Tourist route

Well now the 'real' riding season can begin.
I cut my grass for the first time today and shaved my legs for the first time this season...let the training begin!

The sun finally came out today after yet another horrible week of cloudy, wet and cold weather.

Sun
60 degree
Wind 5-10
Tourist Route
26 miles

My riding bud 'der Jan' got out of work early enough to drop over this afternoon for a short ride.
He took me on what I would call the tourist route. This would make a great little ride to take out-of-towners on to show off some Milwaukee landmarks to them. Plus, it is a very pretty ride at times as well, with lots of green and water to look at.

Heading east on the Hank Aaron trail you pass behind State Fair Park...ride near the beautiful old buildings of Zablocki Medical Center...get a super view of Miller Park...ride along past the casino in the valley and end up at the river at the Harley-Davidson museum.

It was there that der Jan snapped a tourist photo of me as well. 

I was freezing down there. The wind was coming off the lake and all I had on was bibs and a jersey with arm warmers. I think der Jan finds my constant whining about being cold amusing. 

We did a couple of short stretches at what was for me anyway hard tempo in the Menomonee Parkway on the way home. It felt good to take it to my threshold a couple of times. I need to practice doing that more now.

It was a good little ride. Too bad the forecast looks very questionable again for about another week. This sure has not been a great season to get going with riding.

Season Miles: 434

Elm Grove intervals

First things first. This short training effort I did today is dedicated to little Manny Wilke. Go to his web page to get the story. Many of my PhilCast show listeners donated to the cause and today is a big operation day for little Manny. I wore his T-shirt after the ride...

Now, about today's unique ride. I'd like to take you through a little coaching here if I can. I'm not saying this is for everyone, but it works for me.

This was not a TRUE interval workout, but I still call it intervals. REAL intervals consist of numerous reps of short, all-out bursts with very little recovery time between them.

This is sort of like that, only not as serious lets say. Give them a try to give your training a little more focus at times. I also think that this really helps you on those occasions you find yourself falling off the back of a group ride.

The idea is to repeat making a hard, short effort to get a spike in your heart rate and put your body at the limit. If you do not practice this once in a while then when you call on your body to do it on a ride it won't know what the heck is going on and more than likely you will simply blow up and watch the group fade away ahead of you.

55

Hazy Sun

Wind, 6-10

Elm Grove Crit, five laps

Practice this as if you needed to make a big effort to catch up or grab the wheel of the rider in front of you. Then recover and repeat. Here is a lap for me...

-Slight false-flat up on the way out. Middle chain ring and into the wind. Just ride steady.

-Turning around takes a few blocks on one end. When I get back onto the main route shift into the big ring and maintain a hard tempo going back.

-Once I get through a marked intersection I grab a big gear, flop to the drops and hammer. This is where you pretend you need to go all out for a burst to grab that wheel ahead of you. HR peaking. Breathing labored.

-Pick your spot to pull up and catch your breath. I used a certain road sign.

-Turned around each lap in the Elm Grove Village Hall parking lot and did it all again.

This way your body is getting used to the idea that at times you may just be asking it to hit the limit during a future ride. Now it knows what to expect!

Looks like this will be it for me until Friday when nice weather is predicted at last. Meantime, rain and jury duty is on the docket for me.

Season Miles: 409

Bike racin' is back!

It is a tradition of mine to put in a big ride on Easter eve. Then I come home and enjoy a nice meal and some Easter candy with my wife, eating almost guilt free because of the effort.

41 miles today under mostly cloudy and very windy conditions. But the real news here is that the WCA was racing on one of my very own training courses, the Whitnall Park crit course.


Mostly cloudy
55
Windy, gusts 20 mph
41 miles



It's always fun to watch racing on a home course. Here are a few photos I snapped after stopping to hang there for a while on the way out on my ride today.

 There is always an exciting vibe at a local bike race, especially this early in the season. It was a nice touch to my annual Easter eve ride this year. But try as I might, I never did see a single one of these racers with THIS on their bike...

That's right, I was rockin' my Easter Bunny on the Madone today. I pull that little guy out once a year to strap on for this single ride. And although I had him on those bars just right I must admit that by just a few blocks into the ride it appeared that I had sentenced the Easter Bunny to die by hanging upside down!

Oh well, the intentions were good.

By the time I got down to the Milwaukee County Sports Complex I decided that the stiff wind was a little too much to keep going out. I turned around and headed back to Whitnall Park to catch more racing. At times the wind would try to toss the entire front end of the bike. And most times it sounded as if there was a tornado in my head.

At the race the second time around on the way home I bumped into an old riding friend that I had not seen in years. Erwin was one of the guys who traveled to Spain with us to train for a week back in 2003. He was out to catch some racing and wanted to get home to get on his bike too!

Then I saw a results sheet posted that showed Matthew Busche's dad Craig, whom I have ridden with before, placed 35th in a field of 52 in the Masters 4/5 Cat. Nice. I wish I would have known he was racing today.

By the end of the 41 miles today I was tired. But I was SICK and tired of that tornado sound in my ears.

Happy Easter! 
Season miles: 393

Cruel spring

I have often wondered what it would be like to live in a place without seasons. You see deep down inside I am a beach bum wannabe. Give me sun, heat and humidity most days of the year and I'd be happy. And I would be happy in part because I would be able to get out and clear my head on a bike almost any day I would want.

I think about these things during terrible stretches of weather each spring, stretches like the one we are in right now around SE Wisconsin. Just when you think we've turned the corner and the riding routine is kicking back in Mother Nature decides that most of April is going to be just another wasted month. But I guess the great hope here lies in the fact that this craptacular weather can't last forever. Maybe when it comes to the spring weather situation here it's like the old saying...

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

So I guess I won't quit on Wisconsin springtime...yet. I think about it quite a bit though, especially when it's 40-something and raining outside!




 

In a hurry

Yes, it seems I am always in a hurry to do nothing. With one last nice day forecast for today before three days of cold and rain hit, I was eager to get out on the road again.


But sometimes you put others first, even before your own riding. And sometimes those 'others' can be our four-legged friends. As a dog lover, I know the value of quality time spent at a dog park. So when my friend Andy called and volunteered to drive us out to a park I had never visited before I took him up on it.


So Gabby and I piled into Andy's Honda with his pug named Nellie and off we went. Throughout the visit I was trying to make sure to keep track of time so that I would have enough of the afternoon to ride.


Gabby had a ball, from running through the rough high grass to sticking her head into old animal holes in the ground that she had hunted out. She was getting a chance to be a cairn terrier.




As antsy as I was to get out on my Trek and soak up some of this warm sun I could see my dog's well-being was more important at this time.

Slowly I just relaxed and smiled as she roamed the dog park. I knew my time on a bike would come after her fun.

When we left the park Andy took us to a nearby custard stand, the kind where the girls still come up to the car to take and bring your order.

This wasn't the cycling plan for today. But you know what? As the small (and I stress that I was a good boy and only had a small) chocolate cone went down I thought to myself that this was a pretty good plan too.

They even brought out a little dish with some custard and a doggie biscuit in it for Gabby and Nellie. Today was a good day to be those dogs.

Within ten minutes of getting home from the dog park adventure I was already rolling out, in such a hurry that I noticed a half block out that I had forgotten to put on my helmet. Duh!

Once I rode back home to get my helmet on it was off to at least enjoy the warm air for an easy recovery ride after yesterday's hard 45 miles.

Sun
65
Light Wind
18 miles, 6 laps on the Elm Grove crit course


My legs were a bit dead from yesterday, but just to hear the birds sing and almost see the grass greening before my very eyes I was glad to be out there at last. Just 18 miles today, but I bet Gabby thanks me for not spending all day out there trying to do more.

Season Miles: 352

Back in the 50's...

...and in more ways than one with this 50's theme today...

First of all the temperature dropped into the low 50's as compared to Sunday's freakishly-warm high of 82 degrees. So I pulled on layers once again, a full Team FDJ tights and jacket look today. With all due respect to my friend Matthew Busche of Team Radio Shack, until he starts getting me free RS gear to wear I am sticking with my favorite kit, FDJ. And knowing the world of pro cycling as I do, if I am waiting to get some free team gear I might as well be waiting for hell to freeze over because that would probably happen first!

Sunny
52 degrees
Light wind
Three hours/45 miles


I just wanted to put in some base training miles today. No hard tempo. No intervals. No climbing. Just time spent in the saddle. I ended up doing a lap of the Botanical Crit as I headed south, so a shout out to Ellen and my other friends there at Botanical Gardens. A quick check shows no sign of the crab apple trees popping yet, but the burst of color must be only weeks away now. I'll keep you updated here.

The other 50's thing about this long ride today was the fact that I had music in my ears, something I hardly ever do. My wife has a SWEET collection of 50's songs on her iPod which I had wired up for today. I took a lot of path sections to stay extra safe, just hugging the right side and holding my line as I hummed along to some great songs.


I was about to turn around when "Green Onions" came on. Man, no way could I stop to that awesome song so I kept going all the way down to 7-Mile Rd. before I turned around.


I must say I felt good for most of this ride, tiring only for the last 4-5 miles. This is the longest ride of the new season for me too. Last year spring was much more riding-friendly as I had 600 miles in already as of this date.


This year...not so much. But the weather has been a challenge for sure.


One other thing of note today...
For those of you who remember my posts from several years back you will remember the road stories about a character known as "The Knave". Well, for the first time this season I saw him out there today. Ah memories. Those stories....only one word can describe the battles: EPIC.


Season Miles: 334

Just like summer

And suddenly it was summer.


One week ago there was so much hail that it looked like snow on the ground here in the Milwaukee area. Today, 80 degrees and sunny. Such is life in SE Wisconsin in April.

Sunny
80 degrees
Windy, 15-20
41 miles, Wales



Today brought back a lot of summer riding memories, from using sun tan lotion for the first time this season and drinking warm water from the bottles to typing this post in the screen porch after finding a pair of shorts to put on post-ride shower. (I had to go into the basement to dig up some summer clothes)


I'm nothing if not all about the ceremonial so to mark the first ride of the new season with bare arms and legs I wore my new Italia jersey for the first time today, a Christmas gift from riding bud "der Jan".

Like worms coming out of the ground after a warm summer's night rain, people packed the paths, their bright-white legs all at once being exposed to sun for the first time this year perhaps.


I rode west to hook up with der Jan who had his fancy new bike out today. Together we went into the wind all the way out to Wales where we took a short break. 


Funny thing is it seemed like the wind was still pretty much in our face coming back as well. How exactly does that work?


On the way back it felt good to ride a little hard tempo on the Glacial-Drumlin trail. Between that stretch and another later in the ride on the New Berlin trail where I pushed it a bit I was able to find the edge of pain and being more tired than I should be. It's early in the season so there is only so much juice in the tank to use.


Speaking of using juice, for a while there on the way in we were riding behind a guy with a motor on his bike. Goofy thing...and certainly stinky to be behind.


It was fantastic to to feel warm again. I can not begin to tell you how much better I always feel on a bike the warmer it is. I was pleased with the effort today for sure.


Now if only the warm air was here to stay.

Season Miles: 289

Cold Disappointment

The title of this post says it all.

I knew when I headed out that I didn't feel much like any sort of adventure ride today...

49 degrees
Cloudy
Light wind off the lake
11 miles on the Elm Grove Crit

...so I decided to stay near home and just do some laps. The problem was that I got a chill and just never warmed up to this ride...literally.

Working that third lap into a slight wind it seemed to cut into me through my ears and down to my toes. I knew it would be my final lap.

Some times it just doesn't work out.

Last year we had a fantastically-warm spring around here and I had many more miles in my legs by this point in the season.

Oh well, like the title says....cold disappointment.
Season Miles: 248