Resolution time

Okay, a few resolutions.  First, resolutions must be accompanied and driven by goals.  Resolutions without goals are empty promises that don't last. Losing weight in of itself is a resolution - but tied to a goal like "I want to fit into that nice suit" helps makes it a resolution you can stick to.  Tangibility.  Plus, it helps to have a reason to have a particular goal - as in, they should probably lead towards a larger goal.  Overall health?  Fitness?  Completing a particularly difficult ultra-race?  Yes.

So, I have goals for 2010:  and in typical public-sector accountability fashion, here goes:

#1)  Goal:  Lose about 15-20 lbs.  This number will vary depending on what my body decides to do with a healthier diet, and less booze.  Yeah, I said it -- less beer.  I am giving myself an occasional "out" in the sense that I will allow myself one beer per sitting, should I deem it worthy and have domes something rewardable.  This way, I don't have this overhanging guilt when I invariably cave in sometime in March.  Like on the 17th.  Better food, more complete food -- not just "getting my points" or "staying within my points"... but making better choices.  Combine this with cross-training - bike?  Yes... but more conditioning.  I managed to drop 40 pounds from February to July in 2009, and then gained back ten of it, slowly, to this writing.  To get to my "fighting weight" of race-day at MV24 of 147 pounds, I need to shed about 20.  I've gotten to a healthy weight, yes - but I need to take it a step further, and then stay there and train on it.  

Why?  

Primary Objective = the best health of my life prior to reaching age 40.  Deadline, June 2012.

Secondary Objective = see Goal #2

#2)  Goal:  A "finish" at The Texas Time Trials 2010, specifically the Tejas 500 event, 48-hour start time.  If I finish faster than that, so be it - but I am giving myself the maximum allowable time.  There is, as far as I can read, no bonus for finishing after taking the 36-hour start.  RAAM-qualification is not a goal - though it WOULD be nice, and goes in the hopper as a secondary goal.  

Most ultra-racers should have tiered goals like this, which can spur motivation - but can also give leeway, mentally, if the first couple of goals don't come to pass due to whatever:  Example:  Goals, in order:  a) become RAAM-qualified at Tejas by finishing in under 36-hours.  b) Finish in the top 10% of non-RAAM qualified finishers.  c) Finish in 48-hours.  So far, I am only committing to Goal 2,C.

#3)  Maintain my car-free-to-work streak until June 14th, 2010.  That will mark exactly one year of not driving a car to work.  I may well continue the streak after achieving that mark.  In fact, that seems highly likely I'll continue - unless it directly affects the training that will lead to the achievement of Goal #2.

#4)  Quality - not Quantity - training for Goal #2:  be home more, mentally, when I am home.  Ride as much as I need to to accomplish Goal #2, without being gone constantly on some notion that I have to ride 20,000 miles in training.  Not even 10,000 miles... heck, not even 5,000 miles.  Without going into a ton of detail, I don't need to ride all that much to get the chops needed to knock off 500-miles in 48 hours.  What I do need to do is ride with other people.  This gives me something I have not had in 2009, and that's people to talk to, people to chase, people to try and out-climb, and the motivation that comes with community.  I need to visit Longview Lake on Saturday mornings.  I need to visit Bike Source on Saturday mornings.  I need to find the fast group at the spring brevets, and - despite all odds and how ridiculous it might seem - try to stay with them.  It won't always work out, and I will limp the last half of some brevets, but that's how it's done.  The key to my success at MV24 was not a ton of mileage - it was speed, and then taking that speed to distance.  Don't "ride" - TRAIN.  But, don't "only" train - take that bike camping trip, take that trail ride - break up the routine.  Finally, and most importantly:  when I'm home and off the bike, truly be "off the bike" - don't burden the family with it.  No endless planning sessions, no constant "race prep" talk -- don't be one-dimensional.  Yes, it's a big goal -- but don't make it "everything", and don't let it take the place of the truly important:  in no particular order, family, kids, wife, faith.

#5)  Eat faster, and sleep less.  Seems pretty dumb, right?  Well, as ultra-racing goes I will need to take advantage of the early season brevets to re-learn some of my techniques.  I finally have hydration down to second nature now, so I next need to learn to fuel from the saddle more effectively, instead of "picnicking on the sidewalk" at controls.  I tend to be pokey at the dinner table, and it shows on the road.  I can sit at the table and eat for an hour sometimes; meanwhile everyone else is done, cleaned up, and off to other things.  Take this habit to brevets and it's no wonder I always feel rushed at controls, snarfing food to the point of making myself uncomfortable, just so I can stay with the pack that is invariably always helmeted-up and ready to roll before I even open my water-bottles.  I need to watch, take notes, put food in my pockets, and ride.  Further, in "real life" I need to adopt a military style of feeding.  Quality nutrition, into the body, quickly, and then back to the field.  I also need to re-learn the fine art of the power-nap, and figure out how my body responds to it, at least once a week.  Where I faltered at MV24 was lack of sleep deprivation training, which cost me my age group.  I still finished, but I checked off a tiered goal with regrets.  This kind of thing needs to be trained for, also, towards success at Goal #2.  This will be altered if it affects Goal #1, and/or begins to affect the rest periods following training, towards Goal #4.

As you can read, all of these goals tie together, and ought to keep me plenty busy this coming year.  

One, solid goal, that with it brings a couple of lifestyle alterations that should not only yield success - but a fitter, more capable "me".  

There are still two weeks left in the year... but I'm getting this on paper now.  

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading...

Blazing a new trail

This is the first time in ANY year of commuting that I've managed to make it this deep into "winter"... and it's still, technically, autumn.

No car in the driveway, no excuses, no backing out... it's not willpower, it's just what I gotta do.  I've made the best use of my income to secure gear that will help me be successful over the years, including an array of balaclavas, headbands, WindStopper this-and-that, a winter jacket, base layers, wool socks, wool caps, tights, winter boots, monster gloves - the list goes on.  However, this is the first year I've actually needed to use them all, often together in certain configurations, day after day.  Along with stuff for the body, this is the first year I've actually had a proper "winter bike" - I've been close before, with this mountain bike and that, but this year I've taken it a step further with a better mountain bike, and have employed studded snow tires.

This post isn't really a review, if I can help it, but the Nokian Mount & Ground W160 studded tires I'd purchased back in October finally got mounted to rims last night, and we took our maiden voyage this morning.  I am quite impressed.  Sure, I have no control test for this particular set of conditions - but anyone that's ridden on semi-plowed suburban side streets after a long, cold rain, followed by below-freezing temps and snow knows that it's no easy ride on any tire.  It didn't take long to realize that had I been on regular tires, things would not have gone so well.  I can imagine my front tire darting this way and that, rear tire holding on only by weight sitting on the saddle - it's do-able, yes... and I've done it before.  This winter, however, my commute route is pretty much set and it involves a long section of paved bike trail.  Maybe I'm getting soft, maybe old, or maybe traffic in Johnson County, KS has finally turned a corner for the worse in the last couple years:  but I want as little a part of traffic as I can get.  So, trails it is.  That made the studded tires all too easy a choice to make.  No salting, no plowing here;  which is arguably easier to ride on anyways.  This morning, the usual Kansas routine of rain followed by snow and cold had turned the trails into seven miles of ice-rink.  

After getting off the glazed and rutted streets and onto the trails, I was just amazed - forget the fact that I'd survived the glazed and rutted roads, I was actually expecting things to get harder on the trail.  I could hear the studs biting into an icy layer below the snow I was cutting through - it was very apparent they were making contact and doing their job. Even slamming on the rear brakes wouldn't break them free.  It almost became a game to see how far I could push this new envelope.  I even started using the front brake... not something one usually gets away with on ice. I was able to stand out of the saddle and climb, come to near-stops on steep downhills, and basically just cruise along.  While cornering, physics tend to take over, and while the studs are still biting there is some under-steer apparent while the rubber between stud transitions lets go as the tire rotates.  Not enough to induce a slide, but enough to alter your intended line.  Cornering flat, and gingerly, was needed - which was appropriate for the conditions anyways.  All in all, however, it still only took me five to seven minutes longer than normal (on this bike) to arrive at work.  Considering my initial thoughts as I'd left the garage at the onset of my commute (like, "what am I *doing*?!), I ended up surprised, pleased, and impressed.  

Time will tell, however:  there will be times where I ride home on bare pavement due to a botched forecast, or afternoon snow and ice melting, so longevity comes to mind.  The studs are carbide, so they shouldn't dull - but I'm watchful.  The manufacturer and other long-time users mention stud loss, on the order of 5-10 being "normal" - and I can see that, potentially.  If I ride safely and don't try anything nutty, I should be able to minimize that - and realistically, if 5-10 is normal and I have "only" 150 studs left in a tire, would I even notice?  Not likely, unless they all fall out of a single area of the tire - also not likely.  

Recommended?  Absolutely.  Short of a multiple-feet-deep snow event, this winter suddenly looks exciting and fun... if you can call ten degrees and a 30 MPH westerly wind "fun".  There is stud-loss, and then there is wind-chill induced skin-loss...  Staying upright and keeping moving is very important in this kind of cold:  and so the studded tires become a strong variable eliminator, which is another good selling point.  Some have called them overkill, but I simply had to find out for myself; and now, as I write this, I feel practically spoiled by these tires.  Even if they only last me this ONE winter season of commutes, they are worth every dime so far.

Instead of worrying about falling, I was able to ride loose and almost enjoy the commute.  The solitary beam of my headlight was magnified by the fresh snow, and I was able to see everything I needed to and more. I  checked out rabbit tracks criss-crossing everywhere, saw some deer, and surprised an owl that was enjoying his pre-dawn catch.  Kinda surprised me, actually... BIG glowing eyes, and then wings from nowhere as it took to the sky with its catch.  Awesome... try to see THAT happen in a car!  I won't walk that car vs. bike line, but it did cross my mind - no matter what the weather, it's always enlightening and interesting the things I see from the saddle, tucked back in these suburban woods.  The joggers and dog-walkers are gone now, no footprints -- just me, and for a few miles I can forget I'm surrounded by houses, and just enjoy watching nature doing what it does after a storm like this.  Pinned in by strip malls and golf courses, I'm still amazed how much life I see back on the trails.  One of these days, I really need to hit Blue River, Swope, Landahl or something similar on this bike - and see what I can find.

For now, grinning from my morning accomplishment and test, I am looking forward to more fun this afternoon, if I can keep my mind off the west wind that will push against me the whole way.  Breathe, pedal, and try to keep my mouth closed... it's teeth-chillingly cold out there... 

More to come as winter plays out... 

Thanks for reading!

What it might be like...

In the fine tradition...

Shopping for a training loop

It's going to be a tall order, but I need to shop for a training loop for Tejas - something that a fellow rando guy recently back from that ride said might be tough to do.  There is a lot of climbing involved, but I think the ole' Dirty Harry (aka, 44-Magnum) loop that heads from Olathe to the Kansas River and back might suffice.  It's about twice as long at one lap at Tejas, but there are plenty of long, steep climbs to be had as you get closer to the river itself.  I'll have to see about making that a regular stop this next year.  

For now, I've been looking back at the year and I can count my weekend rides almost on two hands - and no more.  Everything else in the 5,000+ miles for 2009 has been filed under the commuting category - which is actually quite good.  The last time I was this consistent on commuting frequency and distance, I was getting ready for another big challenge:  the Mississippi Valley 24-Hour Challenge in 2003.  This is a good sign, and my intent is to keep the 2nd car out of the driveway, make it through the winter, and keep right on going.  When I need a car, I think I might rent - weekend-style.  The fee should be less than a car payment, and if I plan in advance enough I should be able to spec what I rent - ala, minivan with removable seats.  With that, instant, indoor bike storage and a place to snooze, change, stay warm at the early season brevets, and a vehicle to crew from at Tejas itself.  Careful planning required, of course, but what I'd end up paying for insurance, registration, gas, etc., on a car that I could call my own will simply go towards building the nutrition pantry and covering the registration and travel expenses for the events themselves.  

All in good time - meanwhile, my training loop shopping gets me out of the house on a particularly nice and long holiday weekend.  Sixty-four degrees on the thermometer, in LATE November?  Even the national weather service is stumped, and recent forecast discussions indicate that even the morning lows aren't in the right place - putting Kansas City on target to break a record for the latest hard freeze on the books.  It still hasn't dropped below 28ºF, officially.  

Today's research loop was about the length of one Tejas lap, roughly 26 miles of goodness.  I started off into a stiff headwind, from the south, as I rolled down Ridgeview into the countryside.  I really like spring and summer for riding, but there is something interesting about riding in the fall after the leaves have dropped and blown away.  The landscape looks very different, and the scenery changes just enough to make "the same old road" take on a new feel.  I found myself noticing "new" grain silos, and spotting water-towers in the distance that would normally be hidden from view by trees.  With the trees bare, the sight-lines seem to extend from horizon to horizon.  Horses, cattle, and people taking advantage of the temperate boost to make last minute winterizing maintenance a pleasure instead of a frigid chore.  

Today, I managed to make a few detours, and took the "same old route" theory a little farther by taking some "new" roads and turns that I might not have in the past.  The county in many areas seems to have removed a lot of the excess gravel from many rural roads, and so the notion of riding an "unpaved" road isn't such a sketchy experience on 28c tires.  I ride east on 207th street beyond where the manicured pavement runs out, and turn north on Pflumm.  More "new" things to see, as I'd never been on a bike there before.  Surprised a few dogs, too - probably not used to seeing cyclists here.  They still gave chase, however - a little sprint workout.  Onward to 183rd street, enjoying the tailwind, and then east to Quivira:  another "new" road for me.  This is the part of the county where many roads don't go all the way through, so I discover these neat little jogs and gentle curves that eventually take me northbound to 179th street.  I have plans to ride another recently discovered cycling road; Antioch north of 179th street, which also doesn't go through to the north but curves me back westbound, towards Quivira again, and over some nice rolling climbs.  It's a good workout, and there is lots to see.  I like it back in here, seeing the land of those that still farm and raise animals here - possibly safe from future development pushes, locked in by a natural watershed and thick woods.  At least, that's my hope:  not only to have these pristine reserves left alone, but perhaps to someday be lucky enough to have a home in such an area.  No more residential traffic snarl.... ah, to live on a street close to good riding, where cars-per-hour ratings are in the single digits!  I'd gladly ride the extra miles to work every day to enjoy such a setting.  

I ride west, cresting hill after hill, and then turn north on Quivira to enjoy a really long downhill, tailwind-fueled, run towards 159th:  a street that I'd long written off as being unworthy of cycling - a perfectly good road, mind you:  but traffic increases in the last five years make it less than enjoyable, in my opinion.  Still, I figure the holiday weekend may take a little off the plate for this road, and I'm partially correct.  It's a good road, still the occasional challenge, and a quick skirt of the local, small-plane airport, and I'm back into the neighborhood again to round out my ride.  A solid little jaunt, and a worthwhile way to spend a short amount of time.  It's a ride I almost didn't take - but I'm reminded that I doesn't need to spend hours on the bike to have a good ride, even if my tendencies lean towards the longer distances.  

Not sure how many more of these above-average days we'll have, especially as December looms - but I'll take whatever I can get!

Looking backwards and forwards

It'd been a while since I'd ridden anything other than the standard to-and-from commute routes, so I took occasion on the National Weather Service's professed "last day of above-average temps" to wander a bit from the usual.  This saw me taking some roads that I hadn't ridden in several years, which was a nice treat and a welcome break from the routine.  

With a slight headwind from the south and my vest zipped high, it was a good chance also to test the legs on some fairly hilly roads.  A holiday week also made things a little less traffic-logged than usual, which helps.  I've noticed, and I mentioned this to some extent in my ten-year retrospective post, that a lot of roads I used to frequent have become less desirable for bicycle riding in recent years.  This is where I find myself on both sides of a clear line:  Leave things alone, or build and improve.  Small mystery, I'm not a huge fan of progress for the sake of progress.  Sprawl, overbuilding, residential confusion and property-value-enhancing road treatments are all on my short list of frustrations, and not just from a bicycling perspective - simply from a "right way to do things" perspective.  I am grouchy beyond my years.  Honestly, if I lived downtown I'd probably be happier because, to a certain extent, there is "no more work to be done."  In the skirts of the 'burbs, though, there is always someone watching for profit, utilization, and making a buck.  Tossing up balsa-wood and wavy-walled "castles" for the opulent, leaving the farmland they are named for a wasteland of "me-too" and lawn-care posturing.  "Perfectly good" farm roads then become dice-rolls of cycling horror.  It has me really limiting the boundaries of where and when I will ride a bicycle, and that isn't good for anyone if you factor it out.

On the other side of that line, just for safety-sake if nothing else, it has me actually WISHING for road improvements.  For someone that adores sleepy two-lane chip-seal, this is a major shift.  It's gotten to the point, even in my ten-mile radius to-and-from work, where time-of-day becomes a big factor when deciding how and when to get to work.  The morning, no problem - the evenings, however can get dangerous.  Recent conversations with other would-be commuters at the recent KC-Sprints event shed light on what I suspected; basically that conditions have worsened so that otherwise savvy cyclists won't even consider riding a bicycle to work.  This is city planning at its darkest hour:  allowing these residential horror-shows to pop up everywhere, while streets and traffic control measures - and cycling accommodations - that should support them are years behind what's considered acceptable in other cities.

I left work yesterday thinking of all this as I made my way east, then south, onto roads that have nearly tripled in traffic flow in the last five years, and are yet still at least two years away from improvements.  127th from Nall to Mission is a wonderful stretch of bicycling road, and thankfully is a lane-plus in width - but busier than it should be considering there have been no residential additions in the area in a decade.  This tells me that major arterial roads nearby are at capacity, and people that don't live along this side-road are trying to shave minutes off their drive-time.  This doesn't bode well for the people that do live here, or cyclists that are trying to stay away from traffic.  I'm very much of the belief that just because the law states I can ride down 119th, for example, I never would:  I'd pick a side street.  Problems arise when 119th becomes so crowded that even the drivers follow this notion, and spill onto the side streets with me.  So, then, where am I to go?  The other streets simply don't go through, and if they do, they don't connect to anything.  Whole areas have been crossed off my list as a result.  Eventually, the side-streets do get widened and improved, which simply invites more cars.  The only hope is that the planners will listen to the advocates and include a bike lane, or that outside lane-plus - but at the very least cyclists end up with an additional lane.  What stinks in the process is that the resulting road and surrounding area becomes homogenized, grade-relaxed, sodium-vapor lit, and otherwise an uninteresting reminder that we truly live and ride in a automobile-centric town.

I end up on Mission Road at 135th, then 143rd, then 151st, then 159th.  More "progress".  159th and Mission was already a difficult road to ride compared to when I used to frequent it, but now the adjacent fields have been cleared and the roads are choked with contractors' pickup trucks working on the next "exclusive living" development that is priced far outside the realm of the working-man's income.  The old, white farmhouse on the SW corner of the intersection is long gone, and some kind of condo or apartment complex is going in.  I'll bet the sod farmers located nearby will be looking for new land soon, either by choice or by force.  Someone, somewhere, thinks that their land would make a good soccer park.  

I ride south on Mission, cross the railroad tracks, and enjoy the best stretch of road in the county.  Twisty, hilly and interesting - not too many cars - a road with a lot of character.  Character that is under fire, if you read the county planning commission's reports on what the next decade holds for this area I'm now riding through; the Blue River Watershed.  Mission road from 159th to 183rd is "unsafe", there are many animal collisions, and bicycle "incidents".  This all flies in the face of common-sense, driving according to the design speed of the road, and generally paying attention - but clearly I ask too much of drivers.  We have to text our friends, right?  In reality, it's all thinly veiled quick-talk to improve the road in order to drive in more development.  Whoever wrote that isn't concerned about Bambi and her cycling friends.  That's not why this beautiful road, with it's scenic overlooks and rustic farms, will ultimately be "improved".  It saddens me, but it is the march of time.

I turn west at 175th street, and dive sharply down to creek level and a low water crossing.  Even as I'm thinking how awesome and undiscovered this area still remains, there sit two public works trucks.  Survey work?  Hard to tell - but probably a drainage study for something or another.  For now, however, this unpaved, hilly, stretch of road is my sanctuary from modern Johnson County.  I catch a train at the crossing, and after a rest there I climb up the long grade out of the valley.  It's a sad thought, but I can almost see the shadow of a huge concrete deck bridge that will fly over the top of all of this, as those with much larger pocketbooks than mine eventually get their way and connect the railroad's new inter-modal centers in Gardner and northern Cass county via 179th street, say around 2015, 2020?  It's not all bad, mind you - 199th street near Ocheltree saw similar changes last year, and 223rd near Woodland is undergoing the same.  For now, I appreciate and enjoy what I have left to ride.

More and more, that's been the way to enjoy cycling in Johnson County.  I have seen this in a friends' blog entries, and have been brave enough to witness it firsthand, even today, as I look down previously "forbidden" roads, and decide "why not?"  Gravel.  It's the last hold-out for non-competitive, recreational cycling, and there is a lot of it to discover.  Lots of character, old bridges, forgotten farms, and land that has no "value" to someone looking to build twenty homes at a time.  As I toss up self-proclaimed boundaries in my old stomping grounds, I am stripping down boundaries that used to keep me on "pavement only" to the south.  The rewards are plenty, and the negatives are few.  Punctures?  No more-so than usual.  Granted, one does well to run larger tires - and that has greatly modified my views on what a "dream bike" entails.  Not to put too fine a point on it, Surly's Long-Haul Trucker is far higher on my wish list than, say, a Specialized Tarmac S-Works.  Forget about equipment though, it's really not what's needed here.  One only need to ride a little looser, more aware, to enjoy what's out there on the big grid.  Why not continue riding south on "road X"?  While I'd be personally nervous about doing it on 23c race tires, there really isn't any reason to second-guess doing at 15mph what the racers in Paris-Roubaix do at 25mph.  One will find that most gravel roads are quite passable.  Cars?  Far fewer.  Enjoyment?  Indeed.  The chances of your new favorite road being turned into a four-lane suburban superhighway next year?  Slim.

So, while my commute-minded self will likely be looking forward to some road improvements in the next five years to make car-free-to-work more enjoyable and safer, the recreational cyclist in me is expanding his boundaries, exploring local history, and generally having a good time of things.  My goals are still the same, and I'd wager that the training quality is just as good.  An ultra-racer peer of mine confessed to using time-trial work on the Katy Trail as the core of his training, so clearly pavement is not a requisite for distance speed-work.  In short, no worries with regards to Tejas and such.  Sometimes, I just want that quiet cycling getaway, without vying for rights with the quarry trucks and business-class rush-hour.

I arrived home via 175th street and Antioch after jogging across Metcalf at 179th, enjoying some marvelous vistas - some temporary groaning at the construction of a new mega high-school - and rolling down Mur-Len past some open cattle fields, something that I still enjoy having within a few miles from home, despite the residential growth.  A nice jaunt, and a chance to stretch the legs on home good hills, see some roads I hadn't seen in a while, and ponder the future and past.  Quite seriously, even with my questionable view of the future around here, it's a good time to be a bicyclist.  Moreover, I think it's an important time to be a bicyclist.  

Don't you love sentences that begin with the phrase "part of the problem"?  Well, I think part of the "problem" is that it has become so easy for people to let go of what they don't realize they have:  the scenery, the local history.  It's far too easy to miss these things in this digital, heads-down, drive-fast age.  I'm guilty, too, being "too busy".  A local, personal, favorite bicycle store closed its doors this week in Kansas City, and I was always "too busy" to get up there.  I regret that, even though I know it's not taken personally.  In a short matter of years, I doubt many will remember it was there - I hope that's not the case.  To a similar extent, nobody seems to see that quaint farmhouse off the road, or care about the stories of the families that grew up there - or care that in a few months it will be smashed to dust and paved over.  They see a vacant shack, an eyesore, an old world relic, a development opportunity, and the future.  Perhaps I'm too rooted in the past, perhaps I move too slow.  Perhaps I'll simply be bypassed, just like that narrow gravel road near the creek.  Looking forwards and backwards is healthy and important.  We can only go forwards, true; but one has to slow down and appreciate what we have in the present - not be too quick to bulldoze it all, and make sure that someone tells a story about it.  I know progress and change is inevitable; all the more reason to hop onto a bicycle and go see some of it before it's gone - or, at the very least, appreciate what it's becoming.

Back in the bar at the KC-Sprints, a conversation led to another one of those "part of the problem" statements - and that is the notion that we have no peers in my neck of the woods.  With the developments and the changes, it's clear that many names have fallen off the radar with regards to cycling in Johnson County.  There is a lot of disdain about this and that, some of it created in these very pages.  I have dug up cycling books from as recent as 1995, focused solely on Kansas City cycling, and have read about 1930's races downtown, the formation of this bicycle club and that, and I wonder if I have isolated myself so much, or if the landscape really has changed in the last 15 years.  Should there be more bicycle clubs?  Is there enough advocacy?  Am I just not paying attention, or has my life really become so busy?  Who holds the future of bicycling?  Who stands up?  How must they feel, those old guards of local cycling - having formed a bicycle club in the '60s, and seeing what I'm seeing today?  Who takes the reigns?  It's a very resonant sentence, the one that friend of mine muttered - that we don't have any peers.  And it's keeping me thinking.

So I ride, and I think of the future.

A decade of 'dude

The exact date itself came and went with almost no mention or fanfare, mostly because I wasn't paying that much attention to personal history or cycling back in July of this year - even though I was riding every day.  With work schedules, blah blah blah;  yeah, we all know I work too much.  That could potentially kick off an entire tangent about work-life balance, and how it can affect one's life and livelihood.  I won't go there, because it's pretty clear - all work and no play makes 'dude forgetful, cranky, loathsome, and anti-social.

Back on track, July 21st, 1999, I took my first ride on a "road bike".  Prior to that, I'd logged a few hundred miles of bike trail stuff on a cheap mountain bike, and prior to that I was in my teenage years riding an even cheaper mountain bike.  I was certainly not "into it" the way I am today, but there were early glimmers: as a not-yet-driving-a-car teen, apparently cycling had a lot of the same allure it does for me today.  The outstanding pre-adult biking milestone I seem to remember was my Dad bragging on me to one of his co-workers:  that summer - er... 1985?... - I had logged about 600 miles on the Indian Creek Trail system on a Schwinn Varsity Junior - a really heavy, red, 24" wheel, 10-speed road bike.  A solid achievement for a youth, but I was not in a position to appreciate it, cherish it.  There was a lot of promise, but I discovered cars and McDonalds and cycling was quickly forgotten.  Instead I gained weight, lost personal motivation, and got to a physical low-point that I don't care to revisit.  While I can't understand my lack of interest today, I do remember the Warbird showing up at my house with his new Trek 450 - which, yes, I ended up with and still have - and I looked it over and was either confused, or utterly uninterested.  In fact, I think I was in the process of washing my car when he'd arrived, if you can imagine.  Somehow, I think it took my total separation from bicycling to get me to a point in my life where I'd end up completely enamored with it again.  Meanwhile, the Warbird was out there with his younger brother, "Shorty", racking up miles, enjoying really early editions of the Cider-Mill Century and the MS-150, back when they gave you sew-on patches instead of lapel pins.  I honestly didn't know what I was missing.  Much later, I met my wife, got re-motivated, changed my situation, and found myself looking at a bicycle again in 1997.  That's the quick version.

Initially I got back on the bike because my 1976 Buick broke down, and I simply had to get to work.  I started back in the saddle as a commuter, indeed.  The Tour De France, I'd heard of it - only from the quick ABC Sports clips of Greg LeMond winning the tour a few years earlier.  Mountain bikes were the hot thing, and most shops didn't even have many road bikes - when it came time to purchase a new ride to replace the one I'd dragged our of my parent's garage for that to-work duty, it was another mountain bike.  For a while there, even after the Buick was running again, I'd drag the Trek 820 mountain bike out and ride to work for the fun of it.  Longer distances?  Speed?  Spinning?  HELMETS?  What the heck were those?  Looking back over the last ten years, I had no idea in early July '99 what was going to hit me.

"You've gotta get a road bike, man... THAT'S where it's at."  

It was Shorty, Warbird's taller, younger brother, that first planted the seed.  The human torque-wrench.  Seriously, it's only because I've never met George Hincapie or anyone else professional in-person before:  but I've yet to meet anyone that has the physique, the lung-capacity, the drive as these two brothers.  I won't bore you with accolades, but I have said it before:  Never have I met more natural cycling potential or prowess than I'd seen between these two brothers.  When you are out-and-out DESTROYED on a climb by someone that lights and smokes a cigarette on the way up, you know you are in the presence of power.  A few changes in personal habits back then, and there's no reason I can see that Shorty shouldn't have been in Belgium tearing up the cobbles on a paycheck.  Warbird, more of the same.  Click, click, GONE.  Even today, I have no doubts - back in May 2000:  a small matter of two months from me waiting for him at the tops of hills, to him being utterly uncatchable.  You can't do that unless you are built to do it.  Without a single day in the gym, these guys have legs that make people rethink themselves - and it's more than appearance.  The techniques, the head-down power sprints, the gut-wrenching, diesel-power, give-it-hell, get-it-on tempo on the flats, and the scream-of-terror, kill-the-hill climbing - these were the first experiences I had with road riding.  It's in my DNA, my upbringing.  For some reason, that's why it's never "good enough".  I ache for the chase because of it.  Even on days when I decide to rest, heaven-forbid I see a cyclist on the horizon, just out of reach - and I throw the rest-day training plans into the fire.  When I wandered into the Bike Rack in downtown Overland Park and picked out that metallic orange Schwinn Passage, I really had no clue what I was getting in to.  But, I certainly found out 

July 21st, 1999;  average speed was 13.5 after 23 miles.  Tennis shoes, toe-clip pedals, gym shorts, ridiculous-looking helmet, t-shirt.  A few months later, I had upgraded the tires, bought my first jersey and cycling shorts, gloves.  At least every three or four days I showed up at the power-brother's home to set out and get my butt handed to me.  Again... and again.  Winter came, and the bike got hung up - and, hard as it is for me to fathom as I write this, there was a time when I almost didn't go back to that road bike.  Spring came, Shorty wasn't riding as much, had work and school commitments, and in early 2000 I wasn't thinking much about riding.  After all, I had just learned that I was going to be a father!  After seven months off the bike, the Warbird stepped in and announced that we were going to ride the MS-150 that fall.  A perfect way to prepare me mentally and physically for raising a family - set a good goal, and go after it.  Training began in May 2000, and it was the elder power-brother's turn to whip my backside into shape.  It worked.  

The rest, as they say, is history.  The first MS-150, the first brevet, Ride the Rockies, ultra-races, commuting farther, longer and more often that ever before, and a totally transformed body, mind and soul.  It changed the way I handle stress, challenges, it molds my kids and sets a solid example, and makes me a better person.  There is nothing about cycling in its essence that is bad.  One has to remember moderation, of course - which may make you raise an eyebrow if you've read these pages for any length of time - but, yes:  family first, indeed.  Using the exercise and fresh air to make you a better person to come home to, etc., that kind of notion is immensely important.  This web page, however, is dedicated to cycling itself - so that notion of family balance may not always be apparent here.  Make no mistake - if the wife ever asked me to stop, I would; but it's up to me to be smart enough not to let it come to that.  Balance.  

On that bombshell, it's a difficult thing to explain the desire to go back to a training regime that would get me prepared for The Texas Time Trials in 2010.  Unfinished business, having seen the trophies - but not been allowed to hold one for my own.  Why do people need these things?  I never was a jock, sporty, or athletic in high school - but there is this desire to compete, to ride for more than just the ride.  This is also a manner of balance, something that the last three years of this "first decade" of road riding has allowed me to play with.  Saddle bags, vintage notions, slowing down and smelling the flowers -- there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with that kind of cycling, and I really enjoy it.  It's tailored my thinking, my equipment choices, and it's molded my appreciation of history - something else that seems to go hand-in-hand with cycling as a pastime.  Going back to what my first experiences in road cycling were like, however, it's small wonder that even on a perfectly empty road I find myself shifting to a harder gear and shoving out just a little bit more tempo.  Go long, go fast.... it's what I like.  

Coming to grips with myself as a person, as a cyclist, finding personal identity out of all of the experiences is what I think I've garnered most out of cycling.  Time and again, a decade of journal entries either spell out or elude to self-discovery, pushing this invisible wall so hard you think you're going to die, and then recovering from it with clarity, purpose, confidence.  I love that.  If you don't like what you find on the other side of the wall, there is often - eventually - some motivation to push at it again, at least for me.  I could go on and on about the metaphors for life, struggle, and more - but you've all read it before.  I keep coming back to it, because there is nothing else that gives back everything you put into it.  You push harder, the rewards are bigger.  You work hard on the bike itself, and you can feel the rewards in the next ride.  All that, and finally learning how to hydrate.  (He,he.)

Data, data, data.  Sometime next Summer I will celebrate my 50,000th mile - at least, that's the total I will have logged since that first road ride in July 1999.  Right now with over 44,000 miles of numbers to poke at, I've started to formulate my 2010 plan.  I've been able to, thanks to BikeJournal and a bunch of .CSV files, extrapolate a barrage of averages, body weights, efforts, heart-rate data, bike usage, bike type in relation to speed, nutrition notes, equipment notes, hydration notes, mental preparation, mileages when, where, with whom.  One thing I have found interesting, and it shouldn't be a shock:  it really ISN'T about the bike.  My averages have had more to do with mental state and body makeup than what was underneath me - and that seems to follow for gearing, also.  I've had fast averages on brevets on single-speed as well as geared bikes, fendered or not, heavy or light, fancy or beater.  It just doesn't matter.  What does matter is health, nutrition (as-in eating right, as opposed to engineered nutrition vs. PB&J, for example), my body weight, hydration, and consistency.  The one chunk of data I'm missing and would REALLY like to have is wattage.  

For a solid comparison of how I performed in one scenario vs. another, the only thing differing being the bicycle, wattage data would help - though I'm certainly not running out to buy a PowerTap hub yet.  Power to weight ratio is essentially everything, and professional racers take this to an extreme by being very fit, very light - yet muscular - and riding the lightest bikes they can get away with.  Many over-estimate the importance of a really light, high-end race bike instead of focusing on the total package.  Yes, the bike can make a big difference when it comes to power output maximization and fatigue-prevention over distance - but that has to be weighed against body efficiency, personal power-to-weight ratio with the bike factored out, and other concerns like ride quality and reliability over distance.  I was thrown initially into assumptions looking back at 2002, 3 and 4 data when I saw high averages at various distances on my old Schwinn Passage - which in it's last incarnation was quite light, and hi-end equipped.  No fenders, no compromises, and race wheels.  So, clearly, I need a race bike again for 2010, right?  

Those assumptions were questioned, however, when I watched my body weight drop off in early 2009, and my speed go back up to the same levels as those earlier years, but while riding a fully-fendered steel road bike with a rack and generator hub.  Having watts data would be interesting, to see if the amount of power I was generating to get "bike A" going those speeds was in an acceptable margin compared to "bike B".  My gut tells me that, at speed, the differences would be difficult to see.  Climbing?  Perhaps.  In the real world, however, put Levi Leipheimer on a fendered steel bike with a rack and a generator hub, and he'd be right there in the pack - no doubts.  He may finish slightly more tired than the next guy - but how do you measure that?  I'm fairly convinced personal fitness has more to do with it than the tools themselves do, in the end.  This is, of course, taking out the small percentages of advantage one rider may have over another with regards to shifting faster (ie, STI shifters vs. bar-ends) - but, we'd be splitting hairs, and that's arguably a true racers concern, in that last, heated sprint.  

For what I want to do, I have a clear picture now of what I need to do to make it happen - and very little of it has to do with equipment. That will not stop me, however, from looking at stacking some of the smaller percentages in my favor:  The same way I wouldn't run panniers during the time-trial, I would be foolish not to at least consider real road pedals and shoes, instead of SPD mountain bike pedals and sandals.  Maybe removing the fenders for the race if the forecast is dry, perhaps the rack as well.  Maybe, just maybe, looking at race wheels.  Maybe even looking at a complete component swap to the waiting Trek 450 frame-set.  They key being, in the last 100 miles of that 500 mile time trial, how will I feel - will I mentally know that I've done everything, assuming I have done everything right for my body first and foremost?  Yes, the right tools for the job are immensely important; but one must remember that the biggest factor is the engine.  I certainly don't need to spend thousands on a new bicycle to get what I'm after:  a finish at Tejas.

It does, sometimes, take thousands of miles to come to these realizations.  Would I change anything?  Doubtful.  Every mile, every friendship, every challenge - it's all been worth it.

Ten years in the books, xxxxxxxx to go....

Thanks for reading. 

Car-Free-to-Work Day #120

The streak continues, modified here and there by work-from-home days and one incident of car-pooling to date. But to the crux of the "goal", and for qualification, I'm certainly not "car-free" - but I am "car-free to work". This basically indicates that I have travelled to and from work without driving a car, and on work-from-home days, well, yeah - I'm not going anywhere. On the carpooling occasion, I woke up after being sick for several days and simply didn't "feel" it… so, with come creative planning I was dropped off at the office by the wife while she was in transit to her job… which, bless her, is in the opposite direction from our house. Not the most responsible choice, but at the time it seemed quite necessary. Needless to say, however, that won't be happening too often. If I run into a day like that again, the bus will take on that duty. The work-from-home days are really handy and, assuming I don't blow too many of them, will come to my rescue on a few nasty winter weather days - which are sure to come eventually.

Speaking of nasty weather, I'm ready now, also, to continue the streak into the winter - really prepared, for once. I have a dedicated bad-weather bike again, a modified mountain bike, and I have invested in studded snow tires. I'm told that this may be largely overkill - but it's something that I'll have to determine on my own. With the huge swaths of ice I saw last year that continued for dozens of yards in the shady areas of the bike trail, I don't think I'm totally unfounded. The streets, once plowed, will largely be passable - as I've managed every season to date on "normal" tires. It's those few nasty days that always seemed to force me into the car that I'm trying to get around. As long as I can get to a bus stop, and limp my way home on the iced over trails in the afternoon, I should be able to stay car-free until Spring. It won't always be fast-going, but it will be fun.

To my surprise the streak has become easier to maintain if for no other reason that its become absolute habit. With my mother-in-law having possession of my car since the 2nd week of June, there simply hasn't been a temptation to drive. There's no car in the driveway, and that - more than anything - has been a motivator. Now, this solution is potentially impractical for a lot of folks, so I will say a few things: be ready, but don't OVER commit. If you're considering commuting a good deal, you should allow yourself a reasonable back-up strategy. That may-well involve having a car in the driveway just in case. Until you have performed the necessary experimentation with time management, route planning, and having reliable equipment on hand, don't go nuts and sell the car. Give it time. That almost goes without saying, because we definitely live in a society where a car is a requisite, and commuting to work by bike or not - may would never consider selling off the car, even if it sits for a few months at a time. Having said that, NOT having that car staring at me (in my head) while I sleep through a thunderstorm-rich night, knowing I'll be very wet and quite chilly the next morning helps keep the streak alive. My stress levels have dropped, I feel good, and I've been able to maintain a healthy weight. Life, it seems, is good.

On the other hand, since I simply don't have the option of a car a lot of my activities have been tapered WAY back. I don't "go on drives" anymore. I've said "no" to countless after-work activities. I still try to stay active in the bicycle route-planning realm, but I don't have a way to "pre-drive" a route anymore - so I haven't designed many new routes in the last six months - sure, I could just pre-RIDE them, but at the 200K level and with my schedule, that becomes problematic. Also adrift is my old knowledge of where certain things are, what is located next to what, things like that. I haven't been to Microcenter, for example, since May. I haven't been to Acme Bicycle Company since probably before then, even. These things have become too far outside my radius of activity! Things like that have been hard to jostle with at times. I know my route to and from work, and every inch of the surroundings: but little else. There is construction happening, old stores close, new ones open - and I have no idea about any of it. So, one might ask - am I punishing myself? Olathe is a nice town, otherwise I wouldn't raise my kids here --- but there is SO little to DO, unless you have a car to get to it. Everything else of worth is downtown, midtown, and I simply haven't been doing much of anything since this streak started. I'm actually surprised I was able to make it to a couple bikes rides here and there, like in Merriam (the Dark Side Cave Ride) and one in Peculiar (the MS Ride), but other than that I've been hanging it up on the weekends. So, there is potentially an all-or-nothing kind of thing happening here. I think it's an "I know better" problem - i.e., the tribal hunter in the rainforest doesn't know it's 2009 in America and he could be kicking back at a bar Twittering his friends, and therefore, his existence is completely satisfactory. For me, being car-free in such a sprawled-out town was almost exactly like self-inflicted punishment.

Thankfully, our family does have one car - and even though I don't use it to get to and from work, I have used it for other things here and there. The Completely-Car-Free streak broke along with my son's arm in early September when I drove to the hospital - no regrets there. But, trying to restart a car-free streak? In Johnson County, KS?… the notion is becoming quite a stretch, but "car-free-to-work" is entirely possible so far. What's been SUPER nice is one car payment, one oil change, and one trip to the gas pump. Looking forward to brevet season, things might be a little weird, and I see myself either getting the car back from my mother-in-law, or buying something like a cheap pickup truck to ferry me and my bike back and forth to remote start locations. Burnout becomes a question, also - but so far, so good: come next Spring, without the ability to "rest" by getting to work by car, can I keep it going? Can I really expect to ride to work the Monday after a 600K weekend? I know I probably could, sure… but should I? If Tejas in 2010 is the goal, is there a problem developing here? Should I go for the 365-day streak, one-year of not driving a car to work, and then taper WAY back? There is a lot to sort here. Can I be an ultra-distance racer, AND a full-time commuter? At the very least, I would like to get back to a situation where I can ride to work every day of a week, and still have the energy and motivation to rise early on a Saturday or Sunday and ride with some good friends again. I've missed that immensely.

For now, it's been neat to see the changes in the seasons up close, back on the bike trail with nature (ok, Johnson County's business-park version of nature, true.) to watch the deer clustering, the squirrels gathering, the leaves change and fall, the birds becoming a little hectic, and the birds of prey beginning to be especially watchful. This is a great time of year.

Stay tuned...

Following up, and circling back.

Police and Cyclists reach agreement, from KCBike.info

I felt it important to follow up on this interesting piece that seemed to catch the attention of cyclists and non-cyclists alike in and around the KC Area back in August.  When this story broke, I collapsed into my usual holier-than-thou tirade about this particular group and their behavior, and I must be clear: at the time, that was my gut reaction, seat-of-the-pants, stream-of-consciousness take on the situation.  No apologies for that.  I was frustrated at FAR more in the world than the fact that some cyclists ran a red light, and got ticketed.  I think I used the story as a punching bag of sorts.  I'm far to retrospective for my own good sometimes.

However, it is both interesting and encouraging to note that the parties involved and the head of their club has taken to the negotiations chair, has been active in the system since the incident, and has drafted up agreements with the Prairie Village Police Department outlining ways to improve the situation.  It was also very nice to see at the end of a couple news articles, and to hear at then end of a couple newscasts, that "the majority of cyclists in the area are doing things right."  That felt good.  

Am I right all the time?  Certainly not.  Do I *always* stop at stop signs?  Yeah, yeah, I've done the "safe roll-thru" before, as a commenter mentioned previously.  I'm not infallible - especially since my reaction to their actions appears that I fancy myself as such.  I think a lot of my comments on this blog have gone against my "mission" of engaging and joining cyclists together, regardless of discipline and riding style.  In a couple of hastily written paragraphs, I have done quite a bit to drive rifts back into the atmosphere of local cycling, and I can feel it in interactions I've had since that post.  For that, I do apologize, because its intent was never personal.

Humbly, I know full well that in the grand scheme of things the opinions and observations made inside this blog do not amount to much, and they won't prevent people from riding, and (sadly) may not encourage many to ride either.  I have no illusions that this is some high penetration publication that somehow affects the way local cycling happens, nor that my opinions will be given any more weight than a single pixel on a screen.  Like I'd mentioned in the original post, the offenders may not have even read it.  My point is, if I don't have anything nice to say - then what am I writing about?  This is not supposed to have ever been a scathing opinion page.  There are many that started reading this blog on one premise, and some of that has changed over time.  My sincere hope is to start adding positive value again.  Life is full of far too much strife, argument, woe, and outburst - why do I really need to log in and rant on about how the entire fabric of society coming unwoven because someone ran a red light?

No, it's not a full time job, and this is not a sanctioned publication - which goes to why it took so long for me to follow up on this story.  This is nothing more than a personal blog, a personal journal that I started because I enjoy writing about cycling, the things I see, the struggles I've overcome.  It's an homage to the people that first encouraged me to ride, way back when, written in hopes that it might encourage someone out there that is just starting out to take that next corner and see what cycling brings to them.  Corny as it sounds cycling really changed my life, who I am, how I think, how I go through my day.  The friendships that I've made on the saddle are worth far more than whether or not I weigh in on every cycling incident that comes down the pipe.  The positive aspects are far more important to share, and that's my intent going forward.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

What happened to fall?

Well, all estimations seem to be holding true, that this winter 2009-2010 will be especially... errr, "robust"?  Maybe that's not the right word.  I still can't help wonder how nasty things might get, as the summer was relatively kind, everyone seems to be of the opinion that we skipped fall, and we've already seen below-freezing temperatures long enough for the NWS to raise a "freeze-warning" a couple nights ago.  When we technically arrive at winter on December 21st, I have a feeling that multiple days of negative-degree temperatures will probably accompany it.  Sure, I've been wrong, and part of me hopes I am.  We've been treated to 50's and 60's on New Years' Day in the past, you all know.  I was blessed last year with fairly easy passage through November and December's 200k brevets, and had an equally good time on the January edition.  This time around, I get the notion that studded tires may not be considered overkill, and that I'm not completely daft for trying to source some Pogies for the new winter bike.  

So far, so good, however.  After having a rough couple of weeks losing a family member and coming down with a very nasty sinus infection that knocked me to the dirt for about five solid days, I'm back on the bike for the first time since the MS-Ride wrapped up.  Actually, I rode on Monday and Tuesday of the following week, despite feeling really weak... I think perhaps the onset of my illness was beginning to creep in.  After recovering from my illness, the first tastes of winter for commuting.  Wednesday, pre-dawn, with a temperature at the garage door of 34ºF and a light north wind, it was like I had emerged from a sickness that had lasted all of fall, and I had woken up in early winter.  Things went well, however.  Thursday, rain entered the forecast.  Although I was definitely on the mend, it was a little harrowing returning from the throes of sinus-ville to ride a bike in the rain.  Seemed like a dumb idea, but no consequence - other than a dirty bike, and very cold limbs.  Thursday was a double commute, also, which represents my only real "suck-it-up" comfort issues that I can't seem to get around.  I arrive at work at job #1, and have plenty of time to get my cycling gear to dry before the afternoon ride home.  If it's still raining in the afternoon and I have to get to job #2, things will suck.  the commute window between jobs is pretty slim, but thankfully when it's raining (oddly) there is less personal cleanup to perform, so changing and being ready-to-work comes faster.  Getting things to dry out, however, is a challenge.  Even the most technically advanced fibers won't completely dry from a rain-soaked state in a three hour window, at least not without help.  But, in a shop devoid of fans or space heaters or an easily accessible ventilation system vent, it's hard.  I've tried wrapping things like the shorts, socks, leg warmers in a large bath towel and rolling it up, squeezing it here and there to wick off the excess - which works a little, but the rest has to air-dry - and that's usually the problem.  Nothing is quite as difficult, or as uncomfortable, as pulling on cold, wet cycling togs.  You just have to, again, suck it up, pull them on and wait for your body heat to begin warming the layers a little...only to go right back outside into the rain.  At least, in that case, you are still wet and prepared for it.  If it's just dry and cooler and windy, as it generally is after a front passes, it depends on which way the wind blows as to how pleasant or unpleasant that last leg homeward is.  I've begun to wonder, especially for the coming winter, how much space I could take up to make a drying box, fan box, or something similar for the shop - or maybe just hit craigs-list and snag a cheap clothes dryer.  That probably won't fly with management, but oh how sweet that would be to toss some cold layers into the dryer to prep for the ride home!  I'd be pampered!  Until then, I keep running the old Survivorman mantra of "you sweat, you die" through my head as I embark into sub-freezing temps in already-wet wool and lycra.  Adventures in hypothermia.  

It takes me back to the notion that the best things in life truly are simple:  a hot shower.  a blazing fire in the hearth.  an old bathrobe.  slippers.  All steeped in the notion that while getting into a car is easier, I chose the road less traveled by.  The romanticism of it all, sometimes that alone is enough to keep me on the bike in this weather.  

The weekend of the MS-Ride was "interesting" to say the least.  Not really prepared yet for cold-and-wet, I decided to take things to the next level and ride myself and all my gear to the MS-Ride start line, early Saturday AM.  I rose at about 3:00am after getting everything ready the night before, and departed east for the Ray-Pec high school, the start line.  Everything in Olathe and Overland Park was fantastic;  151st street was completely abandoned - and I didn't see my first car until I was many miles east near State Line. Problems started almost immediately thereafter.  My usual "route planning" routine involves plotting things out on Google Maps, checking mileages and such, and then pre-driving the route to make sure it's A) paved, and B) not closed for construction.  Since I haven't had access to a car for step B since early June, that critical next-step has been impossible to perform.  Further, none of my weekend riding or other adventures has had me this far east in almost a year.  It was a dice-roll from the start, but I expected reasonable results.  Once you get on the other side of state line, however, the roads begin to take less-obvious trajectories, following the land instead of the prescribed grid of the Kansas Side.  Makes for very cool riding, but becomes frustrating when you need a detour.  

At 151st and Kenneth road, I could see the amber flashers of the road closed barriers from a mile away.  "Uh oh...", I thought. Normally, this would only mean a mile detour in any direction, sometimes less with side streets.  But, there are no side streets here.  Not heading east, anyways.  Heading south, I would overshoot my eventual target of 215th and School Road by a long shot.  The only reasonable option on the map was heading through Cleveland, MO., and I didn't have time for that much of a detour.  I didn't want to miss the start, or the breakfast I'd want to help push me the extra 103 miles to Sedalia once I got to the start line!  Thankfully it was early enough, traffic was still essentially non-existent, so I decided to divert north to 135th Street, aka. MO-150 highway.  

It's so much nicer of a road than it used to be, that's certain.  With a new, long bridge over the Blue River and a wide shoulder, it's more than I could have hoped for from MoDOT when it was built.  The road it replaced was nearly impassible by bike, but I kinda miss that lonely blinking yellow light that used to hover above Holmes Road, and some other intersection closer to US-71.  Many, many drives with Dad out to Richards Gebaur to see the air-shows, leaving pre-dawn to guarantee good parking and a good spot on the flight-line, that road was a neat trip down memory lane... and thankfully, I still have my memories.  The new road, it's handy if you have to use it by bike, and at 4:15am it was perfect.  Two cars, total...and I exit at "D", or Holmes Road.  

Highway D is another road that is not terribly kind to cyclists.  Not until you get WAY south of town, certainly south of the aforementioned Cleveland, MO.  It's been improved, and thankfully now there is a nice, rideable shoulder - but my concerns shouldn't be too bad at this hour.  Unfortunately, a very thick fog has settled in, and I can barely see.  Which means, my taillights and even my flashing white fog beacon probably can't be seen too well, either.  Two cars pass, and they seem to see me and edge over to the middle of the roadway.  The third, however, about a mile later, clearly doesn't see me.  Either coming off the late shift, the drunk shift, texting, who knows.  Tires on wet, grooved pavement approaching from the rear - you can tell from the pitch if they are adjusting their speed.  I've become rather attuned to it over the years.  I'm in the lane, because it's 4:30am or so and I can, but I can tell - this person isn't slowing at all... and at the last second or two I decide to get to the shoulder.  It was a wise move, because two seconds later the space I previously occupied was filled with car.  No room at all.  I feel the wind, the rush of mist in its wake, and the suddenness of it snaps me alert.  No waving finger, no yelling, no weaving, no horn, and no change in speed... nothing like that at all... they just flat didn't see me.  It reminds me not to be complacent.  Maybe I seem a little gun-shy, but of the thousands of miles I've covered on the Missouri lettered highways system, certainly on roads narrower than this one, often without a shoulder, I've maybe only had that happen one other time.  In the middle of all this, somewhere, I have missed my turn east.  Looking for 155th street, but knowing I'd surely gone too far, I arrive at 174th Street -- MO-58 highway, towards Belton.  I'll take it.

After crossing over the railroad tracks on a nice long bridge, I'm at Prospect Road.  It reminds me that in retrospect I probably could have taken the Dark Side Ride route to get here, since I was now overlapping it -- but during planning, it was clear that my original route would have been miles shorter, taking advantage of roads that were normally not bike-passable.  I remind myself of the fact that at least I had known the DSR route wasn't closed.  A fact I smack the handlebars about when I see signs indicating that 163rd street is also closed.  Granted, I'd already passed it anyways - but I'd need it for the ride home from the MS event.  Ugh.  "Crowbar is driving me home from this," I mumbled to myself.  This was a one-way ride, and there was no way I was going to ride these roads in the afternoon safely.  The notion was confirmed over and over the farther east I went.  Fog, hills, big potholes... a neat road, Cambridge - which skirts Belton on the south edge - but not so fun discovering it for the first time in the middle of the night, in the thick fog, with truck traffic suddenly coming from somewhere.  At least they were all courteous, and at least they did see me.  Confirmed my suspicions about the other car back on highway D, because the fog was far thicker now.  There was so much glare-back from my headlight now, I really didn't know what I was riding into.  Man, this is getting old.  

Finally, I could see and hear US-71, which meant I was edging closer to the frontage road that would take me to 195th street, under the highway, and finally to my final destination.  It just seemed to take forever, and there were more construction cones appearing.  Dang!!!  At least I was catching this workzone at the END of work, and the pavement was in-place, smooth, and OPEN.  Finally I was starting to see the rotating flood-lights from the start line.  About 30 minutes of harrowing frontage road later, and more early-morning traffic - thankfully all headed towards the ride start, so they were very bike-friendly - I arrived!  Whoooo!  Amid absolutely zero fanfare, I rolled up to the luggage truck, and offloaded the nearly 40 pounds of crud from the rack.  Time for breakfast!!!!

The ride itself was awesome - and without getting into to exhaustive of detail, it was a good test for what I have to do to prepare for next years Tejas 500 attempt #3.  Day one, hardly any wind, good temperatures and just a prefect day once the fog burned off and things warmed a little.  I managed to pull off a 17.7 average, which I'll take.  No pacelines, no drafting at all, and certainly no tailwind.  Considering I hadn't done anything longer than 50 miles since May, I felt good, strong, comfortable.  Not really pushing, just rolling out a good, even, sustainable pace:  perfect for ultra-distance racing.  Day Two, a wicked headwind from the west kicked up in the afternoon, and my average dropped to 16.6 by the end of the day - but again, a true soloist's test:  no pacelines, no drafting - just me and the wind.  Compared to last year, I felt spectacular at the last rest-stop.  Before, I felt drained, toasted, smoked.  Despite the pushing into the wind for dozens of miles, I felt fresh at the finish.  No special nutrition, and basically straight water - the one thing I did avoid actively was Gatorade.  No cramps, nothing of the sort - so my dietary electrolyte intake was right on the money.  A good test... now I just need to keep the edge honed over the winter, eat right, rest, and prepare for a fast brevet series in the Spring.  I can't exactly go do the MS route 5 times, but I can plan for a straight-thru 600k in May, and then fast 200Ks until next September.  I feel good about this next year... heck, I feel good about THIS year.  Even if I don't have a goal, even if I don't race Tejas next year, I feel in the best shape of my cycling life - which I haven't been able to say in many years.  Feels good.  

Thanks for reading!  Dress warm, and get out there!  There is still season left to ride!  

 

MS Ride weekend... And the change that comes with it.

Time and time again, here in the midwest, here on this weekend, things change. No, its not really all that cold all of the sudden. No, its not the official arrival of fall that makes any difference - but its close to the mark. There are slips of cirrus at 20,000 feet, icy but beautiful and sweeping. There is a snap to the morning air that almost requires a higher collar... and the high collar feels good. There is a layer of leaves on the bike trail that gives a satisfying wake to the normal silence of rubber on asphalt. The birds are in a rush, and the squirrels. In the west today there is a roll to the skies and a greyness that speaks softly, but clearly. The sunsets are piquing interest, and suddenly it seems there is a reason to pay attention to them: tonight it dips just a degree or two south of due east. The rain tonight feels thick, heavy, chilly. Wool. Coffee.

Like so many years before, I love this weekend. The unabated joy of a well-supported century. Its a great ride, a great cause, and a challenge to keep going. Keep going? Something always changes after this weekend. Something always gets harder, the commutes more strenuous for some reason. Nothing specific... Just "me" more often than not. But, the season - the freshness of it, the chance to wear cycling clothes that not everyone can justify owning, the chance to keep a streak going, the chance to soak up a season the way most people that choose cars won't. Enjoyment and perfection aren't synonymous - just because its raining and gloomy, just because its not 85 and sunny, doesn't mean its a bad time to be outside. Our existance, and what we feel... it is still a gift. It is meant to be enjoyed.

I recommend enjoying it on a bicycle, of course. Get out there.