ClubJuggler

After being closed since last Friday, Lake Crabtree County Park opened up again yesterday around midday. With the looming thread of impeding rain later this afternoon or evening, if I was going to ride in the morning this week it had to be today. So, I got up early, dropped off Big-B and headed to the park.

The temperature this morning was in stark contrast to the 34 degrees I had last Thursday while riding. This morning my bike computer thermometer registered a balmy 65 degrees as I cycled! I even rode in shorts. The weather may be weird, but I'm not complaining.

Anyway, it was a good ride. I rode loop 1 to the trail that heads to Black Creek Greenway then took that trail to the edge of the lake where I caught the lake trail. Took that to what I've always called the boy scout trail (but it probably has another name) and back up to loop 1 which I completed. From there it was a quick ride on loop 2 and then to the loop 4 exit. Total distance about 4.5 miles. Full stats follow:

DST: 4.50 miles
RTM: 0:43:20
AVS: 6.2 mph
MAX: 12.9 mph
ODO: 132.1 miles

There's rain in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so I really wanted to get out and ride today. Dropped Big-B off at school a little bit earlier today (but still could push that back another 15 minutes or so) and made it out to Lake Crabtree. My bike computer has a built in thermometer but sometimes you don't really want to know that it's 34 degrees Fahrenheit when you're out biking first thing in the morning! Yikes! Still, it was a good ride. I only rode about 3 miles this morning instead of the 6 I did yesterday. Yesterday I rode loops 1, 4, 5, 6 and the lake trail and today I did loops 2 and 3. Tomorrow will be an off day and then hopefully I can get back out in the morning again on Monday. Here's the complete stats:

DST: 3.09 miles
RTM: 0:29:24
AVS: 6.3 miles/hour
MAX: 11.9 miles/hour
ODO: 126.3 miles

First of what will hopefully be at least a regular 2-3 times/week morning ride this morning:

DST: 6.00 miles
RTM: 0:58:29
AVS: 6.1 miles/hour
MAX: 12.7 miles/hour
ODO: 123.2 miles

I'm glad work has a shower so that biking in the morning is feasible. I'm going to try to bike tomorrow too as there's 100% chance of rain on Friday. Need to get up a little earlier tomorrow, though. Today was pushing it a bit. Still, not a bad start. Now to keep it up.

Lake Crabtree County Park, Wednesday, 23/Aug/2007

DST: 8.82 miles
RTM: 1:09:39
AVS: 7.5 mph
MAX: 20.4 mph
ODO: 101.0 miles

Finally got the odometer above 100 miles. I haven't carried the bike computer with me every time I've been biking on the new bike, so the new bike is well over 100 miles now, but it's nice to get proof. Of course, it's nowhere near what mjenkins does in a year, but you've got to start somewhere, right? :-)

jklgoduke, Big-B, and I went down to Harris Lake this morning. Big-B did so well biking around Science Camp this summer that we thought he was ready to try the beginner trail there. This morning, we finally made it. We did 3 loops of the beginner trail and then did one loop of the beginner/intermediate trail. Big-B loved the beginner trail. He did the intermediate trail well, jklgoduke and I thought, but he wasn't quite sure about it. But, he liked it all enough that we will probably be doing it again. :-) Anyway, bike log follows:

( bikelog )

Catching up on logging my rides before going to Angler's Ridge in Danville tomorrow and I discovered the my bike computer had a ride that I don't remember on it. It was sometime in the last two weeks, but so much has happened (which I still need to post about) that I can't remember where. But, I'm posting the log so I remember it at least.

No, wait, I do remember it now. It was Saturday morning, June 2 at Chapel Hill with elfick and his girlfriend's brother-in-law Nate. That was the day jklgoduke flew to her college roommate's wedding and mooneysmith and atlichna flew their Mooney into the Chapel Hill airport and went out to Elmo's with Big-B and I. :-) Now, I just need to dig out that tracklog and post it. :-)

( Bike Log )

Went by Lake Crabtree County Park after work today and went biking by myself. Took my iPod with me. I had found a route of an endurance ride that planned to go through Umstead Park first and then to Crabtree, but since I wasn't ready for the 20 miles that was going to do, I just did the 5 miles worth of Crabtree. Temperature was 91 in the sun when starting but only 80 under the cover of the trees, so that was nice.

( BikeLog )

I finally got to go bike riding today at lunch with some coworkers. We rode the main trail that's left at Regency. It was fairly hot, probably around 90 degrees and I definitely felt the effects of not riding for a week and a half. Still, it was a pretty good ride. I'm testing out a program called Trail Runner to mess with the tracklog and it is what exported the KML file. It can apparently merge multiple tracks into one, so if the GPSr loses tracking and starts a new tracklog, it may be able to stitch the paths together. We'll see. Anyway, hope to ride again tomorrow after work.
( BikeLog )

Went out for the TORC ride and cookout tonight. I tried adjusting my GPS receiver to take trackpoints at the "Most Often" setting. I left it on "Automatic" rather than change the interval to be dependent upon time or distance. I figure I'll change one variable at a time. Looking at the tracklog, this seems a bit better, but I would hope that I can do a bit better. Anyway, had a good ride. Was a bit late because I was finishing up something at work. Ran into Matt at the beginning and rode with him for just a little bit, but he was trying to catch a group and I'm still not up to that kind of pace, so I got dropped and that turned out better for me because that way I could ride at my own pace. I was aiming for an hour of riding, but ran into Matt later and he told me the cookout was starting 15 minutes earlier than I had thought, so the ride tonight was shorter than normal. Still, it was a good ride.

Afterwards, went over to the TORC meeting and cookout. It looks like I might be lending TORC a hand putting together a content management system for their website so that they don't have to have a single person updating it. I was also asked if it might be possible to have something to let people sign up for events and to something else to manage volunteers. I think I can come up with something that will do that, probably using something like CiviCRM. Should be interesting.

Anyway, bike log follows:

( Bike Log )

Met up with Phillp to do some mountain biking in Chapel Hill on Tuesday night. I had originally planned to met Scott and Phil at Crabtree, but I discovered at lunchtime that even though I had my bike, I had forgotten my box of bike stuff (i.e. helmet, shoes, etc..). So, since I had to go home, I decided rather than brave east-bound I-40 at 6pm I would head over to the Chapel Hill trails. This caused Scott to bail on us but since Phil lives in Chapel Hill he was game, even though he wasn't feeling that well. We ended up doing just over 7 miles, so it turned out to be a good ride. I really need to adjust how often my GPS receiver, though, marks trackpoints since as you can see from the tracklog it wasn't taking them very often. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get a Garmin GPSMap 60C to take track points more often (so I don't have to go look it up myself :) please let me know. Anyway, bike log follows:

( Bike Log )

Went out Tuesday evening (8/May/2007) with Matt and rode a bit at Lake Crabtree County Park. Matt was gracious enough to let me lead almost the entire way. I'm sure he didn't really work up much of a sweat at all, but it was nice since it let me set a pace that worked for me. Halfway through the ride, a misting rain started. It was kind of like a mister that you see at sporting events and it was refreshing , but wasn't enough water to have to make us wipe off our glasses. So that was nice. Here's our tracklog. I forgot to turn off the GPSr until after I'd driven out so the track goes a bit further on the road. If you notice a sort of dot on Reedy Creek Rd where I parked, that's where the ride started and ended.
( Bike Log )

Scott suggested a ride through Umstead so that he could get a route of the Turkey Creek trail there so I joined him and Phillip and headed out. As you can see from our tracklog we covered a lot of ground. The trails in Umstead park aren't singletrack like they are in Crabtree so the distance I ride are longer and the speeds I go are higher. (As you can see reflected in the log below.) However, at this point, I'm really, really, really bad on uphills. I've got way too much extra weight that I'm carrying up hills and it shows. :-( Many many times when Scott was just surging up in the hill I would be pumping the pedals as hard as I could and just barely going 3.5 mph. :-( (In fact, Scott often went up the hill, came back down, went back up again, repeat until Phil and I were at the top...) So, there's room for improvement there.

With over 25 miles in about 26 hours, though (between Monday and Tuesday), I think I'm making a good start. I'm not riding on Wednesday because we're having people over to the house, and on Thurday and Friday it looks like it might rain. So, it will probably be Sunday or next Monday before I can ride again. So, I'll need to find some sort of exercise to do on my off days. Any suggestions?

( Bike Log )

Went riding over lunchtime with some coworkers. They had scheduled the ride at 11:30 (30 minutes earlier than normal) and I didn't get done with stuff until right then so I drove my car over to Regency and met them there. They went it at the point far end of where we normally start the trail and followed the creek until we crossed under the power lines. We then followed the trail behind the power lines back to the phone building and past there until we finally got back to the power station. We then crossed over and dropped into the trails behind the power station. Did that for a while going down the hill and crossing over the creek and continuing until we got to where they're in the process of bulldozing to build a new building. At that point we went out to the dirt road under the power lines and took it back to Regency Parkway.

Came very close to running over a 3 foot long black snake on this ride. He slid across my path right in front of me and I stopped and missed him by inches. It startled me. Temperature measured 94 on my cyclocomputer. Nice ride, if short. Made up for that later in the evening, though. :-)

( Bike Log )

Went biking at Lake Crabtree County Park after work. Brought the GPS receiver with me, but it didn't get the last part of my track. But, you can see my tracklog here. Couldn't get anyone to come out with me today, so it was just me and my iPod. :-) Played around with adjusting my seat up a bit. I think the last time I took it to REI they accidentally lowered it a bit. I also adjusted the cleats on my shoes a bit. I'm seriously thinking of going back to my older, broken in cleats. The new cleats that came with my CrankBrothers Candy C blue pedals grip quite tightly and make it harder to get out of the pedals. I didn't do too bad with them today, but I was careful about it.

Looking at the tracklog, you can probably see my route. I came in from the Reedy Creek entrance and followed loop 1 up to the fire road. I then did loop 2 and came back to do loop 3. I alternated back and forth a bit between loops 3 and 4 before taking loop 4 back to the main parking lot area. I then went back up to the fire road and took that over to loop 5. From there I took the shore trail (there's another name for that but I can't remember it right now) back to the exit to Reedy Creek Dr. The speedometer said it was just over 7 miles in about an hour of riding. When I'm riding along I think I tend to stop less because I can slow down and rest when I want to without having to stop. So, I managed to get a good ride in and still make it home to tuck Big-B into bed. :-)

Full stats here:

( Bike Log )

Went biking at Little River Regional Park today with David. We did about 6.5 miles. Here's our tracklog.

Had quite a bit of fun on the trail. If you notice a sort of round spot on the tracklog near the lower right corner, that's where there was a a large drop-in that when it came back up there was a ramp that had been built that went up to the top of a fallen log, and then another ramp after the trunk of the log that pretty much went straight and to the ground. I did that a couple of times. The first time, I went about halfway down the drop in with my brakes on, then let them go and rocketed down the hill and the back up, onto the ramp and over the tree. It was fun! I tried it again a second time a bit later, and that time, since the first time had gone so well, I unconsciously let off the brakes much higher up the drop-in hill and as a result when I hit the ramp I was going correspondingly that much faster! Couple that with a not quite perfect line on the ramp and things got a bit interesting! Luckily, I managed to stay on the ramp going up and just ended up going off the side of the exit ramp after the tree trunk. Since that was a fairly short and level ramp anyway, there was no harm done except to get my heart rate back up! After we got back to the parking lot, while David waited at his SUV, I went back and got the last connecting trail (basically the beginner's trail) so I would have a complete tracklog.

Complete stats are here:

( Bike Log )

( Lunchtime ride at Regency )

( Bike Log )

( Log from lunch bike ride )