New Rider on the Purple Stage

Riding Pics

Only a few more days to the big event! I'm excited but definitely nervous. I'll take tomorrow off to get everything (bike, clothes, food) ready for the trip.

Meanwhile, here are some new pics from earlier rides. Enjoy!

Showing my Game Face

Finally! Proof that I really do ride the bike! Here I am pulling the group. They're all smiling. I must be doing a good job!

Note: today, May 21, is the final day to submit donations to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you'd like to support me with a donation, please visit my fundraising page. Thanks for your consideration!

Yesterday we rode our final and longest training ride of the season. It was 80 miles long, from Santa Cruz, up the coast all the way up to San Gregorio, and then back along Highway 1. During those moments when I could actually look up and enjoy the scenery, it was spectacular: coastline, waves, farmland, charming old farm houses.

It was very hard for me. On the way up, we were fighting a headwind and had to really rely on our paceline to conserve energy. When I got to the front of the line to lead, it was like hitting a wall! To lead into the wind, you'd have to downshift, even if you were going downhill. By the time we made it to San Gregorio, I was pretty tired. I inhaled calories and salt as much as I could, including such fine nutrition as brownies (several!), potato chips, peanut butter cookies, ... and of course lots of water.

On the way back, our team was anxious to get take advantage of the tail wind that we now had, and they started hammering it home! While we usually average ~15 miles/hour overall on our rides, we were flying down the coast at 20-25 mph! I was struggling to stay with the group. I'm not sure why it was so hard, but I sure hope the trend doesn't continue to our event in only two weeks.

I brought my little camera along in my jersey and snapped some pictures when we stopped en route. Sorry, no action shots. When we were riding, it was all I could do to hang on!

TNT Spring 2007 Santa Cruz 80 Miler

For the Love of Bike

I love my bike more than my car, but this guy takes it to the next level!

2006: Man of the year award, Pictures - office-humour.co.uk

Colorful Calaveras Ride

A few weeks ago, we rode from Milpitas through Niles all the way to Pleasanton and back! As a runner, it always impresses me how much more territory you can cover on a bike. I traced out the pretty picture of our route below. Our route was the outline of the purple region at right. Don't be distracted by the other colorful areas next to the SF Bay -- those are the salt evaporation ponds!

This was a beautiful ride through some East Bay foothills. And, it's where I was introducted to Spam Sushi, which really hits the spot (rice=carbohydrates, salt) on a long ride!

Takeaways from a 71 mile ride

Have a dehydration headache
Taste the salt on my face, see it on my clothes
First time that being small is an advantage

The songs for today are

Cycling is Fun, Shonen Knife
Bicycle Race, Queen

Climb. Descend. Repeat.

During the week, I've been dutifully working out on my own, either attending Spinning class, lifting weights, or running with my buddies. But, the cycling coaches strongly encourage us to attend a mid-week session on "hill repeats", to make us stronger for climbing.

The formula is simple: find a hill with a good ~1 mile climb, ride up to the top and return, and repeat several times. Well finally I attended my first hill repeat session, on Mt. Eden Road in Saratoga. Not only was it at 7am, but just my luck, it was lightly raining for my debut!

I was feeling kind of lost since I'd never met for this before, but finally I found our knowledgable leader, Vijay, and he showed me the way. When we arrived at the base of the hill, we found another teammate, Audrey, already there and having completed a couple of repetitions already. AND, she had rode over from home. Tough chick! :-)

The climbing was perfectly hard: not painful, but challenging and long. Vijay led us through the paces, mixing it up by climbing in different gears and cadences. I usually like to descend fast, but I was spooked by the rain and wet roads and took the curves pretty slow. I thought Vijay said we were finished after 3-4 climbs (I've lost count!), but he twisted our arms with "just one more" so we ended up doing 5-6 rounds.

Here's our course map, below. It's nice -- not much traffic, pretty, and peaceful. I can even attest that it's nice in the rain. ;-)

These are my people

Here's another look at the (motley?) crew that I ride with:

This is at a rest stop in the middle of a hill climbing fest, along Mt. Eden Road in the Saratoga hills. At the far right is our ride group's coach, Kevin. He's a cycling animal!

A nice little climb

After yesterday's infernal long ride (more about that soon), I needed something less punishing. A few friends and I are interesting in making an assault on Mt. Hamilton Road, which is an old country road in east San Jose climbing up to the iconic Lick Observatory.

Don't worry, I didn't ride to the Observatory! Not today, anyway. But maybe by the end of summer. Today, we just road a nice 10-mile loop that climbs part way up Mt. Hamilton Road. It's really a nice road for cycling: not too much traffic, not too steep, it just climbs for a long, long ways.

I'm having fun experimenting with different mapping methods and used Gmaps Pedometer to draw this:

Pretty Picture of a Deluge

Last Saturday, our ride was supposed to be 50+ miles from Los Altos to San Mateo with a climb up to Skyline Blvd. HOWEVER, when we got to Woodside, it started raining pretty hard. It was my first time riding in a rain storm. It's not very fun. Even though I had a waterproof jacket, your face gets constantly blasted with road spray and grime from fellow riders' tires. The worst part of all is that it's very hard to brake on a bike in the rain! I had to give my brakes the "death grip" to keep from running into fellow riders or past stop lights.

Sensibly, we turned back at Edgewood Road in Woodside. As we were riding back, we passed the TNT Run team, which was also out at Woodside. That's what caused the rain! It always rains on the run team when they go to Woodside!

I painstakingly created this pretty picture of our route. I hope you like it!

What Nick Said

I've been meaning to write up last week's ride, which went really well for me. But before getting around to it, I discovered that my coworker Nick (an Ironman) has joined the Cycle team, and wrote a beautifully illustrated description of our ride. So go check it out at his blog and see his pretty topo map of our route!

Bizarre Love Triangle

Did that title catch your attention? What Triangle am I referring to? It must involve me, my bike, and a to-be-named object/person. ;-)

Actually, that was a song played in my 6:30a Spinning class this morning: Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order. It brought back fond memories of the 1980s, and it's a great song to spin to, also. These techno-dance songs have such a strong bass beat, even an arrhythmic white boy such as myself can find a groove.

It made me think of a new idea for exercise classes: classes finely targeted by musical genre, e.g.,

Hair Metal Spinning
Gothic Yoga, a la Goth Talk.

Ah, the things one thinks of while suffering in the gym!

Monte Vista Ride

Here's a map of last Saturday's 47-mile course. You can zoom out and see all the miles we covered, and look at the elevation map at bottom. The biggest hills were at the end -- Mt. Eden and Pierce Road.

Nearly Moving Pictures

I've searched far and wide for pictures to show that I'm really out there pedaling down the road to earn your support. But first, let me introduce you to my ride team. This is the crew I ride with: Coach Kevin, Dave, Darlene, Reid, and Yogesh. (I can't ID the rider at far right.) We're at a rest stop on our 35-mile ride from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. This it our rest stop at the turnaround point on Canada Road at Highway 92. We have a great bunch of volunteers for SAG (supply and gear) who refresh us and cheer for us on our rides.

And here's a picture of me (at far right) dressed up like a biker, savoring a banana. We do more than eating, I swear! I guess we ride so fast that the only pictures available are of us at rest. :-)

Fundrai$ing Milestone Achieved

Last week was the first time I rode 50 miles in my life! That's a milestone; I'm halfway to my ultimate goal.

Coincidentally, my sponsors and I achieved a fundraising milestone, too. I've raised more than half of my $5,000 goal for the season! Thank you!!! I'm not resting on this achievment, however. I'll keep talking to people about this program and looking for support for the rest of the season. Check back any time at http://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/jbusco to see my current fundraising total.

To appreciate what TNT has accomplished since its founding, I include this description that I just received:

Since TNT’s inception nearly 20 years ago, 320,000 participants have raised more than $750 million to help the Society fight blood cancers. TNT is the world’s largest endurance sports training program, helping athletes of all levels to run or walk a whole or half marathon or participate in a triathlon or century (100-mile) bike ride.

--Team in Training newsletter

The Cardio Room and Its Instruments of Torture

Negative Feedback

When it's too dark or too rainy to ride, or when I want to take the kids to swim but need to get a workout, I head to the YMCA and the "Cardio Room". They have exercise cycles such as this

It simulates riding a real bicycle quite well. As with most exercise machines, you can pick all sorts of programs simulating hills or random terrain. But by fair the most diabolical program is the "Dynamic Heart Rate Control" one. By grabbing the handlebars, the machine measures your heart rate. And, if it decides you aren't working hard enough, the screen scrolls this message: "Heart rate is too low. Increasing resistance." I hate that message! I got it a lot last week, and the bike increased the resistance so much I could hardly pedal. These machines have a mind of their own, and seem kind of sadistic.

Halfway There (the Easy Half)

On Saturday we rode from Santa Teresa High in San Jose

to Gilroy (nee Bonfante) Gardens. I can't believe I did it! The day started out chilly and windy, so I slipped on arm and knee warmers and our group headed out in a tight paceline. That way, only one of us had to fight the full wind at a time. With head down and working well as a team, in about an hour and a half we popped out on Highway 152, which runs between Gilroy and Watsonville. Whoa! I was surprised to ride right in front of "Gilroy Gardens".

It's kind of scary to be riding a bike along the highway, especially when you have to ride two abreast to rotate the leader in your group. You have to look for a reasonably wide road shoulder, and hope that some crazy distracted driver doesn't encounter the group.

Not surprisingly, after fighting the wind for two hours, the ride back home was much easier. Santa Teresa Boulevard goes all the way from San Jose to Gilroy! That's one long road. I was feeling pretty studly as I lead the group up the final hill to Blossom Valley in South San Jose. I was riding with a high cadence and a good speed. Wow, I'm strong! (I thought.) It was only when I had to stop and go back for our teammate who had a flat tire that I realized we'd been riding with a strong tailwind. Tailwinds, like slight downhills, make everyone feel studly. :-)

That was it: 51+ miles in a little over three hours. It didn't feel too bad, but it was definitely challenging. It's intimidating to think of riding twice this distance, but as I learned from the marathon training program, I have faith in TNT.

Songs to Ride By

When I'm going for a long ride by myself, I throw caution to the wind and listen to my iPod while riding. I'm not taking risk for risk's sake, but it's hard to resist having a musical companion along for solo rides. I try to be careful, I don't turn the volume up loud, but this is my guilty pleasure.

It's intesresting to hear what plays randomly while I'm out on the road, and to ponder the synchronicity between where I'm riding and what is playing. Some recent examples:

Cresting a hill and about to descend at high speed: I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass, Nick Lowe. I hope not!
A long, low-speed hill climb on Pierce Road in Saratoga: Come as you are, Nirvana. Hardly!
Just starting a 30-mile ride, with my legs already sore from the long ride the day before: Life in the Fast Lane, The Eagles. A good omen!

Anyway, it gives one something to think about. Something other than numb toes, sore butt, sore neck, ...

Hills are NOT my friend

I did quite a bit of riding last weekend -- about 35 miles each day. That really seems like a lot to me, though perhaps by the end of the season it will be routine. I remember in my TNT marathon training that 10 miles seemed like an intimidating "double-digit" run, yet by the end of the season it was nothing.

On Sunday I rode up to the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, up Pierce Road. Hill climbing is very hard! I was sweatin' up a storm, standing on my pedals and wrenching on my handlebars to throw myself up the hill. It was a joy to pause under a big oak tree at the entrance to the winery before a wonderfully fast descent down Highway 9 to downtown Los Gatos.

One thing I've realized in the many miles and hours I'm spending on a bike this season -- you can get a tougher workout on a bike than you can running. When I'm running, eventually all the pounding on the legs becomes too much and you need to stop, and probably take the next day off, too. But with cycling, there's no impact, and it's all about extracting every last ounce of energy from your big leg muscles. So, you can just keep riding until you're completely exhausted. Or puking. Yippee! (not)

A Thousand Words

First photo! Cheers! Sorry it's not an "action shot", though you can barely glimpse my bike on the back of the silver Volvo. This was in the morning, as I headed off to my first Team ride on a rainy day.

As soon as pictures start to come in from our TNT road rides, I'll post some of those.

No Spacing While Pacing!

Last weekend's ride was the first one in "ride groups". Based on our time trial results, we've been assigned to small teams of riders of about the same speed. Our groups is nine riders strong, including a volunteer coach and mentor, who help keep us in line.

We learned the protocol of riding in a "pace line". That's where the riders follow each other in a line, with the front rider plowing through the wind resistance and the others cruising along behind him. The lead rider keeps it up for about a minute, then drifts to the side and lets the next rider have a turn at lead. The ex-leader gets to drop to the back of the line and enjoy some hard-earned water or snack (PowerBar).

This was something I'd never done before, and it was fun. It requires a lot of concentration to maintain a steady speed, so you don't fall behind or run into the guy ahead of you. And when you're in front, you don't want to get so excited with adrenaline that you pull away and leave the rest of your "train" behind!

Good stuff. Unlike when running or riding solo, there's not spacing out while riding in a pace line!