Monday, December 06, 2004

Saturday, 12/04/2004

Met up with a group of masters riders from the Aurora Cycle, USCF team I'm affiliated with here in the Seattle area. On Saturdays we meet around 8:30 AM, which feels awfully early, but with it now getting dark around 4:00, we do really need to start about then. Today I was running late, so I arrived just as the group was hitting the road to ride north up to the Snohomish valley. On the plus side, I didn't cool down, on the minus side no pre-ride coffee. Oh well..

The weather sucked, ok it really sucked, it was in the low 40's, with a constant drizzle. We road up the lake, and then split into two groups with varying distances. The majority of the team opted for the shorter distance, leaving four of us for the longer route. We ended up doing about 80+ miles; I still need to download the workout from my polar.

The general plan for the ride was to ride out, do a very hard 50 minute tempo section and then return. A few weeks prior (I will fill in as I get time), I did a three power time trial tests on the computrainers over at Racermate. From those tests, I have a general idea of what my heart rate and power thresholds are. For the 50 minute tempo section, I generally tried to stick in the 150-160 BPM range, which should be a high zone three workout for me. The tempo section went well, and we started to head back.

Eating is important and as any Ultra-Athlete knows if you don't eat early and often you’ll bonk. This is even more important when its cold, the body is just burning up the calories standing still much less going somewhere. Well, given the distance and the weather I started the day with two bottles of Perpetuem (1.5 scoops in each), three cliff bars, and a banana. By the end of the ride I had gone through the Perpetuem, banana, and a single cliff bar. I was a little hungry, but still had energy to spare. This is compared with some of the other riders who bonked somewhere ~60 miles, stopped at a gas station and ate maple bars and proceeded to bonk again.

On the equipment front, my bottom bracket went out! Ok, so I will admit I'm obsessed with trying to keep my bike light. Well, last year leading up to RAO, my Record bottom bracket went out after 2 solid years, at first it grinded, then it groaned, and then it practically sized. So instead of replacing it with another record BB, I thought, I'll replace it with the BEST BB money can buy, a Phil Wood titanium magnesium BB, $250.00 poorer, I had my 128 gram wonder. It was smooth the installation was easy and I was off. Well on Saturday with less then a year on the BB it failed. While heading back, I thought ohh with all this rain, something has happened inside. It felt like the bearings were seizing. Little did I know, as the ride ended it got harder and harder to pedal. Post ride, on inspection it became apparent that the spindle had shifted! Some where out there the spindle moved a few mm towards the non-drive side causing the small chain ring to grind against the frame! Luckily the frame is hard then the crank bolts, so the frame had a slight scratch and the crank bolts were polished smooth.. But holy smokes. I have to say I'm not too pleased about the whole thing. On the plus side I have an extra Chorus BB sitting in my apartment that I will install and use it through the rainy months.

Thanks for reading,

Kenneth

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