Horribly Hilly 100K - badge of honor

The heat that day got the better of me, so I scaled back from the 200K option to 100K. Here's my souvenir "badge of honor" from the event, on my trusty Camelbak (couldn't have gone as far as I did without that either).

Early in the ride I was fine, making it up the three major hills (Mounds Rd, Scherbel Rd and Barlow Rd. The first rest stop was a little tricky though, because just as we got there, rain from the previous day/night had weakened a tree which fell onto a power line along the climb to the Festge Park rest stop. I navigated around that, with many other rides, only to discover that the power lines that were down had also taken out the electric water pump at the rest stop, so we had to wait for water.

Maybe I waited around at the rest stop to long, but after climbing the hill on Barlow Rd, I started cramping. So when the option to split between the 100K and 200K presented itself I opt'ed for the 100K.

It was a great event and it was very well supported. Several members of our club, Spring City Spinners, participated in the event and it was great to see them having 'fun' as well.

I'm not sure what my next event will be, maybe just a nice relatively flat Century Ride.

Safe riding all.

Vacationing in the Land of Lincoln

Specifically, Springfield, IL -- and what might you ask is in Springfield? Well as of 2005 the new Presidential Lincoln Library and museum are located in the downtown area near with the Old Capitol Building. Part of the reason for going was for my wife and daughter to do genealogy research at the Lincoln Library (which by the way led to some very fruitful findings).

We also went on several of the typical tours; Lincolns home, Lincolns Tomb, the Old Capitol building and some of the surrounding buildings, such as Union Station (also recent renovated - 2007) and the old Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices .

One non-Lincoln site that we toured (which luckily was re-opened recently as part of the re-opening of Illinois historic sites - no thanks to the ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich) was the Dana-Thomas Home (a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home from circa 1902-04). It's in remarkable condition, again thanks to tax payer money and a previous owner - Charles Thomas/Thomas Publishing who preserved it even while using it as office space for almost 40 years.

I did manage to get some bike riding in by contacting a local club (Springfield Bicycle Club) and rode with some of its members. On one of the routes I even crossed the historic Route 66.

This week will be a "tapering down" training week, with the Horribly Hilly Hundreds coming up this Saturday.

Safe riding all

Upgrades prior to HHHs

After that first training ride at Blue Mounds, WI (on the worst hills of the route) I decided on a gearing change for my bike. Transitioncycle.com helped me out with a "like new" used chainring. For a better gear ratio I went from a 36T to a 34T. After the change (the following weekend) I had a second practice ride at HHH (200k) stages 2 & 3 last and it was a big improvement. Now the only problem, with a couple weeks to go before the event, is finding any hills around Waukesha for training that compete with those around Blue Mounds.

I've been tweaking the insoles of my bike shoes with a couple of different brands; Superfeet and Powerstep), I need the arch support, particularly in the left foot. Right now I use a Superfeet insole in the right shoe and the Powerstep Pro (3/4) in the left.

The last change is that I recently dumped my Polar CS100 and it's multiple sensors for the Garmin FR305. I've been using the FR305 for a little over a year, but I just installed it's accessory quick attach/detach bike mount. It's nice to have the display back up on the handlebars and to be able to pop it on and off the bike. I also added the cadence sensor, for the complete telemetry package.

That's about it, I'll be on vacation for about a week, hopefully I'll get some training rides in while down in the Springfield, IL area.

Safe riding all.