We are Seven of Dave, you will be assimilated

Yay...

I've acquired another piece of hardware courtesy of my endocrinologist.

Add this to my Darth Vader mask I wear for the sleep apnea and I am rapidly becoming Borg.

From the fun tonight..

Hey!  Who "defurred" my belly, it's supposed to be cold for the next couple of days and I needed that fur.

This thing looks like it's going to hurt!

We are now Borg..

What I ended up with is a cool piece of gear, a Dexcom G4 Platinum Continuous Glucose Monitor, (CGM), it's going to be interesting to get a continuous glucose reading.  It's also going to mean no cheating on what I eat.  No going, "hmm, I rode this morning, I've got the calorie budget for a donut, or wow, a snickers bar sounds real good right about now.

I'm also real curious just what the glucose profile looks like on a long hard ride.  This just might make for some interesting data to dig through.

2015 Goals and plans

A new year means a time to reassess last year and set some new goals for the new year.

Last year saw me riding more miles than in the previous three years which was good.


2015 goals

For the bike

• No injuries or major illness
• No major crashes
• 6500 miles for the year
• Sub 5 hour century during Tour De Cure in June
• Double century completed
• March through October a century a month
• Riding with the local C & B groups instead of either chasing them or them chasing me
• Defending my Strava KOMs and earning 10 more
• More time on the tandem with my wife
• Muenster Metric on the tandem with my wife with an added goal of busting 55 mph on "THE HILL"

For my diabetes

• A1C down below 7
• 100% use of CGM when it shows up
• Controlling my binge eating when I have a low blood sugar event
• Weight down to below 190 pounds consistently

For my kids

• Getting them comfortable and sure on the bike in traffic
• Getting them faster and more confident on their abilities
• Local beginners group rides for them
• At least three "T-Shirt" rides for them

I'd hoped to start the new year off with a ride, but...

I'd hoped to get some miles in early this year. However the weather has other plans.

Even the dog agrees it's not fit to be outside.

That is a 70 some odd pound Ridgeback curled up under that blanket who has decided it's a perfect day for sleeping in.

The Rocketship

The Rocketship

I’d been looking at upgrading my bike for awhile.  Something was telling me that I was rapidly approaching the far edge of what I was capable with on my Bacchetta Giro 700.  After all there is just so fast you can go on a 42 pound bike with water and gear.  Sure, others could push it farther and faster, just not me.  So I decided it was time to see what was going to be my next bike.

I looked hard at the new Schlitter Encores that are coming out and figured that was going to be the way to go, even to the point of giving Vite bikes hard confirmation that I wanted one.

Of course best laid plans and all that are subject to change.  During the wait for the ordering process to be figured out for the Encore a very lightly used Bacchetta Carbon Aero 2.0 showed up on the used market for about what I was expecting to pay for the Encore.

Now Vicky and I had been debating bikes as she wanted to upgrade her bike also.  We wandered rather far afield looking at Metaphysics, M5’s and various other high end light weight recumbents.  All sorts of stuff were considered but I kept going back to the CA2.0 that was up for sale or the new Schlitter Encore.

Since the order process and delivery time frame was still up in the air on the Encore and the Hotter than Hell was fast approaching I decided to pull the trigger on the Bacchetta CA 2.0. 

And to prove that God has a sense of humor, as I was pulling the trigger on the CA 2.0, Schlitter bikes had figured out the ordering system for the Encore.  Vicky and I ended up committing to the CA 2.0 and the Encore the same evening.

As my normal with buying on the used market, the new bike came with a few challenges.  These were overcame before the Hotter than Hell by throwing cash at the problems till they went away.

The bike is build up with an eclectic mix of parts, a mixed drivetrain of SRAM and Campagnolo, (I know, strange but it works).  The drive train is a SRAM Apex medium cage derailleur, a SRAM 10 speed 11-32 cassette,  SRAM TT900 bar end shifters and a Campy Chorus front derailleur and Chorus triple crankset.  The wheelset is a Vuelta Corsa light set that I picked up off Ebay, tires are Continental GP4000II with the black chili compound.  An M5 front brake and a Bacchetta brake combined with a set of Paul levers handle the stopping duties.  The seat is a lightweight carbon bucket.  Without bags the bike weighs in around 23 pounds, a 13 pound change from my Giro.

 

Everything that I’d read about the CA 2.0 was true, this thing is a freaking rocketship.  My average speed showed an increase of about 2-3 mph over my times on the Giro 700, I averaged 20.0 mph on the Hotter than Hell, and I started crushing my previous best times on Strava.   Where before it was a long slow grind up what passes for hills around here, the CA 2.0 flew up them.

The first ride on it I ran across one of the local shop group rides.  These rides are generally populated by lots of testosterone fueled competitive types and although the rides are billed as a 16-18 mph rolling average, usually average somewhere above that.  On the CA 2.0 I not only managed to run them down and pass them on a flat section, but hold them off on the long shallow uphill grind to Weston.

The bike is smooth and compliant over the local chip and seal roads; the carbon frame absorbs a lot of the road shock.  It’s super responsive to rider input without being twitchy and uncontrollable.  The bike really excels at long fast rides, converting your efforts into speed and distance. 

Overall, this bike looks to be my perfect platform for my ultimate cycling goal and one of my long term bucket list items, a double century..  Hmm, maybe next spring.

Making it hurt Monday!

I've decided to add in a once a week hill workout to my routine on the bike.

The rides are designed to be relatively short but intense, to hammer up whatever I can find hill wise to build power in the legs.  The idea is to hit the hill as hard and fast as I can, I figure if I can still ride at the top of it, I need to hit it harder next time.  Fortunately one of today's hills/Strava Segments, COC ends at a dumpster, (yea, I know, very scenic), I about put the dumpster to use as I was about ready to puke after run #2 on the hill.

Today's Making it Hurt Monday is below.



Not bad results for an old fat guy..  Two King of the Mountains and a fourth overall.  One of those guys 9 seconds BEHIND me, races for Giant/Shimano and is a sponsored PRO rider, just sayin...

1st ride post crash, I can ride!

I finally got cleared by my doctor to ride yesterday!

We found out after an X-ray and an MRI that the hip/pelvis wasn't fractured or broke, just bruised all to hell.  That was a big relief as I'd been googling hip fracture recovery and realizing I was possibly looking at four to six months of recovery.  My wonderful wife was also realizing that if I had to be off the bike for that time frame she was going to need to stock up on a lots of tranquilizers and was also lining up places for me to swim, (or in my case, beat the water into submission).  While I was cleared to be back on the bike, walking is still challenging, (I managed a mile with the dog yesterday and was done).  Being up on my feet is limited to about an hour or so before the hip is saying enough.


Actually what my doctor told me is that cycling would help my hip as long as I didn't fall off the danged thing again, and took it easy, just ride around the block a couple times.

Taking it easy and just riding around the block are not something really I'm used to doing when I'm on the bike, especially the CA2.0 as that bike just flat out wants to run.

To keep myself honest and stop myself from pushing hard and chasing other cyclists I asked my wife to ride with me, that way, if I got a case of the stupids, she could smack me and knock some sense into me.

We ended up with 13.6 miles and change at a 13.8 average.  No Strava segments were chased, no other riders caught, no long distance ridden, but I was just happy to be back on the bike.

Gear review 2007 Specialized Allez Elite

Ok, this is one I've been meaning to write for a while, not quite 7 years though.

I picked this bike up slightly used off Craigslist a couple of months ago to upgrade my commuter bike and to hand my previous commuter bike, a Giant OCR-2  down to my oldest daughter who has grown enough to fit it.

The Allez is a good upgrade for me over the Giant as it is lighter and quicker.  It's design is more race specific which suits my riding style and personality better than the Giant did.

The Allez Elite features the Zertz inserts in the carbon fork and the carbon seat stays that are found on the Specialized Roubaix series of bikes.  This is supposedly to damp out road vibration and road shock, but the engineer in me would like to see some of the data behind this.  That said however the bike does ride nice and smooth on our local Texas roads.

I've done an upgrade or two, some required, some just because I had the spare parts laying around.  The tires got replaced with Vittoria Roubaix tires after a cut destroyed the rear tire, the saddle was replaced with a Selle Italia SL as the old one was destroyed in a crash, and the cranks were replaced cause I had a set of carbon cranks laying around.

Most of my riding on the Allez is admittedly in town on my work commute.  I've only taken it out a couple of times into the county on longer rides where the frame design seemed to eat up the chip seal they use on the roads around here.

The quirks that I've noticed about the Allez is that it's a little more twitchy due to the race specific geometry, riding with no hands is a little more difficult due to this.Were this going to be my long distance bike, this would be an issue, as it's my commuter, it's really no big deal.

Don't worry though about this being decked out in full commuter rig however, I've not put fenders on it nor do I have plans to.  When water falls from the sky around here, traffic gets more than a little sporty.  On those days, I drive rather than take my chances of becoming a hood ornament.

I do run front and rear lights on it however, (of course I consider lights as essential safety gear).  I run a Dinotte 300R tail light and a Dinotte 1200L front light.  I believe in being seen and brighter is better when it comes to light.  That's why I run lights that some people complain about as being "too bright".  I'd rather have someone say that my lights are too bright than be laying under Suzy Soccer Mom's SUV having her tell my wife, "I didn't see him".

For carrying stuff, I use a Camelbak Mule.  This gives me enough cargo capacity to carry my belt/pocket gear as well as my lunch.  My crash the other day had me finding another use to my Camelbak.  It make an excellent skid plate and bore the brunt my my crash.  The only major damage was that a strap managed to burn through the buckle.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the Allez.  It rides great, accelerates quickly, is snappy handling, fast enough to allow me to chase Strava segments.

Plus it gets me to work a lot cheaper than driving.