My Most Recent Ride 2015 (Part VIII in a series)

OH I am jealous. Glad you got to get out. I want to ride so desperatelyI am still recovering from my chemo treatment of the week though. Probably got a few weeks to go before I will be totally up to snuff.

 

Well, the fact you WANT to ride so desperately is a good sign at least. Yes? Fingers crossed it's less than 2 weeks before you're bolting out the door for your own rides.

The cough attacks are still with me and I'm still trying to avoid chill air getting deep in my lungs. I probably pushed it a bit yesterday though.

I'd planned to wait until sometime after noon to ride, but Jens sent a text about 9 am saying he should have brought an umbrella on the train with him because it was raining in Stockholm. I glanced out the door at blue skies with a couple puffy clouds, deciding maybe I should head out right away. No telling when or if the rain to the south would get here.

Still loving the summer tires, granted part of me feels perhaps I should have stuck with the winter clunkers for longer still. A great way to train for trailer dragging without the hassle of getting the trailer out of the garage. We started out at about 7.5 mph average even with my pokey self on hills. I was taking the hills faster and even managing to spin up pretty well in the middle chain ring.

About halfway through the 9.6 ride, Loke got laggy and our average dropped to about 6.2. Felt really good to ride though and even when we got home, my body was worked, but not trembling. I would have added about another 5 miles to the ride except for Loke dragging tail and the fact I was short on time. As it was, I had to rush home without the extra miles, splash hurriedly through the shower to bolt off to a vet appointment. There's something wrong with Loke's right eye. All he needs is the hat, a parrot and a wooden limb to be Cap'n Jack Loke. Argh!

There was an ulterior motive for cutting it so close though. Loke couldn't scratch his eye if he was jogging along with the trike. It worked flawlessly.

Jens had to rush off on an early train for business in Copenhagen, so Loke and I will go out with the trike again today. If I still feel good on today's ride, I'll make a point of riding again on Wednesday making it the first 3 consecutive days of riding since... I don't remember when. Maybe not even in 2014!

Really would like to tick over on a new longest of the year/post-stroke though. Perhaps even consistently do over 10 miles. I will admit part of my lack of distance per ride might have a lot to do with boredom. Just hard for me to sit in the trike for multiple hours without something new to see.

Terii

 

8.4 miles. The day started too cold for me to go ride, though gorgeous out. Loke was still squinting unfortunately. So, I planned to take him out with the trike around noon.

The SUN disappeared and things only went downhill from there. It started with a eye-watering spike of pain through my knee as I went to sit in the seat. Then I was curbing Loke and about toppled over with a nasty back spasm. Wind kicked up which by itself wouldn't have been a problem, but at 47 F my toes became extremely unhappy with the drafts blasting through my shoes.

One silver lining. The rain waited until i was snug in the car to drive home before cutting loose.

Terii

 

Today was the most wonderful, miserable ride I've had in ages.

With 2 days of rest, it was time to go out the door. A miserable day for it though. Thermometer says 47 F, but my Garmin reported 33 F in some areas which is probably right accounting for wind chill. Throw in not-so-scattered showers well mixed with ice pellets and a 12-15 mph wind... yeah. Really not a good day for a ride.

But with the mantra of 'I'm a cyclist, I'm a cyclist' in my head and Jens being a bit of a bully, out I went. With such poor conditions, I intended to keep it short to the River Loop, maybe with an extension if it wasn't too awful.

I so surprised myself. When I ride around here, I aim to do a mile every 10 minutes. I rarely pull it off since the stroke, but it is my 'base line' as it were. With the first 1.5 miles, I was lagging behind a bit, even accounting for Loke stops. Generally, once I'm behind, that's it. No catching it up.

Sometime before I hit the 2 mile mark, something in my body seemed to click. I suddenly found myself spinning smoothly and my speed jumped to over 7 mph. It was easy. I was breathing hard enough that I wouldn't have been able to hold a conversation, but it didn't feel uncomfortable and everything just seemed to come together in harmony.

When I rolled to a stop at the garage, I'd kept that brisk tempo for over 35 minutes, broken only at intersections for traffic. My 'time vs distance' was 5 minutes in the black as it were. Loke did pretty well too. His last 2 runs were sluggish, but he seems to have shaken that off.

So, miserable weather, but physically awesome ride. I'm positively giddy with such a clear display of increased physical wellbeing and fitness.

This means I'll maybe take the trailer out next time. Start training up for tours.

Terii

 

Good job.

 

Rode on Saturday. Was a good ride. Not as 'perfect' as Friday's ride, but 12 miles as I revisited my Ulva Mill/G. Uppsala loop for the first time since I don't know when.

Sunday was an absolutely glorious, perfect day. 60 F, not a cloud and hardly any wind... and I was too wobbly legged and tired to savour the day.

Today was supposed to be nearly as nice, but when I went for a ride around 9:45. There was only hints of sunlight trying to come through and a bitter northern wind. Felt a bit tired still. My legs felt semi strong mind you, just wore out quickly.

We did roughly 10 miles. Loke kinda sluggish. Looking forward to the next 2 days of rest. Hopefully my next ride will be another great strong one.

 

Well, the planned 2 days of rest didn't happen. Wednesday, Jens begged me to let us go to our favourite restaurant as it's been sooooo long. I reluctantly gave in as I've gotten very bored with my current diet of deprivation of all things I love. Along with that, Jens wheedled me into going for a ride with Loke so he'd be calmer about staying home alone for a couple hours.

Just an extended River Loop. My legs felt tired, but strong so with Loke being sluggish it felt a bit frustrating.

Taking Thursday and Friday as the double rest now and looking at doing something more interesting for the weekend. Maybe ride in an area south of here, starting from a castle and going to a lovely little tourist town with ruins and onward from there!

Terii

 

Rested Thursday and Friday. That way I was fresh to go today. Finished sewing up some padded bags to cover parts of the trike so the inside of the car is safe when we transport it.

That's what we did. I've been beyond bored with the loops and routes around here and Jens offered to drive me somewhere this weekend for a ride. I took him up on it.

We went to Sigtuna which is a small village with medieval roots that has multiple church ruins, lovely wooden buildings at the town centre, lots of runestones and a neat stone labyrinth. While getting the trike ready, I thought my thin wool under my top was going to be too much. Turned out to be not quite enough, especially down by the lake where the wind came raging across the water.

After leaving the first ruin, I had a panicked moment upon discovering, silly me, had left my handlebar bag sitting on the base of a column. I rushed back for it. Then I got to meet a cute little long haired chihuahua puppy as I'd left Loke with the trike to run into the ruin.

It was crazy busy in the town as it's a hotbed of tourism, the day after payday on the weekend and not raining. I didn't explore it as thoroughly as I wanted because of the crazy traffic, both foot and vehicle.

Then it was off and away. A lot of cycle paths that wound along the edges of residential clusters and once off across fields and along tree lines. Not always the most beautiful of locations, but something OTHER than River Loops, Uppsala Loops, etc...

A portion of it looped the eastern side of a lake through some countryside which gave some pretty glimpses of said lake.

It felt incredible to be somewhere ELSE. Loke agreed with me. He's been so sluggish on the past 10 runs or so. Not today. He was the furry powerhouse of old. He wanted to run. He pulled like a freight train. Clearly, the boredom as turning him into a slug.

I took it easy though. Crazy winds and the terrain had harsher hills meant we took it fairly slow. Particularly when my right knee started paining me. It still felt awesome to be somewhere new.

I'll be blogging it, of course. Oh! I was also my longest ride since the stroke. 15.5 miles.

Terii

 

A beautiful day. 64 degrees and sunny. And I had time at lunch to ride. Brought out my Bacchetta Strada and road several sections of the Knoxville Greenways for a total of 19 miles. It felt great to be back on my bent!!!

 

Jon, looks like you packed on some winter pudge, good thing you are getting out there riding. I have been mostly on the MTB but took the VKHi out for a nice 30 miler tonight. My legs arn't what they were last year but hopefully will get up to speed pretty soon. 30 miles of flatland with a 17.8mph average.

 

Unfortunately, that is the truth! ARGGHHHH!!!!

 

7.35 miles. Neither Loke or myself were feeling up to it. Loke's been sick since Sunday evening, probably in reaction to a couple pieces of beef Jens gave him. I was up and down with him all night to rush out the door when he let me know it was urgent. Sleep deprivation, ugh.

But I was determined to ride today so as to avoid going more than 2 days between rides. We did the downtown loop with a purpose.

On Saturday's ride, I noticed my disc brakes were losing friction. On some of the hills, it took my rear brake to come to stop especially with Loke adding to the forward momentum.

There's a cycle shop downtown that changed owners about a year ago. The old owner was very much the 'buy a real bike' type. The new staff are just awesome though, very helpful and cheerful when I went in with a loose cleat on my cycle shoe. So, I thought I'd ask if there was any way they could do the brakes on my trike.

I wasn't holding out much hope, admittedly. Their workshop area is tiny. A itsy-bitsy little nook with just enough space for a DF on a stand, mechanic, tiny work table and tools. But the very nice woman came out for a look and then dragged her mechanic out to give an opinion. They decided since it's a quick job, they can do it outside in the courtyard behind the shop. I'll head over at 9:30 tomorrow.

So, at least one thing I won't have to drive all the way to Stockholm for. Other tasks they may not be able to pull off, but at least I feel confident that I can always ask if they're able to.

That done we rolled back home with 7.35 miles.

Getting out the door tomorrow without Loke howling might be a bit of a trick...

Terii

 

Headed out the door at 9 am to ready for the ride to the cycleshop. Loke was fairly disinterested or pulling civilian clothes over my cycle get up fooled him. He has been unwell lately, so it could be the former.

Made it to the cycle shop in under 15 minutes. I was cranking out a mile in less than 6 minutes which for me is blazing fast. Was fun!

Watched the guy work and we discovered that the right disc has a slight warp in it. Nothing catastrophic, but there. They didn't have a replacement for it, so he worked it out as well as he could.

I wasn't feeling too well, but still got a wild hair and pushed on for a full Uppsala loop. Silly me. I cranked along pretty good on average. My cadence was 77 RPM which is up from 66 or so. I pushed myself too hard without Loke to temper my efforts. Knees hurt a bit and I was losing serious steam by the last 2 miles.

And HOW on EARTH do people ride bents in normal pants?! My knees and thighs are practically RAW meat! : Felt like I was fighting the pants while the fabric just clung and bound itself to the skin, rubbing like sandpaper with every turn of the pedal. Not fun. Have no clue what I was thinking. Oh, yeah, something along the lines of, 'I'll look normal if I decide to go shopping while they work'

Got back home with 9.04 miles under the tires. I can stop now too!

Terii

 

I wife and kids think I am nuts wearing spandex when I ride, but the stuff just works! (And I look purdy too!! )

 

Jens hates to be seen in public with me in my regalia. Now I look more like a bizarre firefighter with my Da Brim. An improvement over demented mushroom (cap under helmet) I think.

It seems I've been over doing the rides, probably especially the one today. Have bad heel pain which seems to be Plantar Fasciitis. Rest, ice, anti-inflammatory meds (can't have), and stretches. Oh, did I mention rest? Research seems to indicate weeks of it.

Also 'lose weight'. Well, duh. Ironic problems with my knees and now my foot have come when I've lost almost 25 LBS. Losing weight has just done me a world of good.

Terii