Good Golly, Miss Molly. That was some ride to work!

Posted December 9, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Bike Commute, Cycling, Fitness, Wind, bicycle, cold weather cycling
Tags: , , , ,

Boy, you wouldn’t believe the grief I’ve been getting all day about riding my bike to work this morning.  Come on…what do you think I am?  A wienie?  (Maybe you better not answer that…..)

I opted to drive yesterday because the temperatures were projected to be in the mid-30’s all day with precipitation expected all day long.  In hindsight, had I ridden my bike, I would have ridden both to work and home in nothing more than drizzle, but it would have probably been enough to soak through my gloves in the process.

Today was an entirely different story.  I bucked up my bravado and decided I was going to do it!  After all, the moisture was supposed to stop and the morning temperature was projected to be around 20 degrees, so even though I consider that to be about the lower temperature limit for my clothing options, I decided I would be fine.

Somewhere in the wee hours of this morning, I awoke to the sound of wind howling around the eaves of the house.  That was still going on as I was lifting weights at home this morning, and when I looked out the window, I could see snow blowing horizontally across the street light out front.  Yuck!  Looking at the weather conditions from my phone, it confirmed that it was 18 degrees outside, with light snow, and sustained winds of 30 mph, gusting to who knows what!

I bundled up in three layers of warmness, pulled on two pairs of booties and my ski mittens and headed off into the cold and wind, not quite sure what I was getting myself into.  It didn’t take long to figure that out.  Sure, it was cold, but I was dressed for that.  What was not so fun was that stinking wind.  As I crested the hill out of the river valley, I caught the full brunt of that wicked wind from the west, and it nearly stopped me in my tracks!  I’m not kidding, the best I could muster for a hundred yards or so was 5 mph.  My entire trip to work was either into a full-on head wind or a blustery cross wind that threatened to sweep me into the ditch.  Each northerly leg of my commute was one where I literally had to keep the bike leaning to the left to ride a straight line! 

I took about 10 minutes longer than usual this morning, but I made it to work just fine.  Actually, it was kind of fun to ride in that blowing snow.  As I tromped into the office, I managed to make quite a stir because I was “crazy enough to ride my bike on a day like today”.  One lady asked me why in heaven’s name I rode today, and my reply was simply, “Because I could!”.

God bless…

TW

Comments: 2 Comments

In Awe of The Fat Cyclist

Posted December 8, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Cycling, Fitness, Livestrong, World Bicycle Relief Fund, bicycle
Tags: , , , , ,

For the past couple of days, I’ve been watching a story develop that just blows me away……

Do you know who Elden Nelson is?  The Fat Cyclist?  Come on, surely you do?

If you don’t, you need to go over to http://www.fatcyclist.com/ and check him out.  He’s a cycling blogger whose web site is among the most recognizable in the cycling websphere.  His wife passed away earlier this fall after a long fight with cancer which Fatty documented on his blog.  He has dedicated his life to raising money for cancer research.  In addition, he’s had a very active weekend and two days!   

As background, here is some text that I lifted from http://www.fatcyclist.com/ .  I figured Fatty could tell you about it way better than I could. 

Our Story So Far

For those of you who haven’t been following — and for those of us with short attention spans –here’s what’s happened so far.

  1. Last Thursday I wrote a blog post in the form of a resume cover letter to Johan Bruyneel, Director of the newly-formed Team RadioShack.
  2. On Friday, Johan replied, saying I could be on the team for a day if we raised $20,000: $10K for LiveStrong, and $10K for the World Bicycle Relief Fund. If we raised $50K — $25K for each cause — he’d also give me a Trek Madone.
  3. I started scrambling, figuring out how I could possibly raise that much money in under a week.
  4. On Sunday, I posted my response: a contest where you can win the Madone, signed by Team RadioShack, by donating to the World Bicycle Relief Fund; or where you can win a custom-painted Fat Cyclist Gary Fisher Superfly by donating to LiveStrong.
  5. Yesterday — within 24 hours of when I posted my contest — we hit not only the $20K mark, but the $50K mark as well. In other words, in less than one day after the contest began, you hit the stretch goal Johan set for us for the week.
  6. Johan began scrambling, looking for a new stretch goal.
  7. Last night (Monday), Johan posted a new goal, with a new prize, on his blog.

 

It looks like the new goal is also going to be surpassed within a day.  That’s $100 Grand, people.  In two days!  I’m amazed at a couple of things.  First, how quickly people are getting behind Fatty and making those donations.  Second, that in this economy this many people are opening their pocketbooks for these worthy causes.  Won’t you join them by making a donation as well?  I have……

Here are the links:

LiveStrong

World Bicycle Relief Fund

God Bless…

TW

Comments: 2 Comments

On Becoming a Hard-A$$

Posted December 7, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Bike Commute, Cycling, Fitness, Under Armour, bicycle
Tags: , , , , ,

For years, I wouldn’t think of riding my bike without a pair of padded bike shorts.  Yeah, I know that to the non-cycling crowd, they are pretty dorky looking (not to mention revealing), but I’ve lived in them so long that I really don’t give a second thought to what people might think about them or the way I look in them.  After all, they do provide an extra level of comfort on the saddle, as well as their sweat wicking and compression qualities.

I’ve got six or seven pairs of cycling shorts in varying quality.  Unfortunately, three or four have been worn and washed so much that they are NSFW (or any public setting)!  You know what happens when you wear and wash cycling shorts that much?  Well, they get thin…to the point of being see-through.  I discovered this one morning when I sat down in the locker room to take my shoes and socks off and holy cow!  I can see that mole on my leg through these shorts!  As well as everything else!  How embarrasing!

Luckily cool weather got here in the nick of time, so I could continue wearing them under my winter tights.  Cool weather also ushered in a change to my morning routine, so that I’m usually either running or lifting weights before or after my commute to downtown.  Those two activities don’t particularly lend themselves to wearing cycling shorts under your tights.  The wicking and compression properties are still appreciated, but that chamois just isn’t the best thing to be wearing on your morning run. 

For a while I was wearing my Under Armour athletic underwear underneath tights to run in, then changing to cycling shorts under my tights for the ride to work, but all that changing got a little old.  And besides, I generate mountains of laundry with my athletic wear anyway, so I decided to just tough it out and start riding to work without the cycling shorts.  You know what?  It  took about 5 miles to get over the fact riding in Under Armour and tights wasn’t as comfortable as my cycling shorts and tights.  After that first day, my backside has never complained once!

I suppose I’ll go back to cycling shorts when the weather warms up again so I don’t need the tights, and I will probably never take off for a 20+ mile ride without them, but for the 9 mile commute, my butt is fine in Under Armour!

God bless….

TW

Comments: 3 Comments

Saturday Morning Rituals & Panera Bread

Posted December 5, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Bike Commute, Panera Bread, Running, bicycle, cold weather
Tags: , , , , ,

panera

It seems lately that we’ve fallen into a pretty consistent pattern of activity for our Saturday mornings.  Let me describe this morning for you as an example of a typical Saturday at the Wilkins’.

We rolled out of bed in a panic at 5:55 because we had screwed up the alarm clock and missed our 5:45 wake-up.  After hurriedly brushing our teeth and getting dressed for a run, we set out in the 18 degree temperature for a quick two miles. 

Finishing back at the house, Pam jumped in the car to head for her running group, just making it there in the nick of time (remember, we got up ten minutes late).  As she left, I headed back out to run another 2.5 miles in the cold.  By the time I got back the 2nd time, my hands were so numb I could barely get the key out of my zippered pocket and into the door lock.  I guess I need to do something different for running gloves when it’s that cold.

After arriving back at the house the 2nd time, I stopped to shave, then added a few layers of cycling clothes and jumped on my bike to meet Pam at Panera Bread for breakfast.  It’s about six miles to Panera if I cross over the highway at Battlefield, and I usually go that way because I don’t like to ride on Sunshine.  I make that decision knowing that I’m going to have to climb a long hill up through Southern Hills, but at that point I’m heading to breakfast so I figure I can afford to burn the calories!

This morning, we had a funny thing happen at Panera.  We ordered, sat down to wait for our food, and when the little pager went off, I went to the counter to pick up our breakfast sandwiches.  As I approached, I noticed a lady walking away with two plates, but didn’t think anything of it until I noticed there was nothing waiting for me on the counter.  As I deposited my pager, the guy working the grill looked at me kind of funny, so I said “I’m Tracy.  You just paged me”.  At that point, he gave me a confused look and it became pretty obvious that the lady had just walked off with our food!   Not a big deal.  I told him what we needed and patiently returned to wait.

When our order was ready the 2nd time, he was very apologetic about the incident, but I assured him it wasn’t a big deal and went back to eat with Pam.  As we were finishing, the manager approached us and gave us a certificate for two free breakfasts as compensation for the problem.  Talk about impressive customer service!  We weren’t angry or even aggravated because we had plenty of time.  It was an honest mistake and not their fault, but they wanted to ensure our dining experience was a good one. 

I would say that they had earned a customer for life, but we already were!

God bless….

TW

Comments: 2 Comments

5,156 miles

Posted December 4, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Bike Commute, Cycling, Fitness, Jeep, bicycle
Tags: , , , ,

No, that’s not my cycling mileage for the year, although it should be somewhere around there when I check it at the end of this month.  That’s the number of miles I’ve put on my Jeep so far this calendar year.  And at least 2,000 of those were a trip out to Colorado last winter. 

I had an epiphamy last night when I opened the bill for the next six months insurance on it.  I noticed that it was rated as a “daily driver” with over 7,500 miles per year.  That prompted a call to my agent this morning and based on the limited mileage I put on it, they’ve re-rated it for me.  That will save me about 100 bucks a year!

Another benefit of bike commuting……

God bless…

TW

Comments: 1 Comment

My love/hate relationship with my balaclava…..

Posted December 3, 2009 by tracywilkins
Categories: Bike Commute, Cycling, Fitness, balaclava, bicycle, cold weather cycling
Tags: , , , , ,

You ever have one of those products that you don’t think you can live without, yet you hate it none the less?  Well, I do.  It’s my balaclava. 

Yes, that is frost....

 

Which, by the way, is nothing more than a glorified ski mask.  I wonder what happened that we stopped calling them something simple?  I can hardly say the word – balaclava, when I do, I get all those a’s and l’s wrapped around my tongue and it comes out sounding something like bologna.  Anyway, I looked them up on Wikipedia and found:

The name “balaclava” comes from the town of Balaklava, near Sevastopol in Crimea, Ukraine. During the Crimean War, knitted balaclavas were sent over to the British troops to help protect them from the bitter cold weather. They are traditionally knitted from wool, and can be rolled up into a hat to cover just the crown of the head.

I use one because I’m a weanie when it comes to the cold.  If I can keep my face, ears, hands and feet warm when I’m riding, I’m good to go.  If one of those start getting cold, forget it.  I’m reduced to a shivering pile of bones in seconds.  Therefore, I use a balaclava over my normal skull cap if the temperatures get down to around the mid-30’s.  At that temperature, I can usually tolerate rolling it up to provide an additional layer over my ears.  At about the freezing mark, I need to pull it down over my face….and it’s at that point I begin muttering to myself about it.

I have two faults with the thing…actually three when I think about it.  First, using the balaclava over my full face necesitates taking my glasses off.  If I don’t, they will fog over the first time I stop pedaling.  When I do that, the cold wind immediately causes my eyes to tear up and that makes it nearly as hard to see.  Not to mention making me look look like I’m bawling my eyes out if some driver happens to look at me at a stoplight.

Secondly, it’s just kind of tough to breath through the material of the mask.  I feel like a fish out of water as I pedal my way up the hill out of our subdivision struggling for air.  You’ve got to kind of keep your mouth open the entire time.

Which brings me to the really objectionable reason I dislike using the balaclava.  After you breath out of your mouth for a while, the warm breath you’re exhaling pretty much condenses out as moisture on the inside of the mask.  It’s not long before you’ve created a mighty pool of drool on the inside of your mask.  Then, invariably my nose will start to run because of the cold.  If my nose is also covered, ugggh!  It’s too much to think about…all that junk running together right where you’re trying to breath! 

Actually, there may be a solution for me out there.  I’ve seen advertisements for balaclavas that cover your chin but leave both your mouth and nose exposed.  The problem is that the only one like that I could put my hands on was at one of the outdoor stores here in town, and it was pretty darn expensive.  I had a hard time justifying paying that much for a ”ski mask”.

So there you have it.  Would somebody please invent a better way to keep your face warm?

God bless….

TW

Comments: 6 Comments

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