Spring Riding

Up until the end of last week, I was riding my fat bike five days a week (in addition to working out at the gym six days a week). Unfortunately, my longest ride was an hour and a half; it stayed consistently cold, and my frozen feet just couldn't tolerate riding longer than that. I didn't ride last weekend due to pouring rain and muddy roads. Finally, this week we have warmer (great road biking) weather! I have shipped my road bike to Mobile, though, so I'm still riding my fat bike. Today I rode 22 miles before I had to stop. What made me stop--my cold feet, my aching butt, my creaking knees? No, no, no. It was my sore, nerve-racked hands. If the snow/sleet/rain tonight and tomorrow keeps me from riding tomorrow, I think I will see if I can install the 29er wheels (narrower than the fat tires, more like mountain-bike tires) on the fat bike, which I hope will allow me to do longer rides next week.

Here are views from my ride today:

This next one is for you, Janet. I think of you and your dad every time I see a contrail.

Shake-Down Ride

Busy day. My road bike had been overhauled by a bike shop (new chain, new hard-case tires, re-packed bottom bracket, cleaned, tuned); the raw, pouring-rain weather of the last few days ended, and the sun came out; and I have to ship my bike to Mobile tomorrow--so this was my one day to do a shake-down road ride.

My fantasy that I was going to pull off a 50-mile ride today proved to be...just that, a fantasy.

After my workout at the gym, I took time to document that the river was flowing with open water today--first day! Yes, it was great to see the blue and the movement. What I loved the most, though, was the sound. The sound of lapping water, and the sound of the birds returning. It all made me breathe easier and feel brighter.

Next, I installed the roof rack on my car. Even though I have a rack that hangs on the back of my car to transport my fat bike, the aerodynamics of my car ensures that all kinds of schmutz (especially from my dirt/mud road) gets thrown on the back of my car, including any bike that is hanging back there. I far prefer to carry my bike on the roof, away from all that schmutz.

I had a difficult time getting the bike tires fully inflated. I struggled for quite some time with my brand-new bike pump. It's smaller than the old one and packs more easily, but it takes superhuman strength to use it to get 120 pounds of pressure in a tire. I finally gave up and switched to my old bike pump. Lesson learned: I better take my old bike pump on my trip if I intend to keep my tires inflated--or maybe both pumps, since I've been worried that my ancient bike pump will just die at some point.

Finally, by late afternoon, I started my ride. My fantasy that my bike--all tuned up and looking great--would also ride great proved to be...just that, a fantasy. From the start, I could tell I had major gear/shifting issues. Such an awful grinding noise! Turns out that my front derailleur was not adjusted anywhere near right. Whenever the chain was on the largest chainring in the front, the chain rubbed continuously and loudly on the front derailleur. I had to give up all my best downhill gears and just not use that chainring. I didn't stop to try to make adjustments; I wanted to get the ride in before the day was over, so I adapted. It slowed my pace down considerably that I could not pedal on the downhills, but that was okay.

It was warm (47 degrees F! amazing what difference a few degrees can make). And such a joy to ride on skinny road wheels--with great gliding and coasting! I felt strong and, even though I headed for as many steep hills as I could find within a 15 mile loop, none of it felt overly daunting. My butt and my hands didn't hurt as much as they do when I ride my fat bike, which is the opposite of what I expected. I did decide, though, that my new riding shoes are enough thicker in the soles that I should probably raise the seat a smidgen.

I stopped and took a few photos along my ride. My fantasy that I would figure out how to snap photos while riding (and without crashing, of course) has proven to be... (everyone with me now, you get the drill) ...just that, a fantasy. I thought I was stopping to take a picture of a beaver lodge and was stunned to see a huge beaver out in the open, working on the lodge. Did I get its picture? No! of course not. I didn't move quickly enough.

When I first saw the beaver, it was swimming in the open water to the left of the lodge. Then it climbed up on that side of the lodge to work on it. By the time I had my camera ready to shoot, the beaver had disappeared.

Open, gushing water. Ah, another joy of spring!

Finally, I looped back around to the river again.

I noticed this shadow on my way home:

Below is my first experiment with illustrating my route for the day. I like that color gradients show the change in grade/elevation along the route.

Below is a different view of the elevation (and speed) changes along the route. Where the blue line shows that my speed dropped to 0 mph--that's where I stopped to take photos of the beaver lodge and marsh.

Another busy day tomorrow. I need to make adjustments to my bike and then box it up and ship it off to Mobile!

Predator Drama

On my bike ride today, some birds were acting strangely, which had me looking up in the trees more than usual, when I saw this! I nearly crashed into a snowbank in my scramble to stop pedaling and get this shot before one or both eagles flew off.

On my next lap around, only one bald eagle was still in the tree; I didn't see the other one at all. Then, on my next trip around, one eagle flew two low, lazy loops before landing back in the tree, while the other one called/talked to it the whole time. On my next trip around, both eagles were flying low figure-8 swoops, right overhead. When I left them behind, I figured nothing would be in the tree, but there was a third large bird there! At first, I thought it might be an immature eagle. But, then, I realized it looked larger than an eagle--so maybe it had actually chased the eagles out of the tree. I'm not sure what kind of bird it was; it had a white chest, but most of the rest of it was mottled brown. As I tried to take its picture, it flew off (of course!); I thought I'd caught its flight in the following shot, but I guess I missed it. (I think it's out of frame to the right.)

I missed the bird drama on the rest of my ride; when they were around, they helped distract me from how cold I was. I froze out there today! Without the birds for distraction, I thought a lot about how many things I must have missed these last few years when I didn't spend much winter time outdoors. I also wondered how much I will fat bike during a future winter when I don't have an upcoming epic tour as motivation.

On my last loop around, in a totally different spot from the eagle spot, there was a huge black bird with a red head sitting in a tree. A turkey vulture maybe? Didn't get a photo of that one, either.

I was surprised to find this photo on my camera when I got home. Apparently I managed to capture my own shadow when I was scrambling to photograph the flying bird.

5 Degrees F (Day -20)

Really?! On March 24?

Signs of Early Spring (Day -27)

1. Even when the temperature is COLD (15 degrees F when I began my ride today), the sun is higher and stronger now, so dirt roads can still turn mucky.

2. Riding past the cow farm--which during mid winter is quite pleasant, even if windy due to the open fields--becomes a bit of a stink fest about now.

3. Road riding this time of year (which I did last Monday when the weather was warmer and the roads were dry) entails riding through endless grit (which clogs up the whole drive train), trying to avoid the worst of the potholes and frost heaves, and mostly riding further into the road (to avoid the snowbanks and deepest piles of grit along the road's edge). The good part was that my bike felt very light (compared to the fat bike), I felt strong, and I could ride 1.5-2.0 times as many miles as I can in the same amount of time on my fat bike. (All fine and good; now my road bike is in the shop getting a total overhaul for my trip.)

4. Even while all bundled up and freezing, spring birds are singing. Or are year-round birds singing springtime songs? (There you go, folks: My ornithological ignorance on full display!)

5. The barrels and piping are out--for collecting maple syrup. This year it's so cold that the syrup barrels I've seen have all been wrapped in insulation! Never saw that before.

6. Normally, ice out on the river would have occurred by now. Most ice outs are not that dramatic--either because the ice melts gradually or, more often, because a Coast Guard cutter breaks up the ice before it can get jammed behind bridges and cause flooding. When ice out happens all at once, it is thunderous, dramatic, and quick. The boulders of ice chase and bounce over each other; all is still and quiet again less than two hours after it starts.

It's been especially cold, so the river is full of ice still--even though it's getting quite thin. I held my breath the other day as I watched someone on a snowmobile speed down the middle of the river. People do the most stupid things! No cutter has ruined the ice yet, either. Here is what it looked like when I was on my ride today:

 

This photo is from the dramatic ice out of 1996: 

It's Cold!

How is it possible that it feels colder to me in March than it did in February? I have become accustomed to having my feet turn into solid blocks of ice while I'm biking--and having that limit my riding to an hour or an hour and a half at a time. Yesterday, not only did my feet freeze, but my hands did as well--and I only lasted half an hour on my bike. (I admit that it occurred to me about 10 minutes into that ride that I had bought the moose mitts for a reason [so why wasn't I using them?] but I was too stubborn to go home and retrieve them.)

Today I took a smarter approach. First, I actually used the moose mitts for the first time. They work great! My hands stayed toasty warm.

I also wore my rain covers over my shoes for the first time because it occurred to me that they might serve as a wind break. My feet still froze, but I managed to ride for an hour and a quarter, so I think the shoe covers helped.

When I left the house to go to the gym today, I scared a bunch of turkeys in my yard. They scrambled up the hill, acting all spooked and stupid. They are the oddest creatures.

Overheard at the Gym Today

Man: Six weeks from now, we'll be out on our bikes.

Woman: More like nine or more.

Man: Really?

Woman: People in Maine never seem to remember that the earliest we see clear roads and good-enough weather is the third week of April. Never before then.

Man: So what you're saying is maybe by the first week of May.

Woman: Unless it's raining continuously.

Man 2, interjecting: Maybe you should just say the fourth of July.

Man, laughing: Okay, now I'm really depressed.


So much for my hope/plan that I would be out on my road bike training during the entire month of March!

Riding Through the Muck (Day -48)

I missed a few days of riding because the dirt roads around here became too soft. Nice weather, and a nice hint of spring to come, but not good fat biking. Today, I got out there early, before the road softened up too much. Even so, my bike was absolutely coated in mud when I was done. My brother thinks my readers deserve to see that I actually ride and don't just talk about riding, so he took these photos.

First Wipeout

It appears there was some kind of turkey convention at the bottom of my driveway this morning.

My ride today, again on my road, was quite different from yesterday's ride. We had received about an inch of snow overnight, so the world was newly white and fresh.

I thought I would be more comfortable on today's ride. After all, it was 22 degrees F--warmer than yesterday. LESSON 1: It's not all about the temperature. I actually felt more cold today. There was no sun and the wind was blowing at 11 mph. During much of my ride, there were big, fat snowflakes falling. Quite pretty.

I have renewed respect for winter athletes. It is really challenging to work this hard when the bitter cold is assaulting your muscles and everything else as well.

When riding on snow, the tires of my bike make such loud squeaky-crunchy sounds that I keep thinking there is traffic approaching from behind me. Today I was taken by surprise when a vehicle passed me. LESSON 2: Just because the bike tires give me false warnings sometimes doesn't mean I can stop paying attention entirely.

I was surprised to discover a couple of spots along the road where my bike unexpectedly fishtailed. LESSON 3: Until tire chains are purchased and used, this is probably the deepest snow my bike and I can handle.

About three miles into my ride, I had my first wipeout. It happened so fast, I went down on my side with the bike--like I was glued to it.

Do you see anything here that is particularly troublesome or concerning--that might cause a wipeout? Exactly. LESSON 4: When headed for a spot at which your bike has fishtailed twice already, it might be wise to avoid riding straight through that spot again. LESSON 5: This experience reaffirms my decision not to ride on regular roads; this wipeout on a regular road would have put my head right under a car. LESSON 6: Any doubts I had about needing a full-face helmet have been laid to rest.

I didn't get hurt in this fall. (Correction: Turns out that I ended up with a large, deep bruise just below the outside of my left knee. It was in such a weird place, though, that it didn't prevent me from continuing to train.) Notice that my first inclination, while still on the ground, was to get up and take pictures! LESSON 7: Falling in the snow is way better than falling on pavement. (This time, there were no bruises or scrapes and no torn clothing.) LESSON 8: Those very wide, straight handlebars serve a good purpose during a fall. They protect the cockpit; it's almost like having a roll bar.

When I stopped riding because of this fall, my glasses immediately fogged over and I had a devil of a time getting them functional again. LESSON 9: Always carry a good glasses-wiping cloth.

I may have just fallen, but check out this great view looking south downriver:

I finished the rest of my ride without incident. Needless to say, I stopped carving out new ground through the snow and stuck to the well-used tracks.

I used the Road Bike app on my phone to record my entire ride again today. I kept the phone in an interior jacket pocket this time, though. When I finished my ride, my phone still had a 65% charge. LESSON 10: Keep the phone protected from the worst of the brutal cold.

Isn't it great when a simple hour-and-a-half workout yields so many educational opportunities?

[Update: The photo below doesn't illustrate it as well as I'd hoped, but it turns out there was a very deep rut buried by snow--right where I had my wipeout. I think a tire either got caught in the rut or fell into it. Needless to say, I've been avoiding this rut ever since.]

Disaster Redeemed

I spent yesterday working on the fat bike brakes. All day. No exaggeration. From mid morning until well into the night. After I had worked for over an hour on the front brakes (back and forth, repeating the same steps over and over and over, every time hoping that time would be the magic one), I gave up, took a short food break, and switched to the rear brakes. In less than ten minutes, I had the rear brakes adjusted just right. Tight enough to have good stopping power, and no drag at all--perfect. This reassured me enough that I switched back to working on the front brakes. I tried everything. I researched online for more tips, I tried creative approaches with shims and washers. Still, I could not get those brakes adjusted right. I ended up leaving them with a little bit of drag. I figured it was better to have a little drag than not enough stopping power. Thankfully this doesn't apply to everything in my life, but there are things that I have such a hard time leaving alone when they are less than perfect!

I have been having trouble identifying places to ride. Not for lack of research or enthusiasm. I have swung by a few snowmobile trailheads near my house, only to be discouraged that the snow there was deep and soft--not packed down by snowmobile traffic. I have looked for other trailheads that remain elusive--some of the maps I have found online are rough approximations. I'm thinking you kind of have to know where some of these trailheads are in order to find them in the wintertime.

I decided that today was going to be my day for a nice, long trail ride. I packed my fat bike on my car using the new bike rack, loaded a bunch of gear in the car, and headed out. (Look how filthy my car is! I had just washed it the day before. Trying to keep it clean this time of year is an endless losing battle.)

My first destination was a mountain biking trail in Augusta. I might have found the trailhead; I did see footprints heading into the woods. There was no place to park, though, that wasn't right next to a fire hydrant, and the snow looked too deep and soft. So, then, I headed to a trail system in Waterville. I definitely found the trailhead and it looked perfect! The snow looked well-packed and there was no problem with parking. I add the fenders to the bike, threw on my helmet and backpack, and took off.

Not so fast! Riding around the parking lot worked great but, once I headed down the trail, I couldn't move! The wheels just spun; they wouldn't grab any traction. Great, just great. I loaded everything back onto/into the car and headed back home. The whole way home I was doing this catastrophizing thing I can do so well. What if I don't find anywhere to ride my fat bike? What if I can't do the workouts I need to do to prepare for my trip? Etc., etc., etc.

When I got home, instead of going in the house, I jumped on the fat bike and rode up and down my road--five round trips. Turns out that, in these conditions (18 degrees F, sunny, 6 mph wind), my road is the perfect place to ride. Packed snow and dirt surface, enough hills to get a workout, no car traffic, pretty views. I ended up riding over ten miles (a little more than an hour). I felt I had had a good workout and, surprisingly, I did not get bored.

Good News:

• If I can't ride on snowmobile trails as much as I had planned, maybe I can ride on remote (quiet) dirt roads. I guess more research is called for. Of course, once the weather warms up and these dirt roads become pea-soup soft, a Plan C will be required.
• It was cold today, but I seemed to have the right clothing on for this ride. I was a little cold when I was heading northeast (into the wind) and a little warm when I was heading southwest (toward the sun). Any colder or windier, and I would need my Moose Mitts to keep my hands warm.
• I love my fenders! They didn't impede my pedaling even once, they protected me and the bike from flying road/snow debris, and the rear one did not slide down the seat tube at all (as some reviews had led me to anticipate).
• The bar mount for my phone gives me easy access to it, but I guess I should research gloves that conduct through the fingertips so I don't have to remove them to operate the phone.
• The app I used to record my ride (Road Bike) worked great--right up until the phone completely died (see Bad News). 
• Not once did I hear the front brakes dragging. In fact, the brakes worked so well that I didn't even think about them until the ride was over.

Bad News:

• During the first four miles or so of my ride, the seat felt comfortable. Then, discomfort took over. Good wake-up moment. I need to get a lot more saddle time in to get adjusted to that discomfort so I don't notice it any more.
• My hands and wrists were the most uncomfortable parts of me on this ride. The hand position on straight handlebars does not feel comfortable after a few miles and there are only so many ways to creatively change positions. I'll have to experiment with gel pads, etc. I will be happy to switch to my road bike and have all those additional hand-placement options.
• The tube to my hydration pack froze up solid. No surprise there! I was wearing the pack mostly to assess whether I would find cycling with water on my back to be comfortable--and it is. I guess the hydration pack won't work very well in this weather, unless I come up with warming strategies for that tube. (Update: My son says there are insulated covers made for those water tubes. Of course there are.)
• Riding around in this kind of cold drains the phone's battery really quickly. I guess during this cold I should carry the phone against me inside my jacket, and maybe not continuously use the trip-recording app. More experimentation is warranted. I probably should explore options for powering the phone (maybe a backup battery for the tour?) and for recording sporadic "moments" along a ride instead of recording the entire ride. 
• I had been planning to take photos during this ride--but the whole phone-dying thing interfered with that idea.

All in all, a good day and a successful ride. Strange way to get to this result. Put the bike on the car and drive around for an hour and a half, and then ride the bike straight out of my driveway.

Mobile Experiments

I went for a walk today. So much for the forecast that it would be warmer this weekend! Warmer than what? I was so cold, even though I was bundled, and even though it was bright with sun, that I checked my phone for the temperature. 12 degrees F--but, with wind chill, it was rated as feeling like -5 degrees F. Yup, sounds about right.

My plan for this walk was to test using my phone for taking photos, for tracking my geo-position, and for posting to my blog. 

I took this photo while on my walk and added this whole post using my phone. What I didn't capture, unfortunately, was the sound the ice was making. Maybe high tide was pushing up on the underside of the ice, or maybe the severe cold was making the ice contract and buckle but, whatever the case, the ice was loud. 

The typing and editing was kinda slow, but hopefully I can improve with practice. 

The really good news is that the app I used to track my geo-position was spot on. Making good progress.