Weekend Ride Reports

[bluegoose]

I went out with a couple of guys that are training to do Levi's Gran Fondo in just over a month. They are in good shape and are climbing really well. We did a couple of big climbs through the course of the 46 mile route. The first is a normal 2 mile climb that is nothing too hard. The second one was a monster at about 5 miles. The first half of the climb is steady but the last mile destroyed me. It gets up to 22% for the last half mile. I rode away with my tail between my legs as I had to put my foot down and rest half way up the final push. My legs were toast. Part of my problem was that the last time I did that climb was 3 years ago when I was in good shape and was 15 +pounds lighter. So as a result, I went out a little too hard on the lower slopes rather than saving my legs for the upper portion.

Overall I am having fun riding this year, but I am bummed that I didn't sign up for any big event to motivate me to drop the weight and get in good shape this year. I really hate struggling as much as I am on the climbs, but clearly not enough to step away from the 2 pound bag of peanut M&Ms sitting in the mini fridge right next to my desk.

[BrutusBuckeye]

I went out with a couple of guys that are training to do Levi's Gran Fondo in just over a month.

I just learned about Levi's Gran Fondo this morning and was perusing the website. It looks like a fun ride.

[bluegoose]

These guys have done it twice. They love it. Incredible route and very well supported. Huge turnout. I saw a picture of the start 2 years ago. It was crazy how crowded the bunch start was. Barry bonds actually did the ride that year. Kind of funny seeing him and his giant head there surrounded by all of those midget cyclists.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone that the wife, our youngest and I got to ride in a Gran Fondo in the center of France with Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert as the leads. We knew we weren't going to hang with the leaders, and we got dropped in the first mile when our youngest dropped a chain. Plus it was raining, so we peeled off and did a shortened, 60-mile ride. Fortunately, we ended up finishing just behind the leaders, and they had the missus down as having finished in the top three among the women, an undeserved honor we quickly dismissed. Still, it was a blast pedaling into a medieval courtyard with adoring fans. Thank you for reading this yet again....

[PaloAltoCougar]

Had a fun ride up and down Memory Lane, aka Donner Pass, as we recalled the board ride a while back with several of you. Some memories are better left unrecalled, but that didn't stop Mrs. PAC from pointing out the spot where I accidentally (I swear!) knocked over Bellavella's bike, breaking her rear derailleur.

We only did 40 today as we're going out to an early dinner and then a show in Reno (that's right, Reno--eat your hearts out). After climbing up Donner, we rode down about 15 miles to Cisco Grove, and then had a long slog back up to the top of Donner. It reminded us of the board's Mt. Bachelor ride, although we looked in vain for HFN's awesome cache of refreshments he had set up for us in the late going.

We also battled 14+ mph crosswinds; Mrs. PAC's whining became insufferable so I let her go ahead on the downhill. Here's a pic of her (the speck on the downhill, right center) flying back down.

[mtnbiker]

Had a fun ride up and down Memory Lane, aka Donner Pass, as we recalled the board ride a while back with several of you. Some memories are better left unrecalled, but that didn't stop Mrs. PAC from pointing out the spot where I accidentally (I swear!) knocked over Bellavella's bike, breaking her rear derailleur.

Accident schmaccident. I saw you aim your bike at the derailleur. Bellavela was bummed, and said she would have beat you to the top. Actually, it wasn't all bad, as she had a great chance to chat with JIC's wife.

Funny thing about that picture... Mrs. PAC is exactly at the spot where I was when, after getting Bella squared away, you guys called me, asking if I'd be there anytime soon. And you were just around the corner in that overlook parking lot. You ruin someone's bike, then can't wait another minute for the cavalry to show up. hmmph.

We do need to do another group ride, as long as you promise not to sabotage anyone.

[Moliere]

Beautiful pic PAC. After riding up two mountains in Utah this summer I'm very jealous of you guys that have them pretty much in your backyard.

[PaloAltoCougar]

As we started one of our usual routes, Mrs. PAC said she was bummed that while she was out of town last week her riding buddies had beaten her PR on a segment we were riding this morning. Well of course, this cannot stand, so I told her I'd pull her up the segment (it's a gentle but steady climb of just under five miles--maybe 2-3% average grade) as best I could and she could finish it off. Anyway, I did a decent job with my HR close to anaerobic and near the end of the segment she bolted ahead and set a new PR and besting her friends.

Shortly after, we turned a corner and a group of strong riders (think 25 RCVs) came cruising past us. As half the peloton passed by, I joked to the missus that she should grab on to the back. Surprisingly, she did just that (I was too spent to follow suit). It was funny to see her disappear in the distance. The group was doing 25 in the flats and hit 35 on a slight downhill. Mercifully, after 2-3 miles she peeled off and waited for me. We finished an otherwise uneventful ride, although that didn't stop me from frequent comments about how eager she was to join the guys. Slut. And yet, I was quite proud she was able to hang.

[ERCougar]

I've hardly ridden at all this year, but a friend of mine needed to do a semi long ride so I hitched along. She's not a big cyclist so I figured I could stay with her. Went 40 miles in just under three hours, including a big break at a gas station halfway. I forgot how nice it is to just go at an easy pace and just enjoy riding. I need to do that more.

[Pelado]

I forgot how nice it is to just go at an easy pace and just enjoy riding. I need to do that more.

Is there another way?

[PaloAltoCougar]

After working pretty hard on our Saturday ride, I wanted to take things easy today. Instead, we did 45 miles with 3200 feet of climbing and my legs are dead. Through much of the ride, I was thinking, "Multiply this times 4 or so and I can do Lotoja!" No thanks. But you guys have my deepest respect.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Because we're getting ready for a century in a couple of weeks, and even more because I wanted to work off a lot of frustration and disappointment from the game the night before, we did a long, hot ride Saturday morning. I sustained another unfixable flat with my tubeless tires (I fixed it by inserting a tube and a dollar bill...) but the ride itself was otherwise uneventful. During the 4+ hours in the saddle I composed several CS posts about the game and the season, none of which I actually published, but it was a nice relief valve. The ride wiped me out, and I spent the rest of the weekend eating and watching games and conference, so that was nice.

I took my bike in to the shop that afternoon and the proprietor replaced the tubeless tires with a new Maxxis (tubes) set. Despite my protestations, he did this for free since he felt bad that he had talked me into tubeless and I'd had such a poor (though by his reckoning a very anomalous) experience.

[BrutusBuckeye]

I took my bike in to the shop that afternoon and the proprietor replaced the tubeless tires with a new Maxxis (tubes) set. Despite my protestations, he did this for free since he felt bad that he had talked me into tubeless and I'd had such a poor (though by his reckoning a very anomalous) experience.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with tubeless tires. I've been tempted to give them a shot, but I think I'll stick with tubes for now. From what I understand, tubeless mountain bike tires have been dialed in pretty good, so hopefully their road counterparts follow suit.

Since Lotoja is over, I've been focusing my attention on getting some personal records on roads I ride regularly. Yesterday afternoon, after taking my boys on a short bike ride, my wife let me escape and enjoy the beautiful weather on my own, so I went up Big Mountain. I pushed pretty hard up Emigration to the top of Little Mountain and nearly bonked near the top. I slowed things down and made my way up to the top of Big Mountain and enjoyed the view for longer than usual. When I got home I was pleased to see I had gotten the new PR on Little Mountain summit by almost 90 seconds and the Little and Big Mountain summits by about 20 seconds.

With the weather getting colder and daylight getting shorter, it's been hard to get out and ride. With small kids and their activities, evening and Saturday day rides are almost impossible to come by. My wife is taking them to visit her dad and cousins next week, so I'm looking forward to hopefully getting out a few more times before the end of the season. I've been mapping out a mountain bike ride that I'm hoping the weather will allow me to do.

[bluegoose]

You may or may not have noticed that I've been absent from this thread for the last several weeks. My last ride was on a beautiful, fall Saturday morning about 4 weeks ago. Most of my riding buddies were unavailable. The one that was around chose to go for a run with steelblue instead of a bike ride that day. They actually invited me along, but I deferred, hoping to avoid any overuse injuries, as I haven't been running much lately.

So I decided to go out for a rare solo ride on one of my usual 35 mile routes. One that I've done probably 100 times or more over the last decade.

About 3 miles from home I was reaching into my jersey pocket to grab my sunglasses. just as I did, my front wheel got swallowed up in a crack in the pavement, jerking my handlebars to the right, sending me sailing over handlebars into the roadside curb. Fortunately, my left wrist was there to break my fall.

As I scraped myself up off the pavement, grabbing my bike out of the road and retrieving my sunglasses and phone which had fallen out, I noticed that my wrist was looking kind of funny, not unlike the way that we used to shape Gumby's arms back in the 80s.

Now I'm no expert, but even I know this is not good when the distal part of the wrist is elevated about 3/4 of an inch above the proximal part of the wrist. I had very little pain initially, but I knew I was in no shape to be riding home. So I called my wife and asked her to come pick me up. Of course, she starts freaking out over the phone after I told her what my wrist looked like. This was not helping. So she gathered some things for me and brought the car up to pick me up.

Well, to turn a long story into a shorter one, I suffered a fracture to the distal radius and ulna. The wrist bones. It was hard to tell on the initial x-rays, but as it turned out the ulnar styloid process was avulsed, and the distal radius was fractured in about six pieces. The ER doc was able to reduce it and cast it fairly well, but as it was fractured through the joint there was no question that I was going to need surgery.

After a few phone calls and text messages, I was able to get in to see the hand specialist here in town on Monday at noon. He assured me that all of the advice that I had been given was right, and that it was going to need fixed ASAP. So he scheduled me some OR time on Tuesday, three days after the accident, to have it fixed.

Initially, he only put in for 45 minutes of OR time, but the actual surgery took just over two hours. It was a bit more messed up than initially thought based on the ER x-rays. So I now have a big old plate and nine screws holding my wrist together.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1413472427.680113.jpg
I took Wednesday off work, but was back to work full-time on the Thursday after surgery. Since I make my living by using my hands it's been pretty fun trying to figure out how to do everything that I need to do one-handed. I've had to bring in extra help at the office to make it happen, but we've been able to adapt very well. Add in the fact that this has been an extremely busy month for me at the office and I have had very little spare time to do anything. Doing anything on the computer is a pain in the butt, as I'm a lousy enough typist with two hands, now being reduced to hunt and peck with one hand. Thank goodness for the talk-to-text feature on mine phone. It has saved my bacon this month with all of my computer dictation work.

I had a hard cast on for three weeks, and just yesterday I had it removed and was placed in a removable orthoplasty splint. He said he often keeps guys in a hard cast for an extra 2 to 3 weeks when they break both the radius and the ulna, but considering that I know very well the consequences of me screwing this thing up, he said he trusted me with a removable splint.

Oh, and to add to the fun, as some of you may have seen through Facebook or Instagram, four days before I broke my arm my youngest daughter, eight years old at the time, broke her wrist in nearly the identical spot while doing a backbend walk-over at her dance class. So for the past three weeks we have had matching BYU-blue casts.

So that's what I've been up to. Been grounded from the bike for a month now, staring at probably another couple of months before I get to get back on. I may try taking off the splint and riding the trainer in a couple of weeks once it starts to feel better. But I'm really not in any hurry at this point. It looks like it's going to be a running year for me. Kind of a bummer, as I had big plans for the bike next year. Oh well.

And to answer the question that all of you are thinking at this point, Yes, the bike is okay, escaping the wreck basically unscathed.

[Eddie]

Sorry man, that sucks!