Resolutions

1. #1 for the 3rd year in a row and it seems like such a simple resolution - to not break any bones biking. 2010 brought me a broken collarbone and made me a full bird colonel. Last year, I was blessed with a shattered nose, a deviated septum and a pretty nice scar. Here's for believing a resolution might actually happen in 2012.
   
   
2. Athletic maturity. I know what you're thinking, WTF is that Jonny Rando talking about! Athletic maturity is basically gaining higher level skills and mental strength in the athlete's given sport. For rando riders, its knowledge gained through training, brevets, permanents  and riding with others. If you decide to do a 25 mile race, given you have any decent conditioning, chances are that you will finish and probably with a respective time. Let's say your goal is to ride a full brevet series - so that's a minimum distance of 124 miles up to 372 miles as one event (with varying distances in between). There are so many things that can go wrong. The rider's on the bike nutrition can be off, upset stomach, bike problems, the elements (this happens often), riding solo for very long periods of time, etc, etc, etc. I learned so much last year from other riders like Chris, Ted, Fred and Tim. Training tips, learning about different types of equipment, words of motivation and jokes to keep the group's morale up. It's nice to know there are other people like you (as Jabba the Hutt would say "You are my type of scum!") and it pays dividends when it's 45 degrees and raining. You are miserable and want nothing more to quit and find a warm place of refugee to rest, but instead look to your left or right and see your riding partners suffering equally; but more importantly, not a singe person is complaining and just sports a smile.
   
   
3. I am going to try and transition from a standard diamond frame road bike to a 3 wheel recumbent. I know what you're thinking, how is that hard? Basically, it's a relearning process. With a standard road bike, if you get tired on climbs or get leg cramps, you stand up and power through it utilizing different muscles. On a recumbent, all you can do is push through it. On a road bike, I was used to pedaling at a cadence 90-100 all day. On a tadpole, pedaling that high causes torque steer making the bike swerve all over the road. Riding a standard road bike includes it's share of pains, namely the sit bones and arms, and neck after a long day. The tadpole tends to cause more pain in the neck,  quads and my tail bone (because it was fractured many moons ago).  My goal is to aim doing a full rando series on the recumbent.
   
4. Spend more time with the family. I'm going to attempt to get by with 4-5 days of training vs. 6-7 every week. As an ultra distance athlete, it requires lots (understatement of the year) of training. Last year, I did many a ride starting at 8 and riding till after 11 PM so that the girls were already in bed to minimize lost family time. With the girls getting older now, they are wanting to stay up later and later. This would mean riding past midnight on weeknights, starting before day break to be done in time for work, or attempt to scale back training quantity. As an OCD type person, this change is quite hard for me, but I'm going to give it a try.
   
   
5. Help my support crew accomplish one of their personal goals. I have a very loyal and supportive group of people who year after year, race after race make sure that I achieve my goals. These are the unsung heroes of any long distance athlete. They are the ones standing in the rain and handing off water bottles and food so you don't have to stop. The ones who scream "don't you dare stop" over and over when your mental strength wanes in the rain and cold after many hours on the bike, often solo. The ones who are there to pick you up and you rebuild you when it seems everything has failed. They also have a great sense of humor and get those photos of the athlete at their best: puking, falling on the ground after the race grabbing their legs trying to stop cramping, etc. The people who say "SURE!" when you call and say, "hey I hate to bother you, but my bike is broke beyond repair and I'm 1.5 hours out". That's true love right there.
   
   This year is their year. We have goals set for each member. All of them are aiming for above century distance and attempting to place in their age group. I'll be pulling lead to break the wind to ensure they have as much energy as possible for the end and carrying the extra clothing and repair gear incase something goes wrong (aka rolling SAG). Each person has been verifying their weekly training and mileage.  Each of them have come so close in year's pass, so we're making it happen in 2012. One member of our group is a 15 year old looking to place first!
   
6. Increase my number of blog posts and perhaps include some photos. 'Nuff said.  The photo part will require a new and hopefully waterproof camera. The Cannon Elph camera failed me. Just after one month, the automatic lens cover fails to open.

Lions, Tigers and Monkeys

Something really awful happened shortly after Saturday’s brevet.

A man who owned a wildlife preservation in Zanesville with a variety of exotic animals including tigers, lions, monkeys, cheetahs and a bear let the animals loose on Tuesday. Sadly the owner killed himself afterwards. Even more depressing is that the police officers were forced to kill a large majority of the exotic animals to prevent any accidental attacks or deaths of the local residents. Many of the 911 calls of where the animals were located happened to be on the roads we were riding on.

Kind of freaky, really. Considering we got our ass kicked being chased by a wild dog, I can’t imagine being chased by a wild tiger.

Attack of the Woolly Bears!

Thornville-Caldwell-Thornville 200k Brevet

Saturday, Oct. 15th was the last brevet of the year in Ohio, with a start temp of a comfy 46 degrees. I woke up at 4 AM feeling a little ill with a sinus and chest cold. I strongly debated staying home, but I managed to force myself out the door at 4:20. On the way to the highway, I saw the “old man”. The old man is in his mid 60s and rides regardless of weather or time. So when I saw the old man, I felt more motivated and told myself to stop being a cry ass.

The route was an out and back from Thornville to Caldwell with a forecasted high of 65, sunny and a severe wind advisory. The advisory called for sustained winds of 15-20 MPH and gusts up to 40 MPH from the South\South West. Given the forecast, the amount of riders that showed up was on the slim side. Bob, the RBA, was unable to ride because he was stricken with bronchitis, but wished us well on what he promised would probably be a miserable day. Bob sent us off at 7:32 AM.

Let’s just say, things got started off on the wrong pedal . You know how some rides go - a group of riders are just riding assuming everyone is still on course – when in reality everyone was cold and not checking their queue sheets. Within the first two miles, we realize, “hey, we should have turned right 1.8 miles ago”. Whoops.

For the most part, the ride out to Caldwell was ok. The wind was either to the side of us or to the back. The first couple hours were a little boring, just pedaling to stay warm. I ended up talking to a guy named Joe. Joe was telling me this was his first brevet of the year since he had been taken out in March by a squirrel. Apparently this rabid squirrel had attempted to jump through Joe’s front wheel, which caused the front fork to snap, 14 spokes broke and Joe did a face plant while traveling 21 MPH. Joe then had an extensive recovery period of three months that included having numerous facial and ear canal surgeries. Based on how he was performing on our ride, it was hard to tell he had missed any training time. He looked ready to take on the route.

Later in the morning, Joe, Tim and I were slightly separated when this wild dog charged out of a corn field at me. I sprinted hard for 20 seconds and looked back expecting to see the dog a ways back; instead, he was still on my ankle and even more pissed. “Oh shit!”, I said to myself. I sprint this time for a minute standing. Again I look back and again the dog is right there on my ankle. I also noticed that there were 2 cars driving behind the dog because it was running dead center in the lane. Great, so this time I’m doing a standing hard sprint for another minute up hill, when the dog finally broke its chase on me and started chasing Tim. Tim managed to break through unscathed and we finally ditched the wild beast on a long downhill.

It was probably about 10:45 that I realized there were a lot of Woolly Bears on the road, entirely too many to count. There was a Woolly Bear at least every 10 yards on the road. I was constantly attempting to steer slightly out of the way to spare my Woolly friends from a quick death by Vittoria tire. We passed through Zanesville and a couple other small towns.

We arrived in Caldwell at 11:15. Unlike past 200ks, we actually stopped for a quick lunch at Subway. After about 20 minutes off the bike, we started on our journey back. After about 6 miles, it became very apparent that it was about to become a very long day. The force of the wind was insane. I was riding near threshold and barely averaging 10-12 MPH. Joe and Tim pulled away. Every randonneur must ride their own ride, and I didn’t want to blow up on the way back.

Long story short, it was a very long ride back for me. I stayed mostly in an aerobic heart rate zone and was feeling a little under the weather. To kill the boredom of a long ride, I reverted to attempting to count Wooly bears, on which I later gave up. I finished the day with a 200k in 9:32, which for me seemed excessively slow regardless of temp and weather.

Sunday and Monday I got progressively more congested in my sinuses and chest. Tuesday I decide to go to the doctor and found out that I have bronchitis now. Sigh.

Jonny's New Toy!

Here's my toy, a Catrike 700. Just so you know, Catrike is pronounced cat-trike. I know what you're thinking, Jonny it only has one "t" (not ca-trike or cat-rike). If you say it incorrectly, a Catrike owner will surely let you know it and clue you in on how to say it correctly, just saving you the hassle.

The 700 is a tadpole recumbent. A tadpole has two wheels in the front (whereas a trike has one wheel in the front and two in the rear). My daughter was very excited to go for a ride on the new bike, so we hooked up the trailer and went out to see some "horsies" and cows. As you can tell from the picture I am equal to if not lower than the height of the trailer. I got the baseline model that has three gears on the front and 10 in the rear. I swapped the cassette out for a 11-36 for more climbing gears. The tadpole by itself weighs about 30 lbs.



Some first impressions of the 700:

• There is really no torque or brake drift.
• For me, there is very little or no speed loss on flats and downhills are much faster compared to my road bike. Depending on the hill, climbing speed is a little slower. When going over a really steep pitched hill or a roller on a road bike, a rider can stand up and power through it. On a recumbent, you are stuck sitting, so you lose that technique (although you can pedal harder by using your back on the seat to push off of).
• Despite being such a small bike, there are ample places to store gear. 
• Currently the Catrike wheels are not able to run a hub generator for lights (like the Son Deluxe).
• Compared to a standard road bike, it takes very little pressure on the brake lever to stop the bike (mainly because the brakes are disc).
• Despite the bike being wider, I have had zero problems with any drivers. Dare I say they seem to be more considerate? Doing some of the same busy roads on a road bike, I get honked and cursed out consistently.
• All Catrikes come with a generic four foot flag to increase the bike's visibility to cars. I run three strobes on the rear, so I ditched the flag thus far.
• If you don't pedal with a high cadence, the quads will get wasted quick.
• The best part, no saddle soreness, numb hands or sore neck\arms as of yet. Woot!

I'll post some more pictures at a later date with closeups and gear mounted.

All Randos Love Guns!

Full disclosure, no fellow Randonneurs, rogue sheriffs or animals were harmed during this photo shoot!


It's a well known fact that all Randonneurs love guns. Those that don't, aren't true Randos. :)

So I tell wifey, "Hey, I need some photos of me biking with my AK." Wifey is just so used to the craziness, that nothing really phases her these days. So wifey asks, "Do you know of a place to do this?" I reply, "Yeah, I know this road where there are never cars out in farm country." Go figure, we go to do the photos and there were like six cars that went by and a couple rode by on their bikes within a 10 minute time span. Let's just say, that when they saw me, they got "the f*&k outta dodge" mighty quick! That 25 MPH speed limit turned into 55. Side note: after doing photos of me with the bike in the woods, I got poison ivy on my ankles, totally worth it though.