mbsbike2002

Bicycling Goals for 2008 - No later than - February 29 - Complete organized ride of at least 40 miles March 31 - Complete organized ride of at least 50 miles April 30 - Complete organized ride of at least 62.14 miles (metric century) June 30 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent July 31 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent August 31 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent September 30 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent October 31 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent November 30 - Complete 200km brevet or RUSA permanent December 31 - Complete 300km brevet or RUSA permanent Specific events (more to be added later) - May 3-4 - MS 150 Frisco to Ft. Worth August 28 - Hotter'n'Hell 100 (Complete 100-mile route) Total miles outdoor biking > 3,000 Bike on. B

BG - sounds like it has been a good day, indeed. I've been busy getting caught up on school, but I did go out and get cold (cool) weather biking gear, which will ensure that we have a balmy winter here in Big D.... And, I sat down and figured out my biking goals for next year, and put together some interim goals & tasks to get there. Will post in the 2008 challenge thread shortly. B

It is the best thread! This and the before & after pics are the only two I check on a regular basis... B

BG - looks like you got the 4,000th post for our little bycyling thread... B

ZZ - It's not that much warmer here now. It's been icing on and off just north of DFW for the past few days, and I get sleet on the way to and from work yesterday. It's a little warmer today and tomorrow, but s'posed to be cold again this weekend (not that freeze-your-ass-off Idaho cold, but at least Texas-style cold). B

J - Congratulations!!!!! I know that you must be thrilled about finishing the undergrad portion of your degree!!! Enjoy the break; it'll start back up soon enough! B

That would be soooo cool if y'all came down this summer. B

Yeah, I think so - there was another picture of her standing in front of them, the grill blazing away in the background, with a WTF look. B

I just took a quick look in the early hundreds to see if I could find any of the advice that was offered at that time, and I found this pic of HP's poor burnt chickens ... Figured I'd put them back out, because they make me smile, and they might remind some of the more frozen among us that there is summer, and warmth will return... HP - hope you're doing well - check in when you get a break from all that OT. B

Lisa, That sounds like a blast - with the biking and the running, you were only one event away from a tri I don't think I could run 1.5 miles right now, let alone carrying a mountain bike frame! Do you live near Austin? Stephanie and I are in DFW. BTW - your husband's before pic looks just like John Goodman. I'm sure he got that alot... B

Hi Lisa! Wow!!! Congratulations on your good showing in the race!! Where was the race? How long? That's a great pic of you on the bike. B

What a difference a week makes!!! Last week's pulling of my head out of my ass seems to have paid off... In the last week, I have - Lost 7 pounds. More than I lost in October and November, combined. Bought the bike that I would have bought if I hadn't been so big when I was originally looking Ridden my bike or exercise bike 6 of the 7 days since then. Walked 40 minutes or more for 5 of those days. Accomplished more at work than I have in the past month Generally have that spring in my step that has been missing for the past month or so. Bike on... B

Hey BG - How 'bout them Dallas Cowboys... B

Sounds like you're kicking ass and taking names babygirl! Good on ya'... Have you taken any spinning before? I'd like to look into that to augment my on-the-road biking, but I'm nervous about making an ass of myself... B

Uh huh.... Now, off to do some school.... B

BG - I am totally loving the new bike, and I feel like shit for banging it up on the first outing. At least handlebar tape can be easily redone... I wouldn't call it fun in hindsight, but at least I wasn't damaged too badly - legs are all beat to crap, but that's the extent of it. Way to go on the run. Right now, I can't imagine running 5.5 miles, or even 0.5 miles. That's so awesome!!! B

Hi peeps! Just got back from the maiden voyage of the new bike. I went to a local park, so the wife could walk the dog, and I could ride on the multi-use path. Won't be going back there for riding - paths are too narrow and too much foot traffic. I ended up cutting the ride short due to frustration with people, their kids, and dogs waking 4-5 abreast and blocking the whole path. I rode for about 45 minutes total, and was moving for about 40 of those minutes. I went 5.4 miles, which results in an average speed of about 8.4/hr. This number is much lower than the speed at which I actually pedaled, since I spent a lot of time moving but stopping, then starting again. Speed while pedaling was 13-14, which is quite a bit faster than on my upright (DF - diamond frame) bike for the same route. Following are some observations: No pain - at the end of my ride, my hamstrings were a little sore since they are used differently, but no discomfort anywhere. Starts - as the great Julia Child once said, "You must have the courage of your convictions". Once I stopped thinking that if my start didn't go well, i could just put out my foot, stop & try again, they got much better. This will take the most work to get used to, but by the end of this ride, I was much, much better than at the beginning. Stops - planned stops are no more eventful than a DF, unplanned stops can be very eventful. For planned stops, it's much more important to downshift into an easier gear than on a DF - you can't put your body weight into getting going again. Downhills - Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! So very fun. I am much more aerodynamic than on my Trek, and probably more than I would be on a roadie with drop bars. Uphills - Didn't ride up the only big hill on the route at the park - some people were coming down and I didn't want to be weaving all over trying to get up past them. But - the little hills (humps really) were much easier to ride than on the DF - may be due to gearing differences, maybe due to the fact that my exercise bike is recumbent-style - more used to using my leg muscles that way. Perceived effort for a given speed is lower - most likely due to aerodynamics, but also due to aforementioned exercise bike. I stayed in middle chainring and middle cogs, so gearing may play into it some. It was easier to keep a higher cadence instead of mashing, so gearing probably is involved. Steering - twitchy. Not uncommon for short-wheel-base high bottom bracket bikes. Will take some getting used to, but after a few outings it should settle down some. Pedals - will be going clipless very soon. Had to readjust my feet to keep them on the pedals, but following spectacular crash (due to not wearing bike shoes), I also don't want to be attached to the thing until I am much better at controlling it. Spectacular crash - About 5-10 minutes in, after I started getting the hang of starts & stops and was ready to start riding in earnest, I watched in horror as my shoelace from my street shoes got sucked into the chainring. Realizing that there was no way this wasn't going to end horribly, I slammed on the brakes (Disk brakes are very effective), did as close to an end-over as you can get in a recumbent, and flopped over (since my shoelace was wrapped up, couldn't get foot down). Took me a few minutes to disengage myself, but I got up and hopped back on. Only damage I see to bike is handlebar tape is gouged up pretty good. I'll take it in this week to have them check it all out. I may look like a complete Fred, but I'll be wearing my bike shoes sans clipless pedals. I hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow morning, so I can get back out there and get more riding in. Hope everyone else is having a great day! B

Cute pic, TX...

TX - J's right, I better not be expecting! That's part of the reason for the new bike - very uncomfortable on the regular seat. Now, for the conspiratorially inclined, I DID NOT get snipped just to get the bike I wanted, it's just a happy side effect Precious picture, though... And, if for some reason, we are expecting, it will be an even more interesting christmas dinner conversation Good song J. Ouch on the pic, though... I haven't heard any concern from the wife lately, but she did express concern before surgery that i would get skinny and leave her. I'm still me, just more like the me that I once was and want to be again.

D - I get the same shit from my grandmother. Every goddamn time I see her, "So, Michael, how much more weight are you going to lose?" So, I tell her some number, like maybe another 30 or so (she doesn't need to know the real numbers), and she gets this sour puss look "oh dear, don't lose too much". I love her dearly, but it hurts and pisses me off. Maybe the subject of when the wife and I are going to provide her with a great-grandchild will come up at Christmas dinner - I can just imagine grandma's response to the truth about that At least my decreasing weight won't come up B

Hey TX - yep - for a while around 1:30 this morning, the WFAA forecast for Monday was high of 36 with rain/sleet/snow. It's been updated since then... This bike is coming from Plano Cycle and Fitness on 75 in Plano. The Trek came from Richardson Bike Mart. So far, not as impressed with PCF as with RBM. The lady that helped me on Tuesday was great - spent a few hours, said that she'd get me properly fit when i came back, etc. She was out sick yesterday and the guy who "helped" me basically didn't want to have anything to do with it. Hopefully she's there today. If not, I'm gonna be big-time pissed. They're the only Bacchetta dealer anywhere near here, so I'm kinda stuck. Their reputation is good, but I'm not impressed. RBM on the other hand, is great. Even though they got all famous from Lance, they're still great. I bought all my bikes there in the 80s and early 90s, and they're still just as friendly and helpful as they were back then. I like performance for toys - so much cheaper than most other places, and a much bigger selection. B

Hey sweetie - it looks like it's moving in the right direction, so obsess away I had wine last night for the first time since surgery. Scale was not my friend this morning That's okay, I'm gonna bike my ass off this weekend before the rain and cold gets here on Monday. At least they took the snow out of the forecast... About 4 hours 'til I pick it up. Yippee!! Must fight urge to buy more toys while I'm there... B

J - I've seen that, too. A short stroll around the office brings my burn rate up to 3-4 cal/minute. Even standing in the break room burns more calories than sitting. I have been taking a 30-minute walk every afternoon, but I need to take a few 5-minute strolls throughout the day. I have also found that writing down what I eat is very effective. I've done the "I can have anything I want, as long as I'm willing to tell anyone what I eat" thing, and it's effective. Tonight, I will be having a frappuccino when I go to a work-related dinner tonight. It's not great, but I know how many calories are in it, and it's a controlled amount versus whatever we might get at a wine bar. I'm up to 444 calories consumed B

J - I am still using the bodybugg. I haven't been that good about logging my food, but I have been wearing it religiously. At the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure it was money well spent. If I eat like I know I should and exercise like I know I should, then the precise, but not necessarily accurate, number of calories I burn in a day shouldn't matter that much. In theory, though, the idea is to check your calorie burn during the day and make sure you do enough exercise to cover your desired deficit. In reality, though, I've just been downloading it at night and thinking "hmm. That's interesting." I need to sit down and develop some daily work to go with the mid-term goals that I posted the other day. Item one would be that I need to log everything that goes into my mouth. Item two would be to download BB data early enough in evening to get useful, and actionable, information out of it. I went and paid for the bike today - will pick it up tomorrow on the way home. I have a dinner to go to tonight after work & didn't want the hassle of bringing the bike to work, walking it through the building to my office, etc. I was a good boy, the only accessories that I got were a couple of steel bottle cages. Looked at fancy schmancy heart rate monitor, cadence, cyclocomputer. If I hadn't bought the BB, I would have been all over that. I have a GPS for speed & distance, but cadence and heart rate would be very nice to have. Did not get the pedals - my sales lady strongly discouraged that. She said to wait a few weeks at least. Getting started from a stop is a completely different proposition than an upright (Only get 1/4 of a crank instead of about half, you don't stand on the pedal, so initial pedal force is less, and you can't coast for a beat or two to get the other foot positioned properly). Until I can do it reliably, she said it would be bad mojo. When I get clipless pedals, i'll get a training stand, so I can get used to the motions before I have to worry about keeping myself upright. Anyway, very excited. Just logged my food in BB - so far today, I have consumed 414 calories. Trying to stay between 1000-1500 depending on exercise. B

Meeeee tooooo!!!