Biketopia aka Heaven.
Category: cycling (Page 12 of 37)
For a change we decided to ride a very flat route instead of our usual hilly route. I am so glad we did. It felt so easy compared to our usual 2100 feet of ascent for a ride of this length (32 miles) instead we only climbed 690 feet in total. Nice.
No hills meant pretty constant effort and speed, plus there are fewer than half the stop signs. Our hilly route has a stop sign every. single. mile. It gets old and besides slowing down the average speed, we are constantly having to ramp up effort to get back up to speed over and over – which wastes energy. And guess what you use to pedal a bike!
Between the fewer stop signs on the flat route and the easier pedaling our average speed was nearly 2 miles per hour higher. Most importantly, it was more enjoyable. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and NO WIND.
First graph is today’s route, 32 miles, 692 feet of ascent, 15.3 average speed, average heart rate of 115. Second graph, a typical ride on our hilly route from 2 weeks ago, 2188 feet of ascent, 31.4 miles, average speed of 13.5 (slower than typical but not for this early in year), average heart rate 119. I have a low resting heart rate of 40-42 and often start my rides in the 60’s so heart rate isn’t a good indicator of suffering or difficulty for me.
Today was a perfectly perfect day for riding: 72 degrees, 0 wind, little traffic and even not that many cyclists which surprised me giving the perfect conditions.
Flags here rarely ever look like this:
No wind and flat roads make for blissful rides.
Yesterday I had a detailed bike fit done which I will post about later, but with the tweaks to my position and the new Chorus drivetrain, new carbon handlebar, new stem, new brakes and compact gearing feels like I am riding a new bike. A new fast bike!
The UCI (International Cycling Union) has posted a survey they would like all of cycling’s "stakeholders" and fans to take. This is your chance to make your voice heard directly by the UCI. I encourage you to complete it, please give this some time. We need to make our voices heard.
I read Tyler Hamilton’s book last night, “The Secret Raceâ€. The book was an eye-opening read into the world of professional racing, and not a pretty one. The doping problem in cycling was worse than I ever imagined – and like any serious fan, I knew it was bad. I blame the UCI more than the individual cyclists. Yes, the riders are responsible too, but without UCI allowing doping, the doping culture could not have been. Instead we would have isolated doping not the wholesale doping that Hamilton speaks to.
I for one am not convinced professional cycling is much cleaner now. Whether cycling will be (mostly) clean in the future remains to be seen; in large part it depends on whether the anti-doping mechanism is taken away from the UCI and given to an entity without any conflict of interest in the sport of racing.
The survey is probably just a marketing ploy by UCI, but what the hell, fill it out. It can’t hurt.
http://www.aspectmr.co.uk/snapwebhost/surveylogin.asp?k=136079311931
Sunday ride actually. Windy, but warm so we rode. Windy is when the winds are so high the forecast just says “Windy†and shows something like this:
We have a lot of wind in Oklahoma (think of the lyrics of Oklahoma… where the wind goes sweeping down the plain, think of dust bowl images… okay you’ve got the right picture) so if you can’t ride in strong wind, you miss out on a lot of riding opportunities.
I draw the line at riding in tornadoes. I have been known to ride in thunderstorms, but not by choice.
Anyway, we rode today. 
Hope you got a chance too.
A scene from our ride (Oklahoma isn’t all flat).
