Planning a Lunch Ride...

Yesterday I knew I wanted to go for a ride on lunch. I just felt like a ride and not a run as it seems has been my choice most days lately. I was not sure which loop I wanted to do. I decided that I wanted to do this loop based on just a feel for a "road ride".

I had ridden in on a mix of road, gravel trail, and very little singletrack on the Cross bike. This gave me the options of pretty much riding any surface on lunch but I just wanted to push out on the road. The ride was good but I just wanted to go further. I want to plan a longer ride today but with fixed length lunches I am not sure it is a good idea. Paul was able to do a decent job of keeping a strong pace on his Fixie but noted some leg stress on certain sections of the ride.This had me spinning slowly (recovering) and waiting up a bit. I think it's time to convince him to get a CX or Road bike for longer faster lunch loops. I think today I will stretch it out a couple KM's but keep it within the 1 hour including prep and shower time...

Anyway babbling on about nothing... I'm out...

Great rides and Lunch rides

Well it's that time of year again. Later than usual due to my new Cyclocross bike early season purchase but it came. Mountainbike season!!! Again I have been looking at new toys and new frames and salivating over what's out there. Again I dug my bike out and wow!! I love it when you grab a bike you have not ridden in a while and it's like New bike Day all over again. Of course there is still a part of me that wants upgrades that require dollars that I already spent on other things.

Anyways went out for my season opener ride on Sunday at the Hydrocut  with Paul and Mike and his crew and had a blast, a segment of Adams run was reworked and between that and riding with guys above my technical calibur I rode some things I have previously shied away from. In hindsight not sure what the big deal was. Unfortunately late in the ride I trash talked Mike and the cycling Karma got me back with a brown tube. Lesson learned... Anyway a snipit is above.

I have had 2 lunch hour MTB rides since and both have been great. Today I stopped and snapped a couple pix. Enjoy the light reading portion of the post.

The Beast

Looking Half Dead Pre-Ride (Too much white too??)

Trails 2K from house

Trailside lake/pond

Trillium season

A taste of why I love lunch hour

Lately I have been doing a lot of lunch running. It was just the way through winter and this wet spring. I was experiencing the "runners high" and it kept me coming back for more. The urge to get out and bike has been there but not as crazy as in years gone by. I have had great commute rides on the fixed gears and a few lunch rides too just the drive has not been quite the same. So I ran, and I ran, and I ran and experienced the fun in running. It has truly been great.

Yesterday Paul said to bring in the MTB today as it has been dry for two days. I was a little nervous about weak legs after the Marathon Sunday but what the hay I brought it in. The morning commute was awesome. High cadence + extreme oxygenation high. Then I made my way through the morning hungrier than usual.

Then came lunch time....



Yeah I think I just had a taste of the preverbial Herroine of MTB. I may not be running for a while (I likely will tho). Talk at ya later... I'm out.... Might just go riding again ;-) If original video does not work in your location try this one... (Thanks EMI for region censorship)

December 9 #bikeschool Q1 - extended

 Bam!! Darryl layed down the first question of the night last night. I immediately started thinking in 140 characters. I answered simply that I would point to a blogpost on the subject by either @bikerly @lovingthebike or @egggman (me) and tell them to join. This is what I do when people ask me right? Then I started reading other (Better) answers and it got me to thinking.

If Someone asked me what is #bikeschool in any forrum other than twitter how would I answer??

#bikeschool is the #secretevilplan that wasn't... Or was it? One night at the cottage watching a fuzzy at best tv screen after a movie ended it was twitter time. My wife was checking in on facebook friends and plans for the next day. I sat back with the iPad and read a tweet from a newly followed wild man @bikerly to @lovingthebike. The tweet went something like: "so how is the #secretevilplan coming". I jumped in with a snide remark about it cant be so secret let me in. From there @bikerly started taking about filling water bottles with vodka. Back at home a week or so later I poked the pair on their #secretevil plan in jest and we started chatting about fictional possibilities.

One day still in summer @bikerly decided to stop the whole idea of the #secretevilplan joke and make it into something. His idea... you guessed it #bikeschool a hashtag linked to blog entries about life lessons learned by bike. The idea grew in dm's and e-mails between the 3 of us and then on August 10 2010 it was on a 3 linked blog post under the theme #bikeschool. Many other bloggers joined in quickly and lots of #bikeschool tweets happened through August and into September. The idea was fun and had worked but it was slowing down.

Blog posts #1: Bikerly Blog , LovingTheBike , OldSinglespeed

@bikerly decided it was time to kick up the heat and we chatted some more #secretevilplanB took shape. Based on some interesting twitter chat sessions he had seen he pitched the idea to us. Sounded great. We could have a couple people get together every week at 9pm EST Thurdays. We sent out some tweets and had a team blog post again Tuesday October 19th making another #secretevilplan #unsecret again.

I don't know what the others expected but the first week was amazing. @bikerly hosted and it was fun. I could not believe the amount of people who showed up. I learned alot quickly about people and their cycling habits. More though I just had a fun hour on twitter with new friends. Week 2 @lovingthebike was in charge and it was great again.

Week 3 was my turn and I was a little nervous about running out of inspiration. I wrote out some questions and let a few things pop off the collar and it was again a fun session. From there it is history. We have had guests ask questions we keep meeting new great friends. It is really becoming a fun community get together. It has now stretched as far as England and Australia although it wreaks havoc on their schedule due to time shift.

Week after week fun times. Stay tuned next week as @bikerly takes over again! And as @lovingthebike says "enjoy your ride!"

#notsosecretevolplanD really needs to be a #tweetup group ride somewhere sometime with ridiculous amounts of fun included!!

The challenge...

A very open ended challenge was sent hither last evening post sleepytime. A cohort of mine decided to put it out there...

We must each use our sketching technique to render an image on ourn blogs on Thursday. I assume the man the myth the #bikeschool legend will use a Sharpie for his sketch. I in turn chose The Gimp. My image is ready and waiting on my hard-drive for a Thursday posting. Return then to find my entry in this non-lucrative contest of contests.

Ever so sneakily my competitor has chosen a fellow Sharpie fan as his judge. She however is beginning to tremble at the thought she may have to choose mine draw-ring as grand champignon (Thats right the big mushroom).

The purpose of this post is to call to order a team of zero or more nother judge types to further scrutinize the images. If you feel the urge to throw a vote of better image creativeness n' such then check our blogs's Thursday and toss a comment of "1 Vote" into comments for the blog of your choice.

I will create a Dunce-Cap Image for the Twavatar of the least winningest of winner to wear to #bikeschool....

I'm out...

Riding in the debris lane...

Photo Credit: Jim's Bike Blog

I "always" ride with caution when sharing the roads with motorized vehicles. My city has recently started to put in place "cycle lanes" a place you could continue to ride safely but be a tiny bit less cautious and take in a little more of what is going on around you. If you remember a couple weeks back I had a great day. Would the day have been as great without a bikelane flat? Probably not. Does this excuse the chunk of mesh metal that was in the cycle lane brushed off the "road"? Also probably not.

The last couple days I have had amazing lunch hour rides! Absolutely amazing for November in Ontario. 8 and 9 degrees Celsius and sunny. I did a 16km loop yesterday and completed the planned route from two weeks back with a cell phone in my pocket and route plan passed on to Paul (lesson learned). Today I took an alternate route to my regular commute and surprised my wife with a luch hour visit. The rides were things of lunch hour dreams. Good climbs great cadence(just kicked a cold), etc...

I rode both of these rides watching my surroundings but also with one eye on the lane. I was amazed by the amount of vehicle and other debris that was shoved into our space. I saw chunks of metal, rusted tailpipes, nails, bolts, indescribable sharpness, but the worst offender of all was an old style manhole cover where a cycle wheel can be swallowed whole that was lengthwise and was the whole width of the "cycle lane".

I don't really have a whole lot more to say on this subject. I was just shocked that while the road seems to be cleaned of debris regularily that our space alongside seems to be the lucky recipient of their trash.

I seemed to loose my frustration while writing this. Success!! 

Anyone else have thoughts/experiences on this matter?? I'm out... 

#Bikeschool where we are all students and teachers...

A couple months ago @bikerly, @lovingthebike and I blogged about
sharing lessons learned using the hashtag #bikeschool. The hashtag has
taught us alot. Not so much on technical issues, but more about life
lessons.

We've heard about kids flying free without training wheels and what
this has meant for the parent. There have been stories shared about
mountain biking, volunteerism, beer biking, icebiking, biking with a
family, and we've even had a couple Yogi Berrisms. It's been amazing
and fun to be part of this.

We'd like to take #bikeschool to the next level. By all means keep
sharing your stories via blogs and tweets during the week using the
same hashtag, but beginning this Thursday, October 21 at 9p EST and
each Thursday through the rest of the year, we invite you to attend a
live 60 minute Twitter discussion moderated by either Jim, Darryl, or
myself.

We'll identify the moderator each Thursday on Twitter at 9p EST sharp
using the hashtag #bikeschool. They will introduce a new topic or
question every 15 minutes to keep the discussion lively. If you follow
us on Twitter you know the discussion can get a little crazy. Expect
more of the same, but most importantly expect to make some great
cycling connections and have some fun.

So that's Thursday night #bikeschool folks. Are you ready for some
cycling conversation? Questions? Contact @egggman, @lovingthebike or
@bikerly and we'd be happy to help.


Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.
Yogi Berra


As written by @bikerly and way post edited by @egggman

What to ride this am.....

I decided on the singlespeed 29er over the fixie because this is one of the beautiful sites along the way from home to my office. I see the office over the pond.

Not much more to say right now...

Beer, Bacon, and egggman - #bikeschool

Summer holidays are many things. They are amazing and anti-stressing. They are a time to enjoy the things life has to offer. Family, Friends, a getaway to the cottage or camping etc. They can be an excuse to break from the normal. Unfortunately they can also be an excuse to eat/drink heartily and ignore your training regime.

For me that meant a juggling of my usual diet of 2 parts vegi and one part meat to a rough 3 part meat 2 parts beer. Also my usual run/ride schedule was decreased to only a few rides and running back and forth from beach to cottage for supplies etc. I added in canoeing and swimming to make me feel better. Generous portions of steak, ribs, and sausages nightly were a wonderful treat. I am definitely not complaining about this but trying to learn to train better through the holidays.Returning home from this leaves me feeling a little soft and slow. Actually I seem to come back faster in short sprints but slower over the long haul. A little of the additional weight probably also being due to muscle healing but the cardio relaxation seems to be a hinderence overall. I'm sure the daily Muskoka beers on the beach, by the bbq, and in the evening by the fire did not help. I did however truly enjoy the Hefe-Weissbier and the Dark-Ale.

Anyways back to the real world yesterday I rode the fixie and ran feeling a little sluggish. Today I felt great back on the 29er in the morning and on lunch but got a little winded a couple times and did not have the same speed as usual on climbs. A great lunch hour ride with the usual mix of single/double track and 3 climbs up the back of a 4X course for climbing training and decending back down the course for fun.

Another #bikeschool lesson came through me deciding to reward myself for making all the climbs fairly strong after holidays with a relaxing totter ride. I may have learnt this lesson before but a rigid singlespeed 29er works just fine on a 4X course and even a teeter-totter. Maybe the park kids may look at us a little funny but it works. Enjoy your bike whatever it may be in the way you want to use it. Only caveat to this being if you dont have a strong bike dont break it doing something it cant handle.

Paul was kind enough to take a couple snaps of me on the teeter-totter with his blackberry. He could convince himself to ride it though but will get it next time.

That's it for now... I'm out...

#bikeschool egggy edition #2... healthy cycle...

Well, I am about to step back in time a few years get ready....
Talking to a new co-worker about cycling (mountain biking to be exact) and how we both had ridden a local trail quite a bit but not in the past few years. "We gotta get out sometime" was the topic of many conversations. These conversations stretched out across approximately 3 years. Yeah we had been off the bike for too long. The both of us had.

One crazy day I contacted my friend, a cycle store owner and asked what kind of deal he could give me if I was going to get back into biking. He hooked me up with a 15% off plus tax free deal for me on a Kona Blast although he made many free alterations for me. I asked about a friend and he said if I had 2 purchases same day he would honor the same deal. So from there i played it this way, hey Paul you are getting a new bike, here is the deal!!! He was in but one upped me with a Kona Caldera. History was made. Wednesday rides starting/finishing my place 10k to the trails 22km-27km of trails then back was official.

At this point I had one young daughter and I had quit baseball for cycling and 1 night vs 3 looked great to my wife. Anyways this is not the real #bikeschool story. More of just a lead in. I was a pretty tame mountain bike enthusiast just getting back into the game.

one day I decided to do the whole ride with no stop/chat's and just ride it hard. I did it i cranked and cranked out there, across the whole trail Paul and I switching up the lead position as we saw fit. Riding back my 210lb body said no-more. I rode it out but was in a beyond bonk position. Home was a great place to be to think about where I was and what I needed to get into better riding shape. The #bikeschool lesson this time was that in order to be able to continue with my passions of hockey and cycling I may need to take care of myself a little better.

Health is important as learnt via #bikeschool...

Ouch, this post is off topic as it has to do only with geared cycling... More about my evolution in future sessions... I'm out...

#bikeschool

A little while ago I caught onto what started as a joke between @Bikerly and @LovingTheBike on twitter. They were talking about #secretevilplan, I was curious and threw in some fun anecdotes. From there it turned into jokes about water bottle concoctions etc... Then we joked a little less and started to think about where we could go with a #secretevilplan event even though we are geographically diverse. I was not successful in coming up with a plan but @bikerly came up with a great one. And we move forward.

Was called up by a close riding friend Chris who I had not ridden with in years and another old friend's younger brother was to come along. We tossed the idea of meeting at a new location for two to three of us as I was not sure if Ryan had ridden there before. I knew my buddy Mike had ridden there before and we had only ever raced together and regularly near missed group rides together. An unlikely group of riders all different speeds and styles showed up at the lot.

All of us excited about a ride we got through the "hey how goes it's" etc quickly and got on the bikes. Ryan apparently knew the trails best so he led. I decided to jump in second and we were off. Went through a couple nice tight pine switchbacks and then into a dark spot. Not sure if it was Ryan's yell "mud" that spooked me or just a slippery puddle, I dropped the bike but successfully ran along side somehow. Mike and Chris passed and I rejoined the back of the train. I slid in front of Chris on a loose rocky climb only because I needed to keep the momentum on the singlespeed. We rode through a few more pine switchbacks and stopped for water and a little chat. All was well and we started up in the same order as we stopped. At this point Ryan moved forward followed closely by Mike, Myself and Chris. After a few more tight twists and turns and a little gravel climbing I realized Chris had lost a little pace on us. I took a left and yelled out left for him to follow. Two more climbs and I realized that where there had been four there were now three.

I decided now would be a good time to stop and wait for Chris as this was a group ride with friends and not a race. I also called to the guys ahead but they were on their way down a loose rocky downhill and did not hear me. I watched as they rode off into the distance. Waiting a little longer I turned back expecting a bail or mechanical had occurred. Not only did I not find Chris but another group of riders had not seen him either. I was in a set of 50km of trails that I did not know from Adam, and to that matter I did not remember the way out as I had followed a tire in and not paid attention to which turns were made.

I rode for approximately 15km before finding the carpark. I yelled names every so often and asked other groups if they had seen my group or a stray. There was writing in dust on my van saying Chris had been there 10 mins ago but went back in. The chase was on I sprinted through "all the original singletrack" without the mud bail this time. Realized I was lost again and wound through a real nice technical section of climbs (that likely are mapped as downhills) found the carpark alot quicker this time though after about a 5km loop. Got to the carpark and Mike and Ryan were there, we started talking and Chris showed up. They all started putting their bikes away and we chatted for a while. I said to Mike that I was still feeling great and had heard from Ryan about a nice loop I had missed. He apparently did not realize I was serious and got changed.

The others left and I turned back in, Mike yelled out that he wanted another loop but was already comfortable so he left. I had an amazing 10km loop with no worries about finding the others and packed it up and went home.

How does this story relate to twitter and #secretevilplan? How does this relate to @bikerly or @lovingthebike? These two guys were nowhere near this ride. I did not even chat about this ride with them before or after. I may have tweeted about loosing friends in the trail but that's about it. What did I learn while riding this set of trails? Did I learn about a great new set of trails? of course I did but this is not my point. Did I learn that riding alone is more fun than in groups? Heck no!! Really I may have learned a little about riding but this is not really why I am writing this story.

I am writing this because @Bikerly came up with a great idea for #bikeschool, things learned while riding. Not necessarily things learned about riding. I learned on this ride in particular that I there needs to be a better way of communicating amongst a group when group riding, maybe it should be radio's maybe it should be cellphones? Maybe everyone should stay still when they realize they have been separated and then slowly retrace their steps. Probably does not matter what the method is but communication of a plan before the ride is key. Or maybe communication with friends is the real key.

If you have stories of things you have learned about life through cycling tweet about it using #bikeschool or maybe some more #bikeschool bloging. Now I guess we will have to think up another #secretevilplan.

Be Sure to also checkout these cycle blogs regarding #bikeschool

http://lovingthebike.com/
http://bikerly.wordpress.com/