Sorry, it has been a while since I have posted, well I wanted to get a few things together to update. First, I finally got to take my bike outside for the first time. This was also a chance to ride with my son, who is 18 years old. It was actually a great time, even with his bike giving us a fit with a crank nut coming loose every mile or so. Brought a fair amount of tools but not that tool, oh well. I think he enjoyed it anyway, although maybe not as much as I did spending the time with him. We also had a flat on his bike within a mile of the house, but that went well. It is great that he seems to enjoy this with me. Sounds like we are going to try to ride a century in a couple of months.
One thing that riding did was showed me a couple of things, how I do with clipless pedals and how well the handlebar water bottle holder worked. Well, let’s start with the bottle cage, first. It is a MWave bottle cage like what I wrote about in my July 21 post (. It worked really quite well and I actually really like having the water bottle up there on the handlebar. After 12 miles it never once made me feel it would jetison my water bottle out of it, and I am using a polar 24 oz insulated water bottle and it fits really well. Next thing, I used my SPD clipless pedals for the first time outside, and it went surprisingly well. I think it helps to use a trainer at first but it only helps a little bit, since you need to use them in surprise situations to learn how to use them. One thing I noticed, don’t put so much pressure on yourself to clip in, start pedaling and try to clip in at a slightly faster speed, it makes it easier on you.
The next thing I wanted to say is riding on a trainer helps quite a bit when you get outside, at least it did me. I have been riding quite a bit on my trainer since June 23, normally between 5 and 6 days a week. I have been riding between 30 minutes and an hour, normally it works out to 30 minutes though, but remember a trainer means constant pedaling, no coasting down hills etc. Another thing I have been doing on the trainer is varying the workouts, from a nice steady 23+ mph pace in 9th gear to intervals using 18th gear, where I pedal slow for a minute (65 rpm cadence) then pedal medium speed (75 rpm) for a minute then pedal fast (85 rpm) for a minute. I saw a Carmichael training video that said this helps with hill climbing. When I started riding in June I was riding 7 miles in 30 minutes and struggling to now actually making it over 11 miles in 30 minutes, it feels good to see progress like that. By the way, I am using two apps for tracking my workouts, mapmyride.com (my profile is at http://www.mapmyride.com/profile/571095/) and endomondo.com (my profile is at http://www.endomondo.com/profile/5520863). I like how mapmyride lets you view your workouts and make your maps, but endomondo is a better tracking app and I like how it shows your tracked workout. They both have apps for Windows Phone 7 as well as Android and Iphone so you should try them out and see which you prefer.
Thanks for reading,
Later