As I was waiting at the hospital the other day to pick Pam up for our commute home, I ran into Cheryl.
We’ve known her for several years. She has a storied history in Springfield’s cycling community, and was a huge distance rider in the past. We first met her at Cox Fitness Center, where she continues to lead spin classes, and have ridden with her on the road few times.
It was good to see her again!
God bless…
TW
OK. I give. I can’t do it.
When I got my first road bike years ago, I read an article talking about some guy named Lance’s techniques. It basically said that the secret to his success was his use of fast cadence and lower gears to “spin” as opposed to “mashing” bigger gears (yeah, right…). I figured there must be something to that, so I set out to learn to spin. Over that first summer, I mastered the technique, and have blissfully spun my through thousands of miles.
What that really meant is that on the two road bikes prior to this one, I rode in the middle chain ring (they were triple’s) 99.996% of the time. That’s where I was comfortable, I could ride relatively fast and efficiently, and life was good. When we got the tandem, that continued to be the case.
Then, two summers ago, I won that bike from Fatty. I decided to go with a compact double instead of a triple. After all, I am a decently strong rider and climber, I never used granny gear up front, and rarely used the big ring. Besides…all the “serious” cyclists ride compact doubles.
Well, let me tell you, I almost regretted that decision. It took me a heck of a long time to get comfortable with that compact double crank. The little ring was too small, and the big one was too big. I was so relieved when I finally got it figured out and figured out how to spin comfortably without having to constantly think about it. Life was good again.
The problem is…I get myself into trouble by thinking. Last fall, I decided our average speed was dropping. I don’t know why, but it just felt like it. I decided to try riding in the big ring more, and gave it a try on a ride we did out to Strafford. It was kind of awkward, and seemed to cause my legs to burn a little more than normally, but I figured I could get used to it. Interestingly, as I look at the average speed from that day, it wasn’t actually much faster than we normally ride on the tandem, but I thought I was on to something.
As we’ve been getting the tandem out more the past month or so, I’ve continued my efforts to acclimate to the big ring, but the results have been horrible. I feel like I’m wearing myself out on hills and rides that were a piece of cake in the past. It’s not been fun at all. The straw that broke the camel’s back came Monday evening on the way home from our first tandem commute during Bike to Work Week. We had a little head-wind, but were riding across the flatness of our fair city and I was dying again. About half-way home, I gave up and shifted to the middle ring. It only took me a few minutes to start berating myself for being so stupid and hard-headed. That ride home started feeling nice almost immediately. Needless to say, I’ve been “stuck in the middle” most of the time since then.
I guess the good thing to come out of the experiment is that I’m now a lot more conscious about knowing when it makes sense to jump into that big ring for a few minutes instead of just blindly spinning along in the middle ring.
God bless…
TW
For the last several years, Pam has joined me in riding our tandem to work for Bike To Work Week. This year is no different, and based on our combined experience, getting both of us to work via the tandem is no big deal.
We both enjoy the week, and in the past Pam has continued on a part time basis through the summer, but in reality, both of us commuting by bike can get to be a little much (in fact, she would tell you that my commuting by bike full time can get to be a little much!), especially for her. Last night was a good example:
So, with that said, we’ll enjoy the week and the extra time together, but two full time bike commuters in the family just isn’t practical.
God bless…
TW
On Saturday, Pam and I met Mike for a ride out through Billings and Clever on a beautiful morning. She was feeling quite a bit better than the day before, but we still cut our planned route from the original 49 miles to 43 in anticipation that she might fade at the end. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but our shortened ride was still for the best because Mike had a work call to deal with and we ended up with an unplanned opportunity in the afternoon that we wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
We were feeling a slight breeze in our faces as we left Battlefield and passed by Wilson’s Creek. That breeze ended up getting pretty strong by the end of the day, which really plays havoc with us on that big bike. Luckily, it was a tailwind later in the ride, so it didn’t hurt us as bad as it could.
We started the day out by losing Mike within the first four miles. He was in front of us and missed a turn. We yelled and waved, but couldn’t get his attention. He was heading uphill, so there was no way we could have run him down, so we made the turn and stopped at the top of a hill where we would have a good view to see him when he figured out he was alone. That didn’t seem to happen quickly, so we decided to move on after trying and failing to reach him by phone. He knew we were heading to Billings, so we hoped he would find his way there.
Unfortunately we didn’t get very far before we found our path blocked by a low water bridge that had been taken out. I looked for a way over it, but couldn’t find a way to do it with dry feet so we headed back the way we came and followed Mike toward the next intersecting farm road that would take us over to County Line Road. Just as we were about to make the turn, here comes Mike with a sheepish grin on his face. I presume he went just about all the way into Republic before he headed back to look for us.
With those issues resolved, we continued our trek to Billings, but within 10 minutes we had lost him again! Same scenario, except this time Pam pulled out the air horn to try to get his attention. It didn’t work. Again, we kept going…this time without bothering to wait. Pam laughingly said she expected him to beat us to Billings.
By the time we got to Billings, I was glad to take a break. From the time you cross Wilson’s Creek until you stop at Casey’s (because we always stop at Casey’s), it’s generally a steady uphill grind. On Saturday, that grind was into the wind, so I was really glad to have that leg of the ride done! Then, as we pulled into the c-store, Pam was right! Mike had beat us. Since he doesn’t ride with a computer, we wondered how many extra miles he had on us. After that one, he seemed to learn the lesson: If you don’t know the route, don’t ride off the front!
From Billings, we turned to the south, then back to the east for a while to circle our way to Clever. I really like those roads out there, even though they can get kind of hilly. Most of the time they’re pretty nice rollers that the tandem handles reasonably well, and the wind was more favorable going south and east. We passed lots of pretty, rolling pastures, woods, and farm houses that were old when I lived there as a boy. Needless to say, those twelve miles passed all too quickly!
We made another c-store stop for good measure. I shed the last of my warm clothes and Pam finally started shedding hers. While we were there, Pam couldn’t resist the temptation to check Facebook for new baby pictures, but she was disappointed to find nothing new.
The final fifteen miles consisted of the steep and long climb out of the Terrell Creek Valley, followed by the rollers over County Line Road, the monster hill on ZZ, then the second crossing of Wilson’s Creek. We’ve ridden that so many times that it seems kind of anti-climatic, but there aren’t really any other reasonable options to get from Clever to Battlefield by bike. The only other way I know involves a long loop to the east that would add a lot of miles.
As we were slowly climbing the hill on ZZ, Pam spotted a deer just across the ditch. Because that’s the battlefield, they’re pretty used to people, but this one did something I’ve never seen one do before. It just stood there watching us as we went huffing and puffing by, but it also kind of squatted with it’s back legs. I don’t know if we caught it taking a dump or what, but I sure thought that odd. It never did run from us. Pam managed to grab a slightly fuzzy picture of it, and I think you can see it’s still partially squatting.
We finished the ride with almost 44 miles at exactly noon. You can click the map above for the full GPS track.
God bless…
TW
I swear, I can’t say enough good things about what a good sport my wife is. She’s been under the weather most of the week, but we were off on Friday and she wanted to do something for exercise. We figured running was not an option because of her head and chest congestion, so that left walking or riding.
She chose to ride. And, she chose to do our Strafford loop instead of the shorter out and back to the High School.
I’m so proud of her for getting out, especially since the weather was cool, gray and dreary again. I don’t think she ever got warm, but aside from that, we actually had a pretty decent ride. I was afraid she might be hacking and coughing the entire trip, but I didn’t really hear a peep out of her for the entire 29 miles.
From the condition of my legs afterward, though, I could tell she wasn’t nearly at 100%, but I wasn’t complaining.
You can click the map for the entire GPS track on Strava.
God bless….
TW
