Numbers

OK, I'm just getting my brain out of sleep mode and ready for thinking again at work next week. Some math should do the job to warm those brain cells up again:

#1: If you do an average speed of e.g. 16 mph, and you run a 32/14 gearing, you'll end up with 5469 pedal rotations per hour. That means your cadence is 91 rpm.

#2: Top speed pedaling down the hill and still putting some power into the cranks yesterday was 48 kph (sorry, I'm still using and old Euro computer). This means my pedal cadence was 168 rpm!

#3: Since there was not a lot of coasting yesterday I would say I did about 25 000 pedal rotations.

#4: Final question: Should I eat again now? Easy answer: yes

Secret training starts: now

OK, this is it, the WRCS is officially over for me - I'll miss the last two rides and drop back to 5th place.

Once I'm back in town next weekend I'll have to go out by myself on these long rides. It's gonna be tough, but probably helps getting stronger mentally again. After all, in a 24-h race I'll be by myself as well and won't have anybody to chat around me, plus I usually really don't feel like talking.

Riding today didn't feel all that great - another confirmation that yesterdays ride was pretty hard. And I also decided I want to stand on all the hills today - wow, was I glad we don't have too many hills around here!

Some shots from today (I know, I need a new camera, the pictures always are way too bright...):


Robert leading the pack around for the 46th time


"LEFT TURN"


Remember: If you put some big rocks in your frontyard, some trail deprived mountainbikers will ride them


Danny, impressing his girlfriend with his bad ass skills


Todays leftovers: Lisa, Robert, Bill and my big head (as shadow on the ground)

What not to wear

After about 50 winter rides so far I was finally able to pick the correct clothing. Knowing that we would go fairly hard today also made it easier to decide against a couple of layers I usually wear.

The ride really turned out to be a hard workout for about 3 hours. We practiced some sneaky road bike techniques and at the end managed to get a fairly fluent rotating pace line. That actually was the only way today to fight against the supercrazy wind and gusts we had all day.

Statistics:
--> 91 miles
--> 5:44 hours
--> avg speed 3 hours into the ride: 16 mph
--> current feelings: tired and hungry

Never buy the cheapest DVD player

Why not? Because riding indoors sucks even more when your DVD is skipping. I should've just gone outside, but I was too lazy. The trainer session was boring, just as expected...

Remember I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago? When I was in the train station in Stuttgart I filled out a little card for a raffle. Well, today my folks in Germany got a call and I aparently won a trip. My dad was too excited on the phone when they called so he forgot to ask the lady where it'll go to, but she's supposed to call again next week with more details.

I'm still German

A trip to Costco always reminds me of my nationality. Today was one of those days. When I lived over there I simply never saw a grocery store where you buy at least 1500 garbage bags, one metric ton of M&M's, cakes that wouldn't even fit on my dining table or a bucket full of ice cream - and on the way out you grab that new set of tires you always wanted. I love it!

American Cycle and Fitness / Wolverine Sports Club - Elite Mountain Bike Team

This is it, the long awaited team announcement. That official team name is pretty long, so we'll be known as well as ACF/WSC riders.

And these are the fast guys:
--> Bill Clikeman
--> Alex Dolpp
--> Pete Favata
--> Chris Goddard
--> Robert Herriman
--> Greg Kuhn
--> Christian Tanguy

American Cycle and Fitness simply has the best bike stores in the Metro Detroit area, so we are proud to represent them!

Trek is another great partner for our team, we will take their bikes to speeds they have never seen before (OK, now I'm exaggerating, but we'll certainly ride those sweet bikes as fast as we possibly can).

Bontrager and Nike are supporting sponsors as well, we bikers all know about their great products. If you don't - go out and get some, I'm not promising too much here!



Greg and Chris already started getting those top of the podium finishes - check these results of an early season prep race>

Rest day

I plan to take it easy tomorrow, since I just got done with 5 days of training in a row. Probably hit the gym on Friday again, and spend a lot of time on the bike this weekend. Could turn into a week of 20+ training hours (which is not all that impressing when you consider that it'll be close to 0 the following week - stupid work...)

An evening in the gym

My IPod in random mode stumbled over an old Sheryl Crow song - what a motivation. She dated this one guy, what was his name again? yeah, right - Lance Armstrong - he was a biker. Heard they broke up a while ago.. hey Sheryl, I'm a biker as well, you can date me.

Weekend recap

After all that happened on Saturday 2/18/06 , this day could be renamed into:
The day it was -10F windchill outside and we still rode around for 4 hours
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The day that officially would have opened the hammer season if there would be one
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The first day of the year my HR was always beyond 165 whenever I checked (there goes my rest week...)
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The day we rode 2 straight hours into the headwind that had gusts of up the 25 mph
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The day the MEGAbike slowly disassembled itself
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The day my front fender fell off and didn't get stuck in my front wheel so I didn't have to fly over the handlebar
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The day we got homemade brownies, got our sweaty cloths dried and watched porn during the coffee stop (hosted by Pete's girlfriend - thanks again)
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The day Pete dropped me

Danny in his new team outfit - waiting for the slower riders (notice, I took the picture, so I was out in front with the fast guys!)


Riding along one of the thousands of Michigan lakes


Getting ready to head back out into brutally cold conditions (after trying to warm up inside - notice the heat pack on Lisa's neck)


Who needs winblogger goretex whatever socks when there are grocery bags available?


Pete's girlfriend Jan Mack - you should stop at their place when you ride by it - they have great food and coffee!


Sunday was a little more normal, here some highlights:
spent the night in Lansing at Jim's house since Scotty has its b-day party the night before
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I didn't ride to the ride, but drove there
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I realized you shouldn't use one of these huge industrial power heaters to dry your gloves, because they will melt. We stopped to watch the "Paul Bunyan MTB Race" in a park nearby today (too early to race for me) and tried to warm up in the shelter where they had this heater running. Since neither the heater nor the fireplace really helped we decided to take a little detour to Starbucks.
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1 new WRCS participant - welcome Paula!

Trying to warm up during Sunday's ride

It'll be cold

The weather forecast tells me tomorrow will be the coldest ride of the Winter Ride Championship Series so far. Finally some good points and real winter riding. I'm excited now - and will probably regret being outside tomorrow when my toes start to get cold.

First new team-bike is here

But unfortunatelly it's not mine... Robert got his order in first, so he got his bike already. Wow, that was fast. The new sponsorship seems to work pretty well so far. Hope I'll get a chance to check his ride out tomorrow, since I ordered the same (just a size smaller). I'm sure it's nice and shiny and beautiful and hot and sexy and crazy fast with it's red frame and white stripes (ha ha) on it.

I think the team announcement is coming up pretty soon here as well.

I'm watching figure skating

And I don't like it.

Still enjoying my easy week, but I would much rather work out more. Short trip to the gym tonight, that was it.

One of my new coworkers found out today at lunch that I do Solo 24-h racing. Should have seen her face...

I feel like a young god

Been out tonight on another 2.5 hour ride. Besides the fact that my throat is pretty rough, I felt superb. Part of that superbness were Kelly's shoe covers she gave me at the beginning of the ride - I remembered 45 F feeling warmer than it actually was, so I only put on socks and shoes (well, and of course the other clothing, otherwise it would be an ugly picture), and by the time I got to the meeting point my toes were freezing. Glad she was overdressed and needed to get rid of some cothing.

The ride was longer than planned, considering I wanted to rest. But we had a nice route, and it just was too spring like to ride shorter.

Non biking news: The home improvement project at my friend Jamie is coming to an end. I helped her out over the last couple of weeks getting the attic in better shape. Too bad, I really liked working the nailgun. Nothing can make me happier than big powertools (well, besides a bike of course - and I just ordered a new one, but still can't say which one).

WRCS update

Hope you've been checking the WRCS riding, I'm back in the Top 5. 3/4 of the series is over.

This is the latest detailed list(doesn't include all riders) - click on it and it gets readable:

Ding Ding Ding - rest week

Kinda looking forward to this week: planning on not doing too much sports and trying to catch up on things I should have done lately (tax return?). Tonight was only a short 2 hour spin around the blocks, felt the riding from the last 2 days, but it seemed to get better towards the end.

After yesterdays ride I was crazy hungry, so I order some Thai food. It was so much chicken, rice and vegies that I actually couldn't finish it, which is unusual for me. Leftovers in my fridge - they came in pretty handy tonight, still munching on that chicken.

Looks like things are shaping up in terms of a training camp. Probably somewhere south in the middle of March....

No pictures from today

I have to get better with my digital camera. I had it on two rides so far and couldn't take any pictures, because I either forgot the flash card at home or I forgot to put a full battery in. I only could take one picture before it died...



The one and only picture from today shows the pack riding some random neighborhood street on the way to the MMBA meeting. Not everybody rode up there, and at the end it was just Robert, myself and a sweet tailwind riding back to Royal Oak. The MMBA annual meeting was a lot of fun, saw many riders out there that I haven't seen in a couple of months. Where are you all riding at the moment? Oh yeah, that's right, you are smarter than I am and stay inside when it's wet, cold and freezing outside...

Missed todays century goal, but still ended up with 85 miles.

Check that out

The winter riders are getting famous - we made it into the Detroit Free Press!

Just got back from 5.5 hours of outside fun. Lot's o' miles... even more tomorrow.

Superbowl pics

As promised - impression of last weekends Superbowl ride to downtown Detroit:


Approaching the town.


That would be me.


What was going on again that day? - Yeah, right, that superbowl thing (if I only knew what that is...)


Everybody smiling - we just love riding in cold and wet conditions! Wanna know some names? Left to right: Kelly, Danny, Eric, Bob, Mr. WRCS Robert, April, Todd, Shawn, Pete, Mike. And the winning questions today: Who can see the car horn in this picture?


Jim from Lansing - all the important things he owns are in his bags.

I hope I can sleep tonight

I'm pretty excited, going for a bike fit tomorrow morning before the WRCS ride to decide which frame size they have to order.

Downloading some pics at the moment from Jim, hope there are some good ones to share. Pics are always more fun than reading...

2006 season thoughts

Seems this year is even harder in terms of figuring out which races to do. And once I think I have it all down I hear of other races again. At least I now know which bike I'll be racing. We are in the process of getting our orders in for our brand spankin' new team. Still too early for any details, but it'll be fast and furious - and I'm serious!

Today's workout statistics:
--> 1.5 hours on the trainer
--> maneuvering the vacuum cleaner for about 0.25 hours through the entire place -must have been one of the best workouts in a long time, that little guy got heavier and heavier.


The indoor setup - note the MEGAbike hanging out in the back. Oh, BTW, the bike on the trainer is for sale. Anyone interested?

I'm excited about Sunday's ride. Robert and I will ride up to Springfield Oaks for the MMBA Expo. Hope we will get there in time to hear guest speaker Chris Eatough. Getting there and back and adding a little more should be enough miles for another early season century.

Quick stop in Germany

Just returned from one of the most stressful trips I've ever been on.

After riding 4 hours on Sunday to downtown to catch some Superbowl action (pictures to come soon) I was off to the airport.

Monday and Tuesday in Regensburg (some random pic from the internet), back today. It's a very old town and was just another reminder of the great history of Germany. Where else can you stay in a hotel that's in a building from the 12th century? And the food and beer was great as well - even after having way too much of both.

So I felt guilty today and headed to the gym right from the airport. 3 hours outside after the gym, feeling good - but hungry again...

14 -13-12-11-home

All I wanted to do today at the end of our ride was get home, that's why I started counting the x-Mile roads on my way back home. It was cold, my hands were freezing.

It all started at 8 when I intended to get out to get some miles in before the WRCS ride, but it was drizzeling. So I postponed the start hoping it'll get better. It got worse. Finally I had to leave at 9:30 to ride to Roberts. By the time we got to the meeting place we were soaked, more rain came down during the following group ride. In addition the temps dropped and heavy snow came down (during the transition from rain to snow some monster size snowflakes fell down).

But I shouldn't describe myself as being so hardcore - as announced, Jim rode over from Lansing. I couldn't believe when he told me on the phone that he was actually on his way over. He made it most of his way, but I ended up picking him up (with the car) after about 3/4 of his way. He was trenched, so was his fixie...



Back to the WRCS ride:
Some technical difficulties today, flat tire, singelator problems, and Roberts bottom bracket finally broke (how is that possible, it only had 25 000 miles on it!)

Tomorrow should be a real snow ride, looks like we'll get a lot of snow tonight:

A snow ride?

OK, finally they have snow in the forecast. Should make a good ride tomorrow. No riding the last two days, but at least I went to the gym once.

Jim is riding over from Lansing tomorrow - that's a hell of a ride, probably somewhere just over 100 miles. Lot's of dirtroads on the way, I did that route last year in November - it'll be a messy ride. Be safe, Jim!

Hope I can get a lot of miles in tomorrow as well, since Sunday will be shorter. Have to catch the plan to Germany.

4 days to Superbowl

Isn't it cool not to have a real winter? Even though I usually like the snow and cold weather I really start appreciating the warm temps we lately have. On my 3 hour ride tonight I even wore the same gloves I used to wear in races last summer.

What else is new? My engine in my car. Just picked it up at the dealership. On my way to the airport about 3 weeks ago my car stopped and had to be towed to the shop. Once I got back from Germany I learned they had to replace the engine. Thank god it's still warranty (which expires in 13 days...)

Superbowl will be in town next Sunday - and I still don't know the football rules. We might ride to downtown and check out the crazyness on Sunday. Should be fun. I'll bring the camera, feel like the blog needs pictures.