Dobovedo's Journal of Journeys

Mixed together 5 rides/loops today and came up just short of 100 miles.

I was ‘off’ work today, last personal day I’m taking this week to rest my brains. I say ‘off’ because I was actually logged in earlier in the day and also put in a very late night as well.

But that has nothing to do with riding. I broke down the headset and crankset again and cleaned ‘em real good, hoping to silence my ongoing bike creakiness. After reassembling, I headed out from home. Ride details follow: Read more on Not Quite 100…

Some interesting goals and milestones are in the cards for this week.

• If I come up with 200 miles in the next 4 days of April, I’ll have my first 1000 mile month ever. I had figured I’d do it in May with TOSRV and (maybe) Huffman, but the DMC last Saturday pushed me pretty close.

Read more on A word about milestones…

The original title of this post was going to be “goin’ through the motions“. I came out to the ride today very half-hearted. I needed to get Fred’s trainer back to him, so I showed up. I got the bike out and figured I’d just ride an easy loop, not talk to anyone, and head home quietly.

My ride actually started out that way, too. Other than a few short words to Craig, Bruce and a couple others, I started out a few minutes before the group, cruising along into the wind at a snail’s pace. I really didn’t want to be there. The thoroughly depressing events of the week (unpublished on this blog), a painful little hematoma on my forearm, a nice saddle sore (wore the RLX shorts once to many), headwinds, and chillier than expected: I really wanted to just go home.

The Cows came around me while I was climbing Heart Attack. Looked like they were moving, but not real hard. They were going fast no doubt, but the faces weren’t strained and they were bunched up pretty well. Then a couple minutes later someone on aerobars came past me breathing hard. Don’t know who he was, but he said “Wow, those guys are fast”. I just said “Ayup” (as if I were from Maine) and had to laugh. Poor guy was still chasing and didn’t have a prayer.

A short while later I was on Hufford and the main Fred’s group came past me. At least 4 people greeted me, and more than one said ‘hop on’. I still didn’t feel much like riding, so I let them go.

Then a funny thing happened… Read more on You ain’t never caught a rabbit…

Just found out today that OLN is BACK ON DISH NETWORK!!!! Can you give me a HELL YEAH!! Now I don’t have to move in with someone else in July and miss out on all the race coverage all summer. Not to mention the replay of Tour de Georgia. Sweeeet. Now I REALLY have motivation to skip Sunday rides!

Read more on CYCLISM SUNDAYS……

Another Monday, another day of longer miles. Compared to Saturday, 63 was pretty short.

Bike is back to creaking like crazy again after Friday’s ride, but I just haven’t had time to break the thing down and clean it. More on that in another post.

Anyway, the commute was nothing worth writing about. The green route today was a good solid hard ride. Big Tim was back out at the ride tonight, and brought a friend, Andy I think his name was. I didn’t go with the front group because I was chatting with Angie in the lot and rolled out a little slow. Halfway down Stuebaker I figured I’d chase on and see what was going on. By the time I caught up I was a little spent… legs still burning a bit after Sat. I ended up getting gapped a bit down Agenbroad and missed the quick right/left at 201. But fought back on and slowly worked my way to the front. By the top of Scarff we had gapped a few guys, who got back on briefly. The short climb after crossing Dayton-Brandt dropped us down to five and by the time we got through the rollers it was just me, Tim and Andy. Tim really hits the climbs hard, long legs pumping. But fortunately for me he has a tendency to lighten up at the tops and that gives me a chance to stay on. Usually it is a good time for me to pull through and keep the pace going. We all traded pulls the rest of the ride and added Pisgah. I figured I’d never beat Tim at a finish sprint, so I basically just pulled hard down Studebaker and gave he and Andy a leadout for the finish.

Read more on Green Loop…

Not sure if it was fun or not, but the pun was two amusing to resist. I did my first Double Metric Century today. I didn't start out the day with that in mind, but that's how it turned out. The short story:

• 124 miles
• 6 hours, 57 minutes
• 17.8(ish) average
• completely drained but exhilarated
• fairly confident about RAIN in July.

The ride plans as they evolved:

• Group: "Let's go do the Woodstock Century in Columbus"
• Group: "Can't do that… let's ride down to Crilli's race in Spring Valley and get in 100"
• 1/2 Group: "We're running late… we'll drive down there and then meet up to ride
• Other 1/2: "We want miles… we'll ride partway down, and meet up, then ride back
• Dobo: "It's getting late, and we're not riding much… I'm going to go ride the path"
• Dobo: "I'll ride 'til I hit 50 miles, then turn back north for the full century"
• Dobo: "The end of the path at Milford is at 60 miles, may as well do the whole thing"
• Dobo: "If I'm gonna do 120, may as well make it a double metric.

For the complete blow by blow in agonizing detail… Read more on Fun-DMC…

“Rode Fred’s Ride and no one showed, so I rode a time trial. It was sweeet!”

Yep.. that’s the word. Regardless… there were two of us out there in the rain. I’m not sure why I showed, except that I haven’t missed a ride yet since March 1, and wasn’t about to let the rain break the streak. And it is pretty fun out riding in the wet. Maybe it’s because we are in the early warm days of Spring and it’s an awesome feeling to get wet without piling on the heavy clothing and shiver and be miserable.

Anyway, Sarah came out ’cause she’s nuts too. We rode the Casstown loop to avoid the heavier traffic on Dayton-Brandt in the poor visibility. We rode pretty easy. Sarah kept trying to push the pace but I wouldn’t let her. She did tempt me into sprinting for most of the signs. I think we pulled off the worlds slowest sprint on Rudy. We both clicked into big rings while only going about 16 mph and were cranking such huge gears we barely accelerated. It was a sorry attempt but very amusing. Coming in to the finish Sarah attacked me fairly close to the sign. I really wasn’t interested, but I finally decided not to let her get away with it. By the time I got my ‘crappy’ (Campy) front derailleur to shift into the big ring (never works well when wet), she was too far ahead. I gave it a shot but she beat me by at least a half a wheel length. Not sure why she wrote that I threw my bike and beat her. If I did it was well after the line and only because I was goofing. She got me.

Post ride outing description… Read more on 2 ‘no ones’ and a whole lotta rain drops…

Quick post today just to make note of my 2nd day of enjoying a quiet, smoothly operating bike. hooray!

I had intended on riding up towards Bunker Hill to meet up with Vince and PK on the Minster loop. The spousal unit made me a better offer of dinner out so I took her up on it instead. 20 miles for the off day is great though. Gotta decide whether to go for the full 62(ish) tomorrow or cut it short and do Classic.

Read more on Quiet Commute…

the most awesomo detail was that the bike never made a single creak

Don’t get me wrong here… cycling doesn’t suck. But in general, bikes are a pain in the ass. This is an expensive way to spend time. I’m not one of those guys who has to by the latest and lightest components or get a new bike every year. Or have a road bike, touring bike, TT bike, tandem and build and extra garage to hold everything. I have one bike, and it sucks.

OK… not really. It just is aggravating when little things go wrong. Like spending 4 hours cleaning breaking down the whole thing to get rid of a little creaking, only to reassemble it and have the same damned creak. Is it the headset? Bottom bracket? Seatpost? Who the #$*% knows.

Read more on Bikes suck…

so where were the podium babes? LOL.

Interesting ride today. But first: spent about 3-4 hours working on the bike, trying to get rid of the inevitable creak that comes after riding too many rides in the rain. Friday really did the bike in. I pulled apart the headset and cleaned it out… still creaked. Pulled the crank apart and gave that a good cleaning as well. While I was at it I got the rear derarileur and jockey wheels cleaned up to.

So I started south from home and it only took a few blocks before I was creaking away again. DAMN! Nothing like bike noises to take the fun out of a ride. Anyway, I kept going south with a tailwind and got out to Process with plenty of time.

Large group tonight, but very strange. There were at least 30 riders out, but no cows. By ‘no’ I mean precious few. Craig was there as always, but decided to ride easy and went with Fred tonight. From what I’ve heard they had a pretty hard weekend. I know Craig likes to play chess so who knows what he’s up to? Glad I’m not a true cow so I can distance myself from those kinds of things. Having my own agenda and goals makes it much easier for me to remain neutral on issues and just support everyone. More on that in a separate non-ride post. Other than that, PK’s Element was in the lot but she must have been out riding ’cause I didn’t see her (’til later).

Anyway, we took off down the road at a fairly easy pace. I was way to the back, but slowly moved up. Read more on Made the podium……