Lynda

February 2006 - Posts

• SS school

  I haven't been riding much since the 24 hours of Old Pueblo - taking a breather. I have been out a couple of times on my single speed. The Intermountain Cup Series kicks off this weekend with the Desert Rampage here in St George. The single speed category welcomes men, women, farm animals etc - if yer SSing you're in it and doing 2 laps. That sounds like a lot of fun so I'll give it a try. I headed out today to do a couple of laps on the race course and see how it was on the SS. I've only ridden the stock 32X18 gear so far. The first climb was great. I was riding some of the steep stuff I thought I'd be walking - so far so good. After about 10 minutes of cranking up hill out of the saddle I wasn't feeling so hot and had slowed to a crawl by the time I reached the flat section at the top. On the descent my legs were shaking a little and instead of a second lap I limped home - woops - smoked! SS school was in session! I added 3 teeth to the back and will try it again on Wednesday. [link] Posted Feb 27 2006, 07:59 PM by lynda with no comments

• SS school

  I haven't been riding much since the 24 hours of Old Pueblo - taking a breather. I have been out a couple of times on my single speed. The Intermountain Cup Series kicks off this weekend with the Desert Rampage here in St George. The single speed category welcomes men, women, farm animals etc - if yer SSing you're in it and doing 2 laps. That sounds like a lot of fun so I'll give it a try. I headed out today to do a couple of laps on the race course and see how it was on the SS. I've only ridden the stock 32X18 gear so far. The first climb was great. I was riding some of the steep stuff I thought I'd be walking - so far so good. After about 10 minutes of cranking up hill out of the saddle I wasn't feeling so hot and had slowed to a crawl by the time I reached the flat section at the top. On the descent my legs were shaking a little and instead of a second lap I limped home - woops - smoked! SS school was in session! I added 3 teeth to the back and will try it again on Wednesday. Posted Feb 27 2006, 07:59 PM by Lynda

• '06 Old Pueblo Race report

  Well that was a nice course and it was very good to me - just my kind of desert riding, hard packed rolly winding single track. It hasn't rained for so long the trail was hard packed enough for Wesley to ride around on his scooter! The course was fast this year and I got to set a course record on it. The whole family went down for this race and packing was a huge production. The drive took us 11 hours and was a bit of a production too. 11 hours is a loooong time for little people to be in their car seats. I'd trained really well for this race and had a good taper. Race morning I was feeling awesome but also a bit too wound up. There were hundreds of bikes racked up ready for the start. You can see my blue Scalpel with the yellow bar ends squeezed in here. Everyone else was as excited and wound up as me I think as the start was hectic, dusty and a little crazy. I'm rider #94. It was like a Demolition Derby for a while. I earned this butt crashing along with eight other riders on the first lap shortly after the trail narrowed down from the wide jeep road. I was first on my feet and ran over everybody. Then I had a clear trail for a while which was nice before I caught the group in front. I was peeved to crash so hard on the first lap and it took me until the end of the second lap to settle down. I can't decide whether this bruise looks like Iceland or Texas. After my third lap my pit crew told me I had a 32 minute lead and I should slow down. They kept telling me to relax and slooow down! So I did. I went into happy cruise mode through the night. At midnight my pit crew told me I had lapped second place. Wow - cool! So from then on it was ride smooth, ride safe and eat, eat, eat. By sunrise the reports had me two laps up on second place. I was getting a bit sleepy at 7am and needed a bit of extra motivation. Steve ran down to the timing tent while I was in the pit and came running back up screaming I was in third place in the men's field!! That lit a new fire under me, I quite liked the idea of being in third overall :-) My 14th, 15th and 16th laps were some of my fastest in the race - and the most fun. I was out there just hauling and had the course dialed by then. Here is me heading out on the course for my 16th and final lap. Cranked full of endorphins! Taking the podium photo on the left with the black hat and grey shirt  is Damien. Damien had a dialed in bike sitting in the pit everytime I came in. I had planned to rotate bikes every lap but switching bikes was more difficult than I had anticipated - they ride just differently enough that I would take a few minutes to get used to the bike after the swtich. During the night I didn't want to switch and I was getting a lot of love from my Scalpel so Damien busted his butt getting it lubed, batteries changed and dialed back in while I ate and put on extra clothes. Damien was awesome - the best race mechanic I've had and I hope to have him on my team again for future events. At dawn I switched back onto the Epic without lights and finished the race out on that bike. As the race went on switching bikes became a harder thing to do. Emma and Wesley love to stand on the podium with me :-) Here is my power file from the race. I'll post more on lap splits and power later. I'm still picking through the file myself - lots of goodies in there. Posted Feb 23 2006, 09:11 PM by Lynda

• '06 Old Pueblo Race report

  Well that was a nice course and it was very good to me - just my kind of desert riding, hard packed rolly winding single track. It hasn't rained for so long the trail was hard packed enough for Wesley to ride around on his scooter! The course was fast this year and I got to set a course record on it. The whole family went down for this race and packing was a huge production. The drive took us 11 hours and was a bit of a production too. 11 hours is a loooong time for little people to be in their car seats. I'd trained really well for this race and had a good taper. Race morning I was feeling awesome but also a bit too wound up. There were hundreds of bikes racked up ready for the start. You can see my blue Scalpel with the yellow bar ends squeezed in here. Everyone else was as excited and wound up as me I think as the start was hectic, dusty and a little crazy. I'm rider #94. It was like a Demolition Derby for a while. I earned this butt crashing along with eight other riders on the first lap shortly after the trail narrowed down from the wide jeep road. I was first on my feet and ran over everybody. Then I had a clear trail for a while which was nice before I caught the group in front. I was peeved to crash so hard on the first lap and it took me until the end of the second lap to settle down. I can't decide whether this bruise looks like Iceland or Texas. After my third lap my pit crew told me I had a 32 minute lead and I should slow down. They kept telling me to relax and slooow down! So I did. I went into happy cruise mode through the night. At midnight my pit crew told me I had lapped second place. Wow - cool! So from then on it was ride smooth, ride safe and eat, eat, eat. By sunrise the reports had me two laps up on second place. I was getting a bit sleepy at 7am and needed a bit of extra motivation. Steve ran down to the timing tent while I was in the pit and came running back up screaming I was in third place in the men's field!! That lit a new fire under me, I quite liked the idea of being in third overall :-) My 14th, 15th and 16th laps were some of my fastest in the race - and the most fun. I was out there just hauling and had the course dialed by then. Here is me heading out on the course for my 16th and final lap. Cranked full of endorphins! Taking the podium photo on the left with the black hat and grey shirt  is Damien. Damien had a dialed in bike sitting in the pit everytime I came in. I had planned to rotate bikes every lap but switching bikes was more difficult than I had anticipated - they ride just differently enough that I would take a few minutes to get used to the bike after the swtich. During the night I didn't want to switch and I was getting a lot of love from my Scalpel so Damien busted his butt getting it lubed, batteries changed and dialed back in while I ate and put on extra clothes. Damien was awesome - the best race mechanic I've had and I hope to have him on my team again for future events. At dawn I switched back onto the Epic without lights and finished the race out on that bike. As the race went on switching bikes became a harder thing to do. Emma and Wesley love to stand on the podium with me :-) Here is my power file from the race. I'll post more on lap splits and power later. I'm still picking through the file myself - lots of goodies in there. [link] Posted Feb 23 2006, 09:11 PM by lynda with no comments

• Old Pueblo was mine this year :-)

  16 laps, 24 hours and 49 mins, 240 miles. I was peaked and hungry, hit every goal I set out for the event and basically crushed it - dam that was some fun!!! Here's the goals I had: Start strong and finish fast. Stay on task and motivated 3am - 6am. Complete 16 laps. Be the fastest solo lady. Finish in the top 5 overall. I did that. I would have been 3rd in the men's solo field!!! Huge kudos go out to all of my support crew - hubby Steve who ran around like a nut getting me everything I wanted the entire race, Damien who wrenched my bikes back into perfection every time I trashed them, to Anna for overseeing everything was done well, to the kids for being great troupers, to Dave for being there on the course to chase and to Dixie and Eric for playing with my kids while I was pedaling. I bow to them and call 24-hour solo racing a team event. Having done one unsupported and now one supported I can tell you no support will cost you three laps minimum. I'll post more info, my race power file, training data and some photos later but right now I'm crawling back into the pain cave - smiling though :-) Results will be posted at some point. [link] Posted Feb 21 2006, 09:33 AM by lynda with no comments

• Old Pueblo was mine this year :-)

  16 laps, 24 hours and 49 mins, 240 miles. I was peaked and hungry, hit every goal I set out for the event and basically crushed it - dam that was some fun!!! Here's the goals I had: Start strong and finish fast. Stay on task and motivated 3am - 6am. Complete 16 laps. Be the fastest solo lady. Finish in the top 5 overall. I did that. I would have been 3rd in the men's solo field!!! Huge kudos go out to all of my support crew - hubby Steve who ran around like a nut getting me everything I wanted the entire race, Damien who wrenched my bikes back into perfection every time I trashed them, to Anna for overseeing everything was done well, to the kids for being great troupers, to Dave for being there on the course to chase and to Dixie and Eric for playing with my kids while I was pedaling. I bow to them and call 24-hour solo racing a team event. Having done one unsupported and now one supported I can tell you no support will cost you three laps minimum. I'll post more info, my race power file, training data and some photos later but right now I'm crawling back into the pain cave - smiling though :-) Results will be posted at some point. Posted Feb 21 2006, 09:33 AM by Lynda

• Three days to OP and countin'

  Why on earth ride your bike for 24 hours? Good question seeing as I'm about to do it. "The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times - although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is something that we make happen. Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur, yet these could have been the best moments of life. Getting control is never easy and sometimes it can be definitely painful. But in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery - or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life - that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Posted Feb 15 2006, 10:24 PM by Lynda

• Three days to OP and countin'

  Why on earth ride your bike for 24 hours? Good question seeing as I'm about to do it. "The best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times - although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is something that we make happen. Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur, yet these could have been the best moments of life. Getting control is never easy and sometimes it can be definitely painful. But in the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery - or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life - that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [link] Posted Feb 15 2006, 10:24 PM by lynda with no comments

• Five Days to OP and countin'

  Sometimes the final few days before a peak race are the hardest to figure out trainingwize. My legs are on fire so I want to go out and hammer but I can't do too much or I'll torch them before race day. I like to have the intensity in my schedule to keep the blood volume up but do fewer reps than during normal training. If I don't do anything but rest during race week I'm flat as a pancake by the weekend. Here's today's workout. Three sets of 3 min intervals in Power L5 with three mins rest between reps and six mins rest between sets. This one felt real easy today. Head up smilin' kind of riding. The sun was out and canyon cliffs glowing orange. Heart rate is in red and watts yellow. Intervals are highlighted in black. Short and sweet I like to call these types of workouts. 1 hour 20 min and 86 TSS. Go out, do the reps, go home. Power average was 251 watts for the intervals which is nicely in L5. My legs wanted to push more watts today but I stayed off the throttle. I'll need all the beans I can save for the weekend. Just keepin' it nice and sharp today. CTL is down to 101 and TSB is up to 17. [link] Posted Feb 13 2006, 08:58 PM by lynda with no comments

• Five Days to OP and countin'

  Sometimes the final few days before a peak race are the hardest to figure out trainingwize. My legs are on fire so I want to go out and hammer but I can't do too much or I'll torch them before race day. I like to have the intensity in my schedule to keep the blood volume up but do fewer reps than during normal training. If I don't do anything but rest during race week I'm flat as a pancake by the weekend. Here's today's workout. Three sets of 3 min intervals in Power L5 with three mins rest between reps and six mins rest between sets. This one felt real easy today. Head up smilin' kind of riding. The sun was out and canyon cliffs glowing orange. Heart rate is in red and watts yellow. Intervals are highlighted in black. Short and sweet I like to call these types of workouts. 1 hour 20 min and 86 TSS. Go out, do the reps, go home. Power average was 251 watts for the intervals which is nicely in L5. My legs wanted to push more watts today but I stayed off the throttle. I'll need all the beans I can save for the weekend. Just keepin' it nice and sharp today. CTL is down to 101 and TSB is up to 17. Posted Feb 13 2006, 08:58 PM by Lynda

• My New SS

  Here's my new SS. 15" frame and 29" wheels. My inseam is 27". I look like a midget standing beside it - like it's my dad's bike or something. It is an awesome ride and I've been railing around Paradise Canyon on it which is my little 45 minute back yard loop of slickrock and sand. It's one of the best thought out bikes I've had and has lots of nice features which many small bikes are missing. A big one for me is the water bottle mounts are low down enough in the main triangle I can get a large bottle in there. That's nice for SSing as it sucks to have anything on your back when you are standing up cranking. No toe overlap either. I checked this one out first. I once had a bike with toe overlap and it sent me down a few times. I wanted to get a 29er and a SS so why not do it all at once. It's a Gary Fisher Rig. Actually it is a pig (not a rig) at 26 lbs but still darn fun. I'll take it down to Old Pueblo and might do a few laps on it. I've been having fun night riding on it. Without gears that's one less think to think about in the dark. Here's a few random thoughts about my new experience on a SS and a 29er: I feel high up off the ground. It's a hard tail - haven't ridden one of those in a while It railed the corners. I can carve stuff I slide sideways in on my FS - maybe the beefier tires or the 29" wheels. The big wheels stick far out in front. It's a funky feeling like the front wheel is poking further into my peripheral vision than it should be. I need more air in the Reba than I would on a gearie 'cause of all the standing up and cranking on the SS. I think I can run a less plush front shock as the 29er wheels rolled over the drop offs smoothly (yeah I didn't jump off any). The ledges felt smaller on the 29er - really No bar ends - too much standing up, they'd just get in the way I'm still messing around with the fit. I flipped the stem over yesterday and put a new saddle on - it feels better. 24-hours in the Old Pueblo is approaching fast - six days away now. I'm just getting my legs moving again after a big rest week. They needed that after my mega 1336 TSS ride week with Dave the week before. It took a couple of intervals to get the sluggishness out of them but now they're back and moving pretty good. I'm happy. Our support crew is coming together too. The guys at Green Valley Bike and Hike are wrenching and we've got lots of other folks to cheer, feed and help with all the details. I'm very happy :-) Things are feelin' lined up for this one. Posted Feb 11 2006, 05:41 PM by Lynda

• My New SS

  Here's my new SS. 15" frame and 29" wheels. My inseam is 27". I look like a midget standing beside it - like it's my dad's bike or something. It is an awesome ride and I've been railing around Paradise Canyon on it which is my little 45 minute back yard loop of slickrock and sand. It's one of the best thought out bikes I've had and has lots of nice features which many small bikes are missing. A big one for me is the water bottle mounts are low down enough in the main triangle I can get a large bottle in there. That's nice for SSing as it sucks to have anything on your back when you are standing up cranking. No toe overlap either. I checked this one out first. I once had a bike with toe overlap and it sent me down a few times. I wanted to get a 29er and a SS so why not do it all at once. It's a Gary Fisher Rig. Actually it is a pig (not a rig) at 26 lbs but still darn fun. I'll take it down to Old Pueblo and might do a few laps on it. I've been having fun night riding on it. Without gears that's one less think to think about in the dark. Here's a few random thoughts about my new experience on a SS and a 29er: I feel high up off the ground. It's a hard tail - haven't ridden one of those in a while It railed the corners. I can carve stuff I slide sideways in on my FS - maybe the beefier tires or the 29" wheels. The big wheels stick far out in front. It's a funky feeling like the front wheel is poking further into my peripheral vision than it should be. I need more air in the Reba than I would on a gearie 'cause of all the standing up and cranking on the SS. I think I can run a less plush front shock as the 29er wheels rolled over the drop offs smoothly (yeah I didn't jump off any). The ledges felt smaller on the 29er - really No bar ends - too much standing up, they'd just get in the way I'm still messing around with the fit. I flipped the stem over yesterday and put a new saddle on - it feels better. 24-hours in the Old Pueblo is approaching fast - six days away now. I'm just getting my legs moving again after a big rest week. They needed that after my mega 1336 TSS ride week with Dave the week before. It took a couple of intervals to get the sluggishness out of them but now they're back and moving pretty good. I'm happy. Our support crew is coming together too. The guys at Green Valley Bike and Hike are wrenching and we've got lots of other folks to cheer, feed and help with all the details. I'm very happy :-) Things are feelin' lined up for this one. [link] Posted Feb 11 2006, 05:41 PM by lynda with no comments

• Power, weight, climbs, descents and speed

  Yesterday I had a super interesting ride on the road with a friend. Nice ride with a couple of long climbs, 5 miles and 8 miles long. We rode side by side for most of the ride, with no drafting. My friend weighs 75 pounds more than I do. On the climbs he was working harder than I was for sure but on the descents I had to put the hurt on myself a little bit to keep him in sight. I notice this on group rides. On descents if I'm tight in the draft I can stay in but if I get pooped out into the wind it is all over. I wasn't drafting on the descent yesterday and was dam near threshold at times just holding the 50 yard gap constant. Once on the next climb it was back to me spinning easy and him working harder. I was wondering if he hammered the descent or it was really the weight that made difference. Well we were both riding Power-Taps so I was able to look at the power profiles side-by-side for the real answer. On both climbs my power average was 145 watts and IF 0.654 and his was 204 watts and IF 0.888. On the descents I averaged 160 watts and IF 0.726 and he averaged 147 watts and IF 0.641. There you go. I did bust my butt on the descent. [link] Posted Feb 08 2006, 12:39 PM by lynda with no comments

• Power, weight, climbs, descents and speed

  Yesterday I had a super interesting ride on the road with a friend. Nice ride with a couple of long climbs, 5 miles and 8 miles long. We rode side by side for most of the ride, with no drafting. My friend weighs 75 pounds more than I do. On the climbs he was working harder than I was for sure but on the descents I had to put the hurt on myself a little bit to keep him in sight. I notice this on group rides. On descents if I'm tight in the draft I can stay in but if I get pooped out into the wind it is all over. I wasn't drafting on the descent yesterday and was dam near threshold at times just holding the 50 yard gap constant. Once on the next climb it was back to me spinning easy and him working harder. I was wondering if he hammered the descent or it was really the weight that made difference. Well we were both riding Power-Taps so I was able to look at the power profiles side-by-side for the real answer. On both climbs my power average was 145 watts and IF 0.654 and his was 204 watts and IF 0.888. On the descents I averaged 160 watts and IF 0.726 and he averaged 147 watts and IF 0.641. There you go. I did bust my butt on the descent. Posted Feb 08 2006, 12:39 PM by Lynda

• My First Single Speed

  Here is a pic of my first single speed. Not only single speed but single brake - and a sketchy one at that. I worked this bike over. It didn't last to be a hand-me-down to my wee sister and sadly to this day she does not get the bike thing at all. I quite like the kit though. Maybe I should revive that look. ~Lynda Posted Feb 07 2006, 10:54 AM by Lynda