I Did It My Way

It was gratifying to open up the national weekend paper and find an article about cycle training in a very prominent place in the Sports section. Surely this means that cycling is becoming a much more recognized activity than it has been given in the past.

Having a swell time

The article in the paper described the training set-up and training routine of our national team in preparation for the Tour De France.  The team captain, a yellow jersey wearer himself and the rest of the team look like they are having a terrific time sitting on their stationary bikes and with loads of electrodes and wires and cables snaking from their fantastically fit bodies to sophisticated electronic monitors.

My way

As you can see from the photo, my set-up is somewhat less elaborate.  It still does the job of monitoring my heartrate, keeping me cool, timing me and the DVD player keeps me amused while exercising in the basement.  The other thing in the basement that keeps me amused is the trainer that I ride on.  It is simply made up of two rails that support three nylon rollers that the wheels of the bike fit snugly onto.  It takes numerous tries to determine the correct speed to begin pedaling.  Press too hard on the pedals and the bike flings itself off the rollers.  Don't press hard enough and you have no forward momentum to keep you upright.

One set of rollers

A fellow at United Cycle told me about how some bicycle trainers he knows can hop from one set of rollers to another, pedal for a while and then hop back to the first.  It is all I can do to stay upright and on the rollers.  When I lose concentration and my bike inevitably careens off the trainer, the entertainment unit that appeared so far away comes charging at me very quickly at 10 miles per hour!

Someone from up above will shout down the basement stairwell "We heard a lot of crashing and breaking sounds - are you alright?"

The Running of the Bulls

The Gully

With every visit to Terwilligar Park, I look for a steep gully that if you choose to, you can ride down it at breakneck speed only to be jerked into an almost straight up and down position moments later and then fly through the air and land on a patch of turf no bigger than your average throw rug.  The last time I rode throught the park I had no trouble finding it but today, perhaps because of the thick vegetation, it was hidden from me.  When I find it again, I'm sure that I will carreen down its steep bank and shoot up the other side many, many times.  I have yet to tire from the thrill of flying throught the air with the greatest of ease.

It was on my way out of the park as I cruised along some smooth, dry double track that I spied two dogs coming around a slight bend in the trail.  A medium sized pit bull and following on its tail a huge brown and black bulldog.  With one glance at me, they charged at full tilt and crossed the 20 meters separating us in seconds flat.  In my panicked state, I was lucky to remember some advice from Coreen F., a fellow blogger and devoted bike mechanic who told me of a similar situation where you want to get off the bike and put it between you and the dog(s).  Normally I dismount on the non-drive side of the bike but this time, given the dog's speed and their direction, I got off on the drive side and got ready to fend off the mangy curs.

Lunge after lunge I twarted as their foaming mouths snapped inches away from my legs.  Their loud barks and glistening white fangs did nothing to alleviate my mood of desperate terror.  I had my left hand on my seat and the right on my handlebars which allowed me to use the bike like a matador's cape and dodge each ferocious charge. 

The medium sized dog soon gave up the fight to go sniff some dog poo in the bushes lining the trail and it took two more florishes with the "cape" to convince the bulldog that he wasn't going to enjoy one of my body parts on this particular day.  The owner (I would have said master except this person had no mastery of the two mangy mongrels) passed by without so much as an apology and when I suggested that she needed to control her dogs, she acted as though I was some disease ridden character who had crawled out from under a nearby rock.  I could only shake my head at this reminder that dogs and bikes don't always mix.

It's A Goldmine!!

"A Viagra Wind Is The Best Trainer"

Jerry Quesnell

Not thinking that I would need mitts and a headband, I was unprepared for the icy wind that greeted me as I headed south toward Devon to begin my last serious training session before next weekend's MS Tour.  I did find another excellent use for a bandana - wearing it across my face bandit style in an attempt to ward off frosbite.  In June no less.  Me looking like an cycling bandit or an urban cowboy on a two-wheeled horse.

Judging from the size and heft of the articles scattered on the shoulder of the highway, I was glad to be wearing a helmet.  A mild concern as I rode on the paved shoulder was that I would get beaned from some item carelessly chucked from one of the vehicles passing off my left shoulder.  Hundreds of beer cans, pop bottles, energy drink containers, tire shreds, bungy cords beyond count, an industrial sized turnbuckle, Slim Horton coffee cups and the ubiquitous plastic bags snagged on barb wire fences greeted me on my journey.

The first useful item was a small crescent wrench - similar to the one I carried in my hydration pack to adjust my seat.  As far as I'm concerned, one of the purposes of training is to work out the bugs on the bike. And my seat needed lots of adjustment to be able to spend 10 - 12 hours over 2 days sitting on it.  A "Shakedown Cruise".  Like what is done in the navy before commissioning a boat or submarine.

After another 5 klicks and stopping to see a man about a horse, I nearly ran over an expensive looking utility knife.  Coming back across the Devon Bridge, a whole socket set.  My already bulging hydration pack couldn't hold the whole lot and after waiting for a break in the traffic, I snatched an articulated box wrench and a ratcheting socket from the road.

Approaching my starting point, I spy a safety helmet and a large new road sign whose post had somehow been shattered and now lay haphazardly on the grassy verge. Greed overcoming need, I hefted the 50 pound get up onto my shoulder and headed over to my road bike.

 While making these frequent stops, I reminded myself that I was training for a tour - not a race and it was harmless to indulge my scrounging instincts and that I could pick up as much as I was willing to carry on my back, bike or shoulder.
It took an hour and a half to ride the 35 kilometers into the wind but only half that time to make it back to my starting point.  The cup was certainly half full on the way back.


The Goldmine

 What do you call roadside debris in the Motor City?

Detroitus

Mountain Tour Training Part 2 (Ass Over Tea Kettle)

On our way back to the Terwilligar parking lot, we had one final short ridge to climb. We gathered at the top of the ridge and Al, our instructor pointed to the left toward a steep single track that he was going to take and suggested that the rest of our group go straight ahead and down a less steeply pitched track and we would meet up near the parking lot.
I watched Al and it looked pretty easy. One of our members went down as well and I thought if he could do it so could I. Perhaps being a little tired, my judgement was impaired. I knew the instant that I turned to my left and pointed my bike to the track that it was a bad idea. How is it that even when we know something is a bad idea that we do it anyway? I wasn't 5 feet down the track when my rear wheel raised up and I was thrown onto the trail. Immediately getting up, I tried to get on the bike but the steepness of the incline prevented me from getting on and preparing properly. Another meter (for those metrically inclined) and I was ass over teakettle and on my back staring up at the evening sky. After getting up again, it was difficult enough to walk the bike down the rest of the way down. Thankfully none of the group was paying the least attention so my pride wasn't too badly damaged.

Just yesterday, out of sheer stubborness, I decided to try the off - pavement trails in the river valley. Having obtained a map at River Valley Cycle, I chose to try the Canada Cup Trail some of which is under the High Level Bridge, on the south side of the river. There are parts of it especially west of the Walterdale Bridge that are a lot of fun and similar in difficulty to Terwilligar Park.

Then there are parts that are absolutely dangerous for someone of my experience. One false move and you would tumble through the woods and into the river. I got trapped by a staircase of tree roots after a short descent and managed somehow to bash the back of my right calf into my front chainring and tear a bunch of skin off in a rather interesting design. I walked the bike up onto the paved trail and thought to myself that this week's training at Terwilligar couldn't be any worse than this - and I vowed not to try anything that was going to send me flying over the handlebars or require stitches. I have to think about my trip to south central B.C. that starts on Thursday. A bicycle camping trip along the Kettle Valley Railway - something I look forward to every year.