Indoorcycling: Full On Gymnastics... On a Bike.

These girls are so far beyond badass there needs to be a whole new word created just for them:

European Junior Championships Indoorcycling

I've conclusively determined that Waggy is the faster Josh

This morning Josh Waggy and I rode out to Alameda and wandered aimlessly until we found this tiny little sub-island that forks off the main island. It was really pretty out there, slightly foggy views of SF and Oakland and the Peninsula. It's the little hook on the south-western side there:



That strip of road along the beach on the south side of the main part of Alameda is still my favorite bit of road hands down. It's so smooth and fast, very scenic and there are two not heavily trafficked lanes each direction, so I don't feel bad about taking a whole lane for myself. Though in the evening there are so many people cruising, bbq'ing and walking on the beach and hitting up the awesome Sushi restaurant near there, it's not fun to ride there at all. I always put the hammer down and try to sprint the whole length there to see what my top limit is these days. This time we sustained 27.5 mp/h for a quite a bit.

I've conclusively determined that Waggy is the faster Josh... this will not stand.

I also just realized that I passed 500 miles on my bike sometime this month:

Member Since: 10/12/2008
Total Maps: 42
Total Workouts: 39
Total Distance: 527.23 mi.
Total Burned: 29,065 (kcal)

Hooray for lungs and leg muscles.

Bike Parkour

My jaw dropped and stayed down the whole video. This guy is just so inventive and graceful, and totally insane:

I love the shots where after he jumps over some 20 foot railing, everyone around comes to look over the edge to see if he's ok:

"wtf? did that guy just..."

(thanks steve)

300 Miles Ridden: The Power of Self-Deception

The last two rides I went on I woke up tired and didn't feel like going, but I managed to trick myself into it by telling myself I'd "just go on a quick couple miler." Sunday I went totally bonkers and tricked myself in almost 24 miles of aimless wandering:

Next time I head down that way, I'm going to skip the sewage treatment plant...

Then this mornining Josh Waggy and I talked ourselves out on a "quick ride" to the beach in Alameda, and instead wandered are way up to Alameda Naval Base (about 15 miles):

We ended up messing around out at the Alameda Naval Base skatepark, wishing we were 15 years younger and with bikes more suited to the terrain:



It amazes me that this gorgeous skatepark is totally empty every time I've been there. Though I suppose skating 10 miles out to it over pretty shoddy, gravelly roads is no fun.

Today's deception put my total tracked rides up over 300 miles. Hopefully the one side of my brain that I'm tricking here will stay stupid and I can keep this pace up...

Hill Ride Success!

Today I made the ride up to the Mormon temple up in the Oakland Hills. This is kind of a big landmark for me, one of the first goals I set for myself to take riding seriously. It's about 700ft climb in not very much distance, so the first time I tried to do it, I literally ended up sitting on the side of the road trying not to puke ( Hill Ride Aborted). This time I planned a little more carefully and I'm a much stronger rider. I think



Yeah, that's all the smile I could muster. Let's just say I was a bit tired. The view from up there is amazing:



The ride down was quite fun, I was coasting at 30mph down a 6% grade and there were no cars on my road, so it felt nice and safe... until it started pouring rain all of a sudden. That made the rest of the ride less fun.

Here's the route I found:

10,000 Calories Burned

When I decided last fall that I would take up cycling in a serious way, I definitely had to decide weather or not I was going to stick to it enough to warrant all the expense of buying all this super-nerdy cycling gear.

This morning I was able to get a decent estimate of how much I've ridden:

Member Since: 10/12/2008
Total Maps: 14
Total Workouts: 14
Total Distance: 192.98 mi.
Total Burned: 9,841 (kcal)

Holy crap, I guess I'm really doing this. My next ride will hit 200 miles and 10,000 calories burned, that's definitely some kind of landmark.

Interestingly, my weight has actually gone up a pound or two this week. I suppose any fat I've been burning is being replaced with leg muscles...

I've been using my GPS in my phone to log all my rides and upload them to mapmyride.com (i have a huge love hate with this site, great idea, great futures, worst user experience/design ever).

Stay tuned, my next blog post is going to be all about pain.

Cyclocross: No one's finest moment

steve: cyclocross is so insane

steve: "take a bike race and make it silly as possible"

josh: whats up with that last crash?

josh: "OMG, some guys crashed here 2 minutes ago, but they are all gone, I'll turn left instead of right and smash into this wall"

steve: I think he just lost control

steve: was trying not to bail, but ended up going the wrong way

josh: that was not his finest moment

steve: cyclocross is no one's finest moment, I think that's the point

Hill Ride Aborted

My new thing is Road Cycling. I'm trying to avoid the inevitable 30's Programmer Gut (tm) in some sort of semi organized way... so yesterday I set out as soon as the rain stopped and thought I'd let my whims guide me. I started out in lovely (not) Fruitvale, and quickly decided I that I should leave the post-industrial wasteland. Riding in a glorified giant warehouse loading dock/municipal dump clogged with SUV's and work trucks is really not as glamorous as it sounds (oh I hope that crunchy thing i just rode over was broken glass and not a hypodermic needle...) I looked up to the hills and thought, with a stroke of genius, "I'll see if I can find a nice path up to the Mormon Temple. I've always wanted to see the view down from up there". Note to self: next time you venture into those hills, check the graded cycling map before you set out.

There is actually one spot on a stupid steep hill, right here:



...where i sat in a guys driveway trying not to puke, until he pulled up and gave me a knowing glance. Probably not the first chubby guy in total cycling nerd gear huffing and puffing on that hill he's seen. And it won't be the last time he'll see me there either. Stupid hill, I will conquer you! But not today... I turned around and went home.

(You can see my 3 failed hill climbing attempts around "redwood heights" on the map below)

As an added adventure, when I was coming back down on Maple, I encountered a beautiful bit of planning from the City of Oakland. They decided that all they needed to do to cover up the giant (4ft square?) gaping drainage holes that take up the entire median/gutter was to weld a few four-inch wide pipes across it, all parallel to one another, leaving 1 foot gaps between them. My entire bike could have easily fallen right through the grill, and considering that the road was packed tight with the giant SUV's that are so much the landmark of this part of Oakland, this thought was not totally off my mind. I would have taken a photo if I wasn't so preoccupied by not falling in one and being washed out to the bay.