Falling into place

Things are falling into place. I'm hurriedly preparing for Cycle Oregon which is in 3 weeks. I ship my bike out next Friday, so that needs to be in order and my legs need to mostly be in order in...1 week. lol.

So 3 weeks ago I bought a new saddle and have been trying to get used to it. My first 60 mile ride on it didn't go great. It was bearable, but at the end I felt like I had bruises on my bones. Then two days later I rode and still had major bruises. Today I felt much better and mostly forgot about saddle pain which is awesome! That means I didn't have any pain. Albeit I was climbing at times so I probably only spent about 70% of the 2 hr ride in my saddle, but I'll take that. Saddle, check.

New cassette! Kevin and all his preparedness convinced me to get a new cassette. So I bought a SRAM PG-1070 11-28. Compared to my 12-26 it felt really good, especially on these hills. Luckily my shifting and chain seemed OK with the new cassette. I didn't have time to make adjustments to the derailleurs but it felt just fine. I'll check chain length later. Cassette, shifting at 90%.

I still need to play with my seat height and cleat position. My right knee was hurting, so I moved the cleat back a few millimeters and that helped a lot. No pain now, but my knee doesn't always click back into the kneecap. I'm thinking that my seat a smidge too high or too low. Seat height, cleats, at 70% complete.
Shoulders are alright but towards the end of my 25 miler today I was starting to feel pain in the middle of shoulders. I had to consciously lift myself up and that helped, so I'm not sure if that was due to poor form or being too crunched on my bike. Stretch, reach, 50%.

I think one more good long ride and a few more short ones will definitely help me get my adjustments close to good enough. I was contemplating bike fit, but I think I'll be alright without it. The hills here have made me stronger and mentally ready for what lies ahead.

Strava. I finally joined Strava. After about 2 years riding without a computer I think I was ready to see how I have been doing. Mostly I wanted to understand how certain hills feel and compare them to the grade. This way I will also be mentally prepared for the climbs on Cycle Oregon. Note: 4% grades are fine. 6% is slow but doable. 8% not fun and slower. >10% sucks balls.

Now the question remains, how will I train after my bike gets shipped off? I'll have a whole two weeks without my baby. So two plans. Plan A: Finish building that beater bike and use that for training. Plan B: Lots of Yoga. I'm gonna try for plan A but really it might not happen cause this bike is bare bones. The plus to doing lots of yoga means that I will be more prepared for yoga teacher training which starts the weekend after my ride. But really I would like to have my beater bike up and running so I can use that to get to yoga class which is gonna be 4 miles away.

I love bikes.

iHome Bike to Beach Speaker System

So a while ago with while riding I got to pace with a woman who had an awesome loud speaker on her bike. The music made riding so much more enjoyable. I had been riding for 40+ miles already, but all of a sudden I was going faster and didn't feel any sort of misery. I was like...I gotta get me some of those.

Thus the search for cool speakers began. Lots of them are bulky, and not aerodynamic, ugly. I don't want to ugly up my awesome bike with speakers. So eventually I wander upon speakers by Apple. Apple! I can depend on them to look sleek and beautiful and of course they do. Their speaker system is designed to fit in a water bottle cage, looks almost like a water bottle and of course will fit all Apple music players. Awesome. Now these are slowly being the hit because well, it's an Apple product. The last ride I think I saw 4 or 5 different people with the the bike speakers.

So I look them up on Amazon, and its at $50 right now. Ok not bad actually for Apple. Then I look at the specs. These speakers weigh 4 lbs. FOUR POUNDS. I paid $700 to upgrade bikes and shed 5 pounds off, and for 50 bucks I can put most of it back on. Why the hell would anyone want to add that back on? Music helps riding yes. But at 4lbs, it will hurt your riding more than help it.

So no thanks Apple. I am keeping my $50 bucks.

Ride Prep

So today I had some free time before Tango lessons, so I popped over to Performance Bike and hung out there for about an hr. Bought the Hurricane Quickshot CO2 Inflator and a few tubes cause I realized last week that all my tubes were stolen with my Scott last yr.



So this week I haven't exercised at all cause I've been busy. Thinking about hip hop lessons. Something I've always wanted to do. 62 miles on Saturday. I'll be ready...I think. At the very least, I won't let a flat stop me. =D