LIVESTRONG Challenge

 The Cannondale after the ride

Me after the ride

LIVESTRONG "Phlly" (was really Blue Bell, PA) bike ride - My first century ride since about 1992.

It isn't about me, really.  I raised $1300 for LIVESTRONG.  It's about my sister who has kidney cancer, my mother who died of cancer, Paul K. and others who died, and so many other survivors I run and work with.  Fighting cancer is a lot harder than a little 10K run and 100 mile bike ride.

But here is my report:


GARMIN DIED at 32 miles! I rode the second 50 miles at exactly 3 hours. I am pretty sure the first half was faster - or not because 16.7 MPH comes out to almost exactly a 6 hour century (not including 4 five-minute stops for food, bottle refills, pee, and brake tweak noted below). 4263 feet of climbing, according to the web site and I do not doubt it! Would have liked to have the complete data! The last 12 miles were in heavy rain.

Rode the '84 Cannondale with tubulars. Had to remove the tire guides from the rear brakes at about 35 mi, when the pads wore down from all the downhill braking - thought I needed a new brake pad, but it turned out that those stupid triangular things were rubbing the rim. Sunglasses frame broke at about 40 mi; chucked those. Lost the bite valve from my Camelbak at about 55 miles - end of drinking tube at the bite valve rubs my leg and I guess it worked its way off (I have noticed it pull out a little on rides). All the remaining water ran out, so all the Camelbak did was carry my spare tires from there on in.

It was very cool to ride with so many riders - there were a few thousand, I would say, in wave starts of about 500. Random pace lines at times. Saw lots of the same people over and over. I only saw one other "vintage" 80's-90's era bike. Almost everybody had newer bikes and the gears for those climbs - convinced I really want some carbon fiber and 20 speeds.

Lance Armstrong was there, said some words on the PA, then rode with the first group that were the top fundraisers for a while, then did the whole thing in like 4 hours.

Busy weekend: Friday was the last day of the camp I work at. Friday night was a camp party and some drinking. Had to get up at 5:30 AM to get to the 10K run for LIVESTRONG on Saturday (46 min run was slow for me but my suspected stress fractured ankle hurt a lot as the run progressed). Got about 4 hours of sleep on Fri night. Got home before noon after the run to hang with the inlaws, went for a short hike with them and kids at Watchung Reservation in the PM, then went to a Patriots game Sat night. Prepared for today's ride before we left. (That is probably the reason the Garmin died, because I unplugged it about 4PM on Saturday to pack it.) Got only about 5 hours of sleep on Sat night, up at 5 AM for today's ride. So I got through this weekend double with only 9 hours of sleep!

Mischief Managed

The Most Annoying Thing In The World did not stop. I went for a short ride yesterday and there it was ticking and creaking away loud and clear. I stayed calm, the ride was short and did not throw the bike through any windshields since I encountered no crazy cut-off drivers. SO WHAT THE HELL IS IT~!

Breathe ... Breathe....

I got home and figured maybe it was the headset or the stem, even though I greased the stem thoroughly before the build of this bike . So I proceeded to disassemble and remove the stem from the frame. I cleaned the old grease. I shot WD-40 down into the steerer and into the stem bolts and tightener. I greased the stem and replaced it. Then I flipped the bike and dripped lube into the headset. I took it for a 10 PM sprint up and down my street and it seemed FINE!

AND - I rode it to work today and it was blissfully SILENT! Huzzah!

The Most Annoying Thing in The World

...or close to it...
I was riding my Trek on Saturday, and my handlebar started to creak. It creaked when I put weight on the brake hoods. I could hear it go tick tick, and I could feel it too. So I stopped and tightened the bolt that holds the bars. The creaking didn't go away. So I stopped and tightened the stem bolt and the brake levers, thinking it might be those things. I even tightened my seatpost's saddle mount bolt in case I was totally missing the source of the tick tick creaking. And it continued, even got worse as the ride continued.

When I got home I thought about greasing where the bars go through the stem. But I wasn't sure I should do that, because I had never had to do that before, and this creaking showed up out of nowhere in this Trek's second hundred miles since I built it. The Internet would surely tell me what I should do! So I Googled creaky handlebars. Results summary: lightly grease the bar/stem contact point, and another possibility was a cracking handlebar. The TTT Forgi bar on the bike is almost new, so I hoped it isn't cracking - I am far from a beefy sprinter and I have not used the bike in the mountains yet, so I have not yanked very hard on these bars. They did have a previous owner, however - but before I wrapped them, they appeared to be new.

Not wanting them to suddenly rotate in the stem, I lightly greased my handlebar at their midpoint, slid them back into the stem and tightened down hard. It seemed to make a difference while in the garage. I went for a ride on Sunday and at first all was cool - no creaking. But as the ride progressed it came back and proceeded to get worse and worse for 50 miles! What a great ride - my longest this year - but the annoying creaking tick tick tick over bums and while just relaxing on the brake hoods! AH!

At home again - disassembly at the stem again. I sprayed in a ton of WD-40 and heavily applied the grease. The creak is gone in the garage again. I have not ridden the bike yet, and probably won't until Thursday.... On Thursday night while watching the news, if you hear about a cyclist who suffers an attack of road-rage, perhaps tossing his bike through a car's windshield after the car passed him too closely only to cut him off while turning right, it might be me if that creak comes back!

Washington Crossing Park

I have a confession to make: I have not done any barefoot running since October 18, 2007. Today was my first barefoot run in 6 months. It felt soooooooo good~! It was at Washington Crossing Park's cross country course. I was there for my son's soccer game. Since the park was the site of my most successful barefoot race, I could not resist. It was time.

As I have discussed in my posts since last year, I needed to recover from Achilles tendon problems. I also needed to do some important races: RVRR XC races and The Escarpment Trail Run in July '07, and the New York City Marathon in November '07.

Quick summary (again): I did major damage to my Achilles tendons in June of '07, running in the President's Cup 5K barefoot. I did not do the damage because I was barefoot - it was because I ran race-pace barefoot, and I had not trained for that. I continued to train and race after doing the damage. I did conventional icing and Ibuprofen. You can read my training errors in this post.

So as I have tried to prepare for some races this year, I have used these things called training shoes. So far, 192 miles of running have been in training shoes, about 50 miles in racing or XC shoes, and finally 5.5 miles barefoot.

Almost 4 months into 2008, this does not sound like much mileage. In my olden days of running, 250 miles would be the result of one month of running, not four. But the important thing is I have been experiencing accelerated healing of my Achilles because I got back on my bikes. I don't know exactly why I decided to hit the bikes again. I know I was gaining weight through the winter. I watched it happen. I knew I could not amp up my running mileage, because my Achilles and heel would be hurting too much.

For some unknown reason I stopped shopping for skis on eBay, and I started shopping for bikes. Irrational, yes. I had a bunch of bikes hanging in my garage. But after shopping and lurking for a while I bid on a nice "vintage" Cannondale, but was below reserve. Emails after the auction closed the deal. It is a beautiful bike.

I got it just before my spring break. I knew I would have daylight time during my spring break to get some rides in. So that is when it started. I rode the Cannondale and my other bikes 131 miles March 25-30. That was the week that marked the end of skiing season, with a two day "guy" trip to Belleayre and Gore, skiing with Andy.

I have continued riding the bikes, tinkering with them, spending some money on them, and have successfully integrated decent running mileage. And I am convinced that the increased circulation to my Achilles and heels has brought about healing of all the tissues of the area. April weeks have been 40, 78, 66 & 91 miles of cycling, and 22, 18, 29 & 30 miles of running. I have commuted to work 10X on bikes and have lost some weight.