Fun & Fitness over 50

I picked up a bike from a post-garage sale giveaway.

I was almost home from an early morning ride when I saw it next to a "free" sign with a lot of other stuff.

I called Mrs. MTBMan1 and asked her to come over with a car and bike rack and we took it home.

Here it is:


The shifting seemed a little sluggish so I thought I would replace the rear shifter cable. When trying to take the shifter cover off, the nut sheared, like so:


It's an odd little item. There is a slider on it that if you turn it one way you get indexed shifting and the other way it's old-style friction shifting! It's Shimano Deore XT but certainly a very old model. There are only 5 cogs in the rear. I suppose I could replace it with a friction type shifter.

There is no brand to be seen on the bike as it has been painted.

The nice thing about it is that it's a large size good for either Mrs. MTBMan1 or myself. My idea is to make it as much a comfort bike as possible for Mrs. MTBMan1 as she is having neck problems with the high seat-low handlebar arrangement on the Trek.

Also, no quick-releases on the wheels:


What I would like to do is either see if the stem will extend or get a longer one and get high rise handlebars. Then maybe a shock mounted seat and some shocks for the front. All free of course! :-)

But wait, there's more!

They were also giving away 2 sets of biking shoes that fit me!


How 'bout that!? The only problem is, they are Look style and I have spd pedals. With my luck, maybe I'll find a free set of Look pedals before my current ones give out. ;-)

Remember, MTBMan1 says "You can't have too many bikes!"

Today i was a little bit sore from yesterday's ride and I intended to take it easy.

Additionally, Mrs. MTBMan1 and I had a full day planned so I really only had 1/2 hour to spare.

What I should have done, had I behaved responsibly, would have been to ride out 15 minutes and then ride back along precisely the same route; the only way to guarantee getting back as promised barring any mishaps.

Well, that was too boring and unadventurous, of course, so I set out on a new route (although in very familiar territory) that I guesstimated would bring me back in plenty of time, if not under.

So at about the 2/3rds point, I realized I needed to cut things short so I started taking what I thought would be shortcuts. Naturally I got a bit disoriented and lost although not hopelessly so but it was clear that I was not going to make my cutoff.

So I sprinted back.

I didn't do too bad. I was under 10 minutes late but boy are my legs sore now! (8PM)
That's OK. I'll take some Vitamin "I" so I can sleep.

But I like having sore legs from a hard ride.

Right after that I hit the lawn (mowing that is). Then we went down to the rel's and did some sailing. While docking at the end of the sail, I jumped for the dock to hold the boat from banging against the dock, slipped and landed on my right side on the dock. I'm a little banged up here and there but everything's OK otherwise.

A very physical day. I like that.

A few rides ago my bike computer registered a max speed of 44.5mph. On that ride, it the fastest speed would have been obtained on a small hill that I usually do in the low to mid 30s.

Next ride I tried to repeat the performance. It's a dip down and then a short but steep hill up to Meads Lane. Which is sort of the plateau.

I will usually hammer it on the way down in my highest gear getting my cadence well over 100. Then eventually shifting down to low gear on the upside but trying to keep my cadence above 80.

Yep, this time, as hard as I went, top speed was only 37.8mph. Another case of the computer crazies.

Usually though, when the computer goes bonkers with the max speed, it says 77mph so I KNOW that ain't right!

The fastest I've ever gone on the bike is 45 and that's fast enough for me. I would hate to have a flat on the front tire at that speed! Hey, it happens!

I've been having a great couple of weeks, though, riding the LeTour Challenge from MapMyRide.

I usually ride the "Dunkin' Donut" cause that's just about an hour and that's all the time I have either before or after work during the week.

I'll sprint the sections between intersections and rest in between. It works out pretty well and I'm pushing 15mph average on the hard days.

Today I used the BlackBerry GPS app and it actually worked! Although it shorted me a mile as usual cause it doesn't follow the roads when I get really twisty and turny but kind of goes as the crow flies.

The key, I think, is to pull the battery to do a hard reset before using it.

Two more days left of the Tour de France!

NOT!!

Ha, ha! I think I've finally got over 1 chronic problem. That is, whenever pedaling out of the saddle, especially on a steep climb, I pull my right shoulder out. I don't mean actually out of joint but I do something to it that it hurts and continues to hurt for days unless I don't ride at all.

I've finally learned how to pull on the handlebars without pulling on my shoulder. The ride up to Pinnacle was proof of that and I just realized it on my ride this morning to my great joy.

By the way, this morning was a great ride. I didn't sleep particularly well and wasn't looking forward to going out at "oh dark 30" but I didn't want to miss a day of riding when the Tour de France was going to be riding and it was more likely to rain in the afternoon after work than in the morning (it did).

MapMyRide is running a LeTour Challenge where you ride every day that the real Tour rides and they rank you and you get entered for prizes. But the best part of it is the motivation to ride every day (Monday is usually a rest day). I currently rank in 889th place out of 14,006 riders.

You can only get ranked for "verified" rides, that's if you use a GPS device and I gave up on my BlackBerry GPS app that MapMyRide provided. It usually doesn't work right and it's too much trouble. I don't need the aggravation when I'm just trying to enjoy the ride.

Only minutes into the ride I felt great. It's a great way to wake up. I'd already had 2 cups of coffee too. That's good for performance and helps to burn fat.

So it didn't rain on me, I averaged 14.7 mph on the ride which is pretty good for this loop and my derailleur cable seemed to loosen up toward the last 3rd of the ride. I'll have to take it apart and lube it soon. It seems to be sticking on the upshifts since I replaced it. I feel more confident about redoing the cable now that I've done it once (watch me screw it up!).

I call this ride "Dunkin' Donut" because it's a loop with a little spur where I go out Game Farm Rd. as far as the railroad tracks and back to the loop so it looks like the "handle" on the original Dunkin' Donut. The reason I don't cross the tracks is I don't want to get stuck on the other side if a train comes through. Time is limited 'cause I have to go to work. There WAS a train going through today too.

See, here it is:

I did it! I climbed Pinnacle!

To me, the route up to Thatcher park and then to Camp Pinnacle via Beaver Dam Road and Pinnacle Road was the ultimate symbol of climbing hurt on a bicycle.

Today we took that route, Charles, his friend Mike and I.

It was tough but I did it. It's a real milestone for me.

One more "DREAD" scratched off the list.

My quads are going to kill me. I'm feeling it already.

One note of concern: long, steep climbs are really hard on my lower back. I have some degeneration there and it's usually kept in check by bike riding with the exception of rides with a lot of climbing, that is, more than a 5 or 10 minute hill per ride.

I hope I can find some way to deal with this. Bike fit, maybe?

Here's today's route for you locals:

I am reading the book by Lance Armstrong "It's not about the Bike".

Here's a great quote from the book that says it all:

"Cycling is so hard, the suffering is so intense, that it's absolutely cleansing. You can go out there with the weight of the world on your shoulders, and after a six-hour ride at a high pain threshold, you feel at peace. The pain is so deep and strong that a curtain descends over your brain. At least for awhile you have a kind of hall pass, and don't have to brood on your problems; you can shut everything else out, because the effort and subsequent fatigue are absolute."

And another:

"Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long. 'Pleasure' I said. 'I don't understand the question.' I didn't do it for pleasure. I did it for pain."

That explains to me why I have such a hard time doing an easy recovery ride like you are supposed to do between hard workouts. Not that I ride as hard as Lance Armstrong. But a large part of the attraction of cycling for me is that euphoria that comes during and immediately after a hard ride.

I had to cut short my ride this afternoon after work.

As I started climbing a short roller on Van Dyke I threw the rear derailleur into 1st and the cable let go ... no shift.

I did ignore the warning signs. A frayed piece of cable kept poking me in the finger when I shifted on the last ride. I just clipped the offending strand short with my wire cutters!

So I was stuck in 6th on the rear derailleur. Too hard of a gear for me to climb Orchard Hill. So I headed straight back to Matt's Mad Dog Bicycles and bought a piece of cable.

I botched it right away by not tinning the end with solder when I clipped the end off it. It unravelled pretty badly a couple of inches in from end. But I saved the day by 1. tinning the end. 2. tinning 2 inches back to stop the unravelling from getting worse and 3. Clipping out the unravelled strand from between the 2 tinned points so I could get the cable through all the holes.

It didn't matter strength wise because the end of the cable that was frayed was beyond the binding screw on the derailleur.

Whew!

That was 5 bucks saved!

Oh, by the way, I'm now in 727th place out of 12,151 total riders in MapMyRide Le Tour Challenge! No prizes though. :-(

I COULD use a head sweat or a water bottle! :-)