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Looking Back to Look Forward

01.17.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

Guest poster Don Blount is gearing up for a banner year.

BlountOnBikingLast year ended up being a big cycling year for me. I rode more than 5,400 miles (8,690 kilometers), climbed 111,960 feet (34,125meters), completed a metric century, full century and lost 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms).

It did not start out as if it would be anything special. The first 3 ½ months of the year, I only rode 995 miles (1,609 kilometers) and I weighed 196 pounds (about 89 kilograms).

It was after an April 15 visit to my doctor, who also rides and climbs like a billy goat, that I became determined to lose weight in order to become a better climber.

During the last 7 ½ months of 2012, I rode 4,500 miles (7,242). I tackled rides that I never would have attempted before. In short, I became an overall better cyclist.

That would be looking back.

Looking forward I have a number of riding challenges ahead. 

Approaching the summit of Mt Diablo in Mt Diablo State Park newar Danville, Calif.
Approaching the summit of Mt Diablo in Mt Diablo State Park newar Danville, Calif.

For organized rides, I have planned, so far, a metric century in February. Next are two full centuries, one in April; the other in May. I will ride one with my sister-in-law from Ohio , who started riding last year. It will be her first century and I am delighted she picked me to ride it with her. We are calling it the “In-law Century.”

I am also registered to do the Tour of the California Alps – Death Ride. It is 129 miles (207.6 kilometers), 15,000 feet (4,572 meters) of climbing over five mountain passes. It is July 12, the day before my 53rd birthday.

And I am targeting my first double century in October.

My training rides will be used to build toward each event, so I will get in enough mileage, variety, challenges and fun.

Setting a schedule may seem rigid for some but it works for me in helping to plan my riding around my family, work and other obligations. I have never had a riding schedule before. This is a long way from looking at the bike club riding calendar and thinking “maybe I can do this ride.”

It is shaping up to be an interesting and challenging cycling year.

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Categories // guest post, training Tags // Blount, guest post, training

Small Ring Ride Revisited

01.12.2014 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

As part of my effort to put less effort into my cycling this year, I headed out to Dripping Springs for a Sunday morning ride. Riding the rural roads around here is not necessarily an effortless effort, however, because of all the hills on the route. Only one is truly challenging, and that comes early in the ride, but plenty more are scattered along our route.

Earlier this week, Debra had posted that she and her husband would be riding there. When I arrived at the park where the ride starts, I saw Debra, by herself. She was talking with Jerry, another of the club regulars. I made three. That was it.

Debra said she had hardly ridden since the start of the year, and Jerry echoed her concerns. When we rolled away from the park, it was at a painfully easy pace. And as the miles went by, it looked like neither of them was going to do anything to speed things up.

But that played into my strategy for training. I found myself almost exclusively in the small chainring. I could select a range of gears that kept me close to Jerry, and often ahead of Debra. Both were riding high-end carbon fiber bikes today, the combined weight of which was still probably lighter than my own bike. I’m exaggerating, but not by much.

Jerry is a very strong cyclist, who had a nasty experience last spring when he fell during a group ride and broke his leg. He shies away from riding in groups now, and is very content to meander through the countryside with the likes of us.

I decided I would try to do the whole ride in the small chainring. I’d done that before, in training rides around Austin’s Veloway, but I had never tried it on the road before. For the most part, it worked out well.

From time to time, I took the lead in our small group, and before I knew it, I was well out ahead of them. A couple of times, I stopped by the roadside to wait for them to catch up. Once, Jerry decided he was a bit chilly, and stomped it to get the blood flowing.

For me to catch Jerry under those conditions required more than the small ring — so I cheated. I did switch to the big ring, just long enough to rein Jerry in, or to catch him as he waited at the side of the road.

In a few other spots, the route offers some downhill stretches that one just must ride all out, in the big ring. I did with gusto.

But when it was all over, I had spent at least 75 percent of the ride in the small ring. My average speed over the 27-mile course — 12.2 mph — indicated that this was not a hammerfest. But as another training ride to build my base, it worked out very well indeed.

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Categories // training Tags // training

Rediscovering Zone 2

01.05.2014 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

Took a ride with a friend the other day. It wasn’t meant to be anything big, just using streets in our neighborhood, catching up about Christmas and whatnot, and just enjoying our time out. The day was on the chilly side, but sunny. The wind was there, but wasn’t a factor.

As we left one subdivision to enter another, I glanced down at my bike computer. It was blank. I had forgotten to start it when we began our ride after meeting up at a local coffee house. My computer will go to sleep if it’s idle for five minutes, and I have to click a button to make sure it starts registering when I start up again.

At first, I was angry at myself — I’ve made that mistake before. But then, I looked back at our ride up to that point, and decided I really didn’t need the computer’s data for the day anyway. We had covered about eight miles by then, and I know our average speed was probably in the 12 mph area. I wasn’t working any harder than I do when I ride with my wife. I was in Zone 2.

Zone 2 is familiar to riders who use heart rate monitors. It describes the space between 70-85 percent of maximum heart rate. Three years ago, I was in a riding clinic where we were ordered to ride only in Zone 2. The coach said that since we weren’t training for any races, but were just building a base, this was the kind of riding we should be doing during the winter months anyway. Besides, Zone 2 is where your body learns to burn fat.

We were out for about an hour and a half — 20 miles, give or take. During that whole time, the only effort we put out was on the few short uphills we encountered. In fact, my friend suggested we attack some hills, since our riding had been — well — boring up until that point. But on the hills, she decided it was time to end the ride and head home, so we didn’t even get in any meaningful hill work.

But that evening, I could tell I had done some good riding. My weight was down a bit, I didn’t feel bloated after dinner, and I was ready for a good night’s deep sleep. Zone 2 might not test your abilities as a cyclist, but it does good things for your future riding. I enjoyed it so much, I’m going to make a real effort to spend most of my winter in Zone 2. Or at least the next two months’ worth.

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