Best Recovery Ride Ever!

This week is supposed to be a rest and recovery week for me so I decided to do a nice easy ride on monday with my 7 year old son, Ryon. We did over 5 miles. We've set a goal this year of doing 10 miles. I'm thinking he'll have that done in no time.

The fun thing about the ride is coming back home we have a pretty good hill to climb. About a 1/4 of the way up we had to start walking. While walking up the hill some jr. high kids passed us on their bikes. Once over the hill we started riding again. After a couple of block we saw one of the kids up ahead and I said, "Ryon, I think we can catch him." Sure enough we caught and passed the kid. Ryon's first counter attack.

Anyway we had a total ball and the weather was awesome. Here are some pics.

My name on Velonews.com

So I actually got my name posted on the Velonews.com website.

They've been running these website of the day features and were asking for suggestions. I sent them an email suggesting they feature World Bicycle Relief. Well they actually did it. Very cool.

So you can see the feature at here to fullfill my vain desires to see my name printed on a big website and then more importantly click on over to World Bicycle Relief to check them out.

The day after

I woke up this morning pretty sore so I decided not to ride in to work this morning which meant no riding at all today. I guess that in the end is a good thing but I was really wishing i could ride home since it reached the 60's today and was very sunny.

The aching body parts are as follows:

The muscles on the left side of my neck are pretty sore. It must be some form of whiplash cause I didn't hit anything there.

Half way between my shoulder and my elbow i feel like somebody punched me.

My wrist is still sore but already seems to be feeling better.

I have a nice little contusion on my right thigh. It's more a bruise than anything else.

I have a very small nick on my right shin. Didn't even notice it until i was getting dressed this morning.

That's about it.

I actually rode around the block a few times with my son tonight and everything felt pretty good. The wrist is the source of the most pain. I will definately have to baby it on the bike for a couple of days.

I'll be riding tomorrow. Too bad it's only going to be 42 degrees.

Parkside #2 Masters 30+

Today we made what is now the yearly March trek up to Kenosha, WI for my first race of the season. Due to scheduling we decided the best race to do was the Masters 30+ race at 1:30pm. More and more I’m leaning towards doing the 30+ races. For the most part they seem a little calmer with less crashes (more on this later) so I was wanting to see how I would do in this race to see if I’m going to focus more on 30+ versus cat 3.

We arrived at 12:30 so I by the time I got registered, made a quick trip to McDonalds for the kids, and then got back and got the bike and myself ready I only had a half hour to warm up. After 2 seasons I’ve never settled on a warm up procedure. Sometimes I ride the trainer, others I just ride the roads. This time I opted for the roads. I spun around for about 20 minutes then headed back to the start finish. The previous race was running late so I headed back out for another 10 and then went back to the start. We watched the sprint for the 40+ race and then took our warmup lap.

I had read some reports from last week saying that the course was really rough. I don’t remember it being too bad last year but during the warmup I realized all the sealed cracks that run across the road sunk down a bit. This made for a jarring course.

I lined up with the 40 or 50 other riders and the race started. For the first few laps there were constant attempts of breakaways but the overall pace wasn’t too bad. I just tried to play it smart and hang in there. I kept myself in good position but tried not to jump at every attack like I sometimes tend to do.

About half way thru the race there was a group of 4 or 5 guys off the front. It seemed like it would be a good group to get up to since the ABR 30+ crit champion was in that group. Just as I was bridging up to that group, on the hill between turns 2 and 3, the supposed calmness of the 30+ racing was interrupted.

Now I still can’t explain how the 3rd guy in a 4 man paceline can just go down while going up a hill but he did. Next thing I knew there was a fellow human lying straight across the road right in front of me. I had no other option but to keep going. Translated that means my bike stopped when it hit his body and I kept going.

Well I guess my ninja skills came into play because I did a nice tuck and roll and landed on my right side. I got myself upright quick enough to see my bike still flipping around on the pavement. The next thought of course is please nobody hit me. Luckily nobody did.

I grabbed my bike, took the waterbottle and threw it in disgust. I had to twist my handlebars back and my left shifter was bent in. I then checked my front and rear wheels and everything seemed fine. Just as I was hopping back on the bike I saw my water bottle that I threw. I decided to go grab it. It was a good thing cause I realized that in the crash I lost my other bottle.
As I rode the backside of the course my intention was just to get back to the start and then call it a day. But then I remembered the free lap rule. I bolted for the start/finish and went ahead and swapped out my front wheel. I didn’t need to but I wasn’t sure what the actual rule was so I just wanted to make sure I could get my free lap.

There was 3 of us who got a free lap and as the field went by we jumped back in. The rest of the race I just tried to keep in a good position and be ready for the sprint. I wasn’t expecting anything out of myself for the final sprint since I haven’t even done one sprint yet this year. Sure enough I got myself in a good spot going into the last turn and then started the sprint. I managed an 11th place.

Overall I’m very happy with the result. I could’ve done without the crash. The bike seems to be just fine but my wrist is pretty sore and the hip is bruised. Hopefully I’ll be back on the bike tomorrow or Tuesday.

Thanks for reading.
Ron

The eagle flys

So today was a beautiful day. I had to ride to crystal lake to pick up my car from the shop but I took a detour out around union, IL as well as stopping by Wheelworks to get my wheel trued up. Coming back from Union i saw something i've never seen in these parts. A bald eagle. I first saw it flying to my right. It was big black bird with a white tail. I thought it looked like an eagle but I couldn't see it's head. It then turned to the left and when behind a barn and once it came out from behind the barn and crossed the road 50ft in front of me it was plain to see it was indeed an eagle. That's one of the things i love about riding. You never know what your going to see.

It hit 73 degrees today. Incredible. Even more so since they tell us that we will have snow flurries by thursday night. I'm going to take tomorrow off and then hopefully be able to commute to work on thursday and friday. Most likely I won't be able to ride at all on Saturday, and then race on sunday. The countdown begins.

Training in full swing

Well I've finally begun to feel like the cycling season is upon me. The last couple of weeks have been great. I've started riding the commute to work 3 days a week as well as getting at least one long ride in a week.

On thursday when i left home it was 24 degrees out. I actually made it ok. It was sunny and not very windy so I didn't get too cold. Right now it is 60 out. Things are looking up although it is supposed to get cold again by thursday.

My first race is scheduled for sunday. It's gonna be cold with a high of only 40. It's right near lake michigan so there's usually a pretty good breeze. It'll be nippy.