Written by Mike Young on July 26, 2009 at 11:06 am
Not sure of my overall feelings on this. I was really looking forward to watching Lance Armstrong get back into it after a 4 year absence from the sport. Man it would have been awesome to watch him smoke people and to quiet the critics about doping, steroids, etc. Well…, it didn’t quite go like that.
The first week of the Tour were the most exciting for me to watch. Each day there was endless drama about who would be the leader for team Astana– Armstrong, Leipheimer, or Contador. And each day, you got to hear them all downplay it. Ironically, while all of this was going on, I really didn’t hear all that much about drugs, cheating, etc. So this year’s race did accomplish something.
In the end, it wasn’t the performance I was expecting. But perhaps it was much more. I have never seen Levi Leipheimer ride so well. It was too bad he had to leave it early due to an injury. At various points, I was really rooting for him.
It’s hard for me to get too excited about Alberto Contador. He’s not Lance. But despite how much I didn’t want him to win, he was nothing short of amazing on those climbs. I know what it feels like to get that “kick” as you’re going up a climb. For a guy my size, it doesn’t happen often. But when it does, it feels great. This guy just kept kicking and kicking and kicking. There was simply no stopping him.
Then there was Lance. I liked how he referred to himself as an old fart on the last real day of the race. At 38, he’s hardly old. But he certainly is at a disadvantage versus the younger Contador and contenders. Despite the fact that he didn’t win, Lance was still Lance. I don’t care what any critic says. The guy took 4 years off and began training earlier this year for the race. He still kicked butt. He still earned my respect. And after it’s all over, I’m still in awe of him.
For next year, it would be nice to see a little bit of a re-organization. It’s hard to watch such top contenders on the same team. I really didn’t like the drama that was created. I suppose it’s like watching baseball with a team full of stars. But I miss the old days where the team was organized to protect the leader. Next time, let’s have a definitive leader as opposed to waiting to see who emerges.
Category: Mike Stuff, Misc. Rants, My Cycling
Written by Mike Young on August 10, 2007 at 8:18 am
Well, it has been a while since my last post. Sorry about that.
The Tour de France has come and gone. I had fully intended to write a nice post on it. A couple of posts ago, I wrote about how this Tour had left me wanting. But I must admit, it got good at the end. There seems to be no end to the drama in this sport.
For those who missed it all, Chicken Legs “pulled himself out” of the race. He had basically one the thing. But I guess the allegations of blood doping finally caught up with him. What a shame.
Levi Leipheimer, on the other hand, and Team Discovery both surprised me with incredible performances. Together, they made for a great race.
Anyway, while I won’t be invited to any races any time soon, I’ve made some progress in my own personal riding. Though when you compare my results with what these super humans do, I look like I should be using a walker instead of a bike 
When I started off the season in April (rather late due to snow and rain from our messed up season), I was turning in a 14.2 mph round trip on my 25 mile ride, which both begins and ends on a pretty nice, 2 mile hill ride. My goal at the time was to get back up to a round trip average of 15 mph. Well, I’ve hit that fine.
Have you ever felt like you’ve hit a wall? Well, that’s where I am now. Check out my last several ride performances (mph).
- 16.8
- 17
- 17
- 17.2
- 17.2
- 17.3
- 17.3
- 17.3
- 17.3
- 17.4
- 17.3
I’ve been varying my rides a bit lately and have added a lot more hills into the mix. I’ve also increased my riding distance to a little over 30 miles per ride. Last week, I even did a 40 mile one. Just trying to increase things and get better in the areas I’m week. And I suppose I’m hoping that at some point I might be able to pass 18 mph on my 25 mile course. Still, this pales in comparison to the averages these professionals will hold to. But then again, I’m just an amateur who has been riding for a few years.
Having said that, from the house to the end of the valley road to the house is approximately 5 miles. And I can now average 32 mph on the way out to the main road. This calls for me in one pretty much my top gear pedaling around 100 rpm. Of course my return time is nowhere close to this. But who cares? It’s great time for me.
I have no aspirations for racing. I’m almost 40 and have no desire to hurt myself in a fluke accident. I ride for fun and to stay in shape. I suppose I get a competitive bug every now and then and will attack and pass a rider a mile up the road from me. But it’s a great motivator to work on my sprinting and it stresses my heart a bit. But that’s about it. I lost my asthma symptoms nearly 4 years ago. But I still have a smaller than average heart to contend with. While many seasoned riders averaging my weekly miles will hover in the 140bpm heart zone, I tend to average around 160bpm. And I’m still hitting the high 180’s when I do certain climbs or sprints. My heart reminds me of the old Castrol motor oil commercials. It’s simply higher revving. What can I say? It’s what God has equipped me with.
I hope to make the continued increases up to and past 18mph. But soon we’ll be in the winter weather and my riding patterns will change. I’ve got a treadmill now. And I have my indoor trainer. I don’t want to let the whole winter and spring season go without riding. But you never really know how de-motivating ice, snow and cold can be. Then again, I can be quite determined too. 
Category: My Cycling
Written by Mike Young on July 12, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Okay, I’m back in business! I’m speaking of my cycling. After the numerous maintenance problems I described last week, I’ve finally got my bike back in tip-top shape. The biggest problem I actually had was finding replacement screws for my Speedplay Zero cleats. I would have thought that the wide-spread popularity of these pedals would have ensured the availability for replacement screws. But nope. I was wrong. I searched all over the place for a mention of them. When I tried to inquire and order just the screws, my only option was for a pair of replacement cleats, which happened to come with more screws. Hmm… not ready to shell out $35 for screws. Know what I mean?
Anyway, after finally figuring out the size of the screw, which wasn’t easy because it’s hard to tell the difference between an M4 and an 8-32 screw, I managed to find them at a local ACE Hardware. Hallelujah!!! Seriously, you have no idea what I went through. It wasn’t enough that these screws were metric. They were also countersunk so that they could sit flush with the cleat.
To make things more interesting, walking around the driveway, with all the rocks, didn’t help my situation. Apparently, I had worn down the screws so much that it was hard to get the screwdriver to get any bite. It took a lot of work, but I finally managed to get all 8 screws out of both shoes. After a little bit of cleanup, the new screws were a piece of cake to insert.
Apart from the shoe fun, I also put a little thought into my tire situation. I estimate I had put nearly 1500 miles on my last set of tires. Replacing them didn’t take much thought. What did require me to think a bit was the potential use of Slime Lite tubes. These were never an option a year or so ago. I’m very weight conscious when it comes to my bike. With pedals and cages, my bike weighs close to 14 pounds. Trying to put heavy, wobbly Slime tubes in didn’t make much sense. Well, with a little branding help, I was convinced otherwise. I had an excellent ride yesterday and didn’t feel any side effect from the new tubes. Instead, I felt a new level of confidence that descending the mountain road at full speed wasn’t a foolish feat. I didn’t worry about a blowout sending me into the windshield of an oncoming car. While the ride wasn’t my best time, it was my second best ever as I found myself climbing that final road back at speeds of 10 to 11 miles per hour. That’s a huge improvement over my normal 6 to 7.
So… it’s great to be back in the saddle.
Category: My Cycling
Written by Mike Young on July 1, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Well, you ever wonder if God’s trying to give you a message, but you’re just not pick’n up on it? I suppose what happened today could be an indicator of something.
Decided to go for a ride today. But as usual, I tried doing the ride later than I wanted. It was almost 9:30am when I decided to head out the door. But the real issue wasn’t the time, it was the heat. I should have been out the door before 7am-ish. Anyway, because I knew it was gonna get hot fast, I opted to change my routine 25 mile ride to just a 15 mile one. And it’s a good thing too. On the 2nd half of the ride, I had to pull over twice to tighten some screws to my left cleat. One of the screws must have fallen out, but the others were stripped and I couldn’t tighten them down. Imagine all of the pedaling efficiency of a one legged cycler. That was me.
If only things stopped there… Not with my luck. Besides the loose cleat, I experienced some really harsh cramping in my lower back. This must have been due to me trying to catch some dudes that were pedaling well ahead of me. I had seen then turn on my route and thought I could catch them. Well, I did. But I was so tired that it was hard to maintain such pace. That should really teach me.
As discouraging as the ride could have been, I was very glad I cut the ride to only 15 miles. I not only received a slow leak on my rear tire, I had a complete flat at the last 1/4 mile of my ride. Had I extended it, I may have had some much more serious hiking to do.
I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes you just need to be thankful you didn’t get what you originally wanted. I really wanted a 25 to 30 mile ride. Seems like I maybe need to ride my Mt. bike for a while. What do you think?
Category: My Cycling
Written by Mike Young on August 16, 2006 at 5:00 am
…or How to be Stupidly Misleading with Titles
So, for anyone who knows anything about me, I’m like… sort of into cycling… just a tad. I don’t want to say that I’m addicted to it, but I may have a bit of a problem. You see, I like having the “right” equipment for the right job. And I like my bikes to be rather light weight.
Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the impact of a bike’s weight on one’s ability to scoot, let me just say it’s significant. And folks will pay mucho bucks to be able to conserve weight. In cycling terms, I am what is affectionately known as a “weight weenie”. And weight weenies measure their… let’s just say we like to be light. Did I already say that?
Perhaps this is a good place for an illustration. This here is where I spend around 150 to 200 miles per week. 
There’s no GPS, no leather wrapped wheel, and no stereo system. But the air conditioning is pretty good . Well, and I’m not trying to shock anyone now, this particular bike has probably close to $6,000 invested in it. Those wheels are actually made out of a compound known as carbon fiber. In fact almost every part of the bike is made out of it or titanium. That’s pretty expensive. And as far as weight is concerned, it weighs in around the high 14lb. range. It’s not quite 15lbs. with the pedals on it. Now, that’s pretty light. But I’ve had my eyes set on a couple different bike choices that I’d like to get around Christmas time in time for this next seaason. And let’s just say the cheapest one I’m looking at probably costs around $10,000. Yep, but hey… I get to drop another .6lbs. That’s right. For four grand more, I can drop just over one half of one pound. And this is the type of stuff we weight weenies are cursed to live with.
But it doesn’t end here. Oh, that would be just too convenient. You see? I’m also into Mountain Biking. And this sport is also susceptible to the weight weenie. On the far left is my latest pride and joy. This is my 21lb. Fetish Cycle. It’s simply made for fast x-country riding and for climbing hills. There’s no extra suspension stuff to weigh me down. In the middle, is my hardcore full suspension bike. I’ve got quite a bit invested in this one, almost as much as in my roadbike. This one is made for some really bumpy terrain and for drop offs. I’m not all that comfortable with hucking. At 38, I start to fear the breaking of a hip or collarbone. And then the one on the far right is my first bike I ever built. I pretty much built up all of these bikes from choice parts. But this green machine was my first, and as such, it holds a special place in my heart. It’s currently configured as a single speed. That means there are no gears to change. I use this for serious x-country riding after I’m already in shape.
So, by now I should probably explain the title. If you go back to my little cost example, you’ll find that dropping a half pound to one pound of bike weight can cost a lot of fortune. In reality, there are limits and they’re nothing close to this obscene amount of money. I really haven’t seen anything go for much more than $20,000 in price. But who would spend that kind of money? That’s just ridiculous, huh?
But recently I completed a pretty grueling die regimen that has left me around 38lbs. lighter than I was just three months earlier. And it was grueling because I wasn’t focused on just losing some excess weight or even fat. I concentrated on losing a good bit of muscle mass too. I had spent so much time and energy over the years adding size to various parts of me. My simple take was “bigger is better”. Well, that gets hard to sustain after a while. It’s hard on the knees, it’s hard to fit in clothes without buying really baggy stuff, and it’s hard as heck to haul up a hill. So, I decided to cut.
Some of you may have seen an update to my avatar. If not, you can find a larger version on my About Me page. This shot was taken a week ago, after hitting my goal. Now, I’m in sustaining mode. I’m back to carb loading before my rides and I’m trying to increase my intensity over the next few weeks. One of the downsides of what I went through is it placed a pretty rough load on my heart. Having done this before, it will take me another 2 to 3 weeks to get my heart rate back to an optimum level, but I’ll also have to exert myself much less to get up the same hills. And my performance on the flats should also improve as I won’t present such a large target to those headwinds.
Anyway, I figured I could keep investing in new, lighter gear. And I probably will. Or I could drop unnecessary body weight, which is actually a good thing in the long run. This probably falls into that category of zippo interest. But now you know just a tad bit more about me than you did a few minutes ago. This is a major part of my life and I wanted to share it.
Category: My Cycling
