Day 4 - Rapha Rising

TODAY'S RIDE
22.5 miles, 1674'
TOTAL:
61.3 miles, 6691'
TOUR DE FRANCE Stage 4: Cadel wins! and Thor fought hard to stay in yellow.  On a stage that Gilbert was the favorite, Evans beats Contador by about a 1/4 wheel on the line. Exciting finish!  Cadel stays 1 second down on GC.

Today I was in Irvine to show my face at work.  The rest of the week, I'm working from home in Thousand Oaks so it is a long drive.  I had a 4:00 meeting and went for a ride with Larry after work.  It's great riding with someone again.  I spend about 90% of my time riding alone so this is a real treat for me.  It was the same for him so as usual on the uphill we were both going harder than we would normally do.  Not racing but pushing each other.

It was my maiden voyage on the Rock Lobster Cross.  I think her name will be "Mama Celeste" but not completely sure yet. I used the Colnago front wheel and changed the rear tire for the road since Larry wanted to see the bike but go for a road ride. I have to say the bike feels great. After an hour, I wasn't thinking about the bike anymore and everything fit perfectly. The bike accelerates really well and this is the same wheelset as the Colnago so I'm guessing it is stiffer and just goes. I guess the longer wheelbase doesn't affect this bike at all.  Really psyched about that. I can feel the handlebars are high but when sprinting, it was still balanced. I will likely do a comparison with the Colnago tomorrow before going on the dirt.  This will be an awesome race bike.

Rock Lobster Cross Euro "Mama Celeste"

Finally got the bike all built up.  I'm running Campy Veloce front shifters and front derailleur and Shimano Ultegra rear derailleur.  This makes it possible to run it as an 8 speed.  I like it this way since 8 speed is a more durable, cheaper and lighter.  The best combo for me.  As soon as Zank comes out with his cross chainrings, I'm going to get those.

To stop, I'm using the TRP mini-v which are super powerful.  The Thomson stem and seatpost rounds this out except the wheels.  These are the training wheelset which are Campy front and Ultegra rear  with WTB Cross Wolf clinchers.  My racing wheelset are DT 240s on Velocity Escape rims running Challenge Fango and Grifo tubulars.  I can't wait for cross season to start.

Day 3 - Rapha Rising

TODAY'S RIDE
17.5 miles, 1416'
TOTAL:
38.8 miles, 5017'
TOUR DE FRANCE Stage 3: Tyler Farrar and Thor stays in yellow.  Tyler wins on Fourth of July and Garmin continues on a roll! Cadel stays 1 second down and BMC can save their energy instead of defending the yellow jersey.

After yesterday's hot day, I knew I had to go for a road ride.  It was so much better having the speed and keep some air moving around me.  

In last year's Festive 500, I saw someone's blog who used all their bikes in the challenge.  I want to do the same so this is my rain bike.  A 1980's Holdsworth Mistral called "Worthington".  Internal gear hub, generator hub & led light with fenders are so easy in the rain.  Although I'm in So Cal, it doesn't rain that much but I love to ride in the rain so this bike gets used quite a bit.  I actually time my rides so that I can catch it when the rain is coming down instead of wet roads.  The harder the rain, the bigger my smile.  I think it's from the years growing up in Vancouver, BC.

My comfy bike.  Worthington is set up for long distances although she is a bit heavy at 30 pounds.

The wide safe roads of Thousand Oaks

Getting ready to head uphill

I have this last hill before getting home.  If I'm blown, this hill is a killer.  Today, I saw a rider in front of me and slowly caught him.  Within 10 seconds after I passed him, he got out of the saddle and motored up the hill.  I think he was a little pissed that a bike with fenders beat him.  After he passed, I maintained our gap all the way to the top.  I'm okay with that.

Day 2 - Rapha Rising

TODAY'S RIDE
13.5 miles, 2414'
TOTAL:
21.3 miles, 3601'
TOUR DE FRANCE Stage 2: Garmin-Cervelo and Thor is in yellow!  Garmin gets their first Tour stage win ever and Thor the World Champ gets the yellow jersey.  Way psyched to see that.  Great to see Cadel is only 1 second down too.  Let's hope he can keep the momentum going.


One of the benefits of doing this challenge is it gets me out the door instead of staying home and watching the Tour live.  My mornings are really the only time I can sneak out and do some exercise before family activities or work starts.  I record the Tour anyway so there is no reason not to ride but I get sucked in too easily.

Hot day and riding on dirt and going slow is not the way to go.  Tomorrow is another scorcher so it will have to be a road ride

Start off with a great jersey.  Even though it is wool, it wasn't bad in the heat.  Of course, I live in arrid Southern California so that is helpful.

Singletracks and going uphill.

It didn't take long for me to want a nice cold one, even at 8am.

I tend to fade and lose motivation when it's hot.  I had to play games in my head just to keep going.  I told myself that I had to make it up to this bench.  After that, it was to ride at least 45 minutes or get to the summit.  There were lots of minor goals in between too.

Ahh, at the top.  Time for some speed and cooling off.

On the way back, I have this last hill and normally it is a slow climb but today, the heat got to me and I walked a portion.  Maybe I have to get up earlier tomorrow if this heat continues.

Day 1 - Rapha Rising

TODAY'S RIDE
7.8 miles, 1187'
TOTAL:
7.8 miles, 1187'
TOUR DE FRANCE Stage 1: Philippe Gilbert.  Crashes in the race splinters the peleton and Contador is 1:20 down on GC.  I'm hoping Cadel can turn this bit of luck in his favor.

It's Day 1 of the Tour de France and the Rapha Rising challenge.  I know I'm not going to complete the challenge but that's okay.  This is incentive to put in more climbing miles and get my cyclocross base training.  Also fun photo documenting this.

I know the majority of my rides will be offroad since it is easier getting the elevation gain on dirt than on the road with the least amount of time.  This is the bike that I'll be using which is an On One Inbred 29er singlespeed.  My wife calls this "Big Wheel".

Luckily for me, my house is on the right and the trailhead is 1/4 mile from my house.  When I was done with my ride, I added a section of pavement as easy bonus elevation.

This open space is a 5 mile wide swath of land that goes for 20 miles or so.  Most of the time I can see development in the distance but not close enough to hear it or be concerned by it.

This is my usual view as I'm grinding up the hills in my 32x22 gearing.

Going up.

At my turnaround point which gave me under an hour to ride.  Being the weekend, it was family beach day and we were set to leave around 9:30.  With a bit of hot weather (95 degrees), the beach sounded awfully good.

10 minutes from home.  Even though homes are right there, I still get my little bit of singletrack.  I'm liking the riding incentive.  It's making me tack on any extra climbing that I pass.

So far all the pictures are from my iPhone 4.  Pretty amazing how technology has come along.  Most likely it will stay that way since I don't have a solid case for my camera.  I have a relatively good case for my phone so that's going to have to do.

Rapha Rising

I'm in. In celebration of the Tour de France, Rapha is doing a challenge to get people out riding. The goal is to climb the same amount as the Tour riders except they do it in 9 days while we get the full 22 days of the Tour. That's 21,125 meters or 69,307 feet. Over 22 days, that's an average of 3,150 ft/day.

Okay, I have to concede already. Having a full time job and 2 kids (4 years old and 7 months), I just don't have or want to take that kind of time. Having said that I'll still take the challenge and see what I can do. My goal is 25,000 feet or 7,620 meters which is an average of 1,136 ft/day. To put things more in my favor, I'm going to be mountain biking since it is easier to rack up the elevation than road riding. Luckily road riding was not a requirement. I just got a new cyclocross bike so this is incentive to get it all built out this weekend and putting in my time for cross season.

Rock Lobster fitting

Two weeks ago, the whole family did a road trip to the Bay Area and one of the reasons was so that I could meet with Paul Sadoff in Santa Cruz to talk about my custom Rock Lobster cyclocross bike.  It was a good meeting.  First off, he was a good guy and easy to get along with. 

When I went into his shop, it was small but filled with stuff.  Lots of his personal bikes hanging off the rafters but it was great to see his shop.  Many of his equipment were designed by him.  To me that's good.  It means he knows what he's doing and if not, he would have updated it in his 20+ years of framebuilding.  With all his years of bikes, if it didn't work, he would have replaced it already.

What I found is that we have similar thoughts on bikes.  It should work well and just be used instead of hanging on a the wall.  Don't get me wrong, his bikes look great but not like the "artisans" who spend many more hours to make it look pretty.  To me, this bike is for racing and in the off season it will be riding on fire roads.  This bike will be loved but a racing bike gets used hard.

After getting the initial desires of the bike, he measured my current bike and me.  Apparently my legs are longer than the average person my height.  When he measured my arms, he said that he hasn't seen that measurement unless it was on a 5'1" woman.  Yeah, yeah, I know all about that from my rock climbing days and I've heard much harsher criticism from friends.

This bike will be a steel cross bike capable of up to 38c tires, have a crowned fork with straight tubing (I love that look), sterling silver headbadge (I love that too), pump peg, chain hanger, no fender eyelets and set up for linear brakes.  It will be his celeste green team color but with small decals.  Along with that I'm getting a Cane Creek 110 headset, Thomson X4 stem and Thomson seatpost from him.  This thing should be a beauty.

It was great getting verification from him on my gear selection.  Although his team is sponsored by Chris King, he runs Cane Creek 110 headset.  He feels they are the best headsets made.  Also on seatpost and stem, when I mentioned that I wanted Thomson, he points to his bike and tells me that he had an Easton seatpost but only lasted 1.5 years and now runs a Thomson.  Thomson's are light but super strong.  Even on stem setups he likes the 0 degree rise stems with 20mm spacers above and below, just as I was telling him my preference for the same.  Then we talked about hubs and I told him I just got some DT Swiss 240s on my mountain bike and he says that the hubset on the dream mountain bike he's building up.  I think he's going to be the perfect builder for me.