Race to the Top of Vermont

Mount Mansfield has an auto Toll Road that travels 4.3 miles upward to a parking area for all to take in magnificent views. On 8/30, it was opened to a race. You could either mountain bike or run the course. I chose to ride it giving the fact I have the VT50 coming up. Unbelievable! It took me more than 1.5 hours to finish. In the end, I am glad I did it. It was challenging right from the start and never ceased to be so.
My friend Bob joined in to do it also. He finished in under an hour. My wife ran the course and did it in not much more than an hour. I am proud of her. She didn't train for it and did exceptionally well.

its a keeper

I am going to continue to post on this blog. I think that there are alot of bike related topics that I would like to talk about and share. I think by keeping them here instead of merging them with eightzerotwocycles.blogspot.com will give them both their due rights. Alot is coming up, so check back to see what is going on. Thanks for reading!

Is this the end?

I think I have all but decided to stop posting to BikeCycology. It is not that I don't have anything to talk about bike related. It is more like I want to focus on building frames. I think that Eight Zero Two Cycles will have plenty of room to be able to post about framebuilding and all things bikes. A nice integration for all to visit in one place.

So, give me a couple of days to chew on it and I will let you know what I came up with.

VT50 - Sept. 27, 2009

This is it. I have registered for a 50 mile mountain bike race. I am so pleased that I have done this. There is a certain place that I would like to be with my athletic ability and without a definite goal, I don't think that I would ever reach it. I want, this year, to say to myself that I am 36 years old and I'm in the best shape of my life.

somethings in the air

WARMTH! It is so nice today. It was a pretty long winter. Although the weather wasn't horrible or way to cold for to long, it was still a bit drawn out. I am glad that we have warmer days now. Easter weekend my daughter learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. I am so happy for her. She wasn't getting it so my wife bought her a scooter. She tooled around on that for a week or two and then I thought that that might have helped with her understanding of balance. We got her feet on the pedals while I held her sides and then in about 40 seconds, she had it mastered. Now there is no stopping her. Matter of fact, Dawn told me that Justis was being dramatic and was saying that "biking is my life!" Wooah, slow down Nellie. Anyways, I am very proud of her and glad that she was able to conquer it.

I broke the ice with a great winter ride!

This was the final climb of the ride. It is hard to get warmed up enough in the cold to get the legs turning at full potential. Climbs are lung burners too!

This is were I came from on the final climb. Part of the climb is hidden around that corner. Yes, I did stop half way up. Inclines are quite a challenge of a fixie, especially with 35c studs.

The ride was just under 14 miles. It started out on a route that was quite windy by the lake. As I turned away it got better. I really enjoyed getting out. I should had changed my tires, the roads were dry enough for 23c road tires. I wish I had some better winter riding gear, but I do fine with what I have. I am way off my mark for hitting my goal before Spring, but I will continue to peck away at it and see where I end up. My average was 11.9 mph.

This is not me!

I don't know who this is. It is a picture that I ran across on the web. I can say that I can relate to this picture. First of all I want to say that what ever the intentions of this person are, he is on the bike and he is giving some level of effort. Beyond that, we are unsure of the nature of this photo. I sometimes feel just like this when I ride or more so when I have taking some time off from riding. I don't want to have that feeling anymore. I am exposing myself as being lazy. I am in no way to far beyond a level of achievement that should inhibit me from reaching my goals. I don't want to be rail thin, I don't even know that I could be. I do want to be in the best shape that I can achieve and maintain it for the rest of my life. I do know that winters are hard for me. I seem tired more often and it zaps the energy right out of me. I don't like that. I am further back of where I was just eight months ago. I want to reach new levels and push beyond and harder than I can even imagine. I have it in me, I just haven't believed it yet. Good luck to every one that believes in their selves and aim to push beyond where they are.

dead of winter

Well, I just put some thought into the fact that I haven't posted anything lately. It has been quite cold here in the North East and I don't have all the gear that I would really like to have to push through the frigid temperatures. I will be prepared for next winter a lot better. I still have my goals that I will be working on. I will not give up on getting the most out of this that I can.




In other news, I got a spin bike from the local gym. It was an incredible deal so I thought that I would add it to my collection. I rode it today. I tell you what, there is nothing quite like a work out on a spin bike. Next to it is my Fuji set up on my trainer. (sorry about the bad picture, it is a little dark in the basement.) I am going to be training quite diligently for next season.

I have a bike that I am stripping down and redoing for my friends wife. She is graduating from college to become a doctor. We had been thinking of building a bike for her. We found a candidate and I will be posting the progress here over the coming months.

first winter (snowy) commute

Wednesday I did my bike commute. Let me start by saying my commute by bike is partially done by bus. I live about 35 miles away from where I work. Sometimes I take the bus because it is slightly cheaper than driving. It is not faster, though. It takes about twice as long than driving myself. Anyways, I ride my bike a couple of miles to the bus stop. I then throw my bike on the rack and relax until I get to Burlington. Then I get on my bike and ride the rest of the way to my shop. It is about six miles each way of riding on a direct route. Therefore, if I commute two days a week, I will get 24 miles a week. In 12.5 weeks I will hit 300 miles. That is my goal for this winter. Quick math suggests that I will be into Spring before then so I have to supplement my riding on weekends around town. I really want to achieve this goal.

Back to the ride. I got into Burlington and we had a steady moderate snowfall going on. I was a little anxious yet excited. I love riding and this was going to be a unique experience. I was very impressed and pleased with the performance of the studded tires. They have an aggressive enough tread on them to do a good job when there is a bunch of crud on the road. I had quite a range of conditions to deal with. I traveled main roads as well as some secondary roads and the tires seemed to adapt to each very well. I found myself in only a couple of predicaments with the coffins on wheels. Mostly, they seemed to be courteous and cautious of my presence. I got blasted with some crud at one point when a car passed me. I realized that there was no malicious intent nor was there anything that I could of done about it. I looked down and saw my legs covered in muck with the consistency of pancake batter. Winter battle wounds!

Another observation I made was that I need to go to a 19 or 20 tooth rear cog, (I am riding fixie if you didn't know) because the 17t is a little tall for foul weather. I have to get out of the saddle on some of the climbs and then I easily loose traction in the snow. I still haven't done anything about switching to flat bars and I still want to give it a try. Hopefully I can give it a shot here soon. I would like to get some better winter gear, but winter riding gloves are going to be a must. Better luck next year! Get out there, you will be glad you did.

Happy New Year! It is 2009

Finally the craziness of work schedules have past. I will now be able to start commuting by bike a couple days a week. I hope that I can get myself use to the idea of riding a bike in weather that is in the teens. I am still wanting to switch my bars over to flat from drop, but I will have to do that in a couple of weeks. I will try to write on the days that I ride to share my experiences. I have to remember that I made a personal goal to ride 300 miles this winter. I am sure that I can do it. I also want to take some spin classes this winter to keep my endurance up as well as ride my trainer down stairs. I don't want to be a fat cyclist this year. Maybe I can earn an "s" this winter and put it in the "fat" and make it "fast". :) Don't be evil. Be nice and ride often!