Am I dead yet?

First I want to thank John for hosting his monthly ride. I had a really good, even if somewhat painful, time on this ride! Wind + Distance == EVIL! John is a great guy and I encourage everyone to come out and ride on future rides. I was able to see a part of wichita I had never been exposed too. I rode a route I had never been on and it was really nice scenery. I curse the Kansas wind. I curse it in every known language and even some unknown! Seriously, can we install a win break around the city? Is that really asking too much? Don't answer that. 

Thanks again John for a well spent Sunday afternoon, and a very good ride! Hopefully you handled the wind better than I did. I am pretty spent. I am too run down to move. I should make something to eat but can't get off my bed. It's so soft and cozy. I tried to get my dog to go to Walmart and get me some roast beef and bread but she just tilted her head and blinked at me. I don't think she grasps the concept of "I am dying and need sustenance". Silly dog. 

This post is a mess of rambling. I'm just wiped from the ride to and from. I will force myself to get to the store and when I get back post my stats. I forgot to start my cycle computer a few times so it didn't count a few miles but I will post those stats when I get back. 

Safety

I mentioned a few posts ago I would post an entry about bike safety and ask for opinions. I was reminded today when John posted in his entry today about averting a collision with another cyclist. Which made me remember about making my post on safety. So here are some observations of mine that you are all welcome to comment on. 

First, and I am sure it makes me look quite dorky, I have noticed I am the only cyclist I have seen in town wearing an ANSI safety vest. It's a class III mesh vest I picked up from Occulux. Made for high visibility in faster moving traffic. To me, not being seen is the #1 reason I believe cyclists are hit. That's not happening to me. I am lit up like a christmas tree with this vest. Safety Orange, 3M reflective tape stitched in, I am very visible. If you hit me, you are either blind, or staring at your floorboard looking for your dropped cellphone. In which case I am dead anyway. I realize it looks uncool zipping down the road with a bright orange safety vest on. But I am often puzzled when I see cyclist after cyclist pass me, or zip by my work wearing nothing but cycling jerseys and helmets. No one appears to be wearing safety vests. To me this seems like such a no brainer. If you don't want to get hit, BE VISIBLE. How many of you cycling have a safety vest you wear out on the road? How many of you have even thought about it? Why is something as simple and easy as wearing a lightweight mesh safety vest so unpopular? Because in my opinion it is so important to be visible and hence safer when riding.

The second thought that occurs to me is the issue of wearing earphones when biking. I admit I am guilty of jamming to my iPod when out on rides. Some have said it's ok some say it's dumb to do. My reasoning is this, if I am going to be hit by a car moving at 20 mph+ there is nothing I am going to be able to do about it. They wont honk, they will just hit me. If they saw me in time to honk they would just avoid me in the first place. If I get hit it's because they didn't see me. Which being lit up with my safety vest there are only a few cases I can see of that being the case. So I think if I am hit there will be no warning, no sound I could hear like screeching tires, I will just be plowed over. Then the driver might slam on the brakes. What say you?

Everyone have a fantastic weekend and I hope you get a chance to get out and ride!

SRAM

So I know the season has a couple of months or so left in it before I will have to put the road bike up but I was looking at new groups today. My Felt came stocked with the best parts for the money they could slap on it. However it's a mismatched pot of various components. FSA Gossamer crank, Dura Ace RD, 105 shifters etc. The group works "OK" the biggest beef I have is chain slippage more often than I would like. Uber annoying. Anyway I have been looking at SRAM since I got my bike February 14th of this year. I wanted to originally go nuts and get a Red group. But now, I just can't justify it since I am not 125 lbs and do not race for a living. The Rival group for 2009 is amazing. And I think I have decided on that group. The only change I may make is to upgrade the Rival RD to either Force or Red. I'm not sure yet. I need to do more research. If you are considering a new group for next year really look into the SRAM Rival group. It's under $1,000! And is a really nice group. Now I just need to decide on new wheels after the group and I am set. I'm thinking maybe a set of Williams Cycling 30x's. I would really like a pair of their 58's but I am too heavy for them. Maybe in a year or two.

Pleasure and Pain I know thee well

I did the 50 km to Mulvane and back today. I knew it was going to be windy but had forgotten what a train wreck it is to do the return leg with 21 mph winds punching you in the face. Honestly Kansas wind is the most evil thing ever. I think I would rather spend a weekend in Guantanamo bay. Seriously. Heading down south was great. With the wind at my back I was flying down to Mulvane. I felt like a member of Team Garmin/Chipotle! Then about three quarters of the way down I passed two other bikers heading north back into town. I should have known by their pace it was going to be one miserable ride back. I just waved and flew on by. One of them was riding a recumbent! I wish I knew who those guys were, that recumbent looked like such a sweet comfortable ride! 

So I get down to the Mulvane cemetery, which is my reast/turn around point, and take ten minutes to eat a couple of EAS bars and drink the rest of my first bottle of water. After ten minutes I snap a picture, fill up my water bottle with my refill bottle of camelbak hydration liquid for the ride back, then head off back towards home. And thats when the freight train of wind ground me to a halt. I was flying down averaging 22 mph. The return I averaged... 10 mph. And I was working to maintain that. Towards the end I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I thought for sure I was going to have to stop. But I knew if I stopped I wouldn't get back up until the wind slowed down even if I had to wait until nightfall. So i just told myself what an out of shape worm I was and pushed myself to finish. Have I mentioned how much I hate Kansas wind? I listen to other cyclists on an IRC channel I hang out on gripe about wind sometimes too. However these guys are in California or the Pacific Northwest. They don't know what wind is! I am convinced there is an open portal to the ninth plane of hell somewhere in Kansas generating all of our insane wind. 

So without further hesitation... stats. 14.9 / 27.1 mph, 169 / 189 bpm, 58 / 164 cadence, 1,126 calories burned, 2h 2m 30s, 30.39 miles door to door. I'm no lance armstrong, but for a heavier rider I think this was an acceptable ride. I was feeling the pain all the way back in todays wind. I kept pushing myself not to stop and just get back home. So at least I managed to kick and claw my way back without stopping. This is only the second ride I have managed to do that burned over 1,000 calories. The other one was the first 50 km I did also to Mulvane and back. The other rides down there have not burned as many calories as today. I'm sure the wind had something to do with that since I was burning so much more energy just to keep enough forward momentum to not fall over.

Mulvane ride

I haven't done a 50 km ride in some time now. So since Sunday is my day off I will be heading out from the apartment down to Mulvane and back. I am going to try and just set a nice pace and enjoy the ride. It is supposed to be a high of 70F tomorrow and no rain which will be perfect riding weather for me. I will probably take a break, down at the Mulvane cemetery, which is the halfway point where I turn around. If anyone reading this is interested in going I will headout after noon. A morning person I am not. So shoot me an email if you would like to go. 

Rain...

Well, it appears it's going to be a lovely overcast, wet, rainy day. Usually I love these days. However today, being my day off, I have to be downtown this evening for a study club at my Lodge. I admit I don't like biking in the rain much. I really need to get off my tail and get some good rain gear. I could drive but I get so few days off that I will hate myself tomorrow for not biking to my meeting tonight. 

So I am going to suck it up and bike downtown in a little while. Hopefully traffic will be ok. My biggest concern with biking since I started has been safety. I hope to post a few safety questions for folks to think about and perhaps share their wisdom on in the following post or two. But for now it's time to shower and prepare for a wet miserable ride. 

The ride home was a lot more wet than the ride downtown. I really need some rain gear. But I got in a good 14.63 miles. Traffic on the way home was very light. Route I took. Cateye: 15 / 25.8 mph, 168 / 189 bpm, 72 / 162 cadence. 

The ride from yesterday...

So since yesterday was my day off and since it was perfect riding weather (I love overcast, cool, sunless days) I headed out from the apartment at around 2:30 pm. Went north to douglas then west as far as I could. Which happened to be a little further than 'Western Douglas Park' ? I think that was name. There was road construction a few blocks west of there so I turned around in front of a gas station there and headed back. I took two breaks to rest. I should know better than to head out for a ride without eating. Also I still can't seem to do more than 20 miles without my hind side really starting to hurt. I was feeling the pain in the saddle on the last few miles home. Exaggerated no doubt by the idiocy of not eating before going on a ride. I could literally feel I was out of energy the last few miles. I had to pep talk my way home the last few miles. Anyway it was a good 20.69 miles. 

My cateye stats were (average/max): 12.5 / 26.1 mph, 153 / 195 bpm, 66 / 199 cadence. Cadence was *awful*, just absolutely disgusting. I can't blame that all on not eating before the ride. Although I think the few stops I made played a part in messing up the stats a little bit. I hit 195 bpm running through the road construction in front of Il Vicino. I never have hit higher than 181-182. I looked down and saw 195 and panicked a little. I thought my heart was about to explode or something. I felt ok. For some reason I associate heart rates approaching 200 as danger! danger! I should read up on heart rates in cycling tonight at work and see if that is normal or if I should be going to get a checkup.

So that was the ride from sunday. I like taking douglas west and then back east because of the hills on the way back starting at the Crown Uptown. I like being pushed towards the end of the ride with those hills. It really makes me push myself. I don't know if it's doing any good health wise but it cannot be an worse than sitting at home typing on a keyboard. So hopefully it's doing something positive. I found a fellow cyclists blog for wichita and was glad to know there are others here enjoying and posting about cycling. Still not a big fan of the Oz club. Hopefully I will meet some other folks here soon to ride with.