First Official Training Ride 03/27/09

Friday called for temperatures in the mid 60s and sunny skies so it was time to call in sick to work and go for a nice bike ride! Before heading out, I stopped by Signature Cycles to have them confirm my build, or give the "OK" that everything was properly situated. The saddle was dropped 1cm, and the bars were moved to the precise angle with a nifty digital tool that...measures angles or something like that! After that, I was out the door and on the road heading north to the George Washington bridge.

The route choice today was none other the famous Bear Mountain nearly a century ride. I suppose it's a century for most Manhattan people, but I live right by the bridge so it's usually a 90 mile ride for me. Today, however, I started from 63rd and West End Ave so I got the century plus a few miles in. The weatherman seemed pretty accurate today, and all I had to contend with was a light wind from the Northwest for half my ride.

I'm a bit more focused this year on training at particular levels, and have slightly altered how I do the longer rides. I've a significantly better base to work with going in to this year, and I can certainly feel the difference in my legs. Thus, I can sustain a higher workload for a longer period of time without torching my knees or cramping up. Yesterday, I was able to ride at level which I would call 'reasonably uncomfortable' for the entire 4 hour ride. yeah, I rode a bit longer than that but 15 or so of the miles were in the city and I just warmed up then. I've set alarms on my computer to go off if I drop below a certain heart rate. This is very helpful! It's very easy to drift off over the miles and forget about training and just day dream!

I've a fancy, new cycling computer which allows post ride analysis, and through some devious online sites I was able to get it to work on my iMac. I now have parallels and windows 7 beta ultimate running on the computer specifically for my Sigma Rox 9.0 cyclocomputer! Unfortunately, I didn't bother reading the instruction manual so I did not log, or save the ride data, for about 40 miles of the 90 mile ride I did. Oops.

Here's some of the data I gleaned from the Rox:

Total Values

Distance: 52.27 mi
Ride Time: 02:24:33 h
Rest Time: 00:00:49 h
Ascent: 2962 ft

Average Values
Speed: 21.83mph
Heart Rate: 148 bpm
Temperature: 63.3F

Min/Max Values

Speed: 3.98mph/42.29mph
Heart Rate: 98 bpm/169bpm
Temperature: 57F/72F
Inclination: -11%/13%