I can't get no satisfaction I can't get no satisfaction 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try I can't get no, I can't get no satisfaction The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction"   Although it's not over yet, it's been a tough year. How tough? Well, here's an early "year in review": Started the year off with several DNF's on 200K permanents as I tried to ramp up the miles in preparation for the Kansas City flèche team event. Never did finish one prior to the event. 17 April - Quad Cities 200K 25 April - Successfully completed the flèche anyway 1 May - QC 300K DNS (back)  11 Ma ..read more

I think I can safely say I've done at least one of every type of allure libre (as opposed to Audax) brevets there are with distances ranging from 100K populaires to 1500K grande randonnées. Although they each have their charms and challenges, my favorite is the flèche velocio.  Briefly, this is generally a point to point ride (flèche means "arrow" in French so a traditional route would resemble an arrow pointed straight at the target) consisting of a team with 3 riders minimum, 5 maximum where the team rides for 24 hours and a minimum distance of 360 Km (about 223 miles), 25 Km of wh ..read more

Boy, you're gonna carry that weight Carry that weight A long time The Beatles "Carry that weight"   There are few sports that penalize a few extra pounds more than cycling. 5 pounds can make the difference between flying up the hills and having each one be a long slog. I've struggled with weight gain my whole life. Well, strictly speaking this isn't true. I was pretty thin up until after grad school when working 80 hours/week sitting at a desk took its toll. Since then, it's been a constant battle. There are a number of reasons for this: I'm "gifted" genetically with the metabolism of ..read more

A lot has been going on lately so not much time for updates. I did realize a while back that the 6 month post surgery milestone has come and gone and have been asked by several friends "how's it going" so I guess I'm overdue. So how's it going? There are two dimensions to that answer: How is my back specifically? How am I progressing toward "normal" riding and doing brevets? My back has progressed quite a bit since my last report. I would say most of the pain that I have now is caused by muscle soreness from disuse for several months. I do still have occasional (and significant) pain centere ..read more

Today's route took me over two of the climbs in the previous post so I collected a little more data. More importantly perhaps, the environmental conditions were exactly the opposite of what they were on my 1/3  ride so rather than a 28 MPH headwind on the Crabapple climb I had a tailwind of similar velocity. It wasn't a full-on tailwind, the steep part of the climb runs toward the SW and the wind was out of the WNW so the North bit helped, the West bit didn't.  So before I add some follow on thoughts, here's the data with the most recent in red. First the Palo Alto climb: And then ..read more

Let's get this out of the way first: I was wrong. I've been thinking a lot about the differences between riding the recumbent Cruzbike versus the diamond frame. In general, although I like riding the Cruzbike I always have to add the caveat for a recumbent so I've been trying to figure out why that is. In thinking about it I concluded that it was because of the difference in climbing on a DF versus a 'bent. My conclusions can be summarized thusly: The recumbent is slower. The recumbent doesn't suit my natural climbing style. The first falls into the "conventional wisdom" category. I've read ..read more

It's been a while since I've posted an update of my progress and things have been interesting. The good news is that there IS progress. As recently as two weeks ago the summary was: level 1-2 pain 24/7 left leg "not working right" - significant cramping in my calf after 10 miles or so on the bike or a mile walking three small toes on my left foot numb constantly. This would spread to my forefoot and lower leg as the distance went up on rides or walks.  As things currently stand, I actually have periods where none of the above symptoms occur which is significant progress. That's not to s ..read more

It's that time of year where I look back on how I did versus my stated plans. Here's what I wrote down for my 2020 plans in February: March - Murray 1200K (Australia) April - Hill Country Randonneurs 1000K  April - Okayama 1200K (Japan) May - Brevet series in Wisconsin June - Northern Virginia 1200K June - Sandhills Tour June - Tour of the Driftless 1000K July - Colorado SR600K August - Hokkaido 1200K (Japan) November - Great Southern 1200K (Australia) So how'd I do against the plan? HM the Q, said 1992 was her "Annus Horribilis" which if I recall my high school Latin well enough, means ..read more

A while back I decided that I would chronicle my pre and post surgical experience. I made this decision primarily for my own benefit - I wanted to be able to look back in the far distant future when my memory about what had happened and when had faded. I've found in the past that when a few years have elapsed from an event that I remember the vague outline of what took place but not the details and I wanted to be able to recall the details since this has obviously been a fairly momentous event in my life. So as with any narrative worth writing there are highs and lows. This post documents one ..read more

I've been talking a lot about power numbers lately. It occurs to me that there are those in my vast readership who might not know anything about power as relates to cycling. I'm here to help. No, not that kind of force Simplistically, power is a measure of how much force you're putting into the pedals and is expressed in watts - just like a light bulb. In electrical terms, a watt is a derived unit of 1 joule per second. A joule is the energy transferred to an object when a force of one Newton acts on an object in its direction of motion through a distance of one meter (one Newton mete ..read more