Super Sunday!

Met Kyle @ 8am at the secret location - he's training for a triathlon so we rode the bike course twice. Engine room faded with about 10 to go but we still had a good ride.

3423 calories burned (56.6 miles @ 18.1mph in 3 hr 7 min)

Rest day Monday!

Solo Saturday

With Tom being out of town this weekend, I set off around 7. It was cold, wet, and a lot of debris from the rain. The sun never poked through and at the 10.5 mile mark I turned around. I stayed on the flats and just kept a good tempo going. When I got back to my car I was kind of surprised to see a time of 1 hour and 6 minutes especially when I wasn't really pushing. I didn't want to push too much though there were leaves and it felt slippery.

Big ride Sunday at new secret location!!

1241 calories burned in 1 hour 6 minutes (21 miles @ 19.1 avg)

Lots of rest - followed by a great afternoon!

I was wore out after last Sunday's ride. I took Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday off and rode the Thursday afternoon with Kyle in Bellbrook. I had the engine room on all cylinder's today and I knew it after the first climb! I did manage to blow myself up while pulling on a flat stretch of road into a good crosswind around 28mph. It took a while for the lights to come back but they did.

Kyle didn't quite have the firepower today but you can't be good everyday. I pulled as fast as I could for as long as I could without dropping him and we made it back with our highest average yet. The wind was crazy but it's always like that in Bellbrook for some reason. I like it!

I'm not sure what I'm doing Friday, I may rest & go shopping, or I may ride. I'll know that when I wake up and see how I feel. I think I'm going to have my best year yet, the weight is dropping and the power output is really increasing.

2,469 calories in 2 hr 6 min (36.6 miles at 17.4 mph)

Sunday.................

Met Kyle @ 8am in Bellbrook - hit some hills today. Took a variation of the course which added about 6 miles and a few good rollers. I pretty much felt bad the whole ride, definitely felt yesterday. My bike has a tick in the bottom bracket area, long story short the mechanic doesn't know what is wrong with it and he has to call Shimano and he will call me tomorrow. More than likely they'll recommend a different seating compound for the threads or something. We'll see!

2,431 calories in 2 hr 7 min (36.6 miles at 17.3 mph)

Hilly Saturday

Met Tom @ 7:30am this morning for a long ride on his new bike. He bought a 2006 OCR2 full Ultegra. An epic day, he managed to get rocks in the rear brake about an hour in, and then again in the front brake an hour later. An hour after that, his seat came loose so it was scooting forward and backward like he was on a boat. Special thanks to the mystery rider who loaned us a alan wrench to tighten it up. It won't be coming loose anytime soon! Also at some point his water bottle came out and ended up in a ditch full of dense weeds. It's still there.

Today was climbs everywhere. We rode from Loveland up climbs #1 and #2 at the 4 and 6 mile marks. We then ventured to Lebanon and Tom beat his old record of 61 minutes by a full minute. We then rode back to the interconnect, and then north for some real hills. We rode past Morrow and hit the Strout hill which Tom almost made it all the way up. After a break he was able to finish it. Back down Strout and onto Ft. Ancient. I made it to the top, first time since 2004 for me, Tom didn't make it far at all. Not sure what happened there. Back to the path and north again for a hill we call MF. I forget the name of the road but hill just keeps going. Tom made this one without stopping! Awesome.

That was our turn-around point and we began heading south. Back to Morrow for a stop at the infamous ice cream shop for some lunch and legendary potato salad!

We got to the interconnect again and turned for Lebanon. Up all those climbs and then we turned for home. I elected to go up the climbs again at the 6 and 4 mile mark and even tried to talk some other rider into doing it but he didn't want anything to do with hills. Wimp!

All in all, a nice long ride. Our average was in the toilet but we did a lot of climbing. Hills again on Sunday, rest day Monday. My new shoes are awesome.

4,229 calories in 4 hr 34 min (66.2 miles at 14.5 mph)

The Big Ring

Rode Thursday in Bellbrook with Kyle. Hopefully this will be a weekly thing as the hills and open roads with lots of wind are good training. I felt okay on the hills but not great. I was finally able to sustain the big ring on the flats for quite a long time. Most of the ride I was over 20mph on the flats which is great progress from 6 weeks ago. In other milestone's my weight is back to 215.

2,040 calories in 1 hr 47 min (30.6 miles at 17.2 mph)

Variation of the route is on tap for Sunday.

Picked up my bike Thursday evening from the shop. New Ultegra crankset, rear cluster, cables, headset cleaned and greased and the hubs were cleaned and greased. Feels like a totally new bike with responsive shifting! I haven't done really any work on it since it was new in 2003 and everything was original. It was time.

Tom went out and bought a brand new bike! We'll ride Saturday morning. Can't wait. We plan on doing the River Route next week. Call it Tom's Revenge! I talked to him last night about doing some trips in August. We'll talk more about that in the upcoming weeks. Road trips are great!

Windy Tuesday!

Set out today for an attempt on my record, but that just didn't happen. I knew on the 2nd climb I didn't have all the cylinder's but I said the heck with it and went for it anyway. Once I turned west to Lebanon it seemed to be a headwind or a strong cross. I didn't have the power to go through it. I made it at the end in 54 minutes. I turned around and flew back to the hill and then turned around and rode it all again. Uphill and into the wind!

A good effort today, Tomorrow I get my bike basically overhauled.....lots of new stuff. Will it make me faster? No.

2,185 calories in 2 hr (33 miles at 16.5 mph)

The CCC

The Cincinnati Cycling Club put on a heck of a ride today with the River Rendezvous. Tom and I rode the 50 mile route (Which ended up being 55.4). The routes were painted great, and the rest stops were stocked with all kinds of stuff. Couldn't have asked for a better day today, it was warm but not too hot. The wind didn't pick up until later.

Northern Kentucky is great roads for training. Very rolling, a few long climbs. It seemed it was one roller after another and I really only remember a flat section of just a few miles. I think I'll be doing that route again sometime soon.

At the 35 mile mark or so Tom had one hill too many and really started to slow. I let him suffer for a few more miles and then I dropped back and pushed him along on the rises. It didn't help that his bike was jumping gears really bad and no matter which way we tried to adjust it, it just didn't work. I think he may need a new dérailleur, a new Shift indexer, a new cable, or all.

3,534 calories in 3 hr 54 min (55.4 miles at 14.2 mph)

50 Minutes

New personal best record today of 50 minutes from Loveland -> Lebanon -> Loveland. That beats the last record by a full 3 minutes.

Once I turned around the rain set in and I got drenched, I basically just soft pedaled back to the car for a total time of 1 hour 39 minutes.

Rest day Saturday - big ride on Sunday!!

1,723 calories in 1 hr 39 min (26 miles at 15.8 mph)

Return to Bellbrook!!

Talked to an old riding buddy via email today and it just so happened he was doing the Bellbrook route we used to do years ago. 4 decent size climbs and lots of rolling hills. It's also pretty open and today it was a high wind day.

I felt great on all the climbs until I put myself in the red zone and it seemed to take a while to recover. My friend has only ridden a handful of times this year and hasn't really rode any hills in about a month so he was suffering a little. Today was also hot. The hotter it is, the better I seem to ride providing I can take in enough water. I ran out of my water bottles about 2 miles from the finish so it wasn't a big deal.

The wind was great, I seemed to have good power in the winds so I'm really happy with how I rode. Funny though one of the hills that really used to put me into the red didn't seem as steep today. Maybe they leveled it out some. For those that read and know the Bellbrook area, I'm talking about Penewitt!

2,111 calories in 1 hr 55 min (31.6 miles at 16.5 mph)
It was more, this ride has hills and lots of wind. But for record keeping, we'll say 2,111 :)

Rock on!

Sunday

With the parking lot I use being closed Monday for repaving I rode Sunday and will take a rest day on Monday. Met Tom around 8 and we set off. I put in some hard efforts on the hills but I don't think Tom was recovered from yesterday. We were pretty slow on the flats. I know he was trying his hardest though and once your at that point of all you can do, well that's all you can do.

1,713 calories in 1 hr 48 min (26.4 miles at 14.7 mph)

Saturday

Hit some hills today. 2 times to Lebanon, up climbs #1 & #2 twice also. Climbed to the top of Strout and I attempted Ft. Ancient but I didn't make it. Felt okay. I could have rode harder but the guy I was riding with blew and we rode around while waiting on somewhere to open that had some real food. After that we rode another 35 miles :)

All in all, 3,796 calories in 4 hr 22 min (60.4 miles at 13.8 mph)