And so it begins….

After doing an upwards of 15H/week on the trainer last winter, it’s time to start up again. I can appreciate the trainer’s use for endurance miles. If you can stand it, I think 3H on the trainer is far better than 3H outside since you can peg a particular power and just cruise. No need to worry about traffic, ice, or the setting sun. I almost miss those long boring days in a way.

But tonight, the trainer and I have a date. This will be the first time on the trainer for the ‘06 season. I’ll be starting out the season with an assesment of my fitness (aka LT test) in similar fashion to Mr Grind. I’m moving up in the world from a 20′ to a 30′ TT. Should help me focus more and allow me to work on my form. As soon as I get my TT bike built up, it will be the dedicated trainer bike.

I’ll be doing a bunch of TT’s this year (I’ve been road riding for 3 years and have never done one…) since most of the stage races require them. We’ll see how it goes…

Weird Feeling

I had this weird feeling yesterday. It was a feeling of freedom. Why? Well, becuase I rode my bike for a little over 2H yesterday just to stretch the legs out after such a long time off and I was only wearing a jersey, armwarmers, and some tights. Yes, that’s right…no thermal jacket, no Buff, no booties, just me, my bike, and a few extra clothing items.

I did a nice little loop while I checked out the “countryside”. During my ride I’ve contemplated living in a different area since the place we’re currently living, even though it’s nice, is a bit costly for what you get.

Finally got an insurance check for some damages that happened to our stuff during the move. That big fat check will go to paying off a few bike purchases and allow me to finance a crash replacement frame for my racing bike. Yep, that’s right! I’ve gone from an ‘03 Giant Carbon TCR which was warranteed to an ‘05 which will be crash replaced to an ‘06. Sweet!

There and back again…

So after many moons of travelling I have finally returned to my “lovely” abode in Seattle. Over the past few days I’ve travelled to my first home in Ohio to visit the family. It was a good time as I got to see my family as well as my nephews and niece. Flew into Cleveland and hung with my dad. Did a little shopping to pick up some last minute gifts (never again….next year I’m amazon all the way) and realized I had left my iBook charger at home! GACK! Silly $80 charger…I decided to tough it out and save my $80 for another day. Good thing I had my DS to keep my company.During all of this I didn’t pedal one stroke. Yep, I took almost a complete week off the bike and luckily didn’t gain a pound! Now, it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and start grinding away at my base miles. I have a trip planned with my buddy for the end of Feburary in LA (for some good base miles fun). We’ll be hanging at his uncle’s house riding and hopefully catching the last two stages of the Tour Of California. NICE

Chronic of Narnia

Oh yes….. I do believe this is perfection.

Lights!!

If only I had this much time on my hands….wow….

The day off…

I have a day off…and when I say a day off, I mean a day off. I don’t have^H^H^H^Hget to ride my bike today, I think I’ll probably watch some TV, kick the feet up, and start working on updating my teams website. It’ll be a long process, but the sooner I get started, the sooner I’ll be done.I went out on a trip around the north end of Lake Washington. It wasn’t that bad until I got to the very northern tip of Lake Washington…then the temperature dropped to just below freezing…brrrr…(like to give a snowy shout-out to all my peeps in the new england area at this point….). I managed to keep it at a brisk Z2 pace which according to my PowerTap should be like 225+ watts. At times I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough and saw that I was pushing 300W. I guess this is a good thing.My hopes for next year are roughly a 5-10% improvement in my functional threshold (FT). Which is a pretty big jump but I think that’s what I capable of. I did my last FT a couple of months ago and PR’d. That was after taking a month or two off due to moving. At that point I saw about a 5 watt increase which is still pretty good. But I need BIG jumps…like 15-20 watts. That should put me in good contention for placing well at our local TT’s. If I can still climb, I should do fairly well during the numerous stage races that are around the area…

Don’t believe everything you hear…

This commercial takes commentating to a whole new level.

I had to watch it twice before I really got the jist of everything that was going on.

Another day in the saddle

Saturday and Sunday were met with some fog which burned off into sunny skies. Quite opposite of what my friends had to face at Cyclocross Nationals.

Hopped on the bike for a 3+ hour ride on Saturday and a 1:30H ride on Sunday. The rest of the time was spent doing the laundry, playing my new video game or catching up on some light reading.

I’ve been finalizing some plans for me to travel to LA come the end of February to hang out with one of my good friends while we explore the area on our bikes for far too long. Probably log over 500 miles in under 6 days. Good times!

Lazy days

Took yesterday off from the bike so I could get some errands done. Headed down to Center Cycle to pick up some stuff they had ordered for me. Then headed over to Toys R Us to pick up a few goodies for my nephews and niece and then to a fit party to make sure I’m ordering the right sizes for next year’s kit and finally over to a teammate’s house to pick up some stuff I had ordered from Craft. All in all a very expensive but productive day.

BicycleClimbs

Knew of this site for a while now but I now have the inside scoop on it. The dude works at MSFT and has been working it for the past couple of months to incorporate users to add their own hills for their area. It’s really sweet. I’ve been able to add one or two so far and it works like a charm.

When it’s all done, a user will be able to log in, trace a path similar in fashion to Gmap-pedometer and then submit that path. At that point, it will contact some USGS database to calculate the elevation gain automagically. Pretty freakin’ sweet. Now you can find the exact specs for that molehill you went over the other day!

If you’re outside of Seattle and want to start adding hills to your area, let me know and I’ll get you in touch with the author on how to do that!