14 posts tagged “biking”

Alex your collarbone is shattered. Are you still riding?

Hell yes. It will take a hell of a lot more than a broken collarbone to stop me.

Obviously being off my bike for 8-12 weeks is going to seriously affect my training. What does this mean? Starting next week I'll be in the gym doing slow sustained cycling for as long and as often as I can handle it. The day the doctor approves me to get back on the bike I'll be riding daily. There is no way this is stopping me; in fact it's going to be an exciting, fun challenge to overcome.

I'll still be doing 1000 miles of charity riding this year, so this is just an interesting handicap ;)

How can I help?

- Moral support. Ping me on AIM and ask whats up. Leave messages of support on my AIDS LifeCycle donation page.

- Pledge! I still need to raise over $2,000 before June. Not only will I be training, eating right, and so on - I'll be doing all this with a broken collarbone. However, you aren't donating to me - you're donating to help people with an affliction far worse than a broken clavicle. You're donating to help people that have a disease for which there is no cure. They can't ask a doctor when they'll be back in good health - they're affected for life.

I really hope you'll pledge your support for my ride. My health will be my life for the next four months and it means a damn lot to me if you're willing to appreciate that and support me in this through this setback.

Bulleted health updates:

• Pain is way way down. First Vicodin free day!
• I'm probably back in the gym doing light cardio next week
• 8-12 week heal time until back on the bike
• Apt with orthopedic surgeon on the 25th to check on healing progress
• Graduation date should not be affected, although my schedule will likely need to be lightened
• Working with professors about catching up. It'll be hard while I'm still healing.
• Typing one handed really fucking sucks.
• I'm taking every supplement I can to make sure my body has what it needs

Start to Finish MS!

I have two close friends who have been diagnosed with MS and they are some of the most outstanding and wonderful people I know. They've helped me through hard times and have stopped at nothing to continue to live their lives the way they want to live them. I really admire their courage and dedication and want to help out by doing this charity ride.

What will I be doing?

I'll be biking 150 miles during the last weekend of September (29th-30th), and have raised $2000 to help both finding the cure and aiding those already afflicted by MS. I would sincerely appreciate it if you would consider donating and helping me reach my goal. It would mean a lot both to me as well as those affected by MS.

What can you do?

This is a charity ride which means I'll be raising money to ride. A number of amazing, generous people have donated, and I can't thank them enough. As of this update I've passed my original goal of $1000, upped my goal to $2000, and have met that as well. I am obviously still accepting donations but have met both goals thanks to the help of so many people. If you haven't donated yet, and still would like to, it would mean a great deal to me and those afflicted if you'd do so. Plus, you'll sleep sounder at night knowing you're an awesome person whose contributed to fighting a disease that has no cure and affects people for their entire lives.

I'm an awesome person with a big heart and I want to help!

Updates / Relevant Posts:

My New Bike
My Training Regime
First Tiburon Loop (short video)
A heart felt Thank You
Waves to Wine 2007 Update

60 miles is a lot of pedaling. A lot. of. pedaling.

Just got back. Took a long, extremely hot, shower and drank a nice lactose/sugar/preservative free (read: so fucking disgusting I wish I never bought it. What the hell was I thinking) protein shake. Had a great time, practiced better pedaling technique / standing while climbing hills / maintaining a specific pace. Even though I like to think of Marin as "flat" I guess with all the hill climbing it still would not be representative of the Waves to Wine ride. So 70 miles of flatter seems A-O-K right now.

Anyways, as much as I'd like to collapse in exhaustion and wake up in the morning nice and refreshed... It's time to go wander on up to the CS Lab and get this project finished up.. or at least stay there for 6 or 7 hours and make a very valiant attempt.

Hear me body, hold together.

So today I tried a new ride, which meant staring at google maps, assuming it would work out, mapping it, and giving it a go. All in all it ended well, but it would have paid to do a drive through first.

Here's a map of the ride I did today, although I only went out to Martinez (a friend ended up driving me back) since I didn't leave until the afternoon. The elevation profile for my ride today shows a total climb of just over 3000ft (each way), which looks (and believe me, feels) like a lot. By comparison, here is the elevation profile for Day 1 of the Waves to Wine ride. No 1700ft climbs. The greatest climb is about 600ft, which should be doable. While the total elevation gain is similar, it's broken into fewer climbs. I appreciate this. A lot of the road looks flat, too. Day two is even flatter [this is good].

So in a perfect world it would've been a great ride. As it ended up, I chose the wrong roads to descend after ascending Grizzly Peak. I tried to pick the quickest roads to Wildcat Canyon, but ended up picking the steepest narrowest roads to get there. The road I was following on my way down ended up changing from a two lane, to a one lane, to a gated horse path covered in gravel. Walking my bike through that was amusing.

Regardless, after I got onto Wildcat Canyon the ride was just a lot of long, gentler, hills. It was definitely a challenging ride. The most disappointing, and amusing, part of the whole ride was finding a small farmer's stand by the side of the road. It was hot, I was hungry (and thirsty) and was hoping for any kind of fruit or juice to consume. At that point I would have even entertained eating lettuce. But what did they have? Peppers. Spicy peppers. Boxes and bags of peppers. It felt like a cruel joke.

Anyways, as I neared Martinez the hills leveled out, so I got a chance to practice biking on flat ground. It was strange using less energy and going so much faster. Hills in this area feel absurd. The only downside to the ride this weekend was all the hill climbing irritated my knees a bit. I may have to take it easy next weekend and let them recover fully. I'm taking my bike in on Friday to see if it's a fit issue.

Anyways, classes commence today, so it's time I turn in for the night to get ready to learn.

Make that 78% of the way to my goal of $2,000. Thanks Paul! :)

So here are the quick bullet point updates in regards to my charity ride in September:

• Thanks to the amazing generosity of so many people I'm now 76% of the way to my goal of raising $2000. I still have 24% to go though, so if you've been thinking about donating or have been meaning to do it, now would be a great time! Donations are tax deductible and will be worth Vox Points once implemented at a later date (probably).
  
• I've been getting out on rides regularly and plan on doing another Berkeley Hills route this weekend. Armed with a second water bottle and some sugary energy substance to sustain me I'm going to attempt to add a few miles onto the route I did last week which will then take the new title of Hardest Ride Ever™
  
• I'm going in to el bike storeo this weekend to get some adjustments (and learn how to make proper adjustments myself) to the cleats on my shoes. It doesn't feel quite right yet, and I had a bit of knee pain after the last ride so I want to be sure to address that asap.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward to the ride in September and can't say enough how much I appreciate the generosity people have shown towards this :)

So this morning/afternoon I had studied and printed some directions for following this ride. It seemed like a great local ride through the scenic hills. If you want to follow my progress exactly I followed that ride through about point 81. Right around that point I had taken Claremont downhill and back to Berkeley. If you check the past few posts you can see some camera phone shots of the scenery :)

This was definitely the hardest ride I've ever done. After I got outside of Berkeley there wasn't a single flat road for the remainder of the ride. It felt like every minute was spent either climbing or descending hills. I have a lot of respect for the guys and gals that were flying by me both on the uphill and the downhill.

This was also the first long ride with the fancy clipless pedals. Not only are they remarkably easy to use after you get the foot placement down, but with your legs locked into a strict motion when pedaling it's much easier to focus on utilizing all your muscle groups throughout the full pedaling range.

Well I just finished getting my mileage for the ride changed from 110 to 150 miles. There's no turning back now!

Training Updates:

Well I've been doing these Spin classes thrice a week, and I definitely feel more in-cycling-shape because of it. The past two weeks I've been using clipless pedals on the bikes. The difference is pretty amazing. Being able to engage all muscle groups (versus just the quadriceps) when pedaling is a great feeling. It's far easier to pedal harder or against very heavy resistance when you're attached to the bike.

The biggest news would just be my increased cardiovascular capacity. It's hard to objectively judge myself, but previously (even just three weeks ago) it wasn't hard to reach a wall where I literally could not get enough oxygen in my body. Each week that wall gets pushed farther away and I have to push myself harder to reach it. I'm astounded at how fast my body is adapting to this kind of training.

Not this, but next weekend (August 11th-12th) I'm going to attempt to bike a total of 100 miles over Saturday/Sunday. I believe Jamison and I are going for a longer ride on Saturday, and I plan to attempt some kind of Berkeley Hills route on Sunday. I'll be sure to post photos!

So this morning Mr. Andrew Anker helped me reach my fund raising goal for the Waves to Wine ride. In fact, his donation pushed me over my original goal! I'm absolutely blown away at the generosity that both Andrew and everyone who has donated has shown. I've had this up for less than three weeks and I've already met my original fund raising goal.

That means two things:

1. I'm going to commit to upping my ride distance from 110 miles to the full 150 mile ride. This is the ride that's meant for "non-casual" riders. I wasn't sure I would be able to handle it but in light of this generosity I think I have no choice but to push myself and train hard enough so that I can handle it. You've all shown your caring and compassion, it's time for me to show mine.
2. I'm doubling the amount I want to raise to $2000 so others can have a chance to donate and help this cause. I have until mid September to raise this amount and I have full confidence that with everyone's help I'll be able to reach it. If you're interested in donating and want to help raise money to fight MS and support me in my ride, be sure to click here to donate.

Again, I really want to thank each and every one of you for donating and showing that you care about this cause.

Thank you.