Seattle To Portland 2008 - The Stats
I will write a more detailed ride/race report in the next couple days, so this is just a place holder and a little teaser for the real story. The headline is, that I finished the ride in much much better shape than I expected. I had no problems with my quads or knees which is great news.
I owe my whole ride to my buddy Randy, who “found me” on the course at 30 miles… I had no idea he was riding it, and he had no idea I was riding it, but once he found out I was on my stoopid fixie, he graciously offered to ride to the finish line with me. There were multiple points along the way, when Randy really helped me out, and held on to wait for me (particularly some of the longer faster descents, where he would fly down at 40mph+ and I’d be pedalling my guts out at 28mph).
The worst part of the ride by far was the heat… by mile 140, Randy and I agreed that we our legs and hearts and lungs and guts were fine and ready for more, but the sun and the heat was draining the energy from our whole body… we were both going through 40 oz or water every 10 miles…
Like last year, I got plenty of props from other riders for “doing it on a fixie”…
We got rides from several nicer pace lines, and we were muscled out of several other uncool pace lines. But there’s a certain joy to be had from blowing past, and blowing up a pace line that is unwilling to work with you. More on that in the more detailed ride report.
For now, I’ll suffice to say, I did much better than I expected, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns and rode it on my Shogun!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 07/12/2008
- Time: 05:00:00
- Total Time: 10:44:00.00
- Average Heart rate: 135
- Max Heart rate: 168
- Distance: 204 miles
- Average Speed: 19.01 mph
- Max Speed: 28 mph
Filed under: Cycle, STP, Seattle To Portland, Shogun Kaze, double century, fixed gear, fixie
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I have a confession.
I don’t like to stretch. I also don’t like to lift weights… unless I have someone like Tyler around to give a hard time to the way guys who are good friends do.
I am an action oriented person. Which seems a little strange as I type that, since most of my life has been spent sitting (at a computer). I’ve been “into” computers since I got to use my first TRS-80 at age 10. I’ve been making my living from computers since I started my first company at age 12 writing software for Commodore C-64 computers, which was a significant upgrade from the first computer I owned.
Action hasn’t always meant running Marathons, or riding fixed gear double-centuries, or completing Ironman triathlons. Before my life with fitness, it meant staying up all night coding, or running a record label with Punk bands from Seattle, or whatever other crazy idea I got into my head.
But the fact of the matter is…. I have not yet found a spark in stretching… flexibility.
I tried Yoga… I think I had a pretty good teacher… but it didn’t stick.
I also don’t get massages regularly… which I probably should. My PT says I have “very compact muscles”… I take it as a compliment… but it almost sounds a little like when you brought artwork home to your mom in pre-school and she said “Oh isn’t that INTERESTING”… Uh… is that a euphemism for crap?!
So today… the day after an 18 mile run… a day in which I’ve been too busy to workout… would be a perfect day to go do 30 minutes of stretching… but instead… I’ll blog… and then get stuck reading wikipedia’s definition of euphemism.
Filed under: Cycle, Fitness, Flexibility, Ironman, Run, Yoga, double century, euphemism, exercise, recovery, triathlon
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Pictures from STP
My Mom snapped these photos of me from my Seattle to Portland Double Century on my fixed gear bike.
Hey, if you’re gonna ride 200 miles on a fixed gear bike, you gotta stretch!
I don’t know why I had this look on my face. Maybe I was tired of my Mom taking pictures of me. But frankly, if this is how smug I looked on the ride, then I can understand why Rider Zero and his team didn’t want me to ride with them.
Safety first! Notice the light!
Almost there! This is about 30 miles from the finish line.
At the finish line!
Related Posts…
Filed under: Portland, STP, Seattle, double century, fixed gear, fixie, single-speed
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Seattle to Portland: Miles 100-200
Leaving Centralia
Knowing that my day was going to be a long one, and that although I still felt strong after my first hundred miles, I thought it would be best to schedule my next stop at Lexington, which is not quite three quarters of the distance of the route.
I also needed to rethink my hydration. My Redline 925, is a perfectly reasonable commuter bike, and for my short or mid-distance distance training rides (say 40-50 miles) having only one water bottle is no big deal. When training, I don’t mind stopping after about 15-20 miles to refill my water bottle. But today I was trying to keep my stops to a minimum. In fact, other than red lights, I had only stopped twice so far today. I hadn’t taken advantage of any of the mini-stops or services along the route. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Cycle, Portland, STP, Seattle, cycle, double century, fixed gear, fixie, single-speed
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Seattle To Portland: Miles 50-100
The second stage of the STP is relatively flat, includes mostly back country roads with very little traffic. I left the fifty mile point with extra fluids, and a goal of reaching the half way point with approximately the same pace. But as I left my Mom I told her “I don’t think I’ll keep that same pace… see you when I get there.” Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Cycle, Portland, STP, Seattle, cycle, double century, fixed gear, fixie, single-speed
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Seattle To Portland: Miles 0-50
On Saturday I road the Seattle To Portland double century bike ride. As I mentioned in previous posts, I didn’t get organized with a group of riders to go for a new PR, so I decided to challenge myself in a different way. A couple weeks ago I started toying with the idea of riding my fixed gear bike for the ride. I knew I wouldn’t be the only person to attempt a stunt like this, but I figured it was just the right kind of crazy for me. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Cycle, Fitness, STP, Seattle, double century, exercise, fixed, fixed gear, fixie, single-speed
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Apparently I’m an Animal
I guess that’s the politically correct version of “you’re crazy”… and that is what I heard a lot of today.
All in all my fixie STP was a great success. I averaged over 20mph, and finished in just over 10 hours of ride time and 11:30 of wall clock. This was much much faster than I expected, and considering that I was riding 42/14 fixed, I was really happy with my ability to maintain a 20+mph average.
I also got to use my hacked up Garmin extended battery pack… and it worked well enough to allow my Garmin to work that whole distance.
I will write a more detailed race report later… now I need to rest.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 07/14/2007
- Time: 05:45:00
- Total Time: 10:03:00.00
- Distance: 203 miles
- Average Speed: 20.2 mph
- Max Speed: 30 mph
- Average Cadence: 90
- Max Cadence: 140
Filed under: Cycle, cycle, double century, fixed gear, fixie
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Short Fixie Brick
After my morning open water swim I did a quick 16 mile out and back on my fixed gear. I only rode 16 miles because I was planning a 10 mile run and wanted to get back in time to go the the Wallingford Kids Parade and Summer Street Fair with the family.
The bike ride was pretty mellow, didn’t really push it that hard, just kinda rode. I did get in a couple nice hills that will be on my STP route, so that’s a confidence boost. It’s pretty much a done deal that I’m riding STP fixed at this point.
I have some final tune-up to do on my bike before the big day, and I need to get a smaller wrench to bring with me. When you ride fixie you have to bring a wrench because (at least on my bike) I don’t have a quick release wheel on the back… although, maybe it’s worth considering switching out from bolts to quick release.
The theory behind not having a quick release, is that unlike on a typical road bike with vertical dropouts, you have built in horizontal play in the drop out to adjust the wheel position for a tight chain. This is not needed when you have things like derailers because they adjust the tension on the fly based on the gear you’ve chosen. But if you were to lose tension on your fixie, then the chain would pop off and you’d be in a world of hurt. This is particularly true for riders who resist agains the chain going down hill or who do things like skid stops.
Now, since I’m not one of those types of riders, maybe I could get away with a quick release style back wheel skewer and then I wouldn’t need to lug around the wrench. Why would I need a wrench without a quick release? Well, I would need it if I needed to change a tire or something… so I pretty much need it.
Anyway, I have exactly one week for final adjustments.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 07/07/2007
- Time: 08:00:00
- Total Time: 00:49:46.00
- Average Heart rate: 135
- Max Heart rate: 169
- Calories: 1164
- Distance: 15.81 miles
- Average Speed: 19.06 mph
- Max Speed: 29.2 mph
Filed under: Cycle, STP, brick, double century, fixed, fixie, triathlon
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