2 Leg Turbo

Early Donation Deadline!

2009-04-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hey both readers,

My sponsoring team (Cyprus Credit Union) is asking us to have our first $100 gathered by the end of this week. If you're planning to donate, and it's possible for you to make that donation this week, please do so.

Thanks!

Ryan

2009 Bike Ride.

2009-03-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

I am participating in the MS Bike Ride in Logan again this year. Watch this space for more information. In the mean time, if you'd like to sponsor me in the ride, click here.

More Stats

2008-06-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

These from my cycling computer.

Avg Speed: 12.2 MPH

Dst: 42.36 Miles

Moving Time: 3:27:25

Max MPH: 29

Stats, Part I

2008-06-29T20:03:00.001-07:00

These stats will come in staggered, just because.

Adding up the time, it looks like I lost connectivity for about an hour, so these stats are not accurate, but the heart-rate monitor says:

4:37:50 - Approximate total time of ride, including rest stops. (GPS data will later confirm this)
154 - Average Heart Rate
196 - Max (This might be wrong. Sometimes the thing goes haywire and thinks I have Supraventricular tachycardia)
114 - Grams of fat burned
2109 - Callories Burned
79% - Of Max. I don't know what that means :-/

28:16 "In Zone" (I think I have it calibrated wrong)
3:19 Below
3:07:33 Above (This is why it must be wrong. If my heart-rate was above target zone for 3 hours I'd be dead).

MS150, or 40 for me.

2008-06-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what, I do a crummy job of keeping up my biking blog. What are you going to do about it?

Today was the big ride. We arrived early, but not early enough for the group photo. Oh well. We checked in and quickly ran into Gary and Ken. We got our bibs on and bikes tagged...there was not really much left at the food tent, so we essentially bypassed breakfast.

We didn't hang around the fairgrounds too long before getting started. The weather was really nice for the ride today. Gary rode with Natalie and me for about the first 8 miles and then took off to get some more speed. I don't blame him, we were going at a pretty leisurely rate and he had a lot further to ride than us. The inside tip is to bypass the first rest stop, so we did just that.

I made the unfortunate mistake of deciding to use the restroom at the second stop. Signs directed everybody to the back of a shed, but there were only 2 bathrooms there and a hefty line. After standing in line for 3 or 4 minutes I realized there were porta-potties acrossed a field, but I had been standing in line too long for the flushies to turn back. Honestly I could have made it to the next rest stop just fine, but you never know. In retrospect we probably could have saved 15 minutes or so if I'd skipped the bathroom, that's really how long we stood there.

The ride was nice, as I said the weather was really good today. It was actually almost chilly this morning, and then it warmed up, but not so bad you wanted to die. Leading up to the ride Natalie kept telling me that it was pretty easy except this hill you had to climb right after lunch. Well this year they nixed the lunch stop (They didn't nix lunch, you just get it after the ride now) and flipped the whole thing around, so we climbed the hill backwards, and everybody who has done this ride previously agreed that the route was much easier in reverse.

After lunch the ride was pretty flat, but the last 10 miles seemed to take forever. This is my first attempt to write about a bike ride and I haven't written much. Oh well.

The end of the ride was pretty flat, and I imagine that is part of why the ride felt easier -- we took care of all the hills at the beginning instead of the end.

Today 40, 75, and 100-mile routes were offered. You feel pretty good doing the 40 mile route until you start to talk to people that did the 75 and the 100. Well what can I say, best just not to compare right?

Towards the end of the ride are some train tracks, but they come acrossed the road at a diagnol, and so you have to angle your bike funky to get acrossed them without dying. At the beginning of the race there are a million people all biking together, but the farther you go the more spread out you get. Well as we came up to the railroad tracks a couple went over them, and the guy totally crashed and burned. I wasn't too far behind him, but fortunately I was able to navigate the tracks safely, and do so without running over him.

As for the trip itself, did I mention our hotel room has no AC? Yeah, that was a fun thing to arrive to -- if root canals and 90º Hotel rooms are your ideas of fun. Unfortunately we were at the mercy of the Hotel staff since all the hotels in town are booked, and they didn't have many options either. I guess the AC guy came out today, but as of Saturday night we still have no AC. Needless to say I've literally filled the ice bucket more times than I can count on one hand! I can't really recommend the Comfort Inn Logan, unless sweltering heat is your idea of comfort, and the Best Western Westin Inn, which is closer the fair grounds, looks much nicer, and has about the same room rates, is looking a lot more attractive for next year.

I can't totally complain though, Gary and Ken checked into their Hotel on Friday only to find that their reservation was for one night only. Saturday night they did not have a hotel room. They were going to ride the 75 mile today and the 40 tomorrow, but after they didn't have a room they opted to do the 100 mile today and, after making a quick stop at our hotel to use our shower, head on home.

Anyway it's actually been a great weekend, other than the sweltering hotel room. I plan to do it again next year, and I hope the weather is this nice again!

going clipless

2008-05-10T22:23:00.001-07:00

Clipless!
Originally uploaded by saaby

So I don't know what exactly inspired it, it was probably a combination of things, but I decided to go clipless. That requires some special shoes, and so after weeks of coaxing, Natalie finally got me down to the cycle shop so I could get equipped.

These are the shoes I picked out. I didn't really try all the shoes in the store, but I guess I tried 3 pair. These are Diadora X-Trail shoes. Now Diadora is an Italian shoe company, but these are really marketed by Cannondale.

I did have some trouble getting them to work. A couple little problems. Normally with a clipless pedal, you remove the in-sole of the shoe, and there are 2 slots for you to fit a cleat bolt to. The cleat bolt is essentially a plate with 4 holes in it, for you to attach the cleat with. Well my new shoes have this super-stiff fiberglass sole (It would have been a carbon sole if I would've sprung for the next model up) and you can't take it out.

Anyway, once I figured out that the bolt was pre-installed, things got a little easier. I got one cleat on, but they come with a little plate that I had neglected to put on, so that had to go on. So I put both on and realized that the plate had a hole to counter-sink the screws...but I had one of them on up-side down, so I corrected that and I was ready to go!

I practiced just in the driveway. Right foot first, then left, then right, then left, then both together. My mom was driving through the neighborhood and stopped, and while she was stopped talking to me I had my first "SPD" or "Clipless Pedal" spill. That is, a spill caused by you not knowing how to detach your shoes from your bike!

Fortunately I was next to the grass, so it was a gentle spill. The hardest part, incidentally, was figuring out how to detatch my feet from the pedals now that I was on the ground!

Oh well. It doesn't really feel that different to me, to pedal with the clipless pedals, but I can tell it's more efficient. It's hard to describe. I guess I heard that it's more efficient because you can pull and push the pedals, so I expected that I needed a really stiff upper that felt snugly about my foot.

Well these felt snugly, but I don't really feel like I'm pulling up. I know they're working right though, because I was able to bike up a gentle incline using only the clipless pedal. Then I tried without the clip and it was disastrous.

All tuned up!

2008-04-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

My wonderful sister took my bike to the shoppe for me, and so as of yesterday it's all tuned up and ready to go. I don't know what all they did, but I am assuming that at the very least they fixed the broken spoke, adjusted the brakes, and fixed the handlebars. Also, I had them put on some clipless pedals. I really wanted to get some pedal clips, or un-clips, as the case may be, and decided that clipless was the way to go...even if it's probably a bit over the top for the level of riding I do.

So I need to go see my bike, it's at my parent's house, and I need to see about getting some biking shoes to work with those new pedals.

Biking for MS

2008-03-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

I work for Cyprus Credit Union, and they sponsor a team for the Utah MS bike ride. My sister gently persuaded me into riding this year, so I'm working on getting ready. Step one is fund-raising. I personally need to raise my own funds to:

Get some minor repairs done on my bike (I have a broken spoke, the handle bars have a problem, and it just needs to be tuned up a bit)
Get some equipment (Like a Camelbak, some bike shorts, and maybe some clip-pedals)
There was a third item I swear.

and I need to also raise some money for the MS Society. Which I'm going to do by asking others to sponsor me. I'll take care of me, you take care of those with MS.

The online-MS site had a spot where you could link a blog. Well I didn't want to link my personal blog, so I made this new one instead. My personal blog is named in reference to Saabs -- V4turbo. So I decited to make this blog have a human-based spin on that name. 2-leg turbo. I'll post my status in getting ready for the ride here.

Today I picked my jersey size!