10 WEEKS TO SOLVANG SUMMARY

Well 10 weeks to Solvang is in the history books...we are now on 9 weeks until the big ride. I calculated our miles and hours in the saddle from last week. It was a good week. We rode 117 miles 40 miles being our longest ride and we were in the saddle a total of 8 hours felt like a good week. The weather looks bad this week and we are just starting to feel good, like we have no bugs etc. so we might do our training inside on our rollers this week. Next post will be about our 3 bears ride this past weekend.. that was our 40 mile ride.

As of Monday 1-11-10 we have 61 days till Solvang... getting closer ..
and we have 45 days till our deadline (feb. 25th) to hit our goal of $2500 each
as of today it looks like this......
HEATHER has 61 out of 100 $25 blocks full go heather
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x o o o o o o o o o
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Michael is a little behind Heather with 49 out of 100 $25 blocks full :(
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x x x x x x x x x o
o o o o o o o o o o
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Watch for the updates on the Loard's Ice Cream / Mike and Heather's Team in Training Adventure Fundraiser. Tentative date is Feb 7 2010. It will be an ice cream social with a 50/50 raffle, prize raffle , prize wheel, jail and bail , and maybe a band and face painting. So if anyone has some prizes they would like to donate to the raffle feel free to call Heather at 510 299 5177.

26 MILE RIDE WITH HEATHER 683 ft climbing

Heather is really impressing me.. she pushed really hard on our ride today.... Her flat speed is coming up and she is climbing better ... we didn't climb anything steep today but she didn't get out of her big ring.. when she would drop to small ring before on this route to the dam. Heather surprised me a couple of times... I looked back for her expecting to have dropped her.. and nope she was right on my wheel...
It would have been easy to say forget the ride today... it was cold and foggy.. as you can see from the pictures... but Heather said.. nope we have to ride... I wanted to sit on the couch after working my shift.. but she wins as always.. and we rode...
I stayed on Heather's wheel most of the time going up Camino Diablo... that's our climb..and she jumped out of the saddle to stay on top of the gear instead of dropping to small ring... again I was impressed and It's all because of her watching Lance win a mountain stage on a dvd Brentwood Bike Co. let us borrow.

One of the common questions we get when we share our adventure with people..is aren't you scared of cars hitting you... we have it in our head that we have right to the road.. and we need to share... I read many stories of Lance getting blown off the road and fighting with the drivers.. we haven't had to do that yet but I don't worry about it much.. I always listen to hear cars coming and if I don't hear them hitting the buttons in the middle of the road .. I have to admit I get a little nervous.

Heather's new quote
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
~Lance Armstrong

SAUSALITO TEAM IN TRAINING RIDE

What a great ride... besides the great cause and the great people associated with Team in Training... the ride locations are great. We have never ridden at any of the places we have gone so far, so it's exciting for us. One of our friends said rule of thumb is that the ride has to be double the amount of time it took you to drive to the location. I get the idea but it doesn't matter to me how far I have to drive because it's worth it to me to see new places and build relationships with the Team in Training participants.
The ride started at Mike's bikes in Sausalito. (great store by the way) it was exciting before we even left the parking lot because today was an extra high tide so we had to be careful where we parked our cars were in the flood zone. The route was a 35 mile ride that took us to the Golden Gate Bridge , down a cool bike path, and a great road that I don't even know the name but it reminded me our Redwood Road in Castro Valley.(I think it was paradise road, it was a big loop) We had a few nice climbs that felt really good.( we had about 1500 feet of climbing total) Me and my old girl Sammy were one today, she did everything right, everything I asked her to do ... she did it no questions asked. I was happy that every time I saw Heather she had a beautiful smile on her face. Heather and Old Blue were also getting along great. Heather told me on the way home that when she was climbing she thought of Lance and a mountain stage he won on the tour. We had watched it on DVD a few days earlier. She loved his cadence up the hills and how he would jump out of the saddle and then sit back down. Heather said if Lance can do it .. I can do it.. and she did .. Heather is turning into a LIL Lance.
The only bad thing about the ride to day was flat tires. Our group alone had like 5 flats and a whole bunch of problems that went along with them. Stems that were too short, broken stems, flats while waiting for others to fix their flats, it was crazy. My Sammy even got a flat on the rack while we ate lunch at the cafe.
Looking forward to our next team ride this weekend with Team in Training. The rides are going to get longer and more climbs each week, since we are getting closer to our century date.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

LOL this is what Heather came home to New Year's Eve
one step into the door and she said what happened to Old Blue.
what happened was I wanted to fine tune our ride position a lil bit so I put her neck on my bike because it was 10 mm. shorter than mine... It's crazy how 10 mm makes a big difference in your ride position... I felt I was a lil bit too stretched out and Heather is also so My neck is going into the extra parts pile and she is getting a new 70 mm neck. I love how many adjustments there are on these rode bikes. It's important to be comfy because you spend so much time on these bikes, hours at a time.
The list looks something like this
seat: forward and back , up and down, tilted down or up
seat post: set back or zero set back.
cleat position: you can slide feat forward back and twist them in or out and adjust the tension for the release.
necks: shorter or longer up or down and flip the neck for more aggressive or less position.
handle bars: roll them up or down and you can change brake lever positions and different bars have different shapes.
gears: front sprockets compact and regular or triple. rear cassette 10 speed or 9 speed. and all diff. kinds of combinations I have 12/25 and Heather has a 12/27 so the 12 tooth gear is for going fast and the 25 or 27 tooth gear is for easy pedalling for hills etc.
I guess fine tuning comes from my racing cars and jet skis days.. we never left them alone we always felt there was more there to make it faster and better. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't but you never know if you don't try. At least my tries are done after some research, I don't just do changes cuz I'm bored lol. There are many theories out there about ride position, that's why I talk to lots of people and read lots of articles and look what other people are doing on their bikes, then if it sounds good I try it.

HEATHER'S FIRST TIME IN THE ROLLERS

Today Heather had planned on riding to work .. but time got away from her.. so no ride.. so I put her on the rollers when she got off work... she was impressed with how much of a work out it was.. "way harder than riding on the road" says Heather...
Heather also said she can see how the rollers can make you a better rider.
We have a set of e-motion rollers... it's a cool system that give you real road feeling.
You are not locked into a stationary trainer so you have to balance, and you take the chance of falling... which I have already... not fun... but when you get on the real road it is really easy to hold a nice line and makes it easy to ride really close to other riders, because you don't have much room for error on the trainer.
Good job Heather .. you didn't even fall... and you got a good sweat going....

POP'S BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPS
Today is pops birthday. He would have been 83 years old today. This was our first Christmas without him. It was a very lonely Christmas even though we spent it with all of our family.. there was something missing... POPS.
we went to visit Pops at the cemetery in Hayward today. Lacey had to bring Hammie her new Christmas hamster with us to show Poppy. They talked about the hamster before he left us. It was nice visiting Pops, it re-energized our training, and gave us the lil oomph we needed to get going and do this century ride as well as we can. He would want us to kick some butt and finish the ride as fast as we could even though its not a race.. that's how Pops rolled... do it fast !!!!!
We are happy the holidays are over so we can stop eating all the sweets... man we took the week off our diet and training.. and we both feel like crap. I jumped on Sammie today on the roller for 32 minutes and sweat out the cheesecake and pumpkin pie I had during Christmas. Looking forward to hitting the road Monday and Tuesday and the Team in Training ride this Saturday...
We are also hoping Heather can get rid of the cold and cough attacks she is battling right now... it's hard to ride any kind of distance and intensity while coughing up a lung... but she is a trooper and will get through it...

Buddy Dam Ride

Heather and I love how big the sport of cycling is... It is cool how you always see racks on cars or your eye catches a road bike going by somewhere and you have to stop and watch it go by and try to make out the make and what wheel set and groupset he has on it... and it's nice that there is always somebody to ride with. The other day Heather and I planned a quick ride to the dam while Mikey watched the store for us. So we thought it would be fun to ask Amy to come with us.. she just bought a bike from
Brentwood Bike Co. She is doing a Tri in 2010. Amy is the one posing with Heather in the last post. And then Don Williams asked when we were riding via facebook and we set up a meeting place on the loop...I was looking forward to riding with Don because before I even bought my bike we were talking about the sport and how he trains and his rides and the power tap.. that will be my next post.. cuz santa won me a power tap on ebay... :)
So we got to a late start on our ride because of the store... missed our meeting with Don but I figured we would see him at the dam. Heather was looking great on the Old Blue.. her form is really coming in and is getting faster every ride... and climbing better each climb. It was fun to help Amy learn the sport, shifting strategy etc. I just hope we can be half as good as the people that taught us.
We ran into Don , he was already on is way back .. but turned to do another trip to the top of the dam with us...on the way up the dam climb .. we wanted the girls to go first but of course nobody wanted to go first.. Heather finally said forget it and took off... then Amy... it was hilarious watch her try to clip in going up hill... nice and close to falling over..but nope she stayed up ... then Don and I took off side by side.. knowing he ad to be be a lil billy goat I figured he would work me to the top.. but he spit his chain.. off.. I was happy.. I said in my head ok I got this guy now....I caught Amy first... her heart rate was like 196 ish.. she was nice and redlined about half way up.. look over my shoulder and guess who is closing fast.. yes the billy goat after putting on his chain... I was like great.. whatever I'm gong after Heather... When Don caught me (yes he is 70 lbs lighter than me lol) I said damn we aren't going to catch Heather.. that's all Don needed to hear.. he jumped out of the saddle shifted up a gear and was gone... Yes I chased using the same technique but my legs were rubber.. Don beat us all to the top .. on his second time up mind you .. Heather second me third and the lil engine that could Amy made it to the top with a heart rate of 202... nice...Heather said she wouldn't have let Don catch her if she knew what was going on behind her...she said she had some left.. that's the first time I ever heard Heather say that after climbing...
The ride back to Loard's was nice.. Heather and I practiced some pacelining and finally got Amy to lead for awhile ... the loop was 21 miles and loads of fun.
next time hopefully Chris (Amy's husband) can make it and would love to ride with Don again. It would be nice to get everybody together for a Brentwood Bike club ride on Sat. morning. I'm So thankful for the hours that I work at Fedex.and that our 13 year old is mature enough to run the store.. makes it so much easier to sneak a ride in with the short daylight hours that winter brings.