264k

Photo by Ronsta

This past Wednesday I took part in a Wisconsin tradition for the first time, I rode the Bone Ride. It's an annual ride from Milwaukee to Madison and back. It works out to be 158 miles. Ron has done the ride before so he showed me the ropes and made sure I made it back in one piece. I was thankful to have a friend and teammate watching out for me. He, of course, did the whole thing on a single speed. Well, almost the whole thing, he hopped on the ride 17 miles in. I tacked on a few more miles by riding home from the starting point and ended up with 164 miles in 8 hours and 20 minutes. (Sorry, Ryan, no data this time because my computer somehow lost it.)

It was a beautiful day with a strong crosswind. Everyone was fighting for a draft which made a lot of the ride kind of sketchy. I am happy I did it though. It wrapped up my real long base rides for the year. In the past 14 weeks I had twelve 5 hour+ rides, a 4 hour ride, and a 3 1/2 hour ride. They have mostly been easy miles. I've never gotten a base in like that before so I am curious to see how this season goes. I start racing in 2 weeks!

103k

I haven't posted much yet this year so here is a little update. As a lark--and to establish a good base for the year--I planned twelve weeks of getting a five hour ride in once a week. Today was week eleven. I did 64 miles (103k) of trail in the Southern Kettles and I felt really good. Granted, I am not flying on these long rides but I can now see the results in my endurance. I should be in good shape for the Bone Ride next week which will be between 175 and 150ish miles, depending on where I start.

After that, racing begins and I"ll start getting a little more serious about riding fast. I wasn't planning on doing any solo six hour mtb races this year, but after today's ride maybe I'll try to keep this endurance up.

In other news, I am now one of those nerds with a powertap. The deal at Ben's (there selling like hotcakes) was too good to pass up. I'll start using that more seriously in June as well and if I am feeling extra dorkish I'll post some numbers here.