Two Wheel Blogs

Today's story is about pushing one's luck. In this case, just a little too far.

Dave, Jordan and I set out this morning to pre-ride the state road race course. None of us had seen it so we wanted to get a look at it before next week's race.

A quick look at the weather before heading out showed we'd be OK. Sun would turn to clouds, which would turn to thunderstorms later in the afternoon. No problem, we thought. That gives us plenty of time to ride it. Twice even.

It's Sunday afternoon already? What happened to the weekend? There's nothing like a bike race to make a day go by in a hurry. Yesterday I did the first two races in the 2008 Tour of St. Louis - the Carondelete Park criterium and the Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area timetrial.

The Tour of St. Louis is actually a 2-day event. There is a criterium on Sunday morning in Forest Park. I skipped that one, opting to make the weekend into something better resembling a stage race. A couple of emails and a phone call later I'd landed myself into a couple of hours of hard (for me, at least) riding.

Weekend stats

Photo: 

The last couple of week's training haven't been exactly what I had in mind for this time of year. Our weather has only afforded me a precious few opportunities to get out and do those epic training rides. You know the kind of rides I mean, the ones that turn ordinary legs into race ready weapons.

Not only that, but this Wednesday night TT series, combined with all the great racing opportunities on the weekends, makes it hard to maintain CTL.

And maintaining fitness is really about all I've been able to accomplish the last couple of weeks. The week before last I managed a respectable 741 TSS. This last week my TSS total fell to 621. That's what two short timetrial events in a week will do. Intense as they were, they amounted to precious few TSS points.

We've had a really nice run of 3 days here where the weather's been too good to pass up. Being one to take advantage of a good situation, I did my own little training camp, piling up nearly 150 TSS per day. Needless to say, today's rain showers didn't bother me a whole lot. A little spinning on the old rollers was just the ticket for me this afternoon.

So there I am, riding my rollers and enjoying whatever iTunes happens to serve up, and I notice a certain ticking sound coming from my front wheel area.

Now a ticking sound, one that repeats with every rotation, can't be good. I looked at the brakes. They had clearance. There's no computer pickup on the fork at all so that couldn't be it. "Could be in the hub" I tell myself. Hmm, that's really not good.

Photo: 

We got socked with the rain pretty good today. We're still getting it tonight. The rain didn't bother me for once, though. After my recent run of TSS I was ready to take one easy. Recovery.

Like so many others I have a problem with recovery rides. Many times I end up going too hard. That's not smart, because if you go too hard on the easy days you can't go as hard as you need to on the hard days.

I discovered the secret to going easy on recovery days today. Rollers. They're just the thing for recovery rides because they offer practically no resistance. It's like pedaling downhill all the time except there is no wind to pedal against.

What an odd Easter we've had here today. The interweb weather thingy said snow was a long shot, but that by late in the morning temperatures would head up as the sun started to break through.

Not so. It's been snow showering on and off all day.

My window of opportunity for riding was in the morning. Turns out that was a good thing because if I'd waited on the weather to change for the better I'd still be waiting.

4:58pm - It just started snowing again. Hard. Weird.

What I had on my training plan today was at least a 2 hour ride. Something that would generate around 150 TSS. That's no pushover ride, but it would also leave a little in the tank for tomorrow while driving TSB well below zero.

Photo: 

Video: