Two good rides

After taking a week off, Vanessa and I got in two good rides this weekend. On Saturday we joined the FMC team and rode in Katy. On Sunday we froze out in Round Top and Fayetteville at the Tri-County Hill Hopper organized ride. All in all I logged 100 miles for the weekend.

For the ride on Saturday. We got up and was at the ride by 7:15. Which was good because as I was loading the bikes I noticed my tire was flat. Since I had not ridden that bike in over two weeks, that should come as no surprise. So I grabbed a spare tire and tubes and headed off to the ride. I got Vanessa's bike ready, then proceeded to change my tire. I looked at my tire and did not see anything but decided to swap tires any way. All was good. I caught up to Vanessa at the first rest stop. We proceeded to follow the route. Being a Purdue Alumni, I harassed another rider in an IU jersey. The wind started to pickup during the ride since a cold front was going to come through. Luckily we did not get rained on, but it did rain on part of the route back to the start. We got into the wet roads, and I hear a big boom. My tire I had changed blew out. I pulled over and told Vanessa to go on. I tried to boot the tire, but it was no use. The sidewall was unpatchable. So I finished the ride with a little over 44 miles.

Sunday was cold. We woke up at 4 am to make it to the ride on time. Since Vanessa and I were both ride marshals, we had to be at the ride marshal meeting at 7 am. It was 37 degrees when we left the house and 33 when we got to the start. The high was only about 65, so we pretty much kept bundled up until the last 12 miles or so. Since this route is through some good hills on the MS150 route, it is a good test to see how the legs hold up. I must admit, that I felt pretty good in the hills. In fact, I decided to turn around after going down lone oak hill, and climb it. As I climbed it, I fliped my bike computer over to show the grade. It said that the climb was 10%. I believe it is pretty close to that. There are not many hill where you can be in your smallest gear, and stand up with out needing to up shift. This one you can. I highly recommend the Tri-County Hill Hopper before next year's MS150. I finished this year with 53 hilly miles.

Mountain Bike Rides

Well. It has been a while, but last Wednesday I took a 10 mile ride along the drainage ditches. It felt good to get on the mountain bike. The last time I rode it was in early December.

On Thursday, I rode the bike to work. It felt good to make that trip again. Hopefully I can make that trek more this year.

On Sunday Vanessa and I went to Double Lake State recreational area. They have a nice 8.1 mile loop. It is a fast course. Several tight turns, but mostly just nice single track. Since it rained over night in Houston, it was still wet to ride on the road. Double lake is a good trail to ride on if it has rained less than and inch or so. It drains nicely. We got to double lake around 11:00. I rode a slow lap with Vanessa. I tried to give her some pointers, but that seemed to be a bad idea. After the first lap, I rode one lap as fast as I could. I was able to complete the lap in 44 minutes and 56 seconds. This was almost 4 minutes faster than my per lap average at the race last May. I am looking forward to the race this year. I need to get on the mtn bike a few more times to do well.

Bike Thoughts and Goals for 2009.

Well it is February, and I am just now getting down to writing down my thoughts and bike goals for 2009.

2008 Summary:
I finished up 2008 as a so so year for my bike riding. My quick summary involved teaching 12 students in the LAB Road 1 class in The Woodlands. I finished my 4th Hotter'n Hell 100. I intended to do some mountain bike races. Needless to say Hurricane Ike had different plans. After Ike, registration for the 2009 MS150 opened up. So Vanessa and I are preparing for our 5th ride from Houston, TX to Austin, TX. Vanessa became certified to teach the LAB bike safety classes also. We rounded out 2008 by teaching Group Riding Skills classes, and occasionally getting in a weekend ride or two.

2009 So far:
For the MS150 we are once again riding with FMC Cyclers. The team is a little over 170 riders this year, which is a large increase from the 109 riders we had last year. I was asked to be the Safety Coordinator for our team. Since our team requires every rider to take a bike safety class every two years, it is my job to track who needs a class, and organize classes to get the team educated. Turns out that is like hurding cats. ;-) We decided to get the jump on the safety classes. We started teaching classes in October within two weeks of registration. In 2008 we taught 5 classes, 1 in Oct, 2 in Nov, and 2 in Dec. We kicked off January in full swing and held a class every weekend from Jan 10th to Jan 31st. We had such great demand, that we even added two classes in Feb. To date, our group of 6 instructors have taught group riding skills to over 300 of the 13000 riders in the 2009 BP MS150.

2009 Goals:

1. For starters I hope to update my Blog more frequently.
2. Ride to work more (Average 2 days per week)
   
3. Complete my 5th MS150
4. Average 100 miles per week (I started this off in the hole)
5. Compete in 5 mountain bike races
6. Complete my 5th HH100 with a 20mph average speed
7. Finish the Bike Around the Bay again
8. Continue educating cyclist how to interact with traffic

That is a good list of goals for 2009. I hope I am successful in completing them.

Lastly my plug for the 2009 BP MS150:
As stated above, This is Vanessa and my 5th MS150. We participate in this ride for two reasons, it is a great physical challenge to cover the ride from Houston to Austin each year. I notice I get stronger each year. The second reason, is because I do get stronger each year, I raise money for those who can not. Because of my efforts to fund raise, every day we get closer to understanding the debilitating disease, and finding a cure. Please support our efforts by considering a $25 donation. You can donate via my personal fundraising link.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/sabeard

Thanks for your support.

Been a long time

Well, it has been a while since my last post. I have still been riding. Just not finding the time to write about it. I have done a couple events since my last post in June, like Hotter 'n Hell, and completed teaching the Road 1 class, survived Ike. I will try to add some posts about each of those events over the next few days. Look for the updates.

Bicycle Education Class

Well I am working with both the Woodlands Cycling Club, and the Northwest Cycling Club to teach a LAB Road 1 Bicycle education class. For more details on the class check out www.trafficcycling.com/road1.

The class is perfect for any rider who wishes to learn how to effectively share the road with other cars by communicating with and behaving in a way to improve your visibility on the road. This 2 day class will improve your comfort level with riding on roads with other traffic.

Double Lake MTB Race

Wow it has been a while since I last posted. After the MS150 I took a bit of a break from writing my cycling adventures. On May4th I raced in the GHORBA Big Ring Challenge at Double Lake near Coldspring, TX. My event was at 1:30 PM so I got to the park about 10:30 to begin getting ready.

We got to the race in time to watch Matt complete his second lap and start his third. We stuck around the finish line until he finished. He seemed to do a pretty good job.

I remember that for some reason my legs were really tight so before the race I kept trying to stretch but it did not really seem to help. While the experts raced, I made a few more trips back up and down the road to warm up.

While I warmed up, Vanessa helped with registration by marking legs. About this time the other beginners started to show up. There were several of us in the same age group. From the Woodlands we had myself, Chris V, and Seth. From work Chris E. and lastly Dan R.

When the race started we had a nice up hill sprint on the paved road before making the tight enterance to the single track. I entered the single track on Chris V's wheel. He was just on Dan's wheel. As the riders started to build up behind us we began looking for places to pass. That did not happen and as we came into a tight corner, Dan slowed up just enought that Chris and I rubbed wheels. Being in the back naturally I fell over, and lost about 10 places in the field. By this time my HR was up and I was just pushing to try to catch back up. Eventually I caught Dan and passed him. After that, I was mostly riding by myself. I completed the first lap in about 49 minutes. As I came through the feed zone I grabbed the glass of water and dumped it on my head. That felt good. I threw my cup and then passed a rider on the road that was infront of me. The second lap was tough. I needed to eat but did not want to stop, and could not find a smooth enough section to eat a gel. So I pressed on.

When I finally finished I had an average HR of over 180. Which is pretty high since my max is 199. My final place was 31st. With over 40 starting, I feel pretty good about my results.

Double Lake was my only race for the spring series. My goal is to ride the mountain bike more during the summer.

2008 BP MS150

Well Vanessa and I completed another MS150. This makes number 4 in all. This was the first year that we rode with FMC Technologies. The team support was great. They provided full uniforms, a nice BBQ dinner in the tent, and massages in La Grange.

This year Vanessa and I once again started in different locations. She at Rhodes Stadium, and I at Technip with the rest of the FMC team. Saturday started out a little cool but comfortable. I started out riding in a small group of three of us. We rode straight through to rest stop 3. Between rest stop 3 and lunch we got separated. I stopped for lunch then headed out again. After lunch the wind started to get bad. We had to slug our way through a nice head wind most of the way to La Grange. Luckily we had a tail wind for the last 5 miles on Saturday.

I ended up getting into La Grange about 3 minutes behind Vanessa despite riding 16 miles further. After getting my massage and a shower, I started walking around to chat with people I knew.

Sunday morning was cold. When we woke up it was about 46 F. The bad point was it warmed up quickly. By the time I got to the first rest stop I had to take off my jacket. Once again I decided to go through the park. It is a nice route with some rolling hills that make for a fun ride. This year the blessing was that in the park, the wind was not nearly as bad.

After stopping at Whataburger for lunch, I headed out for the last 30 miles of the ride. At one point I got to riding at a comfortable pace and realized I had picked up about 40 riders following me. It seemed like I was passing and as I passed people would join up. At one point I jumped on behind another friend who passed. We rode together for about 5-7 miles. I dropped off when I thought we were close to the next rest stop. Once I got there I saw Vanessa. As I refilled my bottles, Vanessa took off again. I caught her at the last rest stop. There we saw several others from our team and made plans to ride across the line together.

As we approached Austin, I saw a few more FMC riders. We all waited and rode across in a group of about 10 FMC team members.

It was another successful MS150. We are still looking for people to donate to the National MS Society. If you would like to donate, please use the this link. http://ms150.org/edon.cfm?id=192109.