January 29th rides

[Brandy]

Today was hill repeats. Not "hill play" as I've been doing to stave off the boredom. Honest to goodness repeats on Newport Coast. Hill repeats with a purpose and my eyes glued to the power meter. I got six of them in. Not bad. 22.4 miles and 3100 ft. of climbing.



This came after a talking to from the coach about how the steep hills that I've been climbing are not going to help me and that I need sustained climbing. When that is not available...hill repeats with a purpose. So that's what I did today.

[Starfish]

Wow, Brandy, very nice! My coach has added, for this next month, something called GWHR (Gut Wrenching Hill Repeats) afraid, very afraid.

Brandy, how long would you say the hills are, and how steep, that you're doing?

Today, no ride outdoors. An hour of body conditioning/resistance class, followed by an hour of spin class. Spin class takes on a whole new meaning after an hour of total body conditioning, including squats and lunges.

(This is new to me...I actually went home in the morning right after class and took a 30 minute nap. ) But, I know I will build up to this and just have to push through the initial surprise to my body!

[Brandy]

Thanks Starfish-Here's the info and charts for Newport Coast. It's the top entry...

http://epictrain.com/My_Favorite_Climbs.html

1.6 miles with 462 Elevation Gain 5.83% Grade

[Ticia]

Brandy, That is a LOT of climbing! Wow. I have a question. How do you figure the Grade of a hill if you have the elevation and the mileage? I know there must be some equation. I'm not understanding. There is this huge hill I see ppl training on that is right down the road from me and it is 717ft of elev. gain in .86 miles The one I finally did last year that I was so proud of was 306 ft in 1.06 miles. So how do I know the grade?

[Brandy]

Brandy, That is a LOT of climbing! Wow. I have a question. How do you figure the Grade of a hill if you have the elevation and the mileage? I know there must be some equation. I'm not understanding. There is this huge hill I see ppl training on that is right down the road from me and it is 717ft of elev. gain in .86 miles The one I finally did last year that I was so proud of was 306 ft in 1.06 miles. So how do I know the grade?

TICIA!!! Good to see you here! It's a good amount of climbing for the limited amount of time that I have to ride on Mon/Tues mornings.

There's a Percent Grade Calculator on the bottom of the page in the links section on George's website.
http://epictrain.com/links.html

Yes, your hill is steep! Around 15.8% average grade. Your other hill is about 5.46% average grade...pretty similar, though shorter in length than Newport Coast.

[tulip]

Robin,

Do you have the water bottle cage on the seat tube or the down tube (the diagonal)? Mine is tight on my road bike on the seat tube, but fine on the down tube.

You'll be faster than on your mountain bike just by virtue of less friction due to the narrowness of the tires.

[Ticia]

Thank you B that was EXACTLY what I was looking for

[Geonz]

Commute in: 46 degrees. 20 mph wind from the south. Brought extra clothes.
Get to work. Realize I forgot the bag with the extra clothes (and the work clothes to change into). I am wearing holey, grunged out purple sweat pants over tights that used to be white... Go to bookstore where there are 8 or 9 pairs of XXL and XL sweat pants... and a single "storm duds" bottoms, size Small, which fortunately fits.
Plow through that wind to LBS and roasted at 52 degrees, to look at Dahon catalog because LBS guy emailed that yea, they're going to sell them so I can make an order for a folding bike. Oh, my! There are so many! P:ut air in tyres (let em go a little soft 'cause it's my snow bike and last time I rode it there was snow and the studs grab better with a little less pressure). Flew back with firm tyres and the wind behind me.
Temperature careens to 26. Wind shifts and increases. Wild stsorm blows through. I look out to check on my bicycle and for the third time, the other bike's light is on... so I go out and turn it off because mine was turned on the last time, too... and there's a sheet of ice over everything. (Karma-rattles on whatever dweeb thinks it is cute to turn our lights on. The other person can take his/hers off; mine's ductaped on but I"ll have to take it off anyway 'cause the batteries are dead now.)
It's 13 at 6:00 when I start home and there's horizontal snow and 35 mph winds... but it's at my back. And that Gazelle and its 50 pounds is being blown right up the (so-called) hill... but it's so heavy and studly that those little places I have to go with cross winds are no problem, and around here drivers don't freek out, they just slow down and stay home. And it's not so snowy you can't see, and because it is at my back I can see, and fortunately it's enough snow to reflect light well because my headlight is dead and I am going to put a little card on it that says why? with a tear ... I mean, this weird person could just steal the lights or do damage... why just turn the lights on? (We do have some people with odd compulsions here, whose meds may need some tweaking. I just don't know.) It's also weird that there weren't limbs down but maybe that's more with NS winds if I'm going East.
I get home and the winds pick up even more - glad to be here!!!