Bike-commute day 51—to gym and home

Tuesday, 12 July 2011.

In a late afternoon phone call, Chuck and I negotiated when we would both arrive home. He was out shopping after a lunch with his former colleague Mark, and he wanted to fit in a short workout at the Y. I hoped I could actually stop at my gym for throwing the weights around, too. So we ended up with being home by 7:30.

My weight training was very abbreviated: just two sets of bench press and two sets of cable rows, and then it was already 6:45, just enough time for the ride home. If I ride fast.

So today along the Mad River, I hoped to be passed by the Young Turk again. Perhaps my wishes kept him away.

From that point on, I kept calculating when I would arrive home: maybe 7:40 for the ride from the Findlay Avenue Bridge I thought, then Hm. Maybe 7:35 for the way from here at the last checkpoint, and then If I'm aggressive on the hill at Bryn Mawr, maybe I can make it by 7:30 from the Monument Avenue Bridge. As it turned out, I arrived at about 7:33. Chuck wasn't home yet, and I had time to pull off my shoes and wet skinsuit, find components of our dinner in the freezer and start their thawing, and begin to pull together the ingredients for Tony's Friendship Bread, since this is the tenth day of creating the sourdough starter.

Then at 7:50, Chuck was home, and I was ready to shower. Then dinner: a nice square of Chuck's lasagna fresca surrounded by prawns broiled with pesto.

Ride conditions
Temperature: 89 to 94°F at 17:45
Precipitation: none
Winds: calm
Clothing: Skinsuit, ankle socks, open-finger gloves.
Bike: Lotus Legend fixed gear
Time:  00:59:27 for 15.85 miles
Heart rate: 128 bpm HRave, 146 bpm HRmax
Bikeway users: 32 cyclists, 8 pedestrians, 1 dog
Here is a playback of the ride.

Bike-commute day 50—to home

Monday, 11 July 2011.

Woah! I finally got a reminder of what real work is on the bike. Just after negotiating the drop, curve, and rise underneath the Findlay Avenue Bridge, a cyclist in a blue kit—and with shaved legs—whirred past me. I said, "Mind if I hop on?" and jumped into his slipstream.

For a few moments.

He continued on, knowing that I had pulled in behind him, and his tempo increased just a bit. For a moment, I was with him: 25 mph and 108 rpm.

Then he feinted to the right as we whipped around a decaying bridge abutment, and I caught the wind. My strenght failed, and I dropped back as he rode on.

I stayed near him, but never caught the slipstream again, and managed a salute to him as he turned and climbed the ramp to the Green Bridge, still ahead of me by 100 yards. I'll keep looking for him again, hoping that the next time I'll be up to riding with the Young Turk for more than just a minute.

Ride conditions
Temperature: 87 to 94°F at 18:35
Precipitation: none
Winds: calm
Clothing: Skinsuit, ankle socks, open-finger gloves.
Bike: Lotus Legend fixed gear
Time:  00:42:50 for 12.04 miles
Heart rate: 125 bpm HRave, 153 bpm HRmax
Bikeway users: 12 cyclists, 10 pedestrians, 2 dogs
Here is a playback of the ride.