Training - MeTC Kingman Loop Take 3

The day after my "two days in a row" mini training cycle the skies opened up and poured rain down on the area. Thankful for a break in the training I spent the day with the Missus, Junior, and Grandma and Grandpa (Nana and Pap had flown the coop). I ate a bit, not really thinking about calories and such, but realizing towards the end of the day that, wow, I ate a lot.

Tuesday dawned and I had no idea what we had scheduled. The Missus wanted to head out for town with her mom and Junior so that left me... free to ride.

With my legs seemingly recovered from the two day beating I looked forward to doing a ride. I got ready to head out after noon passed. We'd hung out together in the morning and then the women left in the late morning. I put together my training survival pack - this time I brought the of those Blox (for food) as well as a bar, plus my trusty but crumbly standby, a package of Pop Tarts (blueberry).

I wanted to drip some more lube into the BB area, to make sure the bearing/frame interface stayed quiet, but I couldn't find the lube (I put it on the stove, of all places) so I headed out worried that my bike would creak like mad.

Luckily it didn't.

I left at just after 1 PM. The Missus's stepdad asked where I planned on riding, and I told him I'd do the "Lee-Winn Loop" again, the 50-ish mile loop which is really almost 52 miles.

"Oh, so I'll tell them you'll be back at 4 then."

3 hours? Well, maybe. I'd just have to not bonk and I'd have a chance at doing it in maybe 3:10, but to do it in 3:00 flat, that would require a very good day for me.

With that thought lingering at the back of my head then a brief trip back into the house for something I forgot, I did my normal Paris Roubaix start along the side of the driveway, leaving a cloud of disappointed mosquitoes in my wake. A careful check (the driveway is on a blind curve on a 50 mph road) and I started down the road. My legs felt a bit stiff from the day off but I had none of that "sore leg" feeling. Instead my legs felt like they wanted to go.

Awesome.

In the few times I've done the loop I've started to learn the more difficult spots, the slight grades and such that really sap the strength out of me. I told the Missus that on the first ride I had a tailwind on Route 6 and that I did almost all the hills in the big ring. The second time I rode the loop I thought that there was no way I could have done those hills in the big ring, just no way.

Likewise on 170, the first road of the loop, I'd have to deal with some deceivingly hard "rises", slight bumps that really zap my legs. Today I rolled up them, with some effort, in the big ring. I felt good.

I turned onto Route 6. I was hoping for a tailwind but instead I got some mixture of a crosswind. Not a headwind per se but definitely not a total tailwind either.

I started up some of the rises, and when the grades started to tell I'd leave it in the big ring instead of dropping it down right away. I surprised myself when I rolled up the first rise without having to take it out of the big ring. Then I surprised myself again.

And again.

And again.

Even the longer grades, the ones where I wonder when it's going to end, they went by with just a moderate effort, just pushing into slightly uncomfortable, just keep going, and suddenly I'd be cresting the hill.

Ultimately I'd do the whole stretch of Route 6 in the big ring, with my lowest used gear a 53x21 and briefly at that.

My bottom bracket stayed quiet so I rolled into Lee without cringing on every pedal stroke. I rolled up the slight grade to the intersection with Winn Road, my third turn of the ride (if you count the one out of the driveway).

School was just getting out, and I found out that the school sits just after the turn onto Winn Road. A lot of kids, one school bus, and then it was all gone. The roadside returned to normal, all trees and such (and no poison ivy, btw, and no vines either).

I was turning off the helmet cam to save the battery - it wouldn't last the whole ride. I missed a very cute adolescent cat, realistically born in the spring (5 months old?). Around here there are some feral cats apparently. I briefly considered turning around to capture it on the cam but decided against it.

On Winn Road there are a few grades that stand out to me and one in particular is a real morale crusher. It's a stepper type of thing, you go up for 100 meters, it levels, then it goes up again, over and over, it's got to be 6 or 7 steps with a hill leading into it and the wind really getting you near the top. I rolled it in the big ring, ready to shift into the small ring, but somehow, on each rise, I realized that I just didn't need the small ring.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, okay, I understand if I had a tailwind down 6, which I didn't but at least I didn't have a block headwind. That would mean that the close to 90 degree direction change should have resulted in some kind of unfavorable wind, except if the wind was coming from directly south. Maybe it was, I don't know, but Winn Road generated a lot less anguish than it did before.

Quicker than I expected I got to the intersection with Route 2, the fourth turn of the route (again, including the turn out of the driveway). I rolled away from the intersection while battling with a Blox package. I found it in my gear bag just before I left, food I buy and stash "just in case". The Pop Tarts are in there too but after the crumbly experience before I decided I'd try and bring a proper type of fuel, one meant for a cyclist.

The Blox went down easily but I was almost out of water. With a good 20 miles left I chided myself for not getting the second bottle cage on the frame. Something for the "To Do" list over the winter.

I have to admit that the Blox interrupted my legs a lot less than the Pop Tarts. When I ate half the Pop Tarts my legs went pretty dead, reviving about 10-15 minutes later. I figured it had to do with the blood rushing to my stomach to deal with all that sugar and fat. With the Blox my legs didn't have that dead period. I felt better almost immediately and set about tapping out a good rhythm on the pedals.

I'd expected a headwind on Route 2 but it never really happened. It wasn't friendly, really, but it wasn't an evil wind either. I could deal with fighting the wind. When I'm fit I don't mind wind, but I'm not fit so this was a nice revelation.

The sun would peer out of the clouds pretty regularly. My first Kingman Loop took place on a very overcast day, no clouds, very cool, mid 60s or so. I could work hard without feeling hot. The second Loop happened on a day literally almost 20 degrees warmer, with the sun beating down on me. I got hot, I felt uncomfortable, and it had to have affected my riding.

Today the weather compromised between the two, pleasantly anchored around 72 degrees. Warmer than the first Loop but not as sunny as the second Loop, the weather ended up perfect. I didn't have sweat running down my face but I wasn't worried about getting chilled either.

Route 2 is pretty unprotected from the sun, like Route 6. By the time I get to Route 2 I'm a bit tired so I notice the sun and such more than I do on Route 6. Today the sun felt slightly uncomfortable, and I went to the small ring on the wall outside of Winn.

Once over the wall I could roll the big ring, just barely. I stuck it in the 53x19 a lot, two cogs from the end (running an 11-23 cassette, so the last three cogs are 19-21-23). The 53x21 gets noisy so I avoid it, and the 53x23 is even noisier so I'll drop it into the small ring if I'm training. (In races I'll use it briefly if I have to.)

I made it through the toughest part of the ride, mentally speaking, the bit north of Winn on Route 2. It's just a whole lot of nothingness and I had a hard time looking out at a mile or two of road and seeing nothing except that mile or two of road.

Pretend Super Domestique

A little rise than a short drop and I got over the cusp of that mental dead zone. The short drop meant I was rapidly approaching the turn onto 170, the final road of the loop. I hurried along pretending that I had to pull a bit to keep the pace higher in the group.

Yesterday one of the Bike Forum guys (I call him Dnuzz in the Keith Berger clip) ended up winning the Cat 3 GMSR race overall. He had no teammates but with hilly road races and a critical time trial that's not major. However he had a hard time in the crit after the "neutral start" ended up meaning "attack from the gun". Apparently a good portion of the field got left behind and he was fortunate, to hear the others' reports, to have even finished the race. He basically had to chase the whole race, he had no help, and he managed to hold onto the leader's jersey.

When I read his report I thought that it's in these situations that friendships and camaraderie means more than anything else. When I've been in a vulnerable position I've had friends and former teammates come up to me to see if they could help out. It's a special feeling when someone does that for you, to give up their chances to help you. At some level you might expect it from a teammate, but from a casual friend it's something else.

Well, if I were at GMSR I would have buried myself to try and help Dnuzz try to put things back on a fair level.

Now I know that my 20 or 22 mph pace here on Route 2 wouldn't have helped much, but I think I could have managed a better pace in a crit. On Route 2 I had 2 hours on my legs already; in a crit I usually start with a brief few minute warm up.

Of course my dreams of being a not-so-super domestique sort of faded as my legs started going in and out of consciousness.

Trainer Leg Syndrome

One of the things that I realized happens to me is that I ride on the trainer a lot, like really a lot. The trainer emphasizes seated pedaling, primarily because when you stand on a trainer you end up rocking the bike "backwards", reverse of how you rock the bike when you're outside. This means that standing becomes either an awkward option or a non-option, leaving you one of two options: "Sit and Push" or "Sit and Spin".

This "Trainer Leg Syndrome" means that when I go out on long rides on the road I tend not to stand very often. It's not good - this spring I found the whole sprinting motion sort of foreign to me. I used to do a SoCal training camp before Bethel, putting in a lot of hours on some hilly terrain, plenty of out of saddle stuff to get my legs used to that stuff. Without such training, with just the seated trainer stuff, I felt uncomfortable sprinting. In fact it's only been recently that I started to get some sprinting feel back into my legs, a slight semblance of a jump. Until now I've felt that my sprints were too much like trainer sprints where I don't use the rocking bike to my advantage.

I find turning the big gears while standing to be a bit foreign, a bit uncomfortable. I'm just not used to it, and I've been trying to stand more when I ride outside just to get used to the idea of not sitting in the saddle. I've resorted to standing to accelerate out of corners in races just to get used to the whole "standing while under duress" thing down. For those that wonder why I'm jumping a bit hard out of Turn Three at the Rent, that's the reason why - I'm trying to get my sprint mojo back.

Well, all that's to say that on these Kingman Loops I struggle to stand for any length of time, and when I do I don't know if I'm going to cramp or get a bit wiggly or if I'm just going to ride with smooth application of the power available to me.

So far, on this ride, my legs and upper body worked reasonably well together. I wobbled a bit on Winn Road (and honestly I'm being very critical of myself). I sat and push-spun on Route 6 so no real wobbles. 170 had a few standing moments as well and those were not great.

Vision

The other thing that I've noticed (I have a LOT of time to think on these 4 corner, 3+ hour training rides) is that I get a bit dizzy when I look back. I got infinitely graded bifocal lens earlier this year. It's like bifocals without a sharp edge. I got them because I couldn't see Junior's fingers well enough and I actually snipped part of his finger when I meant to clip his nail. After seeing that (tiny bit of) blood I decided to get whatever glasses I needed to be able to trim his fingernails.

The problem is that these lenses can make you a bit dizzy when you change your focal point, like if you are looking close then you try and look far and then you look close again. I noticed this in races but chalked it up to being too tired or something.

I found that pushing my glasses up helped me focus better. It seems that the lenses are designed to work at a certain distance from my eye, at a certain level. So for example if I'm looking at Junior's fingernails I need to turn my eyeballs down so I look through the "reading" part of the lenses. If I just tilt my head down then I'm using the "distance" part of the lenses and I won't be able to see if I'm trimming nail or skin.

When I ride my head tilts down a bit and I look up through the top part of my lens. This isn't really ideal it seems, and when I look down I tilt my head through habit. When I look back I usually look through the lower part of the lens. (I'm telling you, I had a lot of thinking time on these rides.) This means that I'm looking through the reading part to look at far away thing and I'm using the distance part when I look at my tire (which I do at a disturbingly regular frequency), check my pump status (ditto), or dream about how much bar to cut off (ditto).

On 170 (on the way to the Outpost so the second time I was on 170) I started getting wobbly consistently. I have to think about this more because it's disconcerting, but I couldn't hold a good straight line. I actually started testing myself, practicing, but after a little wobble that almost took me off the road I decided to play it more conservatively. I moved a bit away from the shoulder and gave myself a larger margin for error. Looking forward I was fine, it was when I looked back that things went weird.

Looking down to look back.

I'm obviously looking through the lower part of the lens to look back here.

You can see my "end of Maine" cockpit. There's no SRM because I forgot the download cable and the SRM only has about 7 hours of memory on it (if I record at 1 second intervals which I do). I tucked the SRM "dongle" (the wire thing that plugs into the SRM) around some brake cable housing, visible a bit to the right of the stem, in front of the bar.

You can see how I mount the pump. It's a "dial-a-length" frame pump, dialed to one of the shortest positions. It fits between my front skewer (angled just a bit to create a "level" surface for the pump) and my bars. I use the pump head end under the bar, using a velcro strap to hold it in place. At the bottom I have the skinnier end of the pump with another velcro strap. I can tug on it pretty hard and it won't come off. I've hit about 50 mph with this set up.

I'm on the drops as well, but I have to point out that I wasn't on the drops as much on these rides. When I stand on climbs I'm virtually always on the hoods, except in sprints. Therefore every time I stood to get over yet another annoying rise I was on the hoods. When I sit and climb I'm almost always on the tops, so every time I sort of push-spun to the top of a hill I was on the tops. That just leaves descents and corners for the drops, and that's pretty much it.

Finally I've given myself about twice as much pavement as normal. Usually I'm just to the left of the white line, but when I turned around and wobbled a few inches that meant I was almost in the dirt and rocks next to the pavement. Therefore I moved a bit more to the left to give me more room. If I was on a hill I'd move over twice as much as I am in that picture, to give my tires room to make their snake-type path up the hill.

So... where was I?

Oh, right, back on 170, almost back to the Outpost, dreaming of being a less-than-super domestique, dealing with standing on the bike, dealing with vision problems.

The last bit of 170 before the Outpost involves a short, straight, steady rise, some railroad tracks, a short drop, then a steep-for-me hill.

All those things came together on those bits.

I stood on that straight, giving myself plenty of pavement in case my coordination failed. I felt good so I pushed a bit, not too hard, just enough so that the fatigue came to me rather than me rushing into the lactic acid.

I made sure my glasses were pushed up, kept my head more level than normal, and turned around to make sure I wasn't going to be passed by a truck going 50 mph. I didn't wobble badly. I didn't scare myself.

I rolled to the top of the rise, my legs okay. I bumped over the railroad tracks, then down the short descent to the bridge, then hit the final hill.

Instead of struggling in the 39x23 I was okay in the 39x19. Again I waited for my legs to protest, for them to tell me that I need to shift down. Instead I went up the hill faster than I expected, my legs choosing to get it done quickly rather than reduce the momentary effort.

I rolled into the driveway, did my customary 'cross dismount to the door, and ran inside, still breathing a bit from the hill.

The Missus was in the kitchen, Junior asleep in his Pack N Play upstairs.

The Missus looked at me.

"Did you cut the ride short?"
"No, why?"
"Well you're here a lot quicker than we expected."

("Well I totally killed it out there today")

"Well I felt pretty good today."

I looked at the clock. It was a couple minutes after 4. Strava told me later that I was out there for 3:01, just over 3 hours, a fantastic pace for me.

Later I joked a bit.

"I think maybe we had a swirling wind today, it blew clockwise and pushed me the whole way around, at least that's what it felt like, I could just go, never got into trouble. I used the small ring just four times, I did all those other hills in the big ring."
"That's great!"

We grinned.

Training - MeTC Kingman Loop Take 2

The day after my 2A ride the Missus sent me out to ride on yet another beautiful day. The days get muddled up in my head but I think it was the day where I was worried about the weather as it was wet out. By the time I rolled out the driveway, though, all I could see in the sky were puffy white clouds with a blue backdrop.

I had this terrible creak coming from the left side of the bottom bracket. I figured the bearings weren't bad so it had to be the bearing/frame interface. I squirted some lube there and hoped it would quiet down. I couldn't spend too much time in the breezeway working on the bike because the 15 or 20 mosquitoes there would start feeding on me.

After a quick splash of lube I headed out the door.

I should mention that the driveway is a loose, small stone driveway. With the mosquitoes around I can't afford to dilly-dally on the driveway so each ride gets started with me bombing down the bumpy grass that lines the driveway. It's truly a 'cross type experience.

I'll also add that the 50 feet of "cross" is enough for me. I won't be buying a cross bike.

Anyway for the "ride after the 2A ride" I decided to do the Kingman Loop again. It's easy to navigate, now that I knew where to make the second of four right turns. The roads have little traffic, like all roads around here, and I could sort of remember where the few "challenging" hills sat.

As soon as I headed out I knew my legs were off. Granted, I'd ridden almost 40 miles the prior day, but I didn't feel sore or anything. My legs just felt sort of empty, hollow.

I cajoled them into turning circles along the early bits of the ride, sections with some slightly easier riding. I wasn't feeling it though, I didn't feel comfortable on the drops, not on the hoods, and therefore rode a lot on the tops, fondling the strap that held the top of my pump in place.

I'll point out that my pump is mounted between the front skewer lever and my bars. It's the best place on the red bike to put the pump. I secure both ends with those ubiquitous velcro straps and I've never had a problem with a loose or AWOL pump.

The only thing is that the top strap ends up sitting in the middle of the tops so I end up rubbing it with my fingers while I ride. It's sort of like Junior when he's sitting in his chair, strapped in place, but anxious about something. He'll start rubbing his finger tip against the chair or the tray, like he was trying to rub out a piece of dried on PB&J.

Anyway I rolled along, pretty uncomfortable, along 170. I passed the Springfield Fair, the big event for the town of Springfield each year. The whole lot of us had been there so I knew what to expect, but to see more than one or two cars at a time on this road still shocked me.

Springfield Fair, the big event of the year.

I can't resist posting a picture I took while at the fair. It's a joke but it sort of says it all.

We found this and thought it was pretty funny.

That's my phone for scale.

The fair sits on an area about as large as a large soccer field. Back at home it'd fit in the grass field in front of the bandshell in the middle of town. They have rides, food stands, tractor and draft horse pulls, blue ribbon things, ducks, geese, goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens, all sorts of stuff. No alcohol, but you could go out to your car and come back inside as many times as you wanted (in a day). I saw people eating and drinking in the parking lot, obviously trying to save money on the food past the gate.

Anyway on the ride this was where I saw the most number of people in one spot.

After that it felt like I was riding through a set from the Walking Dead.

Well, not really, because there weren't abandoned cars everywhere, there weren't dead people everywhere, and there weren't any zombies trying to eat me.

So it wasn't really like riding through a set from the Walking Dead. It was just really empty.

Route 6 was tough on me. I had to hit my small chainring a number of times, on what were upgrades just a little steeper than "slight". I don't remember a ton of wind so I think it was just my empty legs.

I didn't miss the turn onto 168 aka Winn Road this time, but man this road really grew sticky since a few days ago. I felt like my tires were sinking into the pavement, to the point that I actually checked to see if my brakes were rubbing. I twiddled my pedals along this road, wondering how the heck I rolled it so easily the first time 'round.

I ate half the Pop Tarts on this road. I'd have eaten "one cake" (it's a cake?) but after spending a day in my jersey pocket yesterday I really had a bag of Pop Tart Crumbles. Therefore I ate half the crumbles and saved the other half "just in case".

Route 2 wasn't much better although I wasn't hungry. I ended up using the small ring all over the place, I never found my rhythm after the hill out of Winn (the steepest hill of the ride). I did pass the party house and a half dozen kids hanging out in front of it. I didn't notice if they were drinking this time, and I did notice that the cars looked newer than they did last time.

I crawled up that hill in my 39x23.

Miraculously my cranks suddenly quieted down. I guess it takes about 2 hours of pedaling to work the lube into the bearing/frame interface. Suddenly I lost my creaking metronome.

I wondered if I'd be riding faster or slower because of that.

I got back to 170 and felt a bit better. I tried to roll a few times, getting a decent gear going, but within a half minute or so I'd shifting down and resting my legs. My legs loaded up on lactic acid almost instantly and I felt like I was pedaling with wooden logs instead of legs.

Two little kids, maybe 4 and 6 years old, playing in their yard, said hi to me.

I waved hi back.

I struggled on my now-quiet bike. I stood on short rises, trying to get over them in the big ring, but ended up sitting down and shifting down through the gears.

I rolled past the funny school sign. Ha ha.

I rolled up the last little rise before the final steep hill to the Outpost. On that rise I tried to roll the big ring. In a race we'd be flying up it in a 53x14 or higher, but today, for me, the 53x21 was too big.

10 meters from the top I was in the small ring and crawling.

I managed to get up the last steep hill, a couple hundred yards of climbing where I try to go faster than 3 or 4 mph, fast enough to stay out of mosquito tracking speed.

I rolled into the driveway and did my customary power slide - dismount - entry move.

Two mosquitoes bit me in the breezeway.

I got inside, a bit itchy, tired, fatigued, thirsty, and hungry.

Training - MeTC 2A

After a day off I found the time to get out and do another ride. This time I went for the 2A Out N Back loop. My legs felt totally fine after my ride on Thursday, but since it'd been almost a week since I'd ridden before that I wasn't sure if I'd be okay or not after shocking the system with a long ride.

Therefore the 2A loop made sense. I could go out for an hour, turn around, and try to make it back in just a bit less time. I virtually always ride with a bit in reserve, "just in case", so I'd have gas in the tank coming back.

With that in mind I set out on the very straightforward route - head out, take a right, turn around when I feel like it, take a left, get back to the Outpost. Like before I had my flapping vest on for visibility, my blinky flashing away, and this time I had a package of Pop Tarts in my pocket.

I headed out with little information on 2A. From the last time I rode here I vaguely remembered an endless series of rolling hills, a rough shoulder, and not much else.

Apparently I remembered correctly. The road did have a shoulder, although sometimes it narrowed down to a few inches, the shoulder was rough, and there was an endless series of slight uphills and downhills.

And not much else.

I tried to roll along on the drops, the FSA Energy handlebars that I found almost replicated my crit-bend bar drops position. Unfortunately there's a weird angle on the drops and it put a bit more pressure on a particular part of my hand, more so than usual. This resulted in my hands going numb, sort of unusual for me.

The 42 cm bars also felt really wide, like I was riding a motorcycle. I mean, okay, I knew they felt wide, but with a whole lot of nothing around me I could focus a bit more on me and my bike. I'd consider riding along Route 2A to be even more empty than riding the trainer - at least on the trainer I'd have a video or DVD playing and maybe some music. On 2A it was just me, the trees, and the rough shoulder.

At any rate during my bar meditation I decided that I'd want a 40 cm version of whatever FSA bar I decided to get, preferably the FSA Compact or the FSA Wing bar. The latter is the same as the Compact but with a flattened "aero" top of the bar - I really like that flat platform, more so than any aero benefit that might come from having said platform.

The Compacts have less drop but the shape of the drops agree with my hands more. The lessor drop affected my back though - shortly after installing the FSA Energy handlebars I noticed that my back was a bit better. I could bend over a bit easier, I could pick up Junior without wincing (most of the time anyway), and on the bike I felt more comfortable on the drops.

I thought of my ideal solution - a long, low stem, like a 65 degree (-25 degree) 14 cm stem, with 40 cm wide FSA Compact bars, or the FSA Wing bars that I had on before.

All this thinking didn't help my hands on this desolate stretch of 2A so I just plodded along, trying to spin either a 53x19, using the 53x21 for brief periods, or shifting into the 39 if I had to stay in the 21 for any length of time. With a max cog of 23T even the 53x21 made the chain complain, and the 53x23 made the chain sound like it would grind itself to death.

I guess the short 39 cm chainstays do have a drawback.

I pulled out my phone to check the time. In my haste in packing I grabbed the (white) power cord for the MacBook. I mentally checked off "SRM download cable" because that's white also. The problem was that I never grabbed the SRM download cable. The SRM I have is limited to about 7 hours of data.  I hadn't reset it in a bit and the first ride up here had virtually filled the memory.

Given the choice between totally losing all the accumulated SRM data and risking using just the phone/Strava, I went with using the phone/Strava. This meant no SRM computer on the bike, i.e. no time of day, no miles, no cadence, no HR, no points of reference.

Therefore I pulled out my phone to check the time.

"Whatever you do don't drop the phone," I thought to myself.

The phone went flying.

It hit the road and skittered around.

Stopping, I of course looked around to see if anyone noticed. Nope, no cars. No trucks. No deer. No moose. No squirrels. No hawks. No crickets. No snakes. No turtles.

No nothing.

I picked up the phone. It looked fine.

And I had 15 more minutes before I'd hit the hour mark. I told the Missus I'd do a 2 to 2 1/2 hour ride, and since I felt reasonably well I decided to go the 15 more minutes before I turned around, an hour out, to make it a 2 hour ride round trip.

I got pretty far in a few minutes, started feeling better and better, and decided to stretch it out to 2 1/2 hours. That meant riding another half hour (after the phone drop) before turning around, making it 1:15 out and presumably another 1:15 back. I told myself I'd turn around at the top of the next little rise. Each time I got to the top of "the next little rise" it kept going. I felt like I was chasing leprechauns at the end of a rainbow.

Finally, when I got to a bit of pavement with grass growing through the pavement, I decided that this bit of lawn would mark my turn around.

I started heading back. My legs felt pretty good - I guess it takes an hour+ of riding for them to feel good after a day off.

I saw a car poking its head out of the woods. Weird, in such a desolate place, and it wasn't there a short time ago. Two characters, straight out of a movie, sat in the car. Young guys with big, bushy, fake looking beards, aviator sunglasses, they looked like two guys straight out of the Beastie Boys "Sabotage" clip.

Not sure what these guys were doing.

I waved a greeting as I rode by. I don't know if they nodded or what. I didn't hear the car move, and when I glanced back a hundred meters later I could still see the car sitting by the side of the road.

Whatever.

I rolled pretty hard, pushing a bit up the short climbs, trying to maintain decent speed on the short declines (not really downhills except one).

I turned left onto Kingman Road, aka 170, the one constant between the two rides I'd done so far. I have a hard time reading his section of road, only about 7 miles long but undulating and never allowing me to hold a consistent effort.

I thought of the domestiques on ProTour teams that have to pull for a hundred km at a time, tempo tempo, to keep breaks in check during a Grand Tour. The leaders recon the final climbs; I wondered if the domestiques reconned the first 100-150 km of each stage, especially the transition stages.

I wondered how they'd approach Kingman Road, this deceivingly tough (to me) road, no good rhythm, no steady grades, just this choppy up and down and fast and slow thing. If this road ever appeared in a race it'd offer one heck of a challenge to the racers.

I decided that a power meter would be a good thing here, letting me know if I was pushing a bit hard on the rises and slacking too much on the slight downhills. Without either I didn't know how hard to push, only that I could actually ride today instead of crawling like I did two days ago. I decided that the "Chris Froome Looking At Stems" thing (hilarious, btw), a reference to the fact that he seems to ride based on his powermeter, isn't necessarily all bad.

I passed a sign that makes the Missus and I giggle whenever we see it. Kingman is not a huge town. In fact it doesn't have a police department, and the firehouse is so small I thought it was someone's freestanding garage.

Therefore when we saw a sign for the Kingman Elementary School pointing to the left, and a very small building directly across from the sign, we couldn't help but do a double take.

Elementary school sign.

See the brown building with the green roof to the left?

The "school" (between the yellow thing and the truck).

The "school" couldn't have measured more than about 8' wide and maybe 12' long. Obviously it's a fancy shed with windows and such but since we couldn't see any driveway, any playground, anything else that looked like a school, we would point at "the school" and giggle.

I was riding okay through here and looked back and forth just one more time, to see if I could figure out where the school sat.

No luck.

(Ends up that the school is down a road that's 50 yards past the sign, and it's a proper school, brick building, playground, all that stuff. No fence though, not like in Connecticut.)

I did the last little rise in Kingman before a quick drop to a bridge. Then the final grind up a hill to the driveway. I had to drop it into the 39x23 even with "decent" legs.

I got home in 2:20 so about 10 minutes short of my "long estimate". This time I wasn't totally shot, and in fact my legs felt pretty good just a few hours later. 

Other than my thoughts about my bars and the idea of using a powermeter on weirdly undulating roads I really hadn't thought of much.

Well the Beastie Boy extras.

The School In A Shed.

Yeah, well, it's quiet up here.

Training - MeTC (Maine Training Camp) Kingman Loop

The Missus and I hauled Junior up north for a bit, visiting her mom and step-dad up in Maine. Last time I came here I got bitten by two dogs. The trip before that I went out on a "20 mile" ride on what ended up being about a 65 mile loop and had to call the Missus to rescue me. This time I was so leery about bringing the bike I actually asked the Missus if she thought bringing a bike would be a good idea. I phrased it carefully, though, to try and keep the demons at bay.

"You think I should bring the road bike or the mountain bike?"

"The road bike, don't you?"

"Um, yeah, that's what I was thinking."

With all of Junior's stuff we'd have to bring the bike on the roof, not ideal for mileage. On the way up I reverted to "gas mileage" mode, meaning I was happy going 70 mph instead of pushing 80 if I could, and if I was behind a line of cars going 68 mph I didn't pass them right away. Incredibly we averaged over 43 mpg and 65 mph for the 6+ hour drive.

(The 65 mph average means that yes, we must have exceeded 70 mph for long stretches at a time, making the 43+ mpg even more fantastic, consider we had a bike on the roof.)

We got here and the Missus unpacked a whole lot of stuff for Junior - Pack N Play, a couple bags, our bag, etc. I grabbed the bike, put it inside, grabbed the computer and camera, and by then the mosquitoes were biting and I was hiding inside.

Unfortunately this part of Maine hadn't been hit with a hard frost yet so the mosquitoes were out in (relative to Connecticut) force. Up here it was "wow, it's so nice" while I was swatting and swinging and running around like my hair was on fire.

We came up here because Nana and Pap (the Missus's grandparents) were making a rare trip outside of their home in Florida. It's hard for them to move around so for them to even consider flying was a big deal. Since we could drive here pretty easily it was easy for us to make sure we were here while they were here.

Due to Skype and some regular video calls with everyone Junior knew everyone. I think he was surprised that they weren't in the computer, but still, he recognized everyone and smiled and charmed and all that.

Luckily Junior really took a liking to everyone. With them and the Missus looking after Junior that left me some time to go for some rides. I decided to avoid the dogs route (to my dismay I learned that the owners had to put down the two dogs that had bitten me but at least the owners are friends of Grandma and Grandpa now) so that left me really with just two options. One was the big loop, the 65 miler, but I'd cut through and shorten it to about 50 miles. I didn't remember much of the loop but cutting out about 15, maybe 20 miles of it would make it doable. Keep in mind that I'd never completed the loop before.

The other route was a desolate road that headed up to Canada, Route 2A. I'd just do an out and back, a training ride that made it pretty predictable in terms of determining exactly how long the ride would take. I'd just figure out when I'd need to turn around (by halving how much time I had to ride) and that'd be that. I like out-n-back rides for recovery because I can decide exactly when I've reached the halfway point of the ride.

The first day I set out to do the 50 miler, one I call "Kingman Loop" on Strava. With fresh legs, enough time, I felt it a doable thing. I mapped it out on a much-improved internet signal here at the Outpost, and it came out to about 50 miles. I kitted up, Pap asking questions about this and that.

"How long you gonna ride for?"

"I mapped out a loop, about 50 miles."

"How long you think it'll take you to do the 50 miles?"

"About 3, 3 1/2 hours."

"3 hours for 50 miles!"

I set out, as I did for each ride, with a vest on, flapping in my wake. The human eye sees motion first, color second, and shapes third. I wanted any drivers to see me flapping in the distance. With such a sparsely populated area most people drive 50-60-70 mph on all the roads here, even the ones with literally no shoulder. I'd be relying on their attentiveness and courtesy to stay safe. Luckily the lack of strong cell signals meant fewer texters and talkers, but still, you never know.

I also installed my Superflash taillight before we left, and I'd leave it on during each ride. At one of the rest stops on I-95 we saw a poster about the dangers of moose and such. The posters showed two moose, one on the road, one in the shade. The one in the shade was virtually invisible, especially since the moose on the road drew your attention. I decided that I better use the blinky taillight so that I wouldn't be just another flapping shadow under the trees.

I'd read, in the last week, about how braking hard will loosen your headset. I don't brake hard that often but the Kermis had a 180 that had me braking quite hard. I checked my headset.

Loose.

I tightened it back up and set off. I had to stop a few times to straighten/align the stem properly, swatting at a mosquito that landed on my leg on the last one. I decided that if it was off I'd just deal with it. Luckily it was finally straight.

My first Kingman Loop went well. I talked about the loop with Grandma and when I said I'd be taking Route 168 she thought it was 158. Then she said, no, it's Winn Road, it goes from Lee to Winn. Winn Road? On the map I just saw 168. And Lee? That's the town?

Route 6.

Well while I was hammering down Route 6 I came to Lee. It's about 6 buildings long and then it turns into trees again, so I looked suspiciously down the road at the one intersection in town.

No Route 168 signs.

ATVs to go get lunch in downtown Lee.

168, aka Winn Road, is the right turn at the top of this short rise.

I kept going for a couple minutes. I hesitated at the top of a little descent because I'd have to climb back up the thing if I had to turn around. I brushed away that doubt thinking, "Naw, it has to be up here" and plunged down the short drop.

The houses went back to the "one in every quarter mile or more" spacing and I decided it'd be worth it to stop at the top of yet another hill. I checked the map, GPS'ed my location on it, and voila, I just passed 168, aka Winn Road.

I turned around, went back down a descent and then up that "short drop". Now that I'd already passed it I saw Route 168 signs everywhere (okay, in two spots).

I tried to remember about how long 168 was but I didn't have to think too long.

"Road Construction Next (10) Miles"

The "10" was written in very small numerals with a Sharpie.

Since 168 hits Route 2 and ends there it had to be at least 10 miles long.

I got into the drops and started going. The miles wouldn't pass by themselves. The road seemed hilly but not that hilly. I mean it wasn't like I was climbing for an hour here and there but at the same time it never felt like I was coasting.

Suddenly I was 50 yards from Route 2, a short steep drop to the intersection, a sign right there that said "End Road Construction". I guess Route 168, aka Winn Road, is 10 miles long. I stopped, looked both ways, and went right.

I was in Winn.

Of course.

I mentally thanked Grandma for our discussion on if it was 168 or 158 or Winn Road or what. "Lee" and "Winn" were enough to keep me on track.

A few blocks of Route 2, sort of, over a bridge, and then I looked up at a wall of a hill. This was that party house hill, where the kids were all bundled up outside drinking beers. I quickly resigned myself to grinding up the thing in my bottom gear, a 39x23. My legs started to fade a bit. The endless wavy roads after the hill really zapped me. I tried to roll in the big ring, on the drops, but all too often my legs would give way, I'd shift into the small ring, and sit on the tops.

Route 2, heading north.

If I hadn't lifted this shot from the helmet cam I wouldn't know it's Route 2 either.

I started to fade pretty hard, my legs starting to buckle. My last ride was the CCNS Kermis, six days ago, and although fresh from rest my body wasn't used to this amount of riding.

When I got to Kingman Road, aka Route 170, finally, I was pretty toasted. I neglected to bring any food so I sipped at my water bottle, trying to will my body into some kind of super duper fat burning mode.

It didn't work.

I struggled at less than 10 mph on the flats, rallying here and there, then sitting up and turning over some ridiculously low gear at some ridiculously low speed.

My phone cut out after about 49 miles so I didn't Strava the whole thing, but I finally made it to the house. Strava says I did 17 mph until my phone died. It took me something like 20 minutes to go the last non-Strava 3 or so miles.

I finished my ride in about 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Pap was beside himself. "I can't believe you just went out and rode 50 miles!" he kept saying. I was too tired to do anything but give him a glazed look and a small grin. The Missus knew I had hit the wall so she asked some succinct but important questions.

"You hungry?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"Everything."

I had no idea what they had prepared for dinner but I wanted it. I sat at the table after a brief cold shower and the Missus brought me over a plate of food.

It had everything.

Junior was reaching out and waving both his arms, his way of showing joyous greetings and happiness.

I dug in.

Training - Who Let The Dogs Out

In the White Plains Crit post I allude to some training and such over the prior weekend. That would be the weekend of September 8th and 9th. In fact we were up in Maine for a day before and two days after, visiting friends and relatives. I'd brought my bike - with the great weather forecast I hoped to do a mini-training camp, maybe 3 hours a day for a couple days. The Missus's mom had calculated a low-mosquito-density time for us to visit, and, in fact, I got bitten just a few times in a few minutes towards the end of the trip. Perfect timing.

We were pretty far up in Maine. How far up? Well, the speed limit on I-95 is 75 mph there. That's fast enough that even the locals barely break the limit. It's not a matter of the road conditions or whatever - it's just that our cars and trucks really aren't made to cruise comfortably at 80 mph. You have to push your foot a bunch more towards the floor; our Jetta TDi struggled to stay at 36 mpg at that speed. As comparison, with a bike on the rack at 70-75 mph, we'd get 38-40 mpg, and in traffic at 65 mph (think Jersey Turnpike) we got 53-55 mpg with a fully loaded car, AC running the whole time, and no special hypermiling techniques.

I occupied my mind with trying to figure out if we'd see a moose around. The state of Maine had done a count and proclaimed that about 70,000 moose lived in Maine north of Portland. Guessing from driving distances I figured that Maine was roughly 90,000 square miles, like 300 miles by 300 miles. This meant there ought to be a moose every square mile, and that meant we ought to see a moose any second. I kept an eye out for small trees in the road (that's what moose legs look like at night) and large brown things resembling oil tanks floating about 6 or 7 feet off the ground.

(I looked it up later - Maine is only 35,000 square miles so even if you put wild moose in the center of Portland, there ought to be two moose per square mile.)

At one point while driving around the area I zoomed out on the DroidX nav system.

I saw a dark line, unusual. Then I saw the maple leaf Route 2 to the right.

Canada!

By the way see the green line on the highway? It means that traffic is moving smoothly; it's part of the nav system on the (Verizon Wireless) DroidX. It's a great feature - we use it on road trips to navigate around heavy traffic in areas we don't know. It's amazing enough that I wonder how they get such accurate data.

My theory is that they use mobile phone locations to see how fast the phone is moving, then they can match the speed of the phone to the posted limits on the roadways. If traffic is moving well then the lines are green. If they're slow there's a yellow overlay. If it's gridlocked there's a red overlay. If there are no cars then there's no overlay.

I was surprised at how much green I saw. Then I realized - we  were the traffic report!

According to the nav the road we just drove on is in good shape traffic-wise.

It should be - there's no one behind us.

As a joke I took a picture of the cars in front of us, waiting for the longest stretch of visible pavement.

Heavy traffic in Maine. We're going about 77-78 mph.

Apparently there are Amish in the area. There are supposed to be 70,000 moose too, but we hadn't seen a single one. Therefore I took a picture of the buggy sign as proof that there were Amish in the area.

Alleged Amish in the area.

A few minutes later we finally had our first Maine siting - an Amish person. Or one that appears a lot like one.

And there's an alleged Amish person, waving even!

The brown thing in front of the buggy is a horse. It is not a moose.

Of course Maine has a lot of open spaces, broad views, and even mountains. Just no moose that we could tell.

A mountain. I forget the name of it.

Apparently there are at least two moose in this picture.

I decided that I'd go and do a ride. Last time I did a ride here it was Thanksgiving, I mapped out a route on my phone that seemed pretty reasonable, maybe 30 miles. It was only after I set out that I realized it was much, much longer than that - closer to 68 miles. As the sun set I called the Missus to rescue me. She drove to my location like Juha Kankkunen, even bruising the rims with the tires as she bounced along the rough backwoods roads.

"Wow, did you know that the speed limit on that road was 55 mph?!"

In much nicer conditions I set out on a less ambitious route. This time I checked the mileage first - 46 miles. At my normal training pace it ought to take me 3 or 3.5 hours; at most I'd average 15 mph. I took along some food and my standard training ride "kit" (which I'll post about shortly). I wore my 2010 Bethel Spring Series leader kit - with local roads set at 55 mph, and drivers routinely blowing away that speed limit, I wanted to be obvious to even the most oblivious driver.

A friend Shovel had just raced at Nationals. I read his account of the race, thought of all the training and discipline required for someone to be as good as possible on a given day. The idea pushed me and I tried to push hard over the various rollers (aka short hills) along the route. I worked moderately hard on the flats too, staying in the drops, trying to be aero.

The fourth roller seemed a bit tougher than the first three. I pushed for a bit then relented, slipping into the small ring. I realized the pitch increased toward the top - I had to shift lower and lower in the back until I was in my 39x25, struggling to keep the pedals turning.

At this point two dogs, about 60 or so pounds apiece, came bolting out of a yard. In Connecticut this happens infrequently. Strict leash laws and a litigious populace means most owners carefully corral their dogs. At worst the dog will peel off and run parallel to you; at best they stop at the edge of their yard as their electronic collars beep warnings at them or shock them when they push the limits.

Of course this was the land of 55 mph two lane roads, cars about once a mile, and lots and lots of open land. Owners treat their dogs a bit differently here.

So these dogs popped up. The first one, an all black dog, came tearing at me and immediately nipped me. My ankle went numb.

I couldn't believe it. Did I just get bit?

He peeled off as his buddy came flying over, and, scrambling to line himself up to me, the second dog chomped me too.

Then, as the owners screamed at them to come back, they both turned tail and sprinted back to home base.

"Rover One breaking off, scored one hit. Rover Two you're clear for attack!"

I stopped, stunned. I wasn't sure if they bit me yet because I didn't feel anything, no pain, no nothing. In fact I didn't even feel the normal things I feel, my sock, the shoe cover, the top edge of my shoe. The whole left ankle area had gone numb.

When I looked down I could see blood seeping through the shoe cover, which meant it had already seeped past the sock (the sock ends just above the shoe cover). As I watched the blood stain started to grow downward.

I stopped, unclipped, and realized as I weighted the foot that, yes, it hurt. I called the Missus, reported what happened and where. She was probably peeling out of the driveway before I could hit "End Call".

I also, in a somewhat annoyed and accusatory tone, asked if the owners had their dogs up to date on rabies and the like. Fortunately for me they did, and the wife produced the documents in about 3 or 4 minutes.

Now, part of the whole "we live in the boonies" thing about this part of Maine is that most towns are unincorporated. It's like Las Vegas, just smaller. The immediate effect of this is that there is no police force in town - the state police handle all law enforcement things, and today there was one officer on duty for a huge swath of territory.

After a call with a number of "let me transfer you to" type transfers, the wife gave me the phone so I could officially decline an ambulance. I did, but the dispatcher told me to sit tight and wait for that sole trooper to show up.

The Missus showed up. After a few preliminary questions she tucked away the dogs' papers, expertly put the bike up on the rack (I was barely in earshot of the car and she never asked for help regardless). She came back and before I could ask she told me she'd taking the SRM head off, both bottles, the frame pump, and yes, she remembered to lock the skewer bit as well as close the wheel strap in back. Then she collected my helmet and such and tucked those in the car too.

A few hours later, with no trooper in sight, the wife called the dispatcher. Apparently the trooper figured it was an animal control thing ("game warden") so he never came. The Missus and I said our goodbyes and headed to the hospital, a good 30 or something miles away.

Luckily I hadn't gotten hostile or anything - it ends up the couple know some of the family. In fact they, like all the people in that area, have kept careful track of the "newcomers" that moved into the house 12 miles away, all the improvements and such that they'd done. They rattled off stuff that even I didn't know had been done to the house.

We also learned a bit about Rover One and Rover Two. They're used to herding cows - the couple raise cows. Apparently I looked like a sickly yellow two legged cow that needed some herding.

The hospital treated us really well - they could afford to because, we were the only ones left there. They cleaned out the wound, tut-tutted over the bite, and prescribed me a round of antibiotics. This scenerio mirrored the one where the glue trap cat bit me. They even gave me the first pill because, at 7 PM, all the pharmacies in town would be closed.

When we left the Missus checked all the pharmacies. Yep. Closed. Another drawback of 75 mph speed limits. At home, even though we live in a pretty bucolic place, there's still a 24 hour pharmacy 20 minutes away (at 35 mph, not 60). We started heading back, something like 40 miles to the house.

A long time later we got home. Junior had fallen asleep already, under Grandma's care. I think it was the first time both of us had been away when he went to sleep for the night.

Although I felt like I could barely walk the next day I improved rapidly by the afternoon. I ventured out on the bike, heading directly opposite where the dogs were. Although I meant to ride just an hour max, I turned around after 45 minutes. I could have ridden longer but I didn't want to worry the Missus (I'd told her an hour max) and I couldn't call her to let her know because, right, you got it, I had no signal.

So that's my September training camp in Maine. I got about 30 miles of training in, ended up on a round of antibiotics, and never saw a moose. In all fairness I had a great time otherwise, catching up with the Missus's mom and Bob, my little bro and his family, and a former teammate and fellow worker from way back when.