I just remembered to register for the second annual Gran Fondo New York this May. A Gran Fondo is a pseudo race that combines aspects of a century ride mixed with Italian culture. I remembered because I planned on riding part of the course this weekend. It’s an out and back race that starts at the George Washington Bridge, and goes up to Bear Mountain along Henry Hudson Drive and 9W. It’s a total of 100 miles and over 8,000ft. of climbing, with four timed climbs. Close to 3,000 riders turned up last year from all over the world, including pro racer George Hincape.
I’m riding Specialized’s Phenom saddles, chromoly railed on my mountain bike and carbon railed on my road bike. I first tried this saddle out on my earlier mountain bike and found it to be super comfortable. Before I even had a mountain bike this year I was riding a Brooks titanium Swallow on my road bike, which is really nice, but I wanted to have a consistent setup across two very different bikes. So, if you’re interested, I have a highly coveted saddle for sale. (more…)
We live 5 minutes away from Prospect Park by bike. It’s roughly a three mile loop with a couple of hills, enough to get some speed going down, and long enough to feel the burn on the way up. It has a one way two lane road for cars and another set for cyclists and pedestrians. However, be careful of going too fast. It’s a pretty good place to train, and more importantly, unwind.
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I picked up this CycleOps fluid trainer in late November. It took me a while to get used to riding indoors. The technique is so different that takes some time getting used to it. There are so many advantages to indoor training that make up for its awkwardness; controlled intervals, shorter workouts, less wear on your bike. However, it’s not without its faults, chiefly staring at a wall for two hours, yet somehow I think even that’s essential for endurance racing; mental endurance. (more…)
A 32% grade hill climb featuring some guy and his crazy contraption for ascending. It’s an amazing video with even more amazing music.
We’re here in Grosse Pointe, Michigan for the holidays. We opted to drive instead of fly this year. It took us a total of 10 hours to get here. We covered roughly 700 miles and traveled through four states. We rented a car and packed it full of presents, our dog, Marlow, along with my bike and trainer.
”When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
The day after my ride along the Hudson River I drove up with my wife, sister-in-law and a friend to Piermont to visit some family friends, almost on the very same route. It was really cool to get an idea how far I’ve ridden on my own. I snapped the picture above just as we got turned around off the George Washington Bridge onramp.
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I don’t know how it happened, but we now have four bikes between the two of us, three of which belong to me. Fortunately, we have really tall ceilings, but the offerings of decent looking wall mounts for bikes is very slim. So I decided to make my own. The result is quite nice and pretty inexpensive.
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The Leadville 100 qualifying races were announced the other day. Even though I won a lottery that automatically places me at the start line of the race, I’m determined to officially qualify at the Wilmington Whiteface 100 in Wilmington, NY on June 17. (more…)