Sheba’s Training Blog

Don’t ride past Husky stadium during homecoming game against the Oregon Ducks, especially when they lose 36 to 6.

We started out after 12 noon, the game started at noon. So I thought that we would not have too many people to weave around on the trail. But either I was wrong about the time, or lots of people come late, there was still a lot of people to avoid. This group of people are apparently not regular Burke-Gilman trail users either, so they don’t know the rules and customs of the trail. Like don’t walk 6 people abreast, thereby blocking the entire path. So my loud (so they could hear over their own animated chatting) but polite requests to move out of the way were not happily met. But we got past the stadium fairly quickly and onto a much less filled parts of the path.

I haven’t ridden since my tirathlon, so I was a little slow. PLUS it was a chilly 50 degrees and my body was using lots of energy to stay warm. Once we got going and I warmed up with the effort I did manage to get going a bit faster. As is usual when I am on the B-G trail, I was with Brad. He was having a harder time warming up, he needs way more effort to get warmed and he is generally more sensitive to the cold. I only wanted to go on a shorter ride of 20 miles. (I LOVE that I can now say that 20 miles is a shorter ride for me!)

After we turned around to head back ,I was having a lot harder time moving at a good pace. I have always felt like my brakes rub, but now I was hearing some strange noises from my tires. Brad needed a bio break so I told him to run ahead and I would meet him up at the park about 3 miles away. After he left it got worse, I felt like I was riding though mud. I did stop and check out my tires but didn’t see anything wrong. I will have to check my stats when I download my garmin next, but I think that I was going 5 mph or some other ridiculously slow pace. We had passed some runners at one point, and they passed me as I was checking out my tires. They asked if I needed help, which I declined. When I passed them again I asked them if it looked like something was wrong with my tires. They thought my back tire looked low. About this point Brad had circled back from the park. I am sure he was worried that I hadn’t reached the park yet. He agreed that my back tire was basically flat. So we stopped to change the tire. It took me half an hour, so I guess I need some more practice at that. But getting the tire back on Brad noticed that my skewer was bent. So we stopped at the bike store on the trail. They replaced the skewer (for $15) and suggested that I get a full tune up. They did a heavy sell on a $70 tune up. Of course since we were on a ride I couldn’t chose to do this now, but I also guessed that Brad would suggest we go his favorite shop.

We continued home and unfortunately passed the stadium again as people were leaving the game, early and angry. Their willingness to share the path at this point was even worse than before the game. Nevermind the fact that many people clearly avoided the parking issue by biking to the game. There was bike valet parking and a special locked area for bikes set up by some local cycling group. Some snotty comments were made to us, including being told to slow down (at this point I could have been walking my bike faster! I was going as slow as I could without falling over) and being told that we shouldn’t even be on the trail. Whatever, we got through one main part and they detoured to the road to avoid the rest. Not that that was any easier as many roads are closed with police at intersections to deal with the extra traffic and cars didn’t want to share with the bikes any more than the walkers wanted to share the path.

Once we got home we put the bike in the car and took it to Brad’s favorite shop, Speedy Reedy. They took some time to look at my bike to see if it needed a tune. He adjusted my brakes, trued the tires and adjusted the gears. The cost, zero dollars. The Speedy Reedy guy thought that maybe next spring after I have put more miles on the bike that a more lengthy and involved tune might be in order. Brad thought that the skewer issue would have been fixed for free as well, if we had been able to go there instead of the other place. But we went to the shop that was nearest for the situation at the moment. I am hoping that my bike will ride better now.

That night we got dressed up an went to a halloween party, but that is a whole other blog post. All in all it was yet another exciting and learning ride with Brad.

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 10/24/2009
• Time: 12:00:00
• Total Time: 1:50:01.77
• Average Heart rate: 151
• Max Heart rate: 170
• Calories: 1194
• Distance: 20.05 miles
• Average Speed: 10.93 mph
• Max Speed: 21 mph
• Ascent: 1,209.57 ft
• Descent: 1,259.63 ft

Filed under: Cycle