Back in the Saddle again...

Today was very nice. Too nice for Joanne and me not to get on the bikes and put in some time behind the handle bars! We did a good 20+ mile ride with just a few breaks. One around the 7 mile mark to have some water and see how I was doing. Another break when we found some keys on the trail and luckily the person looking for their lost keys! The last break was around 15 miles for water and an energy bar.

This is how my training went this week so far (I'm taking tomorrow off!). Below are some pictures of the bike, check out how high the seat has to be with the pedals shortened! Also, I'm going to post a video on Facebook. Joanne was handling the filming.

3/23 Tuesday - 10 minutes on trainer
3/24 Wednesday - 20 minutes on trainer
3/25 Thursday - 20 minutes on trainer
3/26 Friday - 30 minutes on trainer (20 pedaling, 10 adjusting seat and shoes!)
3/27 Saturday - 20.5 miles on the bike trail with Joanne. We averaged a good speed almost always over 10 mph and even up to 21 mph down hill. That was a blast!

20.5 miles is 10% of the STP ride but I like to think of 20.5 miles as 20% of the daily distance!

Wonder how still I'll be tomorrow!

Minus a wheel plus a cabin

Yesterday was a good day for me. I was finally able to take a short spin on a two-wheeler. A device to shorten each crank pedal was required to get back in the saddle. These attach to the crank arm and allow you to mount the pedals in four different locations. 

Tonight was my longest ride (using the trainer) of ten minutes. I have no idea what the distance was but next I'll go for 20 minutes, then 30, then a trip to Yelm and back (13.4 miles). I'm behind on the training guide so I'll try to catch up as much as possible. The right knee is bending just over 80 degrees so it will be great if I can move the pedals one spot each month and be at full crank length by the beginning of July.

Team rock ranch has a spot for Saturday night. Now we need to track down drivers/support for the day of the event!

Nice and not so nice weather for riding

Joanne and I got in a ride after lunch with mom and dad. We hit the trail at Chambers Lake fueled up on Applebees's calories!

The idea was to explore trails we had not ridden yet. This lead us to the Olympia Wooded Trail (or something like that) which was very scenic and we were excited to ride somewhere new. We learned that this area is where quite a few of the homeless in the area camp out. As far as camping goes, it is a beautiful place to be.

All this riding was in pretty nice weather. We took a familiar way back along the freeway and up some pretty good hills. Wheeler Street still robs your breath just like we remembered it! At this point it looked like our ride wasn't going to be very long unless we added more western trail riding to the route.

We gambled on the dark clouds and lost that bet! We got pretty drenched riding in the rain the last 2.5 miles. We ended up at 11 miles each (9.5 dry and 2.5 wet).

Good weather in the PNW for riding

It's supposed to be nice today and a good day for riding. It looks like Shannon will meet here to start off a ride with Joanne. I'll take the trike to the bike trail and do some 1/2 mile top gear sprints for a bit. The idea is to time out my "cruising" speed on level ground. I'm shooting for a 12 - 13 mile an hour pace.

Mike, are you doing any events this weekend or hanging out on the stationary bike? 

Update... Shannon and Joanne put it 30 miles yesterday. My ride was 17 miles. There were times when my speed got close to 12 - 13 miles per hour but I couldn't maintain that for long.

My best timed 1/5 mile drag (first and only one) from a dead stop in the 21st gear was 2 minutes 45 seconds. That's 10.90 mph. It sure works the arms!