Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Monday, April 19, 2010

I smell cheap foamy bar tape.

That's what I kept telling Mr. Miles on our 65 miler on Saturday. He couldn't smell it at all. Hm?

We started at his place, SW Omaha, and headed out toward Linoma and Ashland. We dipped South to cross the interstate, then headed into the head wind on Church road and had a ton o fun on some minimum maintenance roads that weren't quite dry. After lots of mud scraping (I rolled 28c tires on my roadie and Miles had his full squish mtb) we got going again and meandered home. The ride had been about 60-ish% gravel, so it was a bunch of fun. The gravel was large and chunky in places, but we both fared well, with no biffs aside from the MMR mud bog that caught Miles off-guard.

Miles mentioned that he thought I was riding strong. Well, here's a couple counter arguments - 1. I was riding an 18 lb roadie compared to his lower 20s full squish bike, so I was way more efficient on hills and such, and 2. I used the power of the pre-cold to get me going.

I now have some sort of cold or allergies going on. My throat is scratchy (like it used to feel when I would get Strep throat every year) and my nose is running. I'm generally achy all over, but there's a chance the ride could have caused that. So cold or allergies - take your pick, I got one of them. I've never really had allergies before, but maybe my smelling some weird scent in the air most of the ride was some sort of pollen that my body didn't like. Who knows?

Sunday was spent mostly on the couch since I felt like crap. I'm only slightly better now at work, so I may head home early and just sleep more to hopefully knock out whatever this is ASAP.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Shabbos +1

Looking like a 10 a.m. or so start time. Starting out west, probably heading south.

Jeremy and I are in so far. We've made basically no plans other than this. Chime in.

Or don't. Either way.

UPDATE: 11 a.m. at Bike Masters. 3 hours. Parts west and south will be charted.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Not much to report

Haven't been riding much - just between jobs and that's about it.

This weekend, on Saturday to be precise, Mr. Miles(end of the post) is hosting a ride from his house. Gravel, 10am start from 180th & Q, 4 hours.

No plans for Sunday yet. Post em if ya got em!

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Unforeseen Circumstances

Guys, I'm out for the weekend. Munson I'm sorry. I'll be back in town next week.

Mike Miles.

Monday, April 05, 2010

Weekend 4/10-4/11

So it is Monday. 5 days removed from the weekend mentioned above. But here's the plan.

Saturday: 5 hours of Gravel from my house (180th and Q) post up if you need directions. 10 AM start. The pace will be reasonable, we won't be pinning it. If drilling it is your goal for Saturday go elsewhere, I'm serious. I don't want a 5 hour hammerfest that detroys everybody but one or two of us. Nobody will get dropped for long, if it breaks apart we'll regroup and continue. I need a good solid day but its not a day for slaying my riding companions... at least not with intensity.

Bring some cash, we're going to find some food along the route, because I like to eat lunch.

Sunday: 3 hours @ Platte River State Park @ 9 AM. Why? Because I need 3 hours of solid mountain bike skills practice. Once again, nothing crazy but we can let it hang out if we get towards hour 2 and have something left in the tank. Besides its a loop, we can't 'lose' each other under such a scenario.

I think that's it. All of y'all going to Twin Bing... enjoy it but its not in the cards for me this week. I'll be out @ Tour de Husker next week.

That is all. Except for a shameless plug for my blog... check out mikemilesii.blogspot.com for some entertainment daily.

Mmmm Tasty dirt.

Well, dirt's only tasty when you ride on it well. And I was riding well till I ate it. Not that hard, but I still ate it.

Here's a recipe for a fantastic Monday: do a ton of physical work (sawing, hammering, hoisting things, and moving heavy stuff) on Friday and Saturday to complete your garage bike workshop. Then on Sunday, get up, go ride your mtb bike and crash hard. I tweaked my left calf muscle trying to unclip, my left hip is pretty bruised up, my left elbow has some skin missing, and my entire left shoulder area hurts. Guess you figured out that I landed on my left side. Had I been able to unclip, I might have did a little tuck and roll maneuver, but alas, I just let my left side take the brunt of it.

It's weird, cause pretty much all the crashing I've done on the bike have been left hand turns. I've had this same kinda crash twice on my mtb - I think I don't lean enough and just turn the handlebar, causing the front wheel to slide out. Then on the road, the crash in Fayetteville, AR that knocked me out for a while was on a left hand turn; a crash at a Norfolk crit was a left hander(though not my fault, I couldn't avoid the tumbling bikes/bodies in front of me); and a LONG time ago, I crashed on my left side and seriously hurt my wrist. That last one happened near the end of a season with only the Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge ride left in the season. So I showed up to the start anyway with a brace around my wrist and of course Shim had to make a guess as to how I injured my wrist. His suggestion had nothing to do with biking. I'll let you fill in the blank...

So I don't know what's up with me and left hand turns. I better not get into NASCAR or anything.

This month I'm back to working early days - 6am to 3pm. So once I heal up from this weekend's adventures, I'll probably join some of the group rides.