Riding to the Ride

Most of the rides I take part in start on the outskirts of Boston, usually about 10 miles from my house. Since I don't have a car, naturally I ride my bike there - which means tacking on 20 miles or so to the mileage of the ride itself. A 30 mile club ride is really a 50 mile ride for me, and so on.




In the beginning I thought this put me at a disadvantage to most of the other cyclists there - who either lived nearby or arrived by car. After all, by the time the ride starts I've already cycled 10 miles, whereas the others are well-rested and full of energy. But as I kept riding and learned more about myself as a cyclist, I realised that it was quite the opposite. I am one of those riders who is slow to warm up - feeling sluggish for quite a while before suddenly waking up and getting that "I have wings!" feeling. How lucky that riding to the ride provides me with a warm up!




I've grown so used to riding my bike straight from home, that doing a couple of rides with remote starts this year was incredibly strange. It felt unnatural to load the bike into a car, and I couldn't shake the feeling I was forgetting something, my standard operating procedure for getting out the door disrupted. The remote start was the one aspect of D2R2 I didn't love, while part of the appeal of the overnight ride to Maine was starting from our neighbourhood and ending up across two state lines. Here in the Northeast we have fantastic regional events, and I am trying to decide how interested I am in those that aren't within reasonable cycling distance. ...Of course the definition of what's reasonable is subjective. Some have been known to ride to D2R2 from Boston. A 100 mile warm-up certainly beats my 10!

Fineshade - Blatherwycke - Fineshade

5.5 miles. WithSue, Kate, Norma, Jill,Maureen, Steph, Terry, Barrie, Barry, Phil, Gordon.A much cooler day, we almost saw the sun, and had shadows for a few minutes. Most of the photos were taken on Saturday.





From Top Lodge car park, we walked back down the road towards the A43, turning left just after the bridge to take the path across a cultivated field, downhill then up towards the woodland.





Down through the woods, then follow the path across grassland, then through a stile and between fences to another stile above Fineshade Abbey stables and the house with a lake.





There's a fine statue of a magnificent stag, and a (live) flock of Jacob's sheep.

We took the path downhill, and just before the bridge we turned left and uphill through a field with woodland on the left.

After another field or two you come to a gap in the hedge and the path leads across a cultivated field diagonally to the right.

From here there are views of Blatherwycke Lake

The only photo taken on Monday - note greyer sky.

The path continues downhill and over a stile to a minor road junction. Follow the road round into Blatherwycke village, and across the Bridge, past the entrance to a private road. Just as the road makes a right hand turn to the right, there is a footpath sign to the left. Follow this track which passes behind the church. On the hill, just after a second private track goes left you can see the statue of Apollo Belvedere.

Ripe for a caption competition?

The path continues past the lake, which you can glimpse through trees. Before long, you come to a gap in the hedge where you have a choice of two directions. On this walk we took the left-hand alternative, downhill to a footbridge over the Willow Brook.

Looking back to the gap in the hedge (where's the sky gone?)

Footbridge over the Willow Brook

The path goes through some strips of maize plants - left as shelter for the pheasants -

- and then across grassland to a gate in the hedge, where we turned right towards Blatherwyck. After a couple of hundred yards there is a bridleway sign, between agricultural buildings

shortly before the restored watermill house.

From here there is a wide track leading up towards the woods.

You follow this until it enters the wood, turning slightly left and leading down towards a field gate. From the gate you can see the top of Fineshade Abbey buildings.





It is possible to cross the field without losing any height, arriving at the stile above the stables, from where you follow the narrow path between fences, cross a field, and walk back uphill through a section of woodland, before crossing the cultivated field where we began this walk.

More Moose!

(Click the image to view a larger version)

What a day! Saw FIVE moose today... 4 on the same bend of the Pigeon River, first a male and female pair, then another female with a calf showed up and scared the other two away. Fifth one was seen on Partridge Falls Road on the way home. Paddled 10 miles on the river... besides Moose saw lots of Beavers, the Otter family of 6, and many ducks. The cow and calf shown in this photo crossed the river upstream from me three times, and I was able to get images of them each time they crossed. The image shown here was my favorite.

Red Vase

I think that this red vase may be depression glass or carnival glass. Other than that I know nothing about it.

South Early Winter Spire SW Rib ..

Elevation Gain: 2600'
5 miles RT
Left car: 11:15 am
Summit: 7:30 pm
Back at car: 10:00 pm
11 hours car to car

Steve and I planned a big climbing weekend. We didn't finalize our objectives until a few days before the weekend. The first leg would be an attempt on the Southwest Rib of South Early Winter Spire. Our plan was to climb South Early on Saturday, and then head to Cascade Pass to climb Forbidden on Sunday/Monday.

We had a casual start from Seattle on Saturday and arrived at the Blue Lake trail head in the late morning. Temps were cool, and it was a bit cloudy. We made awesome time to the base where we ate lunch and started to gear up. (And Steve took a "bathroom break".) There was a party on route ahead of us and they were a few pitches up. We hung our remaining gear in the tree, and headed up the direct start. [Using the description from Weekend Rock.]

Steve led off on the first pitch which was a loose and not easily protected corner. He went a little off route at one point (he called it the 5.10 variation) and was finally at the belay. I followed and found the pitch a struggle, and mostly unenjoyable. The off route variation took me some time to complete as I couldn't manage the moves Steve did and did an even different variation. This off route issue on the first pitch burned a lot of time for us, (Steve thought over and hour) but we weren't too concerned.

I led off on the next pitch which was short and if we didn't go off route on the first pitch, probably could have been combined with it. This short pitch was a moderate crack that brought you up to the next belay just below a major flake that is the following pitch. We changed over leads and Steve was on his way.

This crack is wider and has an interesting design to it with a large edge as its left side. The crack was fairly steep, and Steve headed up it straddling the flake with one leg on the face and one in the crack. There was much grunting. (Not as much as from the woman who was ahead of us-I think she was actually crying at one point.) Steve made his way up and commented about the amount of blood on the rock. He combined the pitch with the following pitch and started to bring me up. I climbed the crack with both feet in for the initial part, and then about 1/3 of the way up I used the flake for feet as my feet were killing me from jamming them in the crack. The last third of the pitch you come out and lie back the final portion. Exciting to go from the relative security of the crack out on to the face. The second pitch of this link up was a wide crack in a slab.

Top of the fourth pitch (photo by Steve Machuga)

It was my turn to lead the next pitch which was a slab pitch. It starts out by going around a corner and then up a nice slab with some exposure. The book description said somewhat runout, but it was oddly only runout for the crux, which in the book was stated as being "an exciting step to the right." It was a fun pitch and I set a gear belay at the base of the bear hug cracks and brought Steve up.

Rounding the corner to gain the slab (photo by Steve Machuga)

Since I had told Steve at the base that I wanted to lead the bear hug cracks, he let me lead this next pitch as well. This was a super enjoyable pitch where you head up a short crack that brings you to a small ledge at the bottom of wide double cracks. They took a touch of effort to get on, but once on them, I found the climbing easy. What was not particularly easy was protecting them. We had brought a #5 Camalot just for this pitch (although we used it on 2-3 other pitches as well.) The bear hug cracks were too wide for the #4 and so I had to move the #5 up with me at least once. Just above the cracks I was able to get in a #4 and then proceeded up a ramp to the next belay, where I brought Steve up.

Bear Hug Cracks (Photo by Steve Machuga)

Steve led out on the next bit and then we started simul-climbing. (This was roughly pitches seven and eight.) He belayed me up to just below the bunny ears, and then I led a short bit to the rap anchor at the bunny ears. We rapped off the scary (freestanding block) anchor into the notch. Then Steve led the final pitch up to the summit area. It was a fun little crack that brought you up to near the summit. Since it was late in the day and clouds seemed to be rolling in, we bypassed the summit block and started our way down the South Arete.

Bottom of pitch 7 (photo by Steve Machuga)

We scrambled most of the the descent until we got to one of the chimneys. We opted to rappel at the rap station there and that is where we were joined by another party who had just topped out on an east face route. One of the guys, Blake, scrambled down to me and set up the next rappel at the next chimney and rapped down. They allowed us to use their rope and I rapped it to find Blake scrambling down to the base. One of his partners came down and said "its only 5.0 right?" and started scrambling the final bit as well. His other partner showed up with another rope and we rappelled to the base. The one partner who started scrambling got a bit sketched and rapped the last bit before Steve could finally rap down.

Once on the ground, we returned to our packs at the base, turned on our headlamps and hiked out.

Overall this was a great climb. Although it was 5.6, the first pitch was no doubt the crux for us. (Were we off route the entire time?) It was loose, not well protected, and strenuous. There were three really enjoyable (dare I say great?) pitches on the route and some other good pitches as well. While clouds threatened all day, they mostly stuck to bothering the nearby peaks like Silver Star and Cutthroat. It was windy and cool on route, but we did have brief moments of sun.

My pics are here.

Heart Rate monitors?

Before jumping to conclusions read below




"Just double your heart rate once a day for 30 minutes!"



It is what one of my climbing partners tells the initiated to this day.

And so help methat has to be one of thedumbest remarks ever :-)

No matter if it is 30 minutes or 3 hours.



My resting heart rate even today is generally 40/42. It is creeping up from my 20's when it had been in the high 30s. I hit the mid 90s just walking my bike from the garage to the street, bathroom to desk. 190+ in a hard physical short term effort, gasping for breath.








This is a 48 minute 2000' gain, uphilleffort




So for most normal human beings doubling your heart rate means NOTHING!



It still means nothing even if you actually know what your resting heart rate is!



Helps to know that your heart rate number are personal, yours alone.And they have very little or nothing to do with your age. My maximum heat rate by those that are suppose to know is 160BPM. And seemingly "they"don't know shit! Or at least aren't telling us much!



http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/PhysicalActivity/Target-Heart-Rates_UCM_434341_Article.jsp



160BPM is hardly a difficult an effort for me running. Even less so on the bike.



The above 231 number on my bike computer?



The 231 MHR on my bike computer is in error. Simply a bad chest strap connection. I know that because I have seenmy actual MHR incontinued testing, long term over severaldecades. Testing? Or at least the number very close tomy MHR, which is 194 running. A beat or two lesson the bike andless than that swimming.



In straight talk...a 190HR for me, hurts. But in a good way. I know it is a hard work out and I also know I can't hold that HR for long.Sitting here at my desk, on a good day, well rested and well hydrated while typing? My average HR is 46bpm. That I can hold as long as I eat,drink and keep my body temperature stable :) Today it is up to 50 after two days previousof moderately hard work outs. Which I feel this morning. Ageing does slow recovery time.







I have a personal connection to HR monitors that I've mentioned previous. I'll get to that again eventually.



For the most part, when Ihave "trained", and I use that term loosely, it was at what ever maximum I could muster. There was no long slow efforts. There were just efforts...as hard as I could go as long as I could go. Stupid way to train. Almost as dumb as the "double your heart rate method".....almost.



Endurance efforts just meant getting it done. Getting something "big" done climbing wise was as much luck with the nutrition as it was my "training". Thankfully for most reading this that has changed. Not so much for my buddy and doubling his HR. But he has never trained that way, anyway :)



There is a ton of info out there for better/smarter training using a HR monitor. If that kind of thing interests you check it out. Eventually for most it turns into Perceived Effort anyway. HR generally matches that effort. But not always, which is where things start to get really interesting for me. And why a HR monitor makes sense if you want to train smart.



http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/l/blperceivedexer.htm



I've been a big fan of Polar products for a decade or more. But I have used Mio in the past as well. Just recently been testing the newest Mio Alpha.









Party line below:



"MIO Alpha Strapless Heart Rate Monitor




The world of strapless, continuous heart rate monitoring has changed. Introducing: the MIO Alpha. This MIO strapless heart rate monitor is the world�s first strapless, continuous heart rate monitor that offers chest-strap free monitoring right from your wrist. Using groundbreaking optical sensor technology, the MIO Alpha gives you user-settable heart rate training options and monitoring like never before. Use your favorite fitness apps to track GPS, distance, speed, and pace, and take your workout to the next level.



The MIO Alpha offers long battery life, able to charge in just under an hour, and offer 8-10 hours of continuous monitoring. When you�re not training, shut off the HR feature and wear as a sleek daily watch for up to 2 to 3 weeks before needing another charge.



The MIO delivers monitoring at performance speeds, so you never have to slow down or modify your workout to get accurate tracking. Finally � untether yourself from chest straps and train in comfort at top performance speed with the MIO Alpha strapless heart rate watch."



I've been using one on and off for a week now. Not having a chest strap is a cool thing. Limited information is not. More to come on the Mio Alpha'stechnology.














And if all else fails...sure, "double your heart rate" every day ;)



Some titles I found useful on HR Monitors and their use:



http://thesallyedwardscompany.com/sallyedwards/books-by-sally-edwards.php



and



Joe Friel's2006 edition Precision Heart Rate Training

New Puppy

We have a new puppy. She is a German Shepherd mix about 4 months old. We named her Ziva or Zivy. I have a new blog to tell all about Ziva at http://thepuppytale.blogspot.com/as well as some of Ziva's tale at this blog. It was a new experence for us to adopt a pup at the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Center and well worth it to get such a nice pup. Go to my new blog to learn more about Ziva.