Crush the Commonwealth 2010

(Now with 30% more E P I C, when compared to last year's edition)

Ride Reports on the CtC blog
Eric's ride report: Day 1, Day 2

Short version

• 380-ish miles, ~37:30 elapsed time.
• Third finisher, behind the Tressler brothers who came in together at an awe-inspiring 34:48.
• 1 mechanical (flatted)
• No physical or emotional harm done.
• Much Type 2 fun was had. No, not that type of fun; that type of fun.
• The P-38's drive train and brakes are pretty much trashed.
  

Long Version

The Plan
Not much to it. Make it through the abandoned turnpike tunnels before dark, push through to at least Bedford before sleeping, and wrap up at the Point in under 36 hours. Try to only stop once every 65 miles or so, and keep stops under 15 minutes until the sleep stop.

Prologue, Thursday May 6^th
For some reason, I had decided it would be a spiffy idea to rent a U-haul to transport myself, sundry other CtC participants, and various bikes from Philly to Pittsburgh. So, I rode over through West View and down Babcock to the U-haul place on McKnight. There awaited my glorious steed; a cargo-hauling behemoth, with fuel economy measured in gallons per mile, seating three in discomfort. At least I got it at the 10-footer price.

Threw the P-38 in the back, with a few strategic bungees to keep everything in place, then drove back to my place to load Joh-doh's bike and meet Bill. Bill parked, we threw his bike in as well, then drove over to Shaler to pick up Jim on the way to the turnpike.

The Turnpike itself wasn't bad...we only stopped twice, so made good time. Hitting Philly was unlovely, however, as I'd arranged to meet Joh-doh and Nick at the Amtrak station on 30th and Market. At roughly 5:30 on a work day. In a vehicle roughly the size of Rhode Island. WhatthehellwasIsmoking?

(To digress briefly; driving in downtown Philly makes me, frankly, apeshit. The manner in which people casually block an intersection is appalling; what makes it worse is that said behavior practically forces you to drive like a self-obsessed lump of douchebaggery yourself, in order to make any progress at all. I had to sit through three cycles of the light by the train station, no doubt driving those behind me into fits of foaming rage, before I got pissed enough to do what everyone else was and just wedge myself into the intersection. Meh. A pox upon them all.)

Traffic chaos aside, I got Jim and Bill unloaded, then reunited Joh-doh with his bike. (I had thrown a front fender from my spares stash on there for him, and he seemed quite pleased.) Fought my way over to Manayunk, dropped off the U-haul, precariously strapped my box-of-crap-to-be-shipped-home onto the seat back bag, and pedaled carefully to cousin-in-law Carrie's place a few miles away. She was kind enough to put me up for the night, as well as tolerant enough not to mind me getting up at O-Gawd o'clock on a work day. Although I usually have a great deal of trouble sleeping the first night in a strange location, I had cleverly brought along a tome on developing for and administration of the open-source DotNetNuke Web portal framework, so was yawning in no time.

Day 1, Friday May 7^th
3:15 AM: Amidst various muttered imprecations, I silenced my cellphone's alarm, and blearily prepared for the ride. Poured pseudo-food powder into bottles, plopped pseudo-beverage tablets into Camelbak bladder, pulled on shoes and helmet, pulled off shoes and helmet, pulled on jersey and shorts, pulled on shoes and helmet, and was out the door. A stop at the nearby WaWa for breakfast, then down Ridge to pick up Kelly Drive and the trail into town. Wildlife highlight: a large, healthy-looking fox looked down his nose at me by the river.

4:45 AM: The Bell is mighty deserted. After a few minutes, Jim and Bill arrived; then Dan G. came around the corner and politely informed us that everyone was gathering on the other side of the building. Heh. A few minutes of the usual milling around, then we set off on the neutral rollout to the trail. After, I dunno, 10 miles or so, we'd cleared the confusing bits, so the flag was thrown and suddenly the ride got a little 'spirited'. Myself, the Tressler brothers, and Scott (not riding CtC, but came out to say hi) took the rest of the trail to Phoenixville in the high teens and low twenties.
Got onto the roads and picked up Route S, and the spirited riding continued, until I discovered that the rear end was feeling a little wonky on the turns. Crapola...not 35 miles in, and I've already flatted. Fortunately, I've done this enough that A) it only killed 10 minutes and B) I knew not to stop looking until I'd found the culprit: a tiny piece of wire, roughly 1 gnat's whisker longer than the thickness of my tire, had punched right through and created a lovely pinprick in the tube. Dug out the pliers (don't mock my toolkit...every tool in there "might come in handy some day"), pulled the wire and swapped in a fresh tube, then was back on the road somewhere in the middle of the overall pack. Picked up the pace a bit, and managed to reel in everyone by New Holland (due in no small part to a mechanical on the part of the Tresslers), only to promptly be passed by two groups while I'd stopped at the Getty station for my scheduled refueling. Ah well, the day was yet young....

I kept a good pace across Lancaster and York, until my second stop at the Rutters in East Berlin. Shortly thereafter, the climbing began, roughly at Arendtsville on Rte 234. It's not terribly steep until the end near Caledonia State Park, but it does slow you down a good bit. Finally crested 234 and hit Rte 30 a few miles east of Chambersburg, then enjoyed rush-hour Chambersburg traffic on the way to my third stop at the Sheetz. Stocked up heavily there, as the services would be limited until Breezewood, and both Cowan's Gap and the abandoned turnpike were in the way.

The next leg to Breezewood was actually really nice. To put it into perspective, last year I'd come through here in the opposite direction in darkness; actually being able to see the Gap and the turnpike made it a far more pleasant experience. I do have to confess to a bit of trepidation when approaching the first tunnel; I'd had company for them last year, and was feeling more than a wee bit of boogeyman-in-the-dark jitters as I went in solo. Made it through to Sheetz in Brezewood uneventfully; took a look at the time (roughly 8:30 PM), and decided that I'd just stick to my Bedford rest plan, rather than trying to gut it out to Somerset as I'd been idly thinking to try.

I'm glad I decided not to push, as I'd completely forgotten just how nasty the next few miles would be. The biggest problem, aside from the terrain itself, was one of the few route inconsistencies I found; specifically, the online Route S map specified a left turn, but the sign for Route S at the intersection specified straight. To make things worse, there was a "PA Bike Route Cornucopia" sign, that pointed in the direction of the online Route S map. After dithering, and a couple of bonus miles rolling back and forth, I decided to just follow the Route S signs and not worry about it. Seemed to work out just fine that way.

10:00 PM: Made it into Bedford just as everything had closed, so had to backtrack on 30 to Yet Another Sheetz for dinner. Here, I made my first real nutritional blunder; rather than grab some balanced, healthy, high-calorie, protein-and-carb-laden food, I fell victim to temptation and went with the bag of chips and can of processed dip. I'm quite confident that this led to a serious lack of energy the next morning...Anyway, I strapped my sack o' empty calories to the bike, and rolled up to a lovely $37 stay at the Motel Town House, just a block or two off route in the touristy section of Bedford. Shower, chips and dip, and 20 minutes of heavily edited 'Fight Club' on Bravo, and I was out for the night.

Day 2, Saturday May 8^th
4:00 AM. Not feeling great, but not terribly poorly either, I set out back on the route. Not as cold as I was expecting, fortunately. Maybe I should take off my...and the rain started. Then the temperature dropped. Then the wind hit. And THEN, just a few miles later, the flashbacks to this segment last year began to hit, and I truly understood just how much the next bit was going to suck.

I've said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating. That was a truly soul-crushing segment: the climbing alone was bad, but the high winds, rain, and sub-40 temperatures made it a candidate for Worst 4 Hours On a Bike This Year. The only thing that kept me from throwing in the towel was the realization that I'd have to ride out to civilization to be picked up anyway, so might as well just keep going.

8:00AM: Made it to the Somerset Sheetz, and consumed ludicrous amounts of made-to-order breakfast food while trying to warm up and dry off a bit. I'd reached the point in such rides where I'm getting too eager to tell people where I had started riding and what I was doing, and I noticed that the smiles were starting to glaze and the polite nods of interest were being replaced with slow, careful retreat. So I decided to shut up for a while, and I think everyone was happier as a result.

Reluctantly got back on the road, and (mostly) coasted down Water Level Rd to Rockwood. I still had some feeble hope of cracking 36 hours; that lasted for, perhaps, the first 10 miles on the trail, until I realized that I was so shattered that I could barely push the pedals at 12 mph. I'd like to point out that, to someone with my aversion to limestone, having to endure 90 miles of it at 12 miles per hour is pretty much one of the worst ways to end a ride I can think of.

Regardless, all good(HAH!) things come to an end, and I found myself in McKeesport. Then the next burst of rain hit, and I emitted profanity that was great, and copious, and blasphemous in the eyes of entire PANTHEONS of deities. Then I got over it, briefly enjoyed the new trail and Riverton Bridge, then feebly crept up 837 and back to town. Called Eric from the Point (I have no recollection of the conversation, but I'm sure it happened), and finally rolled down the Ohio and up McClure to home.

Lessons Learned

• Under no circumstances shall I ever drive a U-haul or similar vehicle in downtown Philly during rush hour.
• I'm pretty good for 12-16 hours of a mostly liquid diet; after that, some solid foods every 4 hours or so keep the system happier.
• Don't underestimate the speed-sapping abilities of even the best-packed limestone trails.
• The fuel combination I'd tested at Calvin's Challenge, consisting of three Camelbak Elixir tabs in the 70-ounce bladder, plus Perpetuem in the form of two two-hour bottles, worked very well to enable roughly 100km traveled between stops. I rarely had much wastage when cleaning out the bottles/bladder (yes, I rinsed 'em every time I refilled...no desire for foul cooties to grow in the midst of me caloric goodness...), but never ran completely dry, and never had a serious bonk.
  

And the year began with a meh...

I fully intended to ride the Icycle Bicyle, the traditional New Year's Day ride of the WPW. Out of the house by 10:15; plenty of time to roll down to REI for the 11 AM departure. Rolling into downtown, I exited the Point and, playing the role of law-abiding cyclist to the hilt, stopped at the light and waited for it to turn green. Crossing light goes red, cross traffic (all one car) clears the intersection, I step on the pedal, and take off. Midway through the intersection, I realize that either I've mysteriously dropped into a lower gear than I possess, my hub has decided to swing both ways (so to speak), or my chain has rejected fascist unity in exchange for a regime driven by the needs of the individual links to go their own way and do their own thing. Bugger.

The master link had blown; no big deal, as I habitually carry both a replacement link and a chain tool in my spares bag. Sadly, my New Years resolution to break bad habits apparently extended to said spares habit as well...I had neither replacement link nor chain tool.

It was a lovely hike to REI, and I got to watch the Icycle Bicycle contingent go whizzing by on the Jail Trail.

This bodes well for the new year's cycling...

Monday morning commuting blues

April is the cruelest month, indeed. :-(

I can contentedly ride in ice at 30 degrees, or in squeaky powder at 6 degrees; why, oh why, does blattering cold rain at 45 degrees cause me such angst?

To be honest, a big part of the problem is my outer layer. I've got one of those nominally waterproof/windproof shells with the zip-off sleeves; works great for dry or misty weather, even a slight drizzle, but turns into safety-yellow sodden cling wrap in steady rain. Something about the wet plastic sticking to me, with pools of water retained and sloshing in the folds of fabric under my elbows, drives me to the edge of road rage. I think that repeated washings have worn away much of the water resistant goodness...unfortunately, given the amount of (and corrosive nature of) my sweat, it ain't like I can just hit the interior with Febreze once in a while and call it good.

Ah well. Beats driving in rush hour traffic.

That's not recovery

Note to self: after a hilly century the previous day, and a light-to-moderate-intensity 35-miler in the late morning, do not plan to haul one's 42-pound child in a 20-pound trailer behind one's fully-loaded 45-pound commuter under one's fat-arse 200+ pounds up McClure Ave without feeling it in one's knees just a wee frickin' bit.

The long and the short of today's ride.

"Long" refers to the long arm of the law; "short" refers to the duration of ride before unrecoverable mechanical failure.

:-(

If you couldn't guess, today's ride was not the best I've ever had. Originally planned to do some exploring in the North Hills, then saw a Ken Cushey (Mr. "Hills Are My Friends" himself) ride posting for 11 AM out of Cecil. Looking at the clock, I figured I'd have just enough time to hop on the bike and make it out for the ride start, so aborted the North Hills plan and set off for Bridgeville and parts south.

Something was in the air today...lots more impatient drivers, and LOTS more drivers who seemed incensed that I had the effrontery to be on their roads. Apparently, in the 2-mile stretch of Route 50 up from Main St in Carnegie, two motorists called 9-frickin'-1-1 to complain about some guy on a weird bike who was "riding in the middle of the lane" (true, at some points), "signaling cars to pass without giving them enough room" (uh, what? I've signaled you to pass...if you don't feel there's enough room, that's on your head), and "running red lights" (not, in point of fact, true). A very polite officer signaled me over at the Wal-mart, and gave me a quick warning about following the rules; no harm, no foul, but it kinda shot my mood for the rest of the ride.

From there, I headed over on Thoms Run to Prestley, then back over to 50 through Bridgeville. Millers Run to Presto-Sygan, then a left up the hill where the road was closed, then falling over sideways on the hill because my chain suddenly dropped. Brief profanity, brush myself off, get road grime all over my new cheapie gloves as I reset the chain, then repeat the exact same thing 6 feet up the road. WTF?

A close inspection seemed warranted. Turns out that I'd somehow blown a sideplate on one of my chain links; under any form of load, when that link hit the chainring, *pop* goes the drivetrain. Also turns out that, for some moronic reason (probably related to "I never use this"), I'd neglected to pack both my quick link and my chain tool when I stocked the tool bag. More profanity ensued, mostly self-directed this time. Ended up calling Deena for a ride, as I just didn't A)feel good about making it up to TRM when I couldn't apply any power or B) feel good about hitting up a hardware store for a hammer and punch to do some impromptu chain surgery. Bugger.

So, I've now doubled the number of times I've had to call for a bailout. Not bad in 4 years, but still, a ding to my pride.

On the bright side, I now have no reason to delay the spring teardown and rebuild, while I wait for a new 11' length of chain to arrive. So, the P-38 is in fragments in the basement, and most of the complicated bits have been degreased, cleaned, and lubed. I'll go ahead and get the fenders mounted (I want to fab some different mounts, as I was getting a bit of wheel rub when cranking hard on curves.), the rear rack installed, and see about hooking up the dynamo and lights. Might as well complete the transformation from relatively light and agile road machine to unstoppable juggernaut of randonneuring fury now, rather than next month.

Tour de Trek Redux, AKA The Humble Pie Ride

Anyone ever have one of those rides where you find out that you're not even remotely as fit as you thought you were? Today was my turn; the most painful century I've ridden in years, with cramping, knee pain, constant hunger, and a rolling average of mumblemumblemumble.blush miles per hour.

Here's the route; basically, it ended up being Castle Shannon, Robinson, and Cranberry, with various and sundry exploratory stuff. Couple of new-to-me roads today; Backbone out of Sewickley was a moderately tough climb, and plummeting down Hitzel Hill on the other side of the ridge was a bit scary, due to gravel and debris. (Incidentally, I now understand why Oscar Swan refers to Hitzel Hill Rd as "a guaranteed way to make any Red Belt ride unpleasant"..) On the Gibsonia end of things, I took Meridian to 910 as a spur-of-the-moment detour; at that point, I was in enough pain that the only way I could see to salvage some pleasure from the ride was to at least ride a new road.

Ride troubles; by the time I hit Robinson, I was in trouble; felt almost like I was bonking, except that I'd been steadily hoovering down gels, Heed, and some semi-solid gas station food. I was also feeling chronically hungry; perhaps I should have stopped for a sandwich or suchlike. By the time I got to Cranberry, my right knee was getting dicey; I think my form went to hell due to the fatigue, so I started mashing more than was good for me. It's also possible that the cranks are just a fraction of an inch too close; I'd fit the P-38 to Lance a few weeks back, and maybe I didn't quite restore it to my preferred position.

On the bright side, I accomplished my goal; got February's century in for the Year-Rounder challenge, even if it was not my most shining performance. I am pleased that I managed to complete the ride without any apparent serious injury; while it's not the most glamorous of randonneuring skills, the ability to ride within the limits of a physical ailment without giving up or pushing too hard is a useful one.

On the down side, that was not the kind of riding that will get me through a brevet series. Yeah, I haven't done any long rides over the winter; yeah, the bike fit may have been a wee bit off; yeah, I've been sick for much of the last month, excuse, excuse, whine. Regardless, I have a lot of work to do for the season, if I'm going to do as well as I intend.

My bronchii are revolting!

Feh. Persistent cold that wouldn't die (damned invulnerable rhino-virii!) has sent expeditionary forces into my lungs, where they have successfully established a well-defended beachhead.

I've been off the bike since last week, and will (should) probably stay off for a couple more days. Hopefully, the Z-Pack of magic antibiotics will knock this crap out soon.

'Scuse me while I go pout in the corner for a while.

Dirty Dozen Training: Center/Ravine/Berry Hill/High

First Dirty Dozen training ride of the season for me. Jim Logan led the ride out of the K-Mart parking lot in Shaler; he, myself, Scott, Don, and Brian were in attendance.

I botched my shift to the granny on the very first hill (Center), so ended up climbing more than half of it in my middle ring. Coincidentally (or not), this was also the only hill on which I wasn't dead last...perhaps a lesson could be learned by this, but I'm not gonna try right now.

Ravine hurt. A lot. The long grinders always take a toll on me; I need to work on smoothing my pace a bit, and possibly working on the psychological end of things as well as physical conditioning.

Berry Hill was pretty much business as usual; dead stop, into lowest gear to hit the asphalt wall, then exhaustedly pedaling up to Middle Road. The plummet down Middle is always a good way to revive my spirits, though.

High St has lost a lot of its mystique for me. It's a hill, and not to be sneered at, but is really not that big a deal.

Fun, I think. I take comfort in the fact that I felt significantly better afterwards than last year; I was hoping for a bit more snap on the hills than I actually displayed today, but that's something I can only address by actually riding my damn bike in such terrain rather than doing 100+ miles of long steady distance every weekend.

Pacing trains and training pace

Working from home occasionally is a nice perk, as it allows me to, for example, take a break in the afternoon and go ride.

Yesterday, I hopped on the P-38 for a quick (mostly) flat run; down McClure to Beaver, Blvd of Allies to Jail Trail, out to end of South Side trail and back, with an easy climb up California to replace the shorter, steeper climb up McClure. As I was passing the UPMC sports complex, a train came up behind me, so I decided to pace it if I could. As it turns out, I could, but it was harder than I thought it should be. (Don't get me wrong; it was only a couple of miles at a 25 mph pace, so I'm not trying to beat my chest over my awesome power or anything here.) No HRM or other monitoring device; I'd put the perceived effort at about 95% of maximum. It was a bit disappointing to realize how hard I was working to maintain that pace; I have this unfounded belief that I should be able to do better than that, or at least not have to work so hard to be at that level.

I've spent the last year focusing on randonneuring; the vast majority of my training (if you can call it anything so formal) has been long steady distance, well inside my anaerobic threshold. What little interval training I've done has been unstructured, in the sense of "Ooo, there's a hill short enough that I can probably power over it if I try hard." This has resulted in some good things: I can maintain a steady average pace in the mid-to-upper teens, with a decent load of gear, more-or-less indefinitely, and I can recover rapidly from sustained exertion (multi-mile hills at 5-10% jump to mind). However, I can't sprint worth a damn, hill-climbing is bloody slow, and maintaining a pace over low 20s for any length of time puts me closer to redlining than I think it should.

In hindsight, I think a lot of the problem came about when I replaced my Tuesday and Thursday evening group rides with regular cycle-commuting . I was still getting my miles, but the commuting was more of the same loaded, steady distance riding that I was already doing on weekends. With the group rides, I was actually pushing my limits, as well as getting more practice in areas in which I suck like descents and pacelines.

So, near term, I think I'll try to get more short, fast-paced rides in. I'll still plan on regular (i.e. every couple of weeks) long rides, but the focus will be short and hard. I'm sure the upcoming Dirty Dozen training series will assist in that, although using DD hills for ad-hoc interval training sounds a bit silly. Long-term, I think I'll need to rejoin the regular group rides; I got a lot better, a lot faster, when I was riding with the guys who were significantly better than me.

Is it f$%^ing spring yet?

No, I'm not whinging about the weather here in the Northern Hemisphere.

I've just grown tired of the end-of-winter edginess on display in most of the online cycling forae (forums? forii?) I frequent. From petty quibbling and "verbal jousting", to dragging out deceased equines; from whipping oneself into a lather over the frickin' pronunciation of phrases borrowed from other languages, to self-panicking over cloddish insurance ads; this is the third year I've watched environments normally notable for courtesy drop into various forms of uncouth online behavior.

It's not universal, by any stretch of the imagination; but it's there.

And yes, I'm well aware of the irony of posting a rant on the subject; but my blog, my rules, dammit. :-)