Sometimes not ridings good too!

My friend is headed out on holidays in one more day, and last night we were going to try to get in a trail ride on our cross bikes. By the time it was all said and done I wanted to give him back his 11-25 cassette and he wanted me to measure a drawer to order some good slides in his kitchen. Instead of a nice trail ride we sat out on his back deck had some Well's IPA and cleaned out his fridge. It was a great evening.

No one wanted to ride with me today

I called a few friends but no one wanted to go OR had time to go... So I went by myself. I wanted to ride one of my favorite courses, it's sort of hard. Or it's hard if you ride it very fast. There are a few rollers on this and two good up bits, so it's a good workout. The weather's cooled off and it was not humid and nary a cloud in the sky it was a fantastic evening workout.

I use a Garmin to get my metrics and when it works I really like the unit, but when it does not work I get upset. HOW wet does the contact have to be on the HRM for this thing to work out of the gate? I can only get a few seconds out of 186 BPM, so I know that anything over that is wrong. Comon' Garmin I paid for this to work well, and the FAQ tells me nothing. So I rely upon my spit as I have for every HRM I've ever owned. Ugh!

For those interested here is where I went:

Home and Saturday's Ride

Home again and riding in Southern Ontario. This Blog has the Map-My-Ride and photos. I've blogged a fair bit of racing and my travels but our group rides are what is the mainstay of my cycling. Today's ride was not very popular, Canadians seem to have an aversion to summer heat. It was hot but moving on the bike and drinking Hammer Heed you really don't notice. Plus once in Burlington there were A LOT of cyclist on the road, which was great to see, I like seeing other riders on the road.






Our group was small, we met at 8:00 and it consisted of my die-hard cycling buddy Greg Niemialkowski, urban legend the "Randy Brown", and my newest cycling buddy Heather Shearer with her husband Chris. We headed out of the Paris Road Tim Horton's on our ride. Heather will be riding the provincial road race tomorrow so Chris and her were out for the first 30 kms., which included Weirs Road... OK, there are a lot of climbs in Southern Ontario I like but Weirs Road has broken me in the past, and it's not the first choice I'd make for I'll go up Weirs and turn around, I'd go to Weirs and turn around before going up... it's short but Max grade is 16%!!! So with that I took photos of Chris and Heather coming up Weirs Road, they then head home.

This now left the infamous "Randy Brown", Greg and myself, and we're off to Sydenham Hill, which I personally enjoy, we then ride the ridge and at one of the houses a dog comes flying in the road, Greg and I swerve and Randy's 3-4 meters behind and the dog stops and takes out Randy... Randy's beat up and wants to continue, the dog... Well sadly I'm not sure if she made it. Her shoulder was dislocated or broken and she had blood in her eye. Sad. Randy had road rash, but back at the Tim's his hip was swollen and he was using his floor pump as a crutch, this guy gets in more accidents... He's been run over by a Cement truck, pick-up truck, ran into a tree on a race and rode the next day... Hence, the Urban Legend... there are few people like Randy and you will always remember these guys, yet everyone thinks you're making up stories about guys like him...

Back on the bike and through the old Guelph Road, onto Burlington and Snake Road, up and around then back York Road where Randy's running a little slow (but not too slow) and Greg and I have pushed hard riding past all the cyclist in Snake Road. We decide just to come back via Crook's Hollow rather than Old Ancaster, we then cut down to the store to get liquids and come home via Old 99. Arriving back at the Tim Horten's haunt. It turned out to be a 4 hour ride and it was about 33-34°C, and a great day in saddle. Greg and I went over to his house had a beer and discussed the ride, the Legend of Randy Brown and le Tour. What a Fantastic way to spend your Saturday!!!

All the photos from this Ride are HERE! All in All we do live in a nice place for good rides...

Back home again

I was working in Dundas yesterday and I just hated to pass up climbing Sydenham. It was 43°C = 109°F (or at least according to my truck temp gauge). When I came home last time it was from 20°C and sunny (where I was) to -1°C and wet (in Brantford), this time I left 35 ish and came to 43! Whew... what will happen next time I leave? Can Southern Ontario not survive without me?
The climb is O.K. and the decent is less than exciting compared to roads that you've never ridden. Its go down for 2 minutes at about 65 km/hr or go down for 25 minutes at 80+ km/hr... Never mind the heat, what's up with that? Three Climbs and a bottle and half of water. Now I had been working outside all day so I was catching up.

3x Hill Repeats by texastutt at Garmin Connect - Details

An Epic Ride to Finish off Denver

This was one of those weekends of riding I thought I would never do because of the climbing. On Friday Robert and I did the Deer Creek Canyon clockwise from the parking lot at the Canyon. Saturday Craig and I rode from the hotel and rode the Deer Creek Canyon counter-clockwise. These two rides in of themselves make for a good weekend of riding. I have an album of all the rides at Picasa here This is amazing country, and we've seen people out riding every-time we've been out.

Then comes Sunday and we wanted to plan a ride, so I went on Map-my-Ride and found one that looked good and left from Golden, ya have to go and see some of these towns. Twenty-Twenty hindsight I've got to get on the Garmin connect as I think there are more serious riders there. Map-my-Ride has a lot of "junk" you have to sort through.

Our ride was to be a loop but we could not get it all plotted with our poor internet connection so when we got to the road we were to turn on we were told it would have a lot of climbing, we did through the day 2,564 meters of climbing we did not want to make a mountain pass again therefore we ended up with an out and back. We climbed up to the Golden Gate State Park where you are just into the mountains and the views were stunning! It was a scorcher of a day temps started at 86 and went up to 101, at least in the mountains it was cooler but thank goodness for water stops. Our first water stop was at the park office where they had a hiking trail and a pond full of trout, and many of the lakes (for my fisherman friends) had "no limits" fishing! The water here out of the tap was cool clear and tasted fantastic, we also splashed our faces, Craig poured some over his head, and Robert took a bath in it! We left the washroom a little messy... Oops.

Back on the road we had reached an elevation that was much cooler but the climbing had not stopped, but we were in the mountains on the peak to peak road, the same road from last weekend just further south. The views were unbelievable and the point and shoot camera on the web does not do it justice. There is a point when the climbing for those who don't live around the mountains becomes "old" we climbed and we descended and we climbed, all three of us began to slow some even Mr. Brehn (Robert) though he did not slow much. Craig and I can beat each other up on the Deer Creek climb this one was tough, but only half of what the pro's are doing on the climbing days at the Tour! Finally we got to descend and this time I did it without brakes and made a much quicker decent, but on this decent there are still climbs, and what felt like full out effort to pound the snot out of your buddies was not that hard because we were all lactic acid loaded legs by this time, then at the top of these little climbs descents again which are like a reward and a time of recovery, Craig and Robert are better than I am, and I hit 80 km/hr, I could have done better but my back was stiff and I could not tuck as low as I wanted. Finally, we arrive back in town and to the car and 104 F! A great way to finish off the weekend.

Now for a rest day of work at Ikea, anyone of the Brantford Boys and Girls want to do Sydenham on Wednesday?