The first major ride of the year—the CRW Spring Century—was supposedly held last Sunday. With rain on the forecast, I opted to forego even registering for it.

However, since Saturday was only a cold and misty day, I decided I'd extend my usual weekend Quad ride to a full century. Jay accompanied me as we did the regular "Quad long" ride, then did the full Curve Street and Strawberry Hill routes backwards, then I did the Mystic Valley Parkway. By the end, I was completely used up, but then that was the whole point, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to ride for another 40 days and 40 nights. Overall, I'm glad I did it, even if it was cold, overcast, painful, and only my 5th ride of the year that was greater than 30 miles. GPS log here.

And that's all she wrote in terms of riding news. The rest is mostly retail therapy...

The two highlights of which are a workstand and a vest. The vest is just this mesh carrier for... Well, I guess it's easiest just to show you. This is what I'm talking about. It's kinda like a four-foot blinking glow-stick, which should prove useful for bike commuting. Not exactly stylin', but quite functional.

The workstand, on the other hand, is très cool. It's been on my wish list for three or four years, and I finally had the disposable income to make it possible. The thing's actually pretty gigrontic, and should come in very handy. Very nice!

Circling back on a couple previous purchases... The Giro Ionos helmet is nice, but I'm still figuring out whether they'll work as a sunglasses holder: an important function for helmets. I love Craft shorts in general, but the new bib shorts are made of compression fabric and thus are a little tight and uncomfortable. I picked up some Lithion 2 tires, which don't have the center blue stripe that the old Lithions had, but they also don't have the flat spot in the center, so they will probably wear better. And I continue to like my Garmin Edge 800, although I've only just figured out how to do laps/splits, and have yet to try following a route/course.

Lowering my stem doesn't seem to have had any major negative effects. The 100-mile ride was a good test, and I was okay, although I did have some lingering neck pain afterward. It's not clear whether that was a result of lack of saddle time or the change in position, tho.

One event of note was last week's PMC Heavy Hitter banquet. Although I've been a Heavy Hitter for the past five years, this was the first reception I've attended, since they're usually dress-up affairs featuring hours of standing around doing nothing. The speakers were, of course, inspirational, and that was a good experience to have now, just as fundraising season begins.

And in theory I should be on the verge of starting my fundraising campaign, although I've yet to compose this year's dunning letter, and I'm easily a month behind schedule on the fundraising video I'd like to do. The interminable foul weather has complicated that enterprise, as well.

And you've surely seen the series of PMC tips I've been posting. So far the feedback has been positive, and I hope to gather a bit more attention when the series is finally completed and available for others to peruse.

I also have an impending mileage goal and some new web goodies to roll out soon, but I'll save those for later.

Geez, two weeks into the 2010 cycling season and there’s already so much to tell…

After a long spell of rain that brought flooding to the area, Tuesday March 16th was a beautifully sunny day, with even better weather predicted for the rest of the week, so I figured it was time to take the bike out of its stationary trainer for some pre-season maintenance.

The first thing I did was replace the chain: a fairly simple repair that I’d never done before. Previously, I’d waited until the chain had worn so much that both the chain and the rear cassette had to be changed at the same time, but this time I wanted to change the chain before it got to that point, hopefully saving myself the additional cost of a new cassette. It was an easy, if messy, swap. I’m looking forward to running my drive train dry again this year, after last year’s successful experiment.

Next I replaced my handlebar tape, which was another first. It sounds easy, but actually there’s some skill involved, and I wanted to be extra careful, since my old bar tape (put on by the bike shop) had unraveled on me. And what a messy surprise of gel, masking tape, and scotch tape I found underneath the surface of the old black bar tape! I replaced it with bright blue cork tape and finished it off with blue electrical tape, hoping it would look good with my blue tires, which it does. So far, I think I did a pretty good job with it, although I’m wondering how long it’ll stay so tight and neat.

Speaking of those blue tires, I also removed the heavy-duty rear tire that I use for the trainer, and replaced it with my regular lightweight blue road tire. But that was a familiar and routine swap. After that, the bike was ready for the open road!

I did all this in anticipation of my first outdoor ride of the season on Thursday, when the temperatures would be in the upper 60s. On Wednesday, after letting the bike sit overnight, I decided that I didn’t want to go on a long ride without first making sure my chain would hold together, so I took the Plastic Bullet out for a very short 8-mile test ride.

I rode out to Brookline and over Summit Ave., then turned home by picking up the Charles River bike path at Cambridge Street. As I rode along, I approached a group of two or three people coming from the opposite direction, either walking or jogging or skating. Just as I got even with them, from behind them another person on a bike veered around them to pass, swerving across the center line and directly into my path. Since she blocked my entire lane and there was a light pole on my right, there was no way to avoid her as this woman slammed her bike straight into me head-on, and I went flying over the bars in a classic Superman pose and crashed hard onto the ground beyond.

On initial inspection, I was bruised all over and in a lot of pain, and bleeding liberally from a deep gouge my left hand. I had to re-center my brakes and straighten my handlebars, but the bike otherwise looked okay.

She was an Asian-American student on a rusty commuter beater that was probably older than both of us put together. While I’d been in no position to see what happened to her in the crash, she appeared uninjured afterward. Several other people stopped and helped me recover, which took about five minutes. After I got her contact info, she went to leave and discovered her chain had fallen off, and that her rear wheel wouldn’t turn because the fender was rubbing. I fixed those for her before heading homeward myself.

That’s when I discovered that her impact had also broken my left shift lever. The bike is rideable, and I can still shift and brake using that lever, although with a broken pivot I have to really fiddle and force it to make it happen, and it’s likely to come apart in my hands one of these times.

Physically, I’d landed very hard on my left knee and upper back, and both were heavily bruised and had some road rash. I have pain that feels like cracked ribs in both the front and back of my chest. The injuries to my left hand featured a deep, inch and a half long laceration in my index finger. I didn’t think it was quite bad enough to get stitches, so at home I took a scrub brush and painfully cleaned the gravel out of it before bandaging it myself.

Looking back on it, it was a stupid idea to go anywhere near the bike path. This time of year, the joggers are all out training for the impending Boston Marathon, which makes the paths more crowded and a lot more dangerous. On top of that, it was the first warm day of spring, so everyone was out enjoying the sun, oblivious to the fact that there are other users on the path than themselves. Having spent the winter forgetting everything they might have known about safety, it is, in a word, Amateur Day. And with so many self-absorbed idiots on the bike path, it is the most dangerous place a cyclist could be. Although my unwise decision to take the bike path certainly doesn’t excuse this woman’s stupid and dangerous actions at all.

The next day was Thursday: the day I’d planned to take a big ride. It was just as beautiful as predicted, and I still wanted to take my first real ride of the season. Aside from a lot of pain in that left knee, my legs were mostly uninjured, so I decided to take it real slow and easy, and see how far I could go.

I didn’t know if I would make it two blocks, but once my legs loosened up, I found I could manage. The only problem was that my knee would tighten right up again if I stopped for very long, so I had to limit my rest stops to a couple minutes each. The spring winds were very strong, and once I was out of town my route was repeatedly blocked by floods of the Sudbury and Concord rivers. I even stopped and chatted with one of the DPW crews who were erecting barriers across Sherman’s Bridge Road, where the wooden bridge was at least eight feet underwater!

By the end of the day I’d actually racked up 71 miles, which is about twice what I’d normally do on the first ride of the year. Naturally, my average speed was way down, but that also kept me at an aerobic pace, rather than pushing and working myself too hard. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel too bad, at least while I was in the saddle. See the ride map.

On the way home, I stopped at the LBS and had the bike checked out. The lever definitely needs to be replaced, and the part alone is going to cost me $290. I decided I’d hold off on that for the time being, until I’d at least talked to the girl who hit me to see if she was going to do the responsible thing and compensate me for the mechanical damage she caused. Since I was in the shop already, I made an appointment to have my simple annual tune-up performed on Monday.

When the weekend came, Saturday was a gorgeous day, and I would have liked to have rode with my buddies at Quad, but by then I was just too achey to endure another long ride, so I reluctantly gave it a pass.

However, it was also the vernal equinox, which is a big deal for me. So I decided to ride a few miles down to Castle Island and back, simply to observe the return of the sun to the northern hemisphere. But just as I wheeled the bike out of my apartment, my old inner tube gave way at the valve stem, giving me a flat tire; then I popped (literally) the replacement tube while levering it onto the rim. Finally I got a patched tube onto the rim and completed my little equinox ride.

Monday’s tune-up was quick and painless, with the only surprise being a needed tightening of my front hub. I’d hand-trued my rear wheel after the accident, but apparently I did a good enough job that the mechanics didn’t feel it needed any further attention.

Wednesday, a week after our collision, I finally emailed the girl who hit me. I was especially calm and nonconfrontational about it, but told her about the $290 cost of a replacement lever and suggested that “as the responsible party I hope you will offer to foot a decent portion of that expense” and that “I am relying on your sense of fairness”.

It took her only half an hour to reply with her refusal. Despite admitting that she had crossed the center line, she maintained “that doesn’t make me completely guilty”, and the preposterous assertion that “I would consider myself to have been a fairly safe person in this situation”. Besides, she said, as a student, she doesn’t have any money at all. Yup. It’s all about her, and how could anyone expect her to take responsibility for the damages and injuries that her dangerously oblivious riding caused? Thanks, Nikki, you’re all heart, and I’m screwed out of $300 I can’t afford.

The next day, Thursday the 25th, I did my second long ride of the year, doing a few more random roads around Concord (ride map). I also stopped at Quad Cycles to see if Rustem could repair my bike for less money, which he could not. By the end of that 61-mile expedition, my legs were cramping from too many hills, but it still felt good to be back out on the bike again.

Today is Monday the 29th, and this morning I trudged into my bike shop and reluctantly ordered a new brake lever. While it’s the same style (Shimano Ultegra), the newer model is going to look and feel quite a bit different from the older, undamaged lever on the right, but that’s the breaks, right?

Now that it’s been twelve days since the accident, my hand has begun healing, although it’s unclear yet whether it will bear a permanent scar or not. My knee is mostly good, but I still have weakness and twinges of pain whenever I climb stairs. My ribs remain a constant pain, especially at night. I’m more convinced than ever that I might have broken one or more ribs, rather than cracked them, but it’s mostly an academic point. As with all rib injuries, they’ll heal at their own slow pace as long as I don’t re-injure them.

But my injuries and the cost of fixing the damage to my bike are ultimately temporary issues. Beyond those problems, what will stay with me long after this incident is a lingering mistrust of bike paths and other path users, and a reinforced belief in the selfishness and self-centered callousness of the younger generation. And I think that’s a horrible thing to take away from something as ennobling as a simple springtime bike ride.

It’s May, so things have started happening.

A week ago Sunday I did the full/long Quad Cycles ride for the first time this year, rather than bailing at Northside (Gammy’s) in Bedford. It only added 10 miles to my day, but it was my first 75-mile day of the year. It being May, I returned home with eyes that were absolutely encrusted with pollen.

While standing at our lunch stop at Ferns in Carlisle, we ran into Billy Starr, the founder of the Pan-Mass Challenge. We exchanged a few words, and he encouraged us to see if we could flush out any more riders for this year’s event. So if you’re on the fence this year, please sign up. There’s many options as far as length and fundraising commitment, and the classic Sturbridge to Provincetown route is still open!

Last Monday I went to the official Bay State Bike Week kickoff ride and press conference. The ride was a bit silly—just from City Hall to Columbus Park, about as far as you could throw a baseball—but the press conference was a bit interesting.

In the photo at right you get to see Mayor Menino (speaking), Mass Highway Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky behind his shoulder, next to Boston Bike Program Director and former racer Nicole Freedman, lifelong bike advocate Doug Mink in the back, and MassBike director David Watson at right.

Apparently the Metro newspaper also carried a photo of the event that included me! I haven’t seen it yet (I hope to get a copy), but it must be a prominent and recognizable likeness, because both a former coworker and a fellow Quad Cycles rider both commented on it to me.

Amazingly, as I biked back from the press conference, I stopped in a line of traffic at a red light at Commercial/Causeway/No Washington. What’s that on my left? A spuddy-van Zipcar all painted up in 2009 Pan-Mass jersey colors! Last year Zipcar Saran-Wrapped a van in PMC colors, and apparently they did so again this year. Quick like bull I whipped out the camera and took the accompanying snap.

The amusing bit is that about fifteen minutes after I got home, David Hellman, the PMC’s Director of Operations, tweeted the following: http://twitpic.com/4ziqi Zip Car is doing it again in 2009 for the PMC http://twitpic.com/4zish zipcar.com/pmc

Then Wednesday was such a beautiful day that I decided to go even longer, making it my first (100 mile) century ride of the year, something I’m not usually ready for until June or July. And I cranked through it, too, finishing in seven hours clock time, which includes a 30-minute ice cream stop at Kimball’s. I got through it with relatively few complaints, although both my knees and leg muscles required some time to recover.

And yesterday I did the Quad ride, which did 62 miles, giving me a day’s total of 77 miles, although I took it very easy after Wednesday’s stressor. The ride featured a return to stopping at Kimball’s for ice cream. Although a group of over 50 riders began the ride, by Kimball’s it was down to four: Bobby, Paul, Michael, and I. Bobby wanted a reprise of his photo feeding Buff the Powerbar-Eating Goat, so I took care of that for him. Another good day in the saddle.

As I indicated, this is also Bay State Bike Week. They have a mileage challenge this year, and I pledged 150 miles and rode 184, between the kickoff “ride”, the solo century, and yesterday’s Quad ride.

And I’ve just completed editing my first video fundraising appeal for my Pan-Mass Challenge ride. It’ll be up and announced shortly, as I kick off this year’s fundraising drive. I hope it goes over well!

Although we’re still in February, there’s actually a heck of a lot to report.

For the past two months, I’ve been training exclusively indoors, thanks to the resistance trainer I mentioned borrowing from a friend. It’s given me the most regular winter workouts I’ve had since I started riding.

I’ve used a number of videos to drive my training. Three are Spinervals fitness and climbing workouts, and one is a basic workout from Charmichael Training Systems. All of those are from professional trainers. I also have three more from the Sufferfest, which is just some guy who sets current and classic pro bike racing footage to pop music from the 80s and 90s.

These are all interval workouts, so they’re shorter (45-60 minutes) but much more intense than my usual road rides. They emphasize strength through high resistance training and low-resistance, high cadence spinning.

I’ve been training every other day, which has been a bit much for my knees, but not too bad. So far the numbers add up to 27 sessions totaling 22 hours and a bit over 300 “miles” on the trainer.

Today I put all that indoor effort to the test with my first lengthy outdoor ride of the year. The temperature was unseasonably in the upper 50s, although the wind was crazy: 32 mph sustained, with 45 mph gusts!

The first item to note about today’s ride is the value of my indoor training. The wind may have thrown me off, but I really felt strong throughout the first hour of the ride. The indoor training has clearly paid off in terms of strength. I didn’t suck too much aerobically, either. What I lacked was stamina, both for long, sustained anaerobic efforts, and over time once the ride extended into a second and third hour. But overall I think the trainer has really helped. I have to say, tho, it felt *very* strange when I first got on the bike outside and it actually moved forward underneath me, rather than staying stationary! It actually took me a couple miles to feel comfortable on the bike again.

The other thing to note was the route I took, which was a slightly different 36-mile loop, but one that was pretty scenic and provided quite a challenging workout. Basically, Minuteman path out to Arlington Center, up the east side of the Mystic Lakes on Mystic Valley Parkway, up Washington in Winchester, over godawful Blueberry Hill and across to 3A and back down the west side of the lakes to Arlington Center.

From there, I made quick stops at both old and new Quad Cycles bike shops. Quad is in the process of moving from its old store in Arlington Heights (1346 Mass Ave) about a mile down to Brattle Square (1043 Mass Ave). It’ll be interesting to see the new place once it’s fully set up and stocked.

I took the painfully long hill on Park Ave up to the water tower, and from there took unfamiliar (and more hilly!) roads (mostly Common Street) through Belmont to Watertown Square. After a very quick snack at the Watertown Dam, I followed the river home via Charles River Road, Greenough, and the PDW bike path.

And, finally, I should note that the PMC has begun using the Intarwebs a bit more. There’s now a PMC Twitter and a PMC Blog, which is celebrating the 30th anniversary ride by summarizing each year with a post every Monday. Look for my rides—which started in 2001—to start appearing at the beginning of June.

April is when the weather finally starts to turn for the better around here, and last weekend was both the first non-wintry one, and also the first really summery one. And with three months til the PMC, and all the joggers gone after last week’s storm-battered Boston Marathon, it was time to hit the road and see just how much of last year’s great condition I’ve lost over a completely sedentary winter.

Saturday I rode out to Waltham and picked up Jay, a younger guy from work on a red Felt. I immediately introduced him to the joy (read: pain) of Prospect Hill, which is about a mile from his house. We rode Baker Bridge out to Concord and Carlisle, then back, making my ride 60 hilly miles. It felt pretty good, but by the end, I was getting used up.

Sunday, despite an achy butt, I went and rode around the same area with the Quad Cycles group, doing another 70 miles. By the time I returned to Boston, I was completely drained.

The ride, however, wasn’t destined to end well. The bad news is that I flatted on the bike path before I got home; the good news is that I was by BU, which is only a mile from my house and half that distance to my LBS.

Okay, no prob; I carry both a patch kit and a spare tube, as well as a hand pump. Let’s try the spare tube first… Doh! It won’t inflate! Oh well, I’ll just patch the old tube. Nice. Get it back on the bike and pump it up… Doh! The tube tore by the nipple as I was pumping it up. I guess I’m walking home after all.

So I walked from BU down to Mass Ave and stopped in at the LBS. I picked up three tubes, and two brandy-new tires (to the tune of $85). Frankly, I had been planning on replacing them this spring anyways, because worn tires are much more prone to punctures and flats, and the old tires—which came with the bike back in 2005—have about 4000 miles on them.

So that made for a less than stellar ending for the weekend. But I did get 130 miles in, which is good, considering the first phase of training is to put in a lot of “base miles” at a very moderate pace, to acclimate the body to distance riding and build up aerobic capacity.

And 130 miles over two days is exactly two thirds of the 195 miles I’ll need to do on PMC weekend, three months from now. That makes me feel pretty good about the state of my condition at the moment. Now if only the weather is as good on PMC weekend, everything’ll be great.

But this morning I’m aching in all kinds of places. That’s what spring is about: you have to expect some aches after your first good ride of the year, and stressing your body a little is how you make it adapt and grow stronger.

Welcome to another season…