Newbie weekly achievement thread

[hebe]

Well, my new tights worked, I made it all the way up one of my nemesis hills (singing "Straighten up and fly right" in an effort to keep focussed). I did better on the other one too. It was cold - 41, so I was properly wrapped up, and it was great not to feel the chill.

Can anyone tell me about riding in mud? I was going up a new bridleway which ended up with my wheels making squelching and sucking noises as I went through ankle deep mud and puddles. I headed back when the mud started going uphill as I wasn't sure my comfort bike was up to it, but I do want to head back that way when I have my mountain bike. Any tips would be very welcome.

Today was 6.22miles, top speed of 16mph. I'm just over half-way to my 25mile target for November.

[jelee1311]

Good job! I love that you sing that song going up an evil hill,my hill climbing efforts usually result in four letter words

[Roadtrip]

Hebe - Have you considered a Cross Bike when your ready for your next new boke? Does it have to be a Mountain Bike? Will you be doing trails where your doing stump jumping and that sorta stuff??

Sorry no suggestions on the mud. I'm a little too chicken to try slogging through the slippery stuff

Shannon

[Bike Writer]

Well, my new tights worked, I made it all the way up one of my nemesis hills (singing "Straighten up and fly right" in an effort to keep focussed). I did better on the other one too. It was cold - 41, so I was properly wrapped up, and it was great not to feel the chill.

Can anyone tell me about riding in mud? I was going up a new bridleway which ended up with my wheels making squelching and sucking noises as I went through ankle deep mud and puddles. I headed back when the mud started going uphill as I wasn't sure my comfort bike was up to it, but I do want to head back that way when I have my mountain bike. Any tips would be very welcome.

Today was 6.22miles, top speed of 16mph. I'm just over half-way to my 25mile target for November.

Great job on the hills and mileage goal! It sounds like you are having a lot of fun in the process. I sometimes sing up hills also. One of mine is to the tune of "here we go a caroling" "here I go a pedling - up the hill I go" then it morphs into "row, row, row your boat" "pedal, pedal, pedal - life is what I know". Goofy but it helps, it makes me laugh and not think so hard about the hill.

Riding in mud? Sorry, don't have experience and don't want to, you're brave to traverse it!

[hebe]

Thank you! I did wonder about a cross bike, but they seem quite pricey here and I can get a Specialized Myka for rather less. It's easier to avoid mud than hills, I suppose, and I can talk to the bike shop about the best bike for the type of riding I do. I absolutely love getting away from it all, up a track that has just the odd dogwalker or horserider, and my time fellrunning in the Peak District left me with a deep appreciation of the views that you get after slogging through all that mud and up those hills. Also, as a fairly reluctant exerciser, I found that concentrated hill work brings real benefits to muscle tone and cv fitness, and I'm finding the same with cycling. I'm not sure about getting to technical tracks Roadtrip -maybe in the future, but at the moment my riding time is only in 60-90minute chunks and there aren't any trails close enough to fit in with that. It is something that I'm thinking about for the future though.

There was a lovely hill song posted on here, I can't remember who by , but it went "We are climbing, We are climbing, Yes we are Yes we are, This is not a real hill, This is not a real hill, No it's not, No it's not" (to Frere Jacque).

How are you getting on, Kerry?

[Bike Writer]

16 weeks of riding since I bought my bike and I finished this week with 49 miles and 5 days of riding. We were very fortunate to have a very mild streak of weather all week. I'm not where I want to be with hill climbing but I've improved a lot and my stamina has really grown along with my strength. More importantly the stiffness from arthritis has improved dramatically along with flexibility. I am more flexible now that I ever imagined that I could be.

Wish I could say that my klutziness has improved also but I took my hardest fall yesterday. My elbow met the ground sooner than the rest of me and the momentum jammed my shoulder. I saw stars accompanied by shooting pains, luckily I fell on soft grass. Several good Samarians came by to lend assistance. I am surprised at how little pain I am in today, it's mostly just tender. I'm lucky I didn't dislocate my shoulder.

[jelee1311]

Yesterday my DH went for a ride with me and as usual pushed me hard. I complain but I know its good for me. I was already tired from a pretty fast 15 mile ride the day before and a hard PT workout on my quads. My husband rides a lot and fast,we started out at about 16mph-18mph for about 4 miles with me lagging behind. Then he took me on a road I've never been on before that turned out to be a nice long hill. This was the first hill I've done since being back on the bike and I was worried I was going to hurt my achilles again. I just kept spinning and felt a bit panicky because the hill just kept going. My DH just stayed by me up the whole hill going slow and encouraging me until we got to the top. The view of the lake was amazing. We rode a few more miles then turned around. Going down we got up to 32mph I was so happy!!! I rode with DH for a few more miles then he broke off to do his real hill work out. Heading home I decided my legs felt good and it was such a nice day that I was going to keep going. I rode 20 miles and still had some legs left but I didn't push more baby steps.

[jelee1311]

BIke Writer good job on all that you've accomplished I'm sorry you crashed and I hope you are okay. I'm glad the weather has still permitted you to ride (I read some of your oher posts) and it sounds like you are enloying fall riding.

[hebe]

BW, I'm so sorry about your fall. You've done so much since you started 16weeks ago that it's such a shame to fall towards the end of the reasonable weather. I've enjoyed all your posts and your blog too, and well done on all your health improvements through cycling. That must be so satisying. I wish you a speedy recovery and some good weather so you can get back out on your bike soon!

Wow Jelee, that sounds that a good ride. I am in awe of all these higher speeds and longer distances!

I had a funny old day today. No riding, as my bits are (still) sore from finally getting up that hill on Wednesday. I bought a new reflector for my bike, as my current one is obscured by the super-handy underseat bag, and fitted the reflector myself so was very proud of myself for that. Then I cleaned off most of the mud from the bike, and noticed what seemed to be a huge long crack in the frame. I was gutted, and asked dh to look at it too. He very gently told me that it was a clear piece of protective plastic that was just starting to peel off I was so relieved, I thought I'd broken my bike. He also showed me that my mini pump actually has to be screwed onto the valve in order to work I've always used the floor pump but thought I should probably get the hang of the minipump too.

The really lovely news of the day is that he asked me if I'd like a mountain bike for Christmas . Honestly, you can see my smile from the moon. We are going to the super-nice not-so local LBS next Saturday for me to choose one. He wants to borrow my Marin sometimes, which I think is absolutely fine. He adores the saddle on it.

[jelee1311]

Hebe I'm so happy for you,a new bike how exciting! What a great thing to look forward to. I'm strictly a roadie but maybe next spring.......

[Kerry1976]

Not much new on my end....just passed 100 miles for 5 weeks on my Trek Pure Lowstep. Getting the fever though and wanting a road bike....

[Roadtrip]

Not much to report here either. Today was a really nice day and we got out for a ride around the neighborhood and ended up being MUCH more stressful then it was worth. Adding air to tires was a challenge (I HATE Presta valves) and once we got on the road (I assumed since it's a Sunday not so many cars-- yeaaaaaa right) we had a challenge dealing with cars vevving the engine at stop lights and basically being unkind.

Me and DH aren't all that accustomed to road riding, but I didn't want to load up bikes and such either to go to the MUT, plus we need to work on getting used to the road. I don't always want to pack up the car if I want to ride.

Just stressed out... got a good workout in a short time as the four miles we did, half of it was up hill, so it was a good challenge and feeling it in my legs. I also can't wimp out on the hills so need to learn to cope with those too.

PS. We had the final weigh-in with the 10 week weight loss challenge and I logged 16.2 pounds lost in slightly less then 10 weeks. Wooo Hoo!!

Shannon

[hebe]

I need to work more on road riding too, the off-road rides are just so darn close (less than half a mile of road before I'm on the track). I've never driven the bike anywhere, but hopefully should be able to do so with the new bike as the fenders will be less of an issue and I should be able to take the front wheel and seat post off and fit it all in the car.

That sounds great Kerry!

I went and looked at a Specialized Myka on Saturday. It looks great, but it was too wet to take it for a test ride. I'll try again at the back end of the week, I am excited and petrified in equal measure. It has different shifters! I have also :drumroll please: bought my first ever mini-bike-multi-tool-doo-dah set thingie. I have Allan keys, Philips head screwdriver, two tyre levers and a thingie for letting the air out of valves all in a little case. I can't wait for dd to nap so I can get out in the garage and use them to point the nose of my saddle slightly down rather than slightly up. Which hopefully will ease the soreness problem.

[Roadtrip]

I might add that the Clipless pedals were a real PAIN yesterday. I have the dual sided type pedals with SPD/Platforms, but the new bike shoes (first pair were wrecked as they were too flexible.. soles cracked just behind clip) are most defiantly not friendly to platform side. Not sure why, but the pedals kept flipping over to the wrong (platform) side so I ended up slipping off the pedals several times as I tried to flip at least one over and clip in and still maintain forward momentum. Stopping was another story too. I'd try and leave my left foot clipped in and have right foot touch down when I had to stop. Three times I tipped left and nearly fell over but unclipped in time. At least I came back alive and I didn't wreck, tho did have to do an improvised dismount in order not to go down with the ship.

Enough to make me give up on clipless.. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, eh??

[Catrin]

What kind of soles are on your shoes? My Bontrager shoes have hard plastic soles, so of course they will not work on the platform side of my pedals - plastic and metal are not a good combination. All of that being said, I have not had much luck with the bear claw type of platform pedals as far as keeping my feet on them.

You are probably smarter than I was in August when I made the switch to clipless, but I will mention this anyway. Until you can tell what effect these may have on your hamstrings - especially if you are prone to tendinitis - limit your mileage clipped in for a bit just to make sure there won't be a problem. Clipping in does activate your hammies much more than platforms do. Then again, you probably haven't been over-doing things so I am sure it will work better for you.

I rode with BMX pedals for about 1,300 miles until I switched to clipless - and I found that to make the entire process much easier after my failed attempt to go clipless in early spring. I did manage to get close to 500 miles on my SPD/platform pedals before my over-use injuries took me off the bike - and I am back to BMX pedals until at least spring. Then, well, we will see. Pity no company has though to combine SPD and BMX-type dual pedals...talk about the best of both worlds!