Posts Tagged "Hill Repeats"

Good hill repeat ride this evening

Posted by Bryan on May 6, 2009 in Bike Maintenance, Blog, Cycling and Weight Loss Report, My Rides, White Rock Lake | 0 comments

Today is Wednesday so I headed down to Flagpole Hill near White Rock Lake to get my hill repeats in. My ride itself was actually pretty boring. I did five repeats up the hill to start with (five miles with the recovery sections), then headed to the lake for one loop (12 miles), and then one more time up the hill (about one mile). All told I was right at 18 miles for the ride. I think my legs were still a little heavy from the one-leg drills on Monday but I needed a good hard ride.

When I road around the lake I was really surprised to see all the trash still there from the weekends heavy rains. They had cleared the debris from the trail but the trash was still there. They have volunteer Saturdays to pick up trash but with it as bad as it is I’m surprised the parks department here in Dallas hasn’t taken care of it. Maybe there’s a reason they haven’t such as money.

I also saw a couple of groups rowing out on the lake. If I counted correctly each of the shells had 8 people in them. Pretty cool.

I’m a little concerned about my bike. My rear rim is working its way out of true and making some noise again, the front brake is giving me problems and my front hub doesn’t feel right. I may forgo rides tomorrow and Friday so I can give it a good once over up at my Mom’s house this weekend where I can use my Dad’s shop. I probably need to take it in for a complete overhaul when I have the cash. I just have a feeling it needs more love than my maintenance skills can give it.

With me having problems with my rear rim again I’m becoming more convinced that I need to invest in a set of wheels that can support me better. Maybe the Velocity Deep V rims that jaxgtr keeps talking about. My rear rim was replaced about 8 months ago when I noticed a problem at the seam. I almost wonder if this new rim isn’t as sturdy as the original was. The bad thing is that the Velocity rims will set me back about $280 and I’m concerned about the rear spacing because of my bike being older. I would have to take it to the bike shop for some advice. The only problem is that I haven’t found a shop I’m comfortable with yet.

Hump Day=Hill Repeat Day

Posted by Bryan on Apr 22, 2009 in Blog, Cycling and Weight Loss Report, My Rides | 7 comments

Well, today brought another hill repeat day (my second) upon me. My plan was to repeat exactly what I did the last time I did repeats up Flagpole Hill and that’s what I did. I did manage to bring my sunglasses and computer this time and didn’t perform a 0 mph crash while trying to take off from a stop sign.

My first couple times up the hill went pretty good. Got passed by some dude going up it like a gazelle but that’s OK. Some day. In fact, I saw several people doing the hill today and a couple of runners. Even saw three ladies on horses on my recovery section.

The fourth and fifth trips up the hill were excruciating. I had wanted to add one trip up from last time but six was out of the question. I think my ride yesterday took a little too much out of me. It took every gear I had to make it up those last two times.

On a positive note, no animals were harmed in today’s ride.

No personal records for me today

Posted by Bryan on Apr 3, 2009 in Blog, My Rides | 10 comments

After reading about personal record setting rides over at 331 Miles and Mike’s Bike Blog I had high hopes of a great ride today. Sadly, it didn’t work out that way.

I arrived at the Tennis Center just north of White Rock Lake to park and get ready to ride. I had no plan today but decided on doing some hill repeats for a change. While getting ready I noticed that I had forgotten my computer. A couple of rides ago it was my water bottles and this ride it’s my computer. Not a good way to start.

I roll out and immediately start hearing the weird noise again. When I get back from Jacksonville I’m going to have to take my whole bike in and have the shop listen to it. My rear spokes seem a little loose which makes me think that’s the sound I’m hearing but I just had the rim trued two weeks ago.

As I’m rolling down the trail heading to Flagpole Hill I ride through a large swam of gnats. I had’em in my eyes, nose, mouth, everywhere. That’s when I realized I forgot my sunglasses. I left them in the car. Dang! That’s two things I’ve forgotten and I’m starting to get upset.

I made it to the bottom of flagpole hill where there’s a four-way stop intersection. I wait for a couple of cars to go and a car pulls up behind me. I push down with my left foot (which is clipped in) to take off and instead of rolling forward my bike comes to a complete stop and my weight is totally on my left side. In about two seconds I fall over right in front of the car. Unbelievable. I was so pissed. The guy in the car is looking at me like I’m an idiot (which may be true) and it takes everything to not toss my bike into the ditch. That would have been bad though so I didn’t. It’s the only bike I’ve got.

I re-start and head up Flagpole Hill. I never saw a flagpole so I have no idea why it’s called that. For someone of my pitiful abilities I thought it was a pretty good hill. It left me gasping pretty good by the time I got to the top. I took some side streets back down to the bottom to give myself a chance to recover.

Second time up I’m about half-way to the top and my right foot comes flying out of the clip. It totally kills my momentum and I struggle all the way to the top. I ride around and try it again.

Third time up an idiot in a truck thinks it’s cool to pull up next to me and gun his truck as he flies past me up the hill. I don’t know what the speed limit is but he was way over it.

Fourth time up my right shoe pops out again. That’s it. I’m buying new clips the day I get back from Jacksonville.

Fifth time up and I basically have to crawl to the top. I’m spent.

As you can see, today’s ride pretty much sucked. I’m glad I did it though because I need the time in the saddle and need work on the hills. At some point I’ll actually keep track of the time to get to the top and see if I can start setting some PRs. I’m guessing that for folks that are in shape the climb to the top shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.