ride to work

Rode to work yesterday, first time this season. Cold in the morning, warmer in the afternoon. In the AM, I needed my winter jersey (Perl Izumi winter slice). In the PM -- and I mean I was crossing Brooklyn Bridge 6:53 -- my winter jersey was too warm until I got to the portion of the greenway in Riverside Park South by the river, where the temperature dropped quite significantly.

Odometer reading (cumulative):29.86 miles (a reading called "odo1" says 1060 miles), average speed 10.9 mph maximum speed 23.7 mph.

Off to work by bike again gotta pedal FAST this morning!

Snow and slush

I've had some weird password problems with google and haven't bee keeping this blog up to date. Hopefully that's resolved now. As for training *sigh*.

So last Wednesday as you should know we got a dcent amount of snow here in NYC. I managed to get all dressed up in my cold weather bike clothing, fetch my bike from the bicyle storage room in the basement of the apartment building and make it to the front door just as the freezing rain that became snow started to fall. I turned around, put the bike away and changed back to regular clothes then headed to the gym. I belong to the Eastern Athletic Clubs (primarily and originally because they have a facility a block from where I work; weather permitting I bicycle to work, lock my bike in a rack and take a shower and change clotes at the gym then walk over to the office) and there's a couple of weeks left in our family membership at the JCC Manhattan.

When I go work out on a weekday I'm either heading to or from the office so I stop at the Tribeca facility of EAC; on a weekend, I use a guest pass (our membership is a pool rather than fitness membership) at the JCC fitness center. In the last week its been twice Tribeca, where I ride a recumbent bicylce trainer as hard as I can for about a half hour then do some situps and maybe lift a little weights, and once JCC. The JCC facility is MUCH nicer I must say and has better weekend hours. I can't really afford both but the occasional guest pass is worthwhile. JCC has actual Schwinn bicycle trainers in the fitness center (EAC has them only in the "spin studio in Tribeca where they can only be used in a "spin class"). Most cool is that one of the 2 trainers at the JCC has clipless pedals (dual side, one side is a decent toe clip 'box', the other is for cleats and the pattern is SPD, which is what I have on my bicycle and in my mountain bike shoes). Wish I had found that earlier but with spring here I'm going to start biking to work again. Hopefully the slush on the street corners will have been removed or melted by 9 AM tomorrow when I have to leave. Then of course there's the condition of the greenway path, I guess I will find out the hard way.

No gym tonight, stuff to do at home but I managed to get in 20 situps. My daughter Shira held my feet down (by standing on them) and counted repetitions. No joy on pushups, I couldn't manage more than 2; I'll have to do a bunch of chest presses at the gym to build up strength.

Odometer

This morning I went out for a training ride around Central Park. As I was going up the East Side, I noticed that my handlebars seemed high relative to my seat -- and remembered that I hadn't brought the hex wrench toolkit with me. Then I thought, gee this hill shouldn't be this hard...and realized that my leg wasn't extending as far as it should at the bottom of the down stroke because my seat was too low. I stopped and adjusted the seat with the quick-release key I did bring and voila', my handlebars were at the right height and the hills got a lot easier.

I only had time for one loop around Central Park before work this morning and when I got home I noticed that the mileage on my bike odometer (Blackburn Delphi 2.0 had gone past 1000 miles (since I had reset the thing back in July while troubleshooting) -- and rolled over back to zero, resetting my average speed history and leaving no indication of the past :-(

Montauk training, day 1

Bicycling season resumes and I have started training for the 2007 Montauk Century. I have never done one of these before; my personal record is 60 miles on the day of the Tour de Bronx last October. I decided to get really ambitious and not only train to ride the full 100 miles but to also raise money for charity. Everything is all set now on that front and I'm pleased to raise money with Team One Family Cycling to benefit The One Family Fund, which helps victims of terrorism in Israel.

Last Sunday I got my bike cleaned up and relubed. Today I got on my cool weather cycling clothes and went off to Central Park to do some laps. Its been almost 2 months since I was out riding and even that was in Florida. Still, with judicious use of gears I made it through 2 laps on my "hybrid" bicycle (Mountain bike frame with front shock absorbers, only, and regular road tires) no problem.

Back home now, I've got to get ready for tonight's Manhattan Day School dinner. This is my daughter Shira's 1st year performing in the MDS choir so Golda and I are eager for that part of the presentation tonight.