Lynda

December 2005 - Posts

• Christmas frenzy

  Christmas Eve was MY day. That's when I had all the fun. I lined up a baby sitter and went out mountain biking for 5 hours with two of my roadie pals who have turned to the dark-side and gotten themselves mountain bikes for Christmas. This was only the second ride in the dirt for Dave so I took it easy on him and planned out a mostly jeep road loop. Used to skinny rubber Joel's quote of the day was that his 2.4's were probably wider than me - so he got in my good book :-) That comment and the fact he traded half of his white chocolate raspberry scone with one of my pop tarts. He can come ride with me any day. On the road Dave always turns the screws down hard on Joel and I but we got to punish him a bit today he he! After about 3 hours he was the one fading off the back and mentioned mountain biking was hard!! He even ate the stale Clif bar that has been lurking in my Camelbak for months waiting for a desperate moment. It is a treat to have some one to ride with sometimes as my usual MO is just me out in the boonies solo or towing the kids around. Christmas Day was all about the kids. Look ma Santa got me a scooter If it's not pink, don't bother Wheeeee! Posted Dec 27 2005, 06:18 PM by Lynda

• Christmas frenzy

  Christmas Eve was MY day. That's when I had all the fun. I lined up a baby sitter and went out mountain biking for 5 hours with two of my roadie pals who have turned to the dark-side and gotten themselves mountain bikes for Christmas. This was only the second ride in the dirt for Dave so I took it easy on him and planned out a mostly jeep road loop. Used to skinny rubber Joel's quote of the day was that his 2.4's were probably wider than me - so he got in my good book :-) That comment and the fact he traded half of his white chocolate raspberry scone with one of my pop tarts. He can come ride with me any day. On the road Dave always turns the screws down hard on Joel and I but we got to punish him a bit today he he! After about 3 hours he was the one fading off the back and mentioned mountain biking was hard!! He even ate the stale Clif bar that has been lurking in my Camelbak for months waiting for a desperate moment. It is a treat to have some one to ride with sometimes as my usual MO is just me out in the boonies solo or towing the kids around. Christmas Day was all about the kids. Look ma Santa got me a scooter If it's not pink, don't bother Wheeeee! [link] Posted Dec 27 2005, 06:18 PM by lynda with no comments

• Workout of the week

  Sometimes I get on a kick with one particular workout. At the moment it is this one: Watts are yellow and heart rate is in red. This is four sets of 5 X 1 minute repeats. Today the goal was to keep my watts over 300 for every rep until I either made it to the end or blew up. Today was a good day as I made it right to the 20th rep before I faded below 300 watts. This is the first time I have made it this far so a good day out. One of my major goals this winter is to make my legs stronger and this workout certainly taxes them. They are pretty tired right now, but a good tired. ~Lynda [link] Posted Dec 19 2005, 09:59 PM by lynda with no comments

• Workout of the week

  Sometimes I get on a kick with one particular workout. At the moment it is this one: Watts are yellow and heart rate is in red. This is four sets of 5 X 1 minute repeats. Today the goal was to keep my watts over 300 for every rep until I either made it to the end or blew up. Today was a good day as I made it right to the 20th rep before I faded below 300 watts. This is the first time I have made it this far so a good day out. One of my major goals this winter is to make my legs stronger and this workout certainly taxes them. They are pretty tired right now, but a good tired. ~Lynda Posted Dec 19 2005, 09:59 PM by Lynda

• Tis the Christmas Season

  The presents under our Christmas tree are a constant and taunting presence to the kids at the moment and I'm taking full advantage of the "be good or Santa will know" tactic. They were gone for a few hours today to pre-school and kindergarten - my time to get out for a wee ride without the bike trailer in tow. It was very chilly down here in the desert again today and I knew Santa had a nice new warm cycling jacket wrapped up for me under the tree......... It's back wrapped up under the tree again now!! It did keep me nice and toasty warm on the descent :-) Posted Dec 15 2005, 07:25 PM by Lynda

• Tis the Christmas Season

  The presents under our Christmas tree are a constant and taunting presence to the kids at the moment and I'm taking full advantage of the "be good or Santa will know" tactic. They were gone for a few hours today to pre-school and kindergarten - my time to get out for a wee ride without the bike trailer in tow. It was very chilly down here in the desert again today and I knew Santa had a nice new warm cycling jacket wrapped up for me under the tree......... It's back wrapped up under the tree again now!! It did keep me nice and toasty warm on the descent :-) [link] Posted Dec 15 2005, 07:25 PM by lynda with no comments

• Training Partners

  Here are my two regular training partners, Wesley and Emma. They are always up for a ride and usually in a good mood - though never take pulls. The Snow Canyon park restrooms is a trip highlight, for some reason they love that. They get all mad at me if I bypass it. The toilets through can be stinky though.... The climb up through the park is 4 miles and takes me about 20 minutes on my road bike. With these guys in tow it takes me 40 minutes. We have another pit stop at the top of the hill so the kids can play and run around for a while. The views from the top are pretty cool. We get up to about 37 mph on the descent, the kids lean forward holding onto the front of the trailer and scream "go faster mommy". Yesterday Wesley shouted "mommy go as fast as a race car" LOL! I have some sketchy cantilever brakes on my trailer bike so don't like to get much faster than that. I imagine it must be a fun ride for them as they are sitting real close to the ground with only a layer of canvas between them and the pavement. Maybe they will be lugers when they grow up. Wesley says Santa is going to bring him a skate board which will be as fast as a race car and will go much faster than my bike. Posted Dec 13 2005, 05:07 PM by Lynda

• Watt confusion

  My SRM has been telling me I'm one of the fastest ladies on a mountain bike recently so I've been on a quest to discover where this wackiness is coming from, 'cause it probably isn't my legs. I've waded through the SRM manual a few times which is a weird experience as it is translated from German. I had to learn how to calibrate my SRM and check the accuracy of my Power-Taps. All checked out to be healthy - SO maybe I am that fast. BUT Dave compared his White Rim files with mine and said no things are wacko - SO maybe I'm not that fast. Hmmm. I put both PM's on my Scalpel and rode the trainer to get the real answer on whether the SRM is reading high. Comparing PT and SRM power files side by side was not easy, power was all over the place. The trainer only told me I had to change the SRM sampling from 3 sec to 1 sec to match the PT. Next step was to actually ride out on the trails. My Scalpel has no V-brake mounts and PT no disc rotor mounts so this meant no rear brakes. That turned out to be fun in a sick kind of way. I don't have a solid conclusion yet as power was all over the place but with the help of some folks a lot smarter than myself the SRM looks to average about 11 watts higher than the PT off-road. Oh, and the desert weather is back to normal again. 65F and sunny when I rode yesterday :-) ~Lynda Posted Dec 02 2005, 11:56 AM by Lynda