The Wheelsucker Braves the Great White North

Many years ago the Wheelsucker left his friends and family in Canada and moved to the Washington DC area. This gave the Wheelsucker a significant increase in his standard of living, and he also enjoyed the easy Washinsgton DC (and Annapolis) climate, which allowed him to sail year round. The move meant giving up cross country skiing, but the wheelsucker was prepared to do that in favor of sailing.

More recently Annapolis weather has worked well for the wheelsucker's cycling; the wheelsucker probably missed only 2-3 Saturday rides last winter, and rode most Sunday's too.

The wheelsucker still has family in the Great White North (GWN), now living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and quite recently has a wonderful girlfriend in the GTA, so chose to use his last vacation days to be in the GTA for Christmas and New Years.

Being commited to riding and doing his workouts (and having missed two workouts just before going to the GWN/GTA), the wheelsucker was determined to ride while there. He drove up the evening and night of the 23rd, and was able to get a shortened ride on the indoor trainer on the 24th; shortened because Christmas Eve festivities were starting. But Christmas Day was the day the Wheelsucker decided to brave the elements.

The wheelsucker's coach said 2 hours: Ride on a flat to gently rolling course. Get at least 50% of ride time in 2 zone. Avoid 4-5 zones. Keep the 2-zone effort steady and continuous.

The wheelsucker was short of sleep, had been eating and drinking too much, and was looking forward to a good ride. It was about 20 degrees F. BRISK! But the Wheelsucker could recall cross country skiing in 20 F and colder, so why not cycle?

The Wheelsucker got a late start due to Christmas Day celebrations and the time it took to put his cycling clothes -- all of them -- on. He rolled down the street just before 15:00. Fortunately there was almost no wind.

Holding z2 outdoors was much easier than holding z2 on the trainer the day before; the Wheelsucker was feeling good -- and keeping his HR down -- when he turned around for the ride back. It was almost dark when the Wheelsucker made it back. Apart from not drinking enough as the water bottles had quickly frozen -- and even putting them inside his cycling clothes was not enough to thaw them -- the ride went well, though the wheelsucker was sneaking into the low end of z3 a bit too much on the ride back.

The wheelsucker was struck by how different a 1:10 mostly-zone2 ride on the trainer was from the 2:05 mostly-zone2 ride outside.

	inside	outside
temp	65	20
time	1:10	2:05
average watts	172	191
normalized watts	178	233
average HR	138	131
average cad	92	89
distance	24.24	35.51

Anything but the Indoor Trainer!Be Careful What You Ask For!

The wheelsucker confesses that he does not have the determination to ride intervals on the indoor trainer. Each time he tries, he struggles to complete the first interval, while his legs tire, his breathing becomes labored, his lower back becomes tighter and tighter and he is quite unable to distract himself with new Giro d’Italia and Tour de France DVDs and an iPod. He dreads the start of the second interval, and part way through it rationalizes that maybe rest and recovery are what he needs, and he stops. The same intervals are very hard but doable on the road. Somehow the distraction of the next short climb or the next curve is enough to keep the wheelsucker pushing, and staying within target power numbers.

But record snow falls and unplowed roads have made riding outside problematic. The wheelsucker’s coach is quite unsympathetic, posting a blog entry at: http://midmaryland.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/determination/.
This was not only directed at the wheelsucker, but coach Birner went out of his way to get the wheelsucker to read it. Ouch!

Desperate to get off the indoor trainer, the wheelsucker rode fixed gear on the route 2 shoulder south of Annapolis on Saturday, with Tom Aga. Some other team members were predicting broken hips, or offering to restrain the wheelsucker to protect him from himself, but the nearly two hour fixie ride went fine, with no icy spots found, though the bike was so dirty it needed a shower afterwards. Rather than do the same ride again, the wheelsucker decided to ride with some of the elite team on Sunday, out of Eric Krause’s home in Middletown MD.

It was cold and windy; the wheelsucker’s chronic sore lower back was tight from Saturday, and he was a little hung over and short of sleep, but the elite guys had suggested a normally-paced ride, so the wheelsucker figured he would be OK.

As soon as the wheelsucker exited from interstate 70 onto route 40 he noticed that the terrain was NOT FLAT!

Eric was ready and once Nat and Stephen rolled up, the four rolled west on route 40 to pick up Brian. The wheelsucker’s first indication that this ride would have its challenges was when he could not clip in due to snow and ice buildup in his cleats. He fixed that and found the long sprint to catch up with the others seemed to help his warm up.

The first part of the ride was OK, but then the climbs start. The wheelsucker struggled on the short climbs and was gapped on the medium and long ones, and would summit – maxed out and nearly cross-eyed – to find the elite riders relaxed and waiting for him.

The wind built and the riders used a rotating paceline. The wheelsucker was told that he was drilling it too hard when at the front. This might have explained why he was tiring rapidly, while the elite guys not even breathing hard (the real reason was harder for the wheelsucker to accept). Soon the wheelsucker was going off the back on short climbs. He started skipping pulls and staying at the back until his HR dropped to 130, and would then jump back into the rotation until he was ready to pop again, but he was still vulnerable on any climbs.

After about an hour and a half of this, the wheelsucker was cold and miserable, all-to-aware that he was slowing the other riders down. He finally took the opportunity to short cut back to Eric’s home down alternate 40, while the others went looking for more hard climbs. The wheelsucker ended up back at Eric’s home with 50 miles, the others ended up with 80 to 102!!!

The next elite team ride is the elite team training camp, and that was advertised as "cat 1 and cat 2" only. Coincidence? The wheelsucker suspects not.

Playing In the Snow

Does anyone know what the official snowfall was? Twelve inches? Fifteen inches? Twenty inches? Not that it matters, because whatever the number it was more than enough to shut down Washington DC and shut down Annapolis. The wheelsucker finished his Tour de Balcony ride (the wheelsucker rides the indoor trainer on his balcony because it is cooler than riding indoors) just about the time the snow started to fall on Friday. By Saturday morning everything was covered. The wheelsucker eventually checked on his car and decided digging it out was too much work, and decided to wait for the snow to melt. But sitting at home got old quickly, so eventually the wheelsucker decided to try the MTB in the snow. After taking a guess at what tire pressure would work, the wheelsucker and his hardtail hit the snow. The wheelsucker was a little concerned about being hit by a car, but only saw four between his home and downtown Annapolis. There were a couple of falls when riding too close to the piles of snow on the shoulder, trying to give cars room to pass, but falling in the snow is a lot easier than falling in a road race.

Grinning ear to ear, the wheelsucker rolled into downtown Annapolis at the traffic circle and Market House and realized most of it was closed. His favorite coffee shop, the Hard Bean was dark. But a few bars and City Dock coffee were open, so the wheelsucker enjoyed a large latte as his reward. After savoring it to the last drop (and procrastinating as long as possible), the wheelsucker hit the road for the ride home. For some reason, everyone he passed had the same comment – that’s dedication – but the wheelsucker actually thought there were less complimentary words to describe riding in the snow.

Winter riding thoughts:
Keep the weight back so the front wheel does not dig in.
When riding in a car tire rut, don’t look down, look ahead.
Brakes work remarkably well in the snow
When you are about to wipe out, wipe out towards the shoulder, not into the road.

The Original Snow [Patapsco] Valley Ride

Greetings all, Today the MTB team banded together once more and made a terrible, windy, cold and brutal day into a very very solid ride opportunity.

After arriving at the CCBC tennis courts on my cross bike, the Raleigh RX1.0, I tried hard to tell myself the pain was just weakness leaving the body. After standing in the cold, we rolled and thankfully, gracious Mike did not take us on the technical loop right off. The technical stuff isn't a problem for me on my normal bike, but on a road bike, a little much.

After a few hard, hard diggers, I finally got into a rhythm. This is basically how the ride would go:

First the fat tire boys would fly down the hills like they were supposed to. The snow that was on the ground didn't seem to slow Kidd or anyone else down. I would find myself off the back, yes off the back of a mountain bike group.

Typacially I made great time on the climbs, even the technical ones and was actually clearing stuff on the 700x32's (in the snow) that I have trouble occasionally with on a nice day with my 29x2.2's. At one point on the ridge trail I was just tearing it up the side of the hill till my admittedly worn-out rear tire finally just refused to grab the earth any longer. I'm almost certin that I climbed better because this bike weighs 21 lbs, and my monocog flight 29er (SS I might add) weighs 27 on a good day.

Logs were of little problem for the RX1, the reasons I hate this bike on the road, were the very reasons it took so well to the dirt. Namely its very high bottom bracket gave mondo clearence over stupid stuff and the forward position made bunny hopping easy.

Biggest tip for riding a cyclocross bike at Patapsco-Avalon, THORN RESISTANT TUBES. Yes my cross bike has clinchers, cause I tend to break nice stuff. These tubes are 10x the thickness of what most recognize as a road tube, making it **Impossible** to pinchflat. I was actually bottoming out on my rims a few times (at 45psi) and still no problems. The one drawback is weight, they are very heavy but I noticed this less in the woods then I did in a cross race or on road.

Last point, cross bikes are slow as a turtle going down. Its their nature unless you're Jeremiah Bishop. Because of the carbon fork, high pressure tires and narrow contact with the ground (on a muddy snowy day) you have to just deal with it. The benefit, center pull brakes were the original anti-lock devices and I never skidded out, at all.

My wrists, forearms and neck all hurt from going over the bars about twice, crashing into a tree once. However I would certainly try riding out in the woods on my X bike again, let me just true my wheels up again first.

or

You Decide.