Crash and Roadburn

Today was the Ride and Stride to support our local American Red Cross. My wife and son decided to do the three mile stride while I did the 35 mile route of the ride. We've done this the past two years as well. The last two years my parents have joined us for the fun but this year they had a wedding to attend so they were unable to come down for the ride.

Temperatures have been rather HOT here in central Illinois this week and the forecast high for today was 95. Hydration was definitely the word of the day.

The first surprise of the day came when I picked up my map and realized we weren't going north to Towanda as we had the last two years but were instead heading SW towards some of the same area I rode in last weekend's 61 mile ride.

Since this is Illinois I was not surprised to find the wind blowing as we began the ride. Of course it was at our back the beginning of the ride which had me thinking about the ride back into the wind. GREAT! But it was nice while it lasted as the wind pushed me along and I was able to cruise at 20-22 mph while the route continued East.

It was short lived as we soon turned South which meant riding with a fairly decent cross-wind. The route actually had some fun little hills which was a welcome change from the relatively pancake flat route of the past two years. I even managed to break 30 mph which may have been a first since moving to IL.

The first rest stop was at the 17 mile mark. Gatorade, bananas, and PB and J. Not the best of rest stop fare but it hit the spot. I didn't stay long and was soon back on the road now headed back to the west. About 5 miles into the next leg things got interesting. I was cruising at about 15 mph. Our next turn was a left turn off of the country road we were on onto another smaller country road.

I didn't scrub a whole lot of speed and instead leaned into the turn pretty good. Unfortunately there was a large amount of gravel built up right where these two roads come together. The result was one of the better cases of road rash I've had in awhile as illustrated by the following pictures.








Luckily it all happened too fast for it to really hurt. One minute I was up enjoying the ride, the next I was laying on the ground hoping nothing was broken. Lucky for me damage to both myself and the bike was minimal. I got away with some road rash and a pretty good bruise/ swelling on my left side and the bike was fine with the exception of some of the bar tape getting torn up pretty good.

At the next rest area I was able to get cleaned up and apply some first aid ointment and was good to go.

After that the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. My average fell off some thanks to the wind I got to ride into for most of the rest of the way but still managed to maintain a 15.4 mph moving average for the ride.

At the finish line I met back up with Heather and Joshua. Joshua was playing in the splash pad area they have at Tipton Park where the ride starts and ends. Heather informed me that Joshua had tricycled the entire three miles of the walk save for a short section that he walked. Looks like my dreams of him being a professional cyclist will live to see another day!

The post ride lunch, as always, was excellent. Pork chop sandwiches along with a ton of sides to choose from.

Now time to get ready for the metric century at Pedaling for Kicks July 7th. Can't wait!

Ride On!

Does Wind Suck or Blow

This is the question that I contemplated on my 61+ mile ride this past Sunday. I mean on the one hand you have the lower pressure that would seem to "suck" in the air around it. On the other hand you could say that the high pressure "blows" itself into the lower pressure. I finally decided that wind both sucks and blows especially when you're riding into it on a bike.

As soon as the ride began I realized that once again the forecasters were off with their predictions of 5-10 mph winds. More like 15+ and early on I was riding right into it. No big deal as my legs were fresh and I pushed pretty hard. I initially headed out to Moraine View Park to the southeast of my home in Normal,IL. I was maintaining around 15-17 mph which is pretty good for me.

The route was a good one taking me through the farmlands of Illinois and past row after row of GIANT windmills that are part of a new green energy producing project. It is amazing how big these things really are once you get up close to them.

I reached the farthest southeast point of my trip at about 27 miles. There were actually some real hills in this part of the county which is pretty exciting when you live in Illinois. It was fun to get the legs working.

Once I turned back north I realized just how hard the wind was blowing as I now had it at my back and was cruising at between 20-21 mph. By the time I finished the next 12 mile segment my average for the ride was up to 16.4 according to my Garmin GPS.

Alas, that would not last long as I now had to turn back into the wind to head for home. This was definitely the hardest it had blown all day and I was headed right into the teeth of it. On top of that I had quite a bit farther still to go than I thought. I stopped around mile 51 to take a look at the directions I had hastily jotted down on a sheet of paper. I didn't realize quite how tired I was until I tried to get going again and somehow ended up slowly falling over when I lost my balance and couldn't get clipped in in time. That was definitely an omen of things to come for the rest of the ride.

At mile 52 a dog came charging at me. The owner yelled "Don't worry he doesn't bite..." but judging by the barking I wasn't convinced so booked it out of there as fast as I could. Then at mile 55 while praying the ride would be over soon, I apparently ticked off a bird watching its nest and it came after me cawing like crazy and swooping down at me. Great, now I had to pick up the pace again to outrun the crazy bird from hell.

Lucky I was almost into town by then and managed to crawl into the house and collapse on the couch until the tunnel vision cleared. Man I love bicycling!

The next day we took the TrailBlazer into the shop and found it had blown a bearing in the transmission (this after the tranny being rebuilt 30,000 miles ago) and it's been in the shop since. That made the decision to commute to work by bike this week an easy one. I was really hoping to have it back by today so I could rest the next couple of days before the Ride and Stride on Saturday but it looks like I'll be riding in at least tomorrow yet.

Ride On!

Ride for the Arts

Last Sunday I joined my dad and my brother, Jeremy, to complete the 50 mile route of the Miller Ride for the Arts in Milwaukee. It turned out to be a great ride. The weather was perfect for riding, not too windy, w/ temps in the mid 70's.

Literally thousands of riders participate in this ride making it very exciting to join riders of all shapes and sizes on all types including mountain bikes, hybrids, road bikes, recumbents, and tandems. The best part was that this ensured we would not be the slowest on the route. My dad and I were on our road bikes while Jeremy was on my dad's old hybrid.

The start was rather anti-climatic. We were about half way back in the pack and once they announced "go" and started playing the Rocky theme song we stood there doing absolutely nothing waiting for the hundreds of riders ahead of us to get moving so we could finlly go. Some early comedy ensued when we saw not one but two female riders stall out in traffic and, unable to clip out in time, fell in slow motion.

Finally, we were off. Our initial goal was to average 10-12 mph but this was soon thrown out the window as the early stages had us cruising right along at around 16 mph. The route was great with a good portion of the early miles right down along Lake Michigan. The rest stops were also excellent w/ banananas, sliced apples, Gatorade, and some excellent fruit bars and granola/chocolate/nut bars.

Our pace did slow down some on the second half. For the most part the ride was an out and back with a few small deviations. It was Jeremy's first ride of the season - nothing like starting out w/ a 50 miler to get the blood going. He was definitely hurting towards the end but I'm very impressed he actually made it the whole ride.

As we rode along the lake towards the finish there was a nice mist rising off the beach and the water. Made for a pretty cool view.

Overall this was an excellent ride and I felt really good the whole ride. It definitely increased my confidence that I'll be ready for the Maywood Earth Century in September. We've already signed up for our next ride right here in Normal,IL July 7th. We signed up for the metric century for this one and chances are it will be both hotter and windier so it will be another good test.

See ya next blog!