MEETING THE WEIGHT GOAL

The picture shows 146.2 because the camera weighs 2 tenths of a pound. Therefore, as of this morning, I have met my goal weight. But, as we all know, keeping it off is the real challenge. My plan for September is to ride 1,000 miles and drop soft drinks from my diet. Since I usually only drink one a day, this is more of a health issue than weight. Check back in October for details of how my month went.
For my friends who completed the Hotter'n Hell 100, congratulations! I really don't miss doing that. It was fun and exciting and gave me an annual goal, but now I like 65 miles as my standard. I'll just display my 10 pins and sit back and reminisce.

LEADVILLE 100 MTB AND LANCE

Ok, you'll find out soon enough this post has nothing to do with Lance. I agreed to come to a booksigning at The Book Mine in Leadville, mainly so I could join in the excitement surrounding this year's bike race. At the time, both Lance and Levi were going to be there along with a humongous crowd of bicycle enthusiasts. This seemed like a great place for an author with a book about bicycling. And, the bookstore was at the corner of the start/finish line.
Plan A called for me to drop off my display stuff on Friday afternoon, then wander about town and have dinner and drop into a few drinking establishments to mingle. My booksigning was scheduled for noon to whenever-the-crowd-drops, so I could also absorb the excitment of the morning crowd. This seemed like way too much fun.
Plan B came into play when I couldn't find a room in Leadville and the closest I could get was in Buena Vista, about 35 miles south. Scratch the after-dinner beers. Matter of fact, scratch the dinner in Leadville. In truth, the only part of Plan A that moved to B was dropping off my display stuff. Check-in time in Buena Vista was 3pm. Leadville was cold and rainy and not too many folks were out-and-about, so I went down the mountain much earlier than planned. Once there, I stayed. It was about ten degrees warmer and no rain. I ate at Quincy's and had a beer with dinner.
I really hadn't planned to drive up and see the start, but I awoke early, dressed, and drove to Leadville. My mountain bike was in the Tribute, in case I had to park so far away from the bookstore that walking would be a chore. However, I found a spot about four blocks from the start. As I locked the car and started walking, I saw a rider frantically opening his car and dragging out a rain jacket. Due to his actions I asked how long to the start, and he said "five minutes." Oh! I upped my leisurely pace and ran a block, getting to the start line with a minute to spare. Just enough time to drag out my camera, get a photo spot (but behind two rows of folks), and snap as the leaders rolled out. Unfortunately, my camera focused on the back of the heads in the first row, so while Lance and Dave and the whole front line are in the picture, they are all blurred. Phooey.
Race started, we had about six hours to kill before an estimated return. It was 38 degrees and damp. After all 1400 riders had departed I wandered by the bookstore, which had opened early. Carol, the owner, had an urn of free coffee and some folks were taking advantage of it, as did I. Long story short: I sold three books before 7am.
Emboldened by this early success, I hung around inside the bookstore talking to patrons. Around 9am I went for breakfast and dawdled as much as I could. It was still cold and wet and I had minimal cold weather clothing (enough, as long as I didn't stay out too long). Around this time the racers were encountering a bit of sleet. Since I didn't have a motel room to return to, I went back to the book store, and just stayed for another five hours.
Early talk had been that with optimal weather and racing conditions, the winning time might beat six hours. With the rain, sleet, and cold I expected six and a quarter, but Lance came across in 6:28, about a half an hour ahead of six time winner Dave Wiens. I had a great view of the finish, if somewhat distant, right out of the bookstore front door. Again, I took a picture of Lance finishing, but even with the telephoto plus enlarging on the computer, all you see is the fuzzy microphone thrust in his face.
So, I can say I was there, I saw Lance, and the beginning and end of the race. If anyone is considering going next year here is your Plan: Reserve a room early; be at the top of the first rise so you can catch the leaders plus the long peloton of racers and the town in your picture; then get in your car and drive to the Columbine climb, or one of the other mid-race viewing spots;then drive back for the finish. All of the locals tell me bad weather and the Leadville races go together. Be prepared for the worst.

TEXAS STATE TIME TRIAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

I'll just hit the high spots, use your imagination to fill in details. Last month I signed up for the ITT (Individual Time Trial) in Castroville, a distance of 20km. At the time my training consisted of one (1) 10km practice. I was able to get in four practice runs at 20km distance. A week before the race, I was invited to join a team (of four) for the Team Time Trial. This is 40km. I prayed I could complete it, since practice was out of the question.
The ITT start time of 7:17am meant warming up in the dark, done mostly on the trainer. The course was out and back, generally flat, with 30 second intervals between riders. I was real pleased with my gear selection, feeling I maximized my speed by being in the proper gear. We had a wind coming back, but this early in the morning it didn't seem to hamper me. My perfect-fit Felt bike with the Zipp wheels ran smoothly and I managed second place in my age group, 4 seconds off earning a jersey. Average speed 23.0 with a max of 31.9.
In the afternoon we held a short team practice, just to get the feel of riding together. The next morning we had a late start, 9:47. The wind was stiff, mostly at our backs for the first 10km, then we did some turns and needed to eschelon, and at the turn-around our speed dropped considerably. With about 3km to go, I fell off the pace, but you only needed three to get a time. I was about 15 seconds back. We finished third, but second place didn't receive medals since 75% were from out of state. Average speed 22.1 with a max of 35.9.
We found a great place to eat, the Castroville Cafe, superior food and service. BYOB. Marilane wandered shops and found a pair of pants that previously had eluded her and some excellent cheese and fudge.

LEADVILLE 100 AND LANCE

I'll be in Leadville for the mountain bike race of the year, mainly because Lance (and probably a few other notables) will be there. But the only cycling I'll do is from the parking spot to the Bookmine book store, for a Meet-the-Author and booksigning of Bicycle Journeys with Jerry. I'm taking my copy of Bobke II, in case Bob Roll comes by, and hopefully get his autograph. I can't find my Lance book, I think I lent it to someone.
You may have noticed I didn't do my monthly weigh-in picture last month (or this month for that matter). Remember, my goal was 2 pounds a month or 146 by October, whichever came first. In June, the end-of-month goal was 148.8 and I actually had reached it on June 10th. But then I went on our fabulous vacation to Georgia. The heavy exercise undertaken in Georgia was offset+ by good food and drink, and I had a lot going on, so skipped writing about the weight gain (three pounds). This morning I weighed in at 149.2. I have been catching grief about the monthly camera shot, so will only do one sometime in October.
I finally got around to cleaning the mountain bike, from the Mickelson Trail trip in May. Unlike the Katy Trail, when we got caught in a downpour on the last day and the bike got filthy, except for the chain, it really was more of a wipe-down. It took about a half-hour to release the quick-release link and take the chain off to give it a proper cleaning and relube.
Exciting activities are coming up, check back in 10 days.

CLARIFICATION, OF SORTS

I think the the only way to secure accurate gradient information on Brasstown Bald, Spur 180, is to put out a surveyor and assistant at each tenth of a mile and record the result. There are lots of first person accounts on the internet, but too much variation. The average grade is somewhere between 10 and 12 percent, and 2/10 into it is a 16% grade and 5/10 has the first 20% ramp. "The wall" comes around 1.5 and could be as low as 21% or high as 26% depending on whose data you want to use. I saw 24% on my Garmin 305 this year, and 24% on my Garmin Forerunner 201 in previous years, so I'm comfortable using that figure. If it really is only 22%, it's still steep, especially after a mile and a half of hard climbing. There is another 16% ramp slightly over 2 miles. One report has percentages every .05 but that gets skewed. You can tell when you see the 45% on one leg. Of course, that might be correct if you take that right-hand bend on the inside, because for about twenty feet it is real steep. If you take the outside, you miss about half the climb.
The first year we did this, we got a ride to the top of Wolf Pen Gap, then let gravity take us, generally, about eight miles, or to the bottom of the climb up to Spur 180. The climb turned out to be about five miles of hard labor, robbing us of a lot of leg and cardio strength.

NOT CRAZY

The old saw about someone who keeps doing the same thing but expects different results being crazy really doesn't apply to me. I keep trying new things, but the results are the same. I just returned from a fabulous trip to the north Georgia mountains, including my annual assault of Brasstown Bald. I had great weather (a tad humid) and a week of riding Wolf Pen Gap, Neel's Gap, Woody Gap, and some others I can't recall at the moment. When I wasn't riding, I was with family hiking the AT (Appalachian Trail). The switch to a triple gave me a couple of additional gears and my confidence level was high. Brasstown Bald starts you out with a 20% ramp (ok, maybe a quarter mile into it) just to get your heart rate moving. Most of the almost three miles I saw 16%-18% and only once for a short period did it drop to a single digit. But then came the wall (24+%). Once again this year my heart rate was 10-14 beats short of max but I couldn't access them and had to stop and let it drop back to the 80% range. At least I didn't have to walk any, just got back on the bike and trudged up. The two stops were only about 30 seconds long. It took slightly less than (because I didn't stop the computer immediately) 33 minutes 58 seconds to make the climb; 4 minutes and 35 seconds to make the descent; 5 minutes 5 seconds to decend in my car.

I was looking forward to the cool graphics my Garmin gives. Bummer! When the whole ride is uphill, the graph is more or less a straight (angled up, but straightish) line from 3000 feet to 4338 over 2.45 miles. When I do my "hill" ride at home, the line spikes when I hit the hills, but the only spike on this graph is my heart rate.

There is a lot more to tell, some of it will be posted here, some at BudgetTravel.com and of course family and friends will have the full narrative and pictures of the whole trip.

MORE SPIN

Once again I had to forego the usual Sunday ride with the Austin Flyers to attend grandson, John's, 5th birthday celebration at noon in College Station. That is not to say I didn't get a ride in. I left the house (driving) at 5:45am and by 6:05am started the 360 Loop ride. This is the same 42 mile ride where I lost 10 minutes (see previous post) for some unexplained reason. Today I felt smooth and strong and was able to spin up the hills with relative ease, including Steiner Ranch. But...... While my time was good, within 4 minutes of my alltime best, I thought it should have been better. Once home and showered and driving east, I had time to disect the ride and all the variables that go into what makes some rides faster than others. After tossing out a lot of reasons, it suddenly came upon me that I had changed equipment! Wait, that's not true, it wasn't a Eureka!-moment at all.
I crested Steiner and passed 2222 as I cruised down 620. A young woman on a bike merged in behind me and I said "hi" but didn't slow down to chat. I held 23-26mph for several miles but got stopped at a light. Only 15 seconds, but she had stopped behind me so we exchanged a few pleasantries. She had just started her ride, I was two hours into mine. Green! I took off and again powered up to 26mph and a mile later turned onto Anderson Mill, and into a slight headwind. With my speed dropped to 20mph, still good, I saw in my mirror the rider behind, inexorably catching up and passing me. She was folded nicely into her aerobars and had a quick cadence.
So, as I drove to College Station, I realized my very best time occurred when I had aerobars and regular chain rings (I'm in a compact at the moment). It wasn't that my slow speed cut into the time, it was the lack of high-end speed. Also, the previous computer paused when I stopped, and although I knew both the overall time and saddle time, I only recorded saddle time. Now, my current computer pauses. Next month I'll re-install the aerobars and have a new drive-train. And, yes, I'll be ready to set a new pr.