Corporate Hippy

Yesterday, Nick, Mike, Kim, Jon, James, Christy, Eric and I met for a ride at Highland Rec.  For some reason, I decided to take the SS instead of the fully geared, full suspension bike.  Heh.  Maybe not one of the smarter decisions I’ve made this summer, but I did have fun – despite the “ride until you puke” experience only a couple of miles in.  Yes, this was a first for me.

I took off into the singletrack like I was on fire.  I was having a blast but could feel my heart trying to jump out of my skin.  About a mile in, I pulled my foot right out of my pedal on a tough uphill and had to stop and walk.  I decided to head to the back of the pack and chill out a bit because I knew my crazy pace was .. well … crazy.  I was ahead of Kim, Mike and Nick and ended up riding between packs for a bit, on my own.  A series of long, shallow climbs had me out of the saddle and barely breathing.  I knew the front half of the group was at the top of this particular climb and I was trying to make it there.  I had to stop just after the last turn of the climb.  I glanced at my HR monitor and it said 203.  It was only a few more seconds before I got that feeling in my stomach and I knew what was gonna happen. 

I’m glad I had a small breakfast. 🙂

I walked my way up to the rest of the group, got my bearings and we headed on.  I decided to stay behind Kim this time and ride at her pace.  We made it though, stopping way more than the rest of the group, but we were having a good time keeping each other company. 

When we got to the enterance of the C loop, I decided that I just didn’t have it in me to do that section.  I’ve only done it once (I’ve only ridden Highland 4 times, counting yesterday) and I knew that it was pretty technical.  I just didn’t think I had the strength left to grunt the SS through the short steep technical climbs that I was sure the C loop had. 

Kim and Christy were more than happy to keep me company on the rest of the B loop while the guys did the C loop.  This was the first time Kim had ridden the B loop at Highland, and was getting pretty tired.  Christy was having an off day and not feeling too confident, so wanted a break. 

That section, from the C enterance to where the D loop starts is an amazing piece of singletrack.  Its fanstatic fun and I loved doing it on the SS. 

We hung out at the enterance of the D loop for awhile waiting for the dudes, and then we all rode the last mile or so out together(ish). 

All in all, it was a great ride.  The weather was perfect – 60 degrees – knickers, arm warmers.  My favorite riding attire 😀

Would I ride Highland again on a Single Speed?  Definitely.  But maybe next time I won’t kill myself right out of the gate .. jeesh.  😉

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and I’ve hardly posted at all … ah well .. such is often the case with these blogs ..

today, however, i felt compelled to post since i’m still on a bit of a high from riding my bike for 3 hours and 52 minutes today … the longest ride for me this year .. not groundbreaking by most people’s standards .. but in my sorry state of physical shape, it was pretty damn exciting shit …

mike and kim rode the tandem that they borrowed from cat

I’m not sure if Kim had ever ridden for that long before, and she was pretty glad to be on the tandem for it.  She said she probably would have fallen way behind if she was on her own bike… Mike’s biggest dissapointment was that he didn’t think to change the driver’s saddle to his own (even though he swapped out the stoker’s saddle for Kim’s terry <G>) .. Toward the end of the ride, the tandem really started to pick up “saddle pain enduced speed” at times on the Clinton River Trail and I had to yell to keep them in check ;)  By the time we got over the expressway on Livenois, I figured it was time to let them free 😀

We stopped on one of the bigger bridges for a break on the way out and were greeted by 4 of these guys out on patrol:

They seemed to be just out riding around, checking on things.  Very friendly and they all looked like they were having a good time 🙂

After our wonderful 49 mile ride, Kim fixed up a bunch of left overs from her labor day party the day before – cheezy potatos, potato salad, fresh fresh corn on the cob (thanks Scott!) and some burgers.. yummmy .. Kim’s the best 😀

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Have I mentioned that the 12 hours of Ithaca is to be my first ever solo endurance race event?  Yeah.  It sure is.  And its this weekend.

*yikes*

Actually, I’m really looking forward to it.  The course is mostly flat and twisty and very short.  As in ~5 miles of short.  I’ve decided that I’m going to do as much as possible on the SS, but I’m bringing the Titus along for ‘in case of’ .. This also puts me in the solo-women’s category, rather than the SS category.  I’ll be ‘competing’ with Shari and Claudia. 

I’ve been pulling together some ‘lap goals’ in my head and just looked up some results from last year for reference.  Our team did 25 laps, meaning I did 6 (Jessica did the extra lap).  Shari did 18 laps last year.  Oof.  Ok.  So, I think my bear minimum goal will be 12 laps.  That’s twice as many as last year, and averaging one lap per hour.  I’m going a bit easy on myself (goal-wise) since this is my first solo endurance race.  It may be flat and short, but its still riding a bike all day.

So there.  Its written in digital and will soon be published for the world to see.  I do have some super-secret goals that will not be published on the interweb and may or may not be talked about after the race 😉

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Shari and I have been trying to plan a ride together since the spring.  We’ve made a few attempts to meet at Pontiac Lake, but either weather, illness or just plain chaos has gotten in the way.  Tonight however, the planets aligned.  The weather was perfect, we were all in good health, traffic was good, last minute bike maintenance issues were taken care of and we made it to PLRA 10 minutes before we said we’d be there!

I’ve been having hand, wrist and arm pains lately after riding my SS.  I was really starting to think that the handlebar I’d fallen in love with at the ILRA bike demo, spent a ridiculous amount of money on, might not be working out for me.  I was getting very discouraged.  For some reason, it occurred to me to take off my Cane Creek grips and put on the Ergon grips that I’d originally had (and quickly removed from) on my Cannondale just as I converted it to a SS.  I thought they got in the way and I just didn’t think they’d be good on a SS.

Well, I decided to give them another shot now that I’m more used to the Ergons (have a pair on my Titus and LOVE them) and also more used to the SS they were worth another shot.  My hands and wrists hurt so badly after riding at the Tree Farm on Tuesday that I couldn’t think about riding the SS again until I made a change.

So, first thing I did when I got home from work today was swap out those grips.  I also moved the position of my brake levers when I noticed that they were pointing way too far down to the ground.  First thing Nick did when he got home from work was change his rear brake pads and was doing the final adjustments when I rolled in.  We packed up the jeep and made our way to Pontiac.

As soon as I hopped on my bike and put my hands on my Ergon grips, I remembered that the demo bike I rode when I fell in love with the handlebar had Ergon grips.  I remembered exactly the reason why I ran right out and spent an embarrassing amount of money on that Ritchey Carbon LowRizer handlebar.  Tonight, I decided that the Ritchey Carbon LowRizer handlebar was worth every penny.  Wow.  What a difference.  And having those little bitty bar ends was sooo much nicer for climbing.  And I climbed (instead of walked) a whole bunch more tonight than I did last time we rode PLRA (a couple of weeks ago, my first ever SS PLRA ride)! 

And, riding with Shari is so much fun.  We just ride and chat and ride and chat.  And she’s a hellova rider – I could hardly keep up with her on the downhills (and I think she inspired me to be less cautious, and so I had a ton more momentum which made the whole thing so much more fun!).  And Robin keeps such a good pace that I never really fell too far behind.   I was jumping off the drops instead of rolling off of them, and I think I even yelled “woo hoo” once or twice.  The weather was amazing.  It was like 80 degrees and no humidity.  Sunny, breezy, just a beautiful night to be outside.

And then we topped off the evening with dinner at El Patio.  Mmmmmmmmmmm.  Good times 😀

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I’ve mostly felt good about my riding this year, but I’ve been very very lazy about on-bike nutrition.  I don’t know what happened.  I used to be very good about it.  I was almost religious about it sometimes.  But it seems like this year, I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I can’t seem to manage a Hammer Flask and every time I try to buy gu packets or hammer gel packets, they either end up lost or eaten by the dog.

I should carry and drink Heed when I ride – especially on hot days like today .. but that stuff makes my lips all sticky and really doesn’t taste good when its hot outside.  Plus, it stinks up the cupboards and you really have to keep up on washing water bottles – something I’m by no means good at.

I need to do better tho .. because its killing me now .. in this heat, I have no energy and I sweat so hard my clothes are heavy-wet when I’m done.. That stuff needs to be replenished somehow..  I know this.  I preach this.  I wish I knew what it took to make myself follow it.

blah.

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