Spinning with Chris

Chris, the spinning instructor from the Lebanon (OR) club, led us today. We had a nice solid workout. I figured I burned about 600 calories...

New favorite pro cyclist

It's gotta be gutsy Jens Voight of CSC, winner of today's stage in the Tour of Cali-fornia.

He's ridding what I hope is my next bike: '07 Cervelo Soloist Carbon. Most likely mine will be equipped with 2007 Chorus (Ultra, with skeletal brakes and a new BB design). My HED Alps wheels will go nicely with this bike.

Can you say bad a$$ bike? I knew you could. :-)

Spinning with Tia, part deux

Tia was the instructor today too. The Helenator was taking a day off considering she filled in for a sick Tia last week.

Burned about 700 calories. This was a good solid class -- got in a good sweat!

The goal is to see how much I can make the LeMond Spinmaster rust. It seems the paint is coming off near the bottom of the frame and the bare metal is rusting.

Actually the bike sees lots of use from the many spin classes they hold each week.

Spinning with Tia

Did a spinning class led by Tia. Her spinning classes aren't as difficult as the Helenator's, but Helen's classes are off-the-scale in difficulty. (Rick's classes are another story!)

Burned about 700 calories in spinning and another 300 or so on the elliptical climber (before class).

Wished I could have banged out another century, but it looked threatening all day and finally the skies opened up around 3...

#4 A nice day for a Century

Completed Century #4 (4th ride of the year for me; weird, but that's how it's working out.) Rode the blue De Rosa (vintage 1995), starting out with the Mid-Valley Bike Club's ride to Monmouth. Extended the ride to Jefferson, Scio, Lebanon, Albany, Tangent.

Calories burned: 5550
Miles turned: 116.5

Consumed two bottles of Perpetuem, two Clif Bars, a Tiger Milk bar, a "nanner", a large Powerade (the gas station at I5/Hwy 34 didn't have any water except from hoses) and not nearly enough water. I refilled the bottles once in Monmouth. Fortunately it wasn't a warm day.

Average temp: 53F.

My front derailleur stopped working coming out of Jefferson. (Earlier it had been cranky, but I managed to get it going with a barrel adjuster.) I "manually" put the chain in the big ring and stayed in it for most of the remainder of the ride. (Note: On the next day I fiddled with it and got it shifting -- cable was a little loose.)

Bring it!

The "Helenator" (also known as the "turn-up" lady or just Helen) was our leader in spinning class today. She had us doing squats on -- and off -- the bike. It was a tough class and I had a good time. The hour went by faaast!!!

Calories burned: 800+

#3 The "Awful" Century

The ride started out ok, but eventually became miserable as the skies opened up and dumped on us for most of the day. I've never been covered with so much mud!

I took out my 16 year old Specialized Sirrus which has a rack, but no fenders. It's had fenders before, but they didn't hold up very well. The problem is that there isn't much clearance between the rear brakes and the wheel.

Started the ride with the MVBC. I rode to Bellfountain, Harrisburg, Peoria, Brownsville, Tangent, and Philomath.

Even my Polar 720i started to have problems after 63 miles. It would display average speed, current time, speed, and HR -- but the "calories" and odometer got "stuck". Hopefully this doesn't mean that the unit is shot!

Distance: 106 miles (3rd ride of the year; 3rd century! yeah!)
Calories: 4000+

Consumed: A bottle of Orange-Vanilla Perpetuem (should have brought more), two Tiger Milks, two packages of Grandma Oatmeal cookies (all I could find at the store in Harrisburg). Orange-Vanilla sounds like a gross flavor, but it's actually pretty good when chilled -- the weather helped with that!

#2 "Soggy box" century

My second ride of the year is ... another century. This time I rode to Shedd, met up with the MVBC club, and soon parted ways. Other folks were extending to a century, but I decided to do my own thing.

It started to sprinkle when I left the house and almost didn't go. Glad I did -- the rain eventually stopped near Shedd. I decided to leave the clean red De Rosa (which has a freshly lubed chain) in the garage and took the "older" blue De Rosa instead.

Rode to Brownsville, Crawfordville, Tangent, and a loop around the Team TT loop at Verdure. I made a quick stop at home for a toasted cheese sandwich and went out and did the Decker loop.

Coming back from Tangent I met up with the Harry Phinney, who noticed that my bike was squeaking. Perhaps it's the chain or rollers. I had some problems earlier in the day -- it tried to skip when I was standing in the 53 x 12.

I need to spend some time in the garage getting my bikes ready for lots 'o riding!

Distance: 107 miles
Calories expended: ~4800
Food: two Cliff bars, one Tiger milk, a bottle of Perpetuem, a bottle of Sustained Energy (that's the last of it), half a toasted cheese sandwich, and a few cashews