Shabbos -3 (Wednesday Night Group Ride)

Wednesday night group rides are back.

While some may opt to join the Bike Masters group, I'll be heading out with the Trek Store club ride. Apparently, a half dozen rode from there last week.

Trek Group Ride Details:
Where: Trek Store (7214 Jones St)
When: Meet at 5:30; 5:45 Departure
Bring: Lights

Weather:

Wednesday

Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 40s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph.

Hope to see you out there.

Mrs. Pacman visits Omaha.

Comfort on bike = speed.

Today's ride was a top 10.  Even though it was a bit windy with a 15-ish frigid breath from the Great North, the sun was out, and I got a 3 hour ride in with some great friends.

I had forgotten how comfortable fancy new fabrics can make you feel.  This whole winter I've been wearing wool since it keeps you really warm and doesn't stink after a single ride.  Today I went back to my racing days and donned a Craft long sleeve base layer (warm and dries in seconds even when sweating), a jersey, a vest, arm warmers, shorts, leg warmers, booties over shoes, and mid weight gloves.  We worked hard into the wind, so I stayed warm that way, then after turning around, I could easily unzip some layers to let my layers dry out quickly.

All this along with the fact that I was riding with Brady, Joe, Mr. Miles, and Jonny Randell, made for a stellar ride.  And I was feeling my coffee and cream of wheat.  I hit it hard when I could and sat in when I needed.  But overall, I finished the ride kinda tired, but feeling great.  Now if I would just keep doing rides consistently, I would get fitter faster.  Oh well, warmer weather is coming (maybe in a couple weeks??) and more group rides will be had.  It's all gravy.

Oh yeah, tomorrow - Shabbos +1.  Not sure yet.  A call is in to Bryan, but I've heard that he caught the sickness his son has.  So his input for the ride may be out.  Mr. Miles and I (and maybe Joe and Jonny?) are still planning at 12:30 or 1pm for a 3-ish hour easy spin.   Keep checking back, kiddies for official time and place.

Weekend for roadies.

The Pedal Omaha site has some discussion that may lead to riding of the off-road variety.  However, if you'd like to take it to the streets on skinnies, you could join us.

Saturday(Shabbos): 2pm at Crane Coffee at 78th and Cass. 

2-3 hours depending on what peeps wanna do.

Pace will be set by attendees.  I'm hoping for easy speed, but will follow fast wheels.

Sunday (Shabbos +1): Afternoon 3 hour EASY SPIN. Don't show up if you need to see a speed of +18mph at all times.  I will be beligerently berating anyone who picks up the pace.  Have frame pump, will use it.

Sometime.  Somewhere.  Mr. Miles, Bryan, please elaborate on this.

Goodbye Spring, Hello......Winter??

So just last week it was awesome.  I put in about 15 hours of riding (after quite a few 5 hr weeks) in the upper 60 degree weather.

I rode into work this morning and it was COLD!!  Not quite cold-as-the-ass-of-death like we had during real winter, but still cold.  According to Accuweather, right now, an hour after my ride into work, it's 23 degrees with an 8 mph wind.  So that makes it a "RealFeel" of 15 degrees.  I know it was windier and colder when I rode in before there was any real sun, so I had to be riding in the single digits again.  And I was way under dressed for it.  Oops.

So this weekend, well Saturday at least, there are some plans being thrown around, along with some wrenches.  I'm kinda on the same page as Brady with wanting to ride later in the day.  2pm would be the warmest at mid 40 degrees vs 30 degrees at 10am.  But then again, riding with the guys who will be hitting singletrack will be nicer than battling a frigid Northern wind for an hour or so.

Any takers?  Any suggestions?

Shomer Shabbos!

So, what's the deal? Looks like SSE wind at or around 20 mph. That'll be fun.

I'm looking for three hours, max. Because my legs are pretty much shredded.

I won't be able to get out until 10:30 at the earliest, so let's get this stuff figured out, yeah?

SHABBOS RIDE!!!

I'm calling it out since many fast guys will be up in Sioux City doing a reeeeally early season race.

Shabbos(Saturday) ride.

1pm - Crane Coffee at 78th and Cass.

Distance/tempo - to be determined by group, but most likely South since there'll be a South-ish wind of 15-20mph.  

If you have major objections to the start time, or if many people are in agreement to an earlier time, we'll go for that.  I mainly just wanted to hit the warmest part of the day.

Clouds and cool weather come hither!!!

So after 4 days straight of more than half hour rides (which has not happened since last fall), I'm burned out in more ways than one.  My muscles are sore from an uptempo ride with Brady on Saturday ride, and a "recovery" ride on Sunday.  I spun the legs out after work on Monday, then today, took off work early to pedal for a couple hours with old pal Jonny Randell.  My rear is not used to the chamois time, so it's pretty irritated.  Then to top it all off, today's intense sun gave me the first sunburn of the year.  It's mostly on my hands/face/calves/eyeballs.  Seriously my eye are super dry and irritated.  It has to be the sun.  Either that or allergies.  That'd be a first for me.

So I'd be perfectly happy with cooler cloudier condition the next few days to block some of the sun from my burns.  I had forgotton how annoyingly painful they are.  It's not bad, just really really annoying.  Like having sandpaper scrape your flesh when in actuality, nothing is there.  

Ok, I'm done complaining about the sun now.  You'd think I'd want it to be 10 degrees again or something!

That was fun! Let's do it again!

Went out for 3-ish hours with the Steel cut man.  We hit the warmest part of the day and kept a pretty good clip of around17mph.  Headed down to Plattsmouth, across that bridge to Pacific Junction, then back.  We battled some wind, but otherwise the ride was a top 10.  

Anyone have plans for Sunday?  Please post if you have a definite timeline in mind. 

Pain train leaves the station at 10

Saturday

10 a.m.

Trek Store (72nd/Jones)

4-5 hours

Limpach-organized (ouch)

I'm hitting Crane (78th/Cass) at 9:20ish for coffee, then riding down to the Trek Store.

readysetgo!

It could get cold, possibly wet

I'll make the call, I guess. Rain is likely in the morning, but it's supposed to be dry after lunch. So here we go:

Sunday
Noon (earlier if you want coffee)
Crane Coffee at 78th/Cass
3-3.5 hours
steady pace (but not tottering along)

See you there.

It's been almost a month.

I've been riding.  But only for a whopping total of about half hour each work day.  I haven't ridden more than that since February 10th.

Until last night.  I joined some wide tired brethren on a couple hour jaunt last night.  We headed south with a wind to a tune of 20-ish mph.  We picked up a couple friends along the way, and also picked up pace into a cross-headwind.  After a hotlap around the lake, we kept the pace medium almost all the home.  The North-ish wind had died down so our efforts didn't have to be too hard to maintain 19mph.  But man it felt good to ride fast with friends.

After dropping off people along the route, Ryan, Roxy, Larry, and I ate at my neighborhood healthy spot.  I had a delicious tuna sammich with edamame and, after bidding the last peeps farewell, mosied the 3 blocks home.

A great end to a much needed evening ride.

Positive Pedal Experience

Thank you, Mr. friendly Hispanic guy driving a red Ford truck, for being a nice neighbor.

Good start to the day.  I unclip at a stop light in the left hand turn lane when the guy in the red truck next to me rolls down his window. 

"Where've you been??"  

What is this guy talking about about, I ask in my head.  

"I haven't seen you for a while."

I swear I have never seen this guy before in my life.

"I always bump into along about Center street, but you haven't been there for a while."

Holy crap, this guy just admitted he missed seeing me riding my bike to work!!  He even called me out on not riding the past few days.  It's true.  Friday I drove (GASP!!!) because I didn't have any clean clothes at work and I wanted to take the woman out to lunch.  Yesterday (Monday) I still didn't have any clean clothes since I forgot to take them with me in my car on Friday.  Driving makes you forget stuff, I swear.  I took the bus on Monday, so that was nice and stress free.

So anyway, the experience with this nice guy who ended the conversation with, "You have a good one, buddy," was polar opposite to an instance a couple weeks ago.  That one involved a car laying on it's horn while waiting to pass me on Saddle creek.  I'm at a stop light when apparently, a bunch of cars pull up behind me in both lanes.  (On a side note, the lady in the left hand lane right next to me had her talk show music on louder than most boomin system hoopties!!)  So the light turns green and I get going.  The greyish Volkswagen Passat right behind me has to wait for all the left lane traffic to go by before he/she can get around me.  So he/she starts laying on his horn.  This goes on for half a block and I keep looking back like "What is your problem?"  The laying on the horn continues along with flashing of brights and emergency blinkers?!?  So this person apparently really needed to get past me (in the slower moving right hand lane) and had to let everyone else know around also.  Whatever.  Don't pull up behind a cyclist at a stoplight and expect them to jump off the road when you rudely demand them to.

Meh, such is the ups and downs of bike commuting.  At least Mr. friendly red truck guy has the decency to talk to me in person.  I should have looked for his license plate number and sent him a thank you letter.  I'm sure we'll bump into each other again.  Well, hopefully not literally.