CONSTANT VIGILENCE! 2025

That's what Professor Moody preached: CONSTANT VIGILENCE!  Most of the time, a slight deviation means nothing.  Occasionally, it results in disaster.  Like today.

It started off quite well.  John and I left his house around 8:15am for the ride to Manor, fifty miles.  As we cycled down Jollyville Road, I opined to myself that what I had written the other day was certainly true:  I am not averse to riding in traffic, and black P/Us and SUVs take up a lot of space in their lane (put another way, they come closer to my ear than other vehicles, including 18 wheelers).  But we were making good time and soon enough got on to the Northern Walnut Creek hike/bike trail.  We had a stout headwind, but I was drafting John and was less bothered by it (thanks, John).  We traversed over to the Southern Walnut Creek trail and headed toward Manor.  We stopped at the light at Daffan and Decker Lane (about mile 20), then started across.  While stopped, I noticed a van parked next to the trail on the other side of Decker Lane.  There was really no reason for it to be there, since it wasn't a road.  As I crossed Decker and entered the trail, I glanced over to see more of the vehicle.  That's all it took. 

I went head on into the very substantial pole in the middle of the trail.  Every beginning of a trail has a pole of some sort to prohibit cars.  Every bike rider knows they are there and it is second nature to avoid them.  Except when your mind wanders.

Thankfully, I had started from a stopped position and wasn't going over 10mph.  But I hit it head on, not seeing it until the collision, hard enough to knock it off it's bolts.  Jeff advised that this used to be a flexible post that had been lain flat and was replaced with the much more substantial heavy metal one.  Take a close look at the bolts.  It appears to me that they used too small a nut because when I hit it, the footing came off the bolts.  I looked to me as though the footing went over the nuts, but it is possible the installers just set the footing over the nuts and bolts.  In any case, I'm glad, I think, that the post gave way rather than being steadfast.

John called Craig, who was twiddling his thumbs at home waiting to get back to riding, to come pick me

up.  I alerted Marilane, who would come home to accompany me to the ER.  While John and I were waiting, a lady stopped to see if she could help.  She was from Iowa and she and John struck up a conversation about RAGBRAI.  Meanwhile, I dug out my medical supplies, finding that they were insufficient for my left arm.  John had better stuff.  She rode off, Craig arrived, John continued his ride, and Craig got me home.

I can't say enough good stuff about St. David's ER.  Considering the number of people who were near capacity in the seats, it wasn't so bad.  First I was triaged.

The PA removed John's bandage and we got to see if it was as bad as I thought when it was covered in blood.  Yep!  Shot some antiseptic on it and put a proper bandage on, answered all the PA questions and she went over my whole body making sure nothing hurt.  Really, nothing hurt.  I went back in the waiting room to eventually be called back to get x-rays mainly of my elbow/shoulder area and as a "bonus" because I'm old, a scan of my head.   I said several times that I had not hit my head and I had a helmet on.  

More waiting but then was called back to get my staples.  Seventeen.  And that's where we are now.  I'm about to take a bath, having plastic wrapped by bandage, so I can clean out the odds and end scrapes to both thumbs, left elbow, both knees.  I go back in two weeks to have the staples removed.  The discharge papers said take three days off, and don't sweat.  I plan on casual riding on the trainer in the kitchen.

TEXAS STATE TIME TRIALS, 2025 EDITION

 First some background.  I started bike racing in 2005 and knew from the start that time trials are my best category.  Regular readers will recall that at the end of the Senior Games in early March, I said I needed to put more time into riding my time trial bike.  As a result, I had fewer group rides.  Last week, in Crockett's poor performance, I put a lot of blame on a poor warm up.  I know I should get in at least thirty minutes of riding but what has dogged me in the past was what I was doing for those thirty minutes.  This year, for the first time, I brought along my CycleOps trainer and my training bike and did a thirty minute acceleration drill, just like I do at home in the kitchen.  That was followed by fifteen minutes on the road with my time trial bike and helmet.  I also used Voltarol on my neck.

This year Bob, who usually beats me in road races but I return the favor in time trials, had to withdraw due to a cyst on his knee.  Fred, who is two years younger and is now in my age group, signed up.  Fred has beaten me quite handily for the last ten years.  But this year he has lost some enthusiasm for riding, and is really not up to form.  That gave me a glimmer of hope.  There were no others in our 80-84 age category.

Before the race my teammate, Tom, cautioned me about becoming complacent going out (6.3 miles).  We had a stiff wind at our backs and it would be easy to be comfortable at less than maximum pace.  Fred was a late sign up, and therefore was placed first to go off.  We leave at thirty-second intervals.  The course is basically flat, with a few 1% grades and a very short 3% drop, downhill going out and uphill coming back.  Keeping Tom's advice in mind, I would either increase cadence or drop to a lower gear in an effort to increase speed without increasing my heart rate.  At the turnaround, I had made up a lot of the stagger and was only about fifteen seconds behind.

Now I had the wind, my nemesis, in my face.  So did Fred.  I was doing a lot of shifting, trying to find the right cadence to keep my speed.  In a few of the sections, I managed to get a little closer, but I was really suffering.  Had Fred not been my carrot, I may have slacked off a bit.  I knew first place was in my grasp.  I just had to hold on.  We finished, me eleven seconds behind, thus securing the win.

Just a few stats.  It was 24.8mph with the wind, with a high of 28.9, and 16.4mph coming back.  Cadence was a bit higher against the wind and watts a bit lower.  My average of 168 watts was the same as Crockett and below the 180 I am hoping to work up to.  My heart rate of 144 with a top of 149 was right in the 95% of max zone.  It's possible my max is now 149, down from 152 of last year.  

Time to rejoin group riding, but not today.  I'm stiff and sore. 

DAVY CROCKETT CLASSIC, TIME TRIAL

 Perhaps it seems ungrateful to be unhappy about coming home with a third place bronze medal.  But the fact of the matter is that my performance did not meet expectations.  This race was to be a warm up for next Saturday's Texas State Time Trial Championships.  I am the defending champion.  First, some background.

The kudos: Dave Crockett Classic is very well run.  The routes, both TT and road race are fair, yet challenging.  They have a fifty mile road race in the morning and time trial starting at 3:30 in the afternoon on Saturday and a forty-six mile road race on Sunday.  Because I get worn out just doing a group ride for fifty miles,  I was only doing the time trial.  I wanted to preview the course and my options were to ride it after the last morning road race, which was actually 12:15pm, or wait until the last road race rider, sometime around 2:30pm.  I retrospect, I should have waited until 2:30.

Had I waited until 2:30, I could have stayed home until 11:00am before making the three hour drive.  As it was, I left at 8:30.  By arriving this early, I could watch my teammates start their road race.  I expected to see four, but two had something come up.  I visited with them and watched them take off at 12:05.  I took pictures but they are nondescript.

It is now that I start being negative.  Unlike Senior Games and USA Cycling, who have 5-year age groups, this race's oldest category is 70+, racing with the 60-year olds.  I have a hard enough time keeping up with 70's let alone the younger guys.  Anyhow, I did my preview ride wearing my Texas A&M jersey (since I was in East Texas).  I had seen the race profile and was now checking it out first hand, seeing when to shift, and what cadence worked best where.  Time trials are less strategic than road races or criteriums in that you just go as fast as you can.  You strategy is how to do that, mainly by gear choices.  The race flyer indicated a 7.5 mile out and back so at 3.75 I turned around.  As it turned out, the actual turn-around was at 4.1 or so.  My time was 25:32 and I finished up and returned to the car around 1pm.

Now I had two and a half hours to wait.  I brought lunch and ate that.  And sat in the car.  I calculated the guys would finish their race around 2:20, but at 2:05 I roused myself over to the finish line just in case.  As it turned out, they finished at 2:19, having kept with the young guys the whole way.  I had positioned myself for a great video of the sprint.   Somehow, with me being unaware, the phone moved over to photo, so I have a long distance shot of the group and one of the ground.  The guys finished one-two in the 70+ category.

We visited a bit, then I went to warm up.  It wasn't what I expected.  Let me digress.  All of my races are in the morning.  Almost all of my riding is in the morning.  My metabolism is set for morning.  My body is set to rest in the afternoon and it was complaining loudly that it wanted to rest (even though that is what I was doing for the last three hours).  To top it off, when I checked my start time, I was dismayed to see 4:33.  I had anticipated 4:00 at the latest.  In the warm up I was happy to see that my heart rate moved up quickly to 135 with very little effort.  I wasn't happy that my legs didn't like power over 120 watts.  My practice last Thursday indicated I had a lot of strength, I just needed to find it today.

Now to the race itself.  I started off okay, brought it up to speed on the slight downhill and keeping the heart rate below 90%.  But it hit 140 on a slight uphill and was bouncing around 144 most of the way.  In the past, this was optimum (Max being 152).  Today I was having a difficult time breathing at 144 and had to back off a bit and come out of the tuck to bring it back down a few beats.  My time was 25:15.  At first glance it looked like it was the same as my preview ride, which really got the dander up.  I was somewhat mollified upon seeing the race was a half mile longer.  

The average speed of 19.6 was shy of the 21 I expected and the max of  29.1 was shy of the 36 I expected to hit on the one downhill (a younger guy said he did 44 on it).  The average power was about ten watts higher than I expected.  Apparently I wasn't in the right gear.  Last year at State I averaged 144 HR with a max of 152.  This will have to be addressed, as I'm not attributing it to being a year older.  Check back next week to see if I bring my A game.

CHALLENGING DI2

 It wasn't an intentional challenge.  More of a curiosity to see how far/long I could go before it wouldn't shift, i.e. ran out of charge.  The longest I've gone is 57hours, but that may be an outlier, in that three other charges went 47 hours.  Of course, I recharged them when I still had 20% left.  I also keep track of the number of shifts per charge and they range of 3866 to 4671.  When I checked yesterday, I had two bars left, but I was also pretty high on the shifts.

I wasn't concerned as I started out on my 54 mile ride early this morning.  The weather was ideal and I cruised along, feeling a bit loggy but otherwise fine.  20 miles in and I was coming to my planned nature break and refuel stop when the Garmin notified me that my power meter/pedals were low.  I recall, perhaps incorrectly, that that meant 20% left.  Since I recharge the DI2 and pedals at the same time, I became a bit concerned.  One mile later Garmin gave me a notice about DI2, but I couldn't read the small print.  I didn't really need to, I knew what it meant.  So I evaluated the situation, being 21+ miles from home if I turned around, or continuing on.  I turned around.

In an effort to conserve power to the DI2, I shifted to the small ring and kept my shifts at a minimum.  This meant adjusting cadence and power.  I may have shifted five times on the way back. (87 on the way up).  The result was I didn't push hard and my HR never really got over-exerted.  As it turned out, I lost the power meter about nine miles from home and the DI2 about two miles from home.  Since I was in a comfortable gear, it didn't matter.

So, my curiosity had been satisfied.  I think I'll go with 45 hours before recharging.  And I'll continue to count the shifts to see if more data will narrow the gap.  I'm pretty sure temperature plays a role, but I'm not that needy.

PACE BEND, 2025

Regular readers know I hate racing (not to be confused with riding, which is pleasant) at Pace Bend.  This year was no exception.  Don't get me wrong, I came home with three gold medals (and I had a smidgen of competition).  I was also faster than some of the younger riders.  But let's start at the beginning.

Last Monday I took my time trial bike down to Great Northern, mainly to check my positioning and warn my neck what was in the future.  As it turned out, the Garmin decided not to recognize the bike, equipped with a Stages power/cadence meter.  I defaulted to the Strava app on the phone so at least I received credit for the ride.  But the drill I had planned never happened.  Just as well, the wind was up and it was a chore just to get an hour in.  I took the bike and computer to the bike shop in search of a solution.  After a lot of fiddling, and explanation, he got it working.  Friday I was back at Great Northern for a leg opening session.  Only thirty minutes.  My neck still complained.

Saturday I cleaned and lubed the bikes and loaded them into the car along with whatever essentials I thought I might need (mainly nutrition and fluids).  Senior Games run 20 and 40k road races and 5 and 10k time trials in five year categories starting at 50.  Because they are now run on the same day, with the 40k being the first race at 9:00, I skip it.  Pace Bend is a 10k loop.  I arrived Sunday morning at 8:45 and saw the riders off.  Then checked in, received my timing chip and number and went back to the car to leisurely get ready.  

Due to the sparseness in the categories, we all start together.  This is a decided disadvantage to the older groups and ladies.  Tactics are essential.  The first 1.8 miles are mostly a slight downgrade with two longish climbs.  The wind was into our right shoulder.  I started at the back, but that was only about six places.  At the start there are always some who cannot get clipped in quickly and Sunday was no exception.  I was quickly mid-pack and behind a father-daughter(?) duo.  The leaders accelerated and those who couldn't find a wheel were soon left behind.  The three of us made it up the first hill still attached, but at the second the lady kept up but dad was gassed.  That left me with too much of a gap to close.  

For those who don't race, I digress into riding in the peloton.  With pros and younger riders, it is the same, just faster and closer together.  Us seniors place a higher value on our bodies, so we are a bit more cautious.  Still, we ride fairly close and pay attention to any slight wheel movement.  We also evaluate the riding styles of our companions.  Any signs of erratic behavior will result in giving that person more room.  For this race, dad-daughter were very good.

In any case, I was on my own after the first 1.6 miles.  On this first loop I felt as though the wind was in my face 90% of the time.  Perhaps a bit of a misconception.  But I kept up as best I could and on the second lap I could see my teammate, Tom, about two hundred yards ahead.  I almost caught up but was very slow going up the last big hill (7-9% grade) and finished seven seconds behind him.  I count eleven ascents per 10k loop, some harder than others.  For the two loops, I shifted my front derailleur 5 times and my back 301.  Cadence averaged 82 with 104 max and heart rate was 140 with a top of 149 (about 95% of max).  

I had about 40 minutes before the start of the 10k time trial.  Back at the car, I switched bikes, moving the timing chip to the Felt and bringing out the TT helmet.  As I toodled around getting used to the position, it occurred to me that the wind would have me coming out of my tuck and holding on for dear life for most of the loop.  Also, the computer once again wouldn't recognize the bike.  Since I wouldn't be fighting for seconds (the fast guys were a no-show this year), I switched back to the Madone.  This would also give me the opportunity to evaluate the wind for the 5k, which was an out-and-back course. 

The 10k is run in the opposite direction of the road races.  I lined up third, knowing faster riders would be passing me.  We start every 30 seconds so I estimated no more than six would catch me.  The ride was uneventful.  My heart rate and cadence and power were similar to the road race.  I was slower than last year, but last year had good weather.  I determined that the wind was too much even for the 5k, so the Felt stayed in the car.  My neck was appreciative.

For the 5k I started close to the back, giving me an additional ten minutes of rest between races.  Several gusts of wind moved me a bit and bolstered my decision to stick with the road bike.  It was over in a little over ten minutes.  No stats for this race, because now the Garmin wouldn't connect to the power pedals.  I must have hit some button, because the next day the Garmin connected to both bikes without any fuss.

Even though I hate racing at Pace Bend, the race itself is extremely well-run, everything goes off like clockwork.  Check in was quick and easy.  The chips/computer sorts everything out and results posted within minutes of the last rider finishing.  I don't know if I missed an actual award ceremony, since I was last coming in and busy getting the bikes squared away.  In any case, when I walked up the hill to the tent, they were already starting to pack up.  But I just identified myself and the age category, it was quickly looked up the the medals handed to me.

I have two months to get my TT act together.  I'll be spending a lot of time on Great Northern.

MILEAGE GOALS

 Several days ago Allen Turner commented on my Strava post something like "do you ever have a week below 200 miles."  I replied, off the top of my head, that while I have that as a goal, I've only reached it three time in the last 15 years.  Well, I really couldn't let that pass without researching my answer.  I have a spread sheet (3 actually) going back to 2008.  But first some background.

When I started racing Senior Games in 2005 I determined I would have good fitness if I rode 800 miles per month.  And I broke that down into two days long, two medium at pace, and two days of drills which would not be a lot of miles.  That gives me four days off and two or three extra days to make it to 800.  I didn't have a coach, I didn't hit my goals.  I only had a plan that needed adjusting.  It's not like I was unsuccessful.  I refer you to my post of xxxxx.  Well, I can't find it.  Here's a summary:  I've been in 183 races, finished first in 59 (32%), second in 51 (28%), third in 35 (19%).  So I've finished on the podium in 79% of my races.

Back on topic.  Not counting my cycling vacations (Katy Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway (3 times), Natchez Trace, Paul Bunyan Trail among others), I've only done nine 200 mile weeks since 2008.  I came close four other times.  Most of my months are in the 400-500 mile range.  

Feb 19-25, 2009,  212.2 miles

May 10-18 2009,  205.3 miles

May 17-23, 2013, 220.7 miles

May 1-7, 2016, 201.1 miles

May 12-18, 2016,  212.8 miles (a very good month!)

Nov 4-10, 2017,  294.9 miles

Jun 6-13 2024, 233.6 miles

Jun 23-29, 2024, 200.5 miles (another good month)

Feb 1-6 2025, 216.6 miles

Let me tell you how to up your mileage: ride with friends.  Scheduled rides with friends will get you out and about when you might otherwise stay home.  Like there is no way would I get battered by the wind like we had today and Tuesday unless I was with a group.  And some strong rider who would let me draft.  Plus, ride at a pace you enjoy.  My definition of "enjoy" might be different from yours.  I don't advocate coming home from a ride exhausted, but that's me most of the time.  Also, I now describe my cycling goals as "fluid."  If you follow me on Strava, you will see in the coming months more days devoted to Drills.  These days are weather-dependent, so will change if I can't get in a good workout.

And thanks, Allen, for recognizing my rides.  I know we don't always acknowledge Strava postings, but we do at least a cursory review of all of them.