Bike Noob

Because I'm Always Learning Something New

I Just Rode To Ethiopia…And Boy Are My Legs Tired

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Guest poster Jeff Hemmel had the ride of a lifetime — or not.

HemmelsRide2Before you dismiss that headline, let me just assure you that it’s true. Yesterday, I rode to Ethiopia. I started in Florida, apparently hauled arse across the North Atlantic, beelined it straight across Africa, and finished up my journey in Ethiopia.

Don’t believe me? Just check out the nice little map that Strava compiled of my journey. As more than one person has said, hey, it’s on the Internet…it must be true.

Pic

Ray has recently mentioned he’s jumped on the Strava bandwagon. For better of for worse, I’ve been there for years, logging my rides, checking my stats, even feverishly going after a few KOMs, or King of the Mountain status on certain segments. I’ve watched things go from a time when there were maybe three or four segments on a ride — mostly bridge climbs here in relatively flat Florida — to coming home, logging in to Strava, and seeing my ride measured against literally dozens of segments all over the map. It’s a complicated relationship. I know that Strava can almost wreck a ride at times, making you feel like you need to speed through an area because you know you’re being judged against your peers rather than just ride for enjoyment. But, I know it can also literally make your day when you return home to discover you set a personal best, or maybe even challenged for the almost mythical KOM on a segment you may or may not have targeted.

And, depending on the quality of data it gets, Strava can also apparently turn 47.7 miles into a monumental journey to Ethiopia.

I’ll lay some of the blame on the third party in our little menage-a-trois — my Garmin computer. It’s usually pretty dependable, but on this occasion I think it’s fair to say it was having a bad day. Ethiopia, however, was nothing compared to what happened next. Today I didn’t just get a map to Ethiopia, I got the dreaded “bad file” message. That’s when something goes kaffluey on a Garmin and your ride never gets recorded. Like it never…even…happened. It’s a measure of how obsessed some of us have become with Strava that, upon seeing that message, I spent the next 10 minutes feverishly trying to resurrect what I knew was lost. Making matters worse, I had recently signed up for one of Strava’s monthly “challenges.” I usually ignore these contests, but whatever reason this one caught my attention, a challenge to see if you could ride the combined distances of the Spring Classics — Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Fleche Wallonne, and Amstel Gold —or a total of 787 miles in 40 days.

In fact, today, after a particularly vigorous solo ride, I was going to surpass the 787-mile mark with nearly 10 days to spare. Maybe even set some PRs in the process.

Until, that is, I disconnected my Garmin from my bike, hooked it to the computer, and gazed at the results. Yesterday, Ethiopia. Today, bad file. Oh, the horror of it — I almost cried. Like it never…even…happened.

Okay, maybe I’m hyping up my reaction a little for a funny story. After years of using Strava, I have learned to have a little perspective on these situations. It’s happened before, ironically almost always when I’ve gone out and put in a big effort and just can’t wait to see what the results are, but yet, it’s happened. And at times like these I like to remind myself that stats, or KOMs, or PRs, aren’t really why I ride. To prove it, I reflected back on the “bad file” ride, miles that passed accompanied by palm trees, sunshine, shore birds, and a brilliant view of the Florida coastline. It put me at peace.

At least, for a few minutes. Then I fired off a support request to Strava and feverishly scoured the Internet to find instructions how to reset my Garmin…before it happens again.

Like I said, it’s a complicated relationship.

Strava Revisited

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Okay, I have no integrity whatsoever. After bashing Strava several times on this blog, I am now immersed in the ride tracking program — big time.

Why the sudden change in feeling? Well, it’s all because of a new phone. I’ve never had a smartphone before. All my mobile phones were very basic. So when my wife and I sprang for new phones over the weekend, I knew I would want to try out some apps. And for a cyclist, what better app to try out than Strava?

Honestly, I thought I would use it to take the place of my Bike Journal entries, where I keep tabs online of my rides. Strava catalogs much the same information — distance, average speed, maximum speed — but it gives you much more.

For starters, the GPS feature records the route you ride in a map. And if you want, you can trace the route you took by following a little blue dot around the route. I’ve already used it on a couple of my friends’ Strava pages to see what kind of variations they ride on the basic neighborhood route that everyone around here rides. And it’s already given me some good ideas.

My regular route through Circle C Ranch. It was fun to see how my friends ride essentially the same route, but with little variations of their own.
My regular route through Circle C Ranch. I enjoyed seeing how my friends ride essentially the same route, but with little variations of their own. (Click pix for bigger.)

Of course, the big thing everyone who has ever heard of Strava is familiar with is the King of the Mountain and Queen of the Mountain titles that go to the fastest rider on a particular segment. No King of the Mountains for me yet. I suppose I could do as others do, and chart a short section of a bigger route, then claim a KOM because no one else would have ridden it yet — but that’s meaningless, and I’m not about to do something like that. This week.

You can also create a segment on your own, but after today’s ride I found that I might not need to. I rode a popular neighborhood route of about 18-21 miles, depending upon the variation taken on a given day, and when I accessed the Strava record, I found the route had 20 different segments.

Some of them are worthless to me. They’re short little chunks of road, not even .3 miles long. But other segments are parts of the route I have always paid particular attention to anyway. Now, I have a record of how fast I went to compare with future efforts, and also to compare against other riders I might know.

Basic data from today's ride.
Basic data from today’s ride.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did well on some of the segments. One, that tracks a full lap of the Veloway (3 miles), had me clocked at 10 minutes, 4 seconds. I typically ride it at around 10:30. I have done it as fast as 9:30 in years gone by. Now, I can keep that figure in mind (Strava has already declared it a PR, or Personal Record, for me) and try to better it in future trips around the Veloway.

So, if you’re on Strava yourself, and want to chuckle at some slow times, visit my page. We’ll see if I get a little faster in the coming months. Even if I don’t, it’s going to be fun to compare routes and times with myself and my friends.

Thinking About Hills

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Anyone who has read Bike Noob knows I’m not much of a hill climber. In fact, if anything, my hill-climbing ability has decreased in the past couple of years — I’m getting older, you know. Yeah, that’s it. (All right — I still haven’t managed to get my weight down to that level where hills are doable — but I think I’ll stick with the age angle.)

But it’s spring, believe it or not (It must be — we’re under our second wind advisory in a week! It was tough out there today!), and as we point toward our nice weather riding (It will come again, I promise), a lot of us will add hills to our training regimens.

Yes, even I climb hills in training. But the hills I climb close to home aren’t anything like the really challenging hills we’ll face on some of our targeted rides.

One that I think I’ll try to handle — maybe in the fall, after I’ve had lots of time to train for it — is Fulton Ranch Road. It’s not too far from Austin, and has been part of the 100-mile version of the Livestrong Ride here. It’s got a grade that I think is just within my abilities, but the problem is, it’s a lot longer than most of the hills around here. To whet your appetite for some warm-weather climbing, here’s a YouTube video of the hill.

But Fulton Ranch Road pales in comparison to the real monster. That’s the Westernport Wall in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Its 31 percent grade — that’s 31 percent! — is steep enough that the road is closed to motor traffic. But bikers are welcome to take a stab at it. And to make matters worse, the Wall is only part of the story. It comes in the middle of a triathlon! If you can get to the top of the Wall without clipping out and walking, you get a brick with your name incribed added to the rough and uneven surface of the road.

Makes my .4-mile jaunt up Convict Hill look like a walk in the park. Maybe by the end of summer, it will be!

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