Tail Tales from Cycle Training

I've MOVED!! That's right folks, the cycling blog that you've come to love over these last two years if packing up and moving locations. After about a week of work, I've finally finished migrating the entire blog, links, pictures and data included to my new URL:

http://cyclingtailtales.wordpress.com/

and can get back to the super exciting posts that you expect from me. Soon. Like probably tomorrow. I'll be taking this site down sometime this month... so you might as well learn to adapt.

Why on earth would I go to the trouble of moving my blog, you ask? No really... ask! Well, a bunch of reasons. For one, this blog is linked to my old GMail account, and no amount of whining and crying to Google would persuade them to change it. (I know... shocking! Big ol' Google doesn't care about lil ol' me?! Whodaguessedit?) This means I can't post, check stats or anything else without first logging out of my regular email and into my old one. Seems small, but it really gets annoying. On top of that, Blogger doesn't support categories, pages or built in stats. For the small (but mighty) reach that my blog has, keeping accounts on multiple sites to manage that is not worth the time.

Moral of the story? It's going to be a lot easier on me.

Never fear though! The new site looks exactly like the old (minus the ads on the side) and already has all your favorite content. If you subscribe via reader or email, the change should be seamless. No new feeds to find (thanks FeedBurner!), and nothing new to sign up for. So... follow me on over and I'll have not one, but two new ride posts up for you this week! Woohoo!!

Five of us (ex or future) TNT-ers met up to ride the Woodside-Portola Valley loop again last Saturday morning. It was a gorgeous day, and everyone was excited to be out, in the sun, and back on bikes. Or at least they seemed to be. I suppose it's possible that half of them felt like crap and wanted to go back to bed... but no one told me.

We rolled out shortly after 10 and quickly arrived at the first climb. I was feeling really good at the start and attacked the "hill" in my front middle chain ring. I powered to the top only to find that my Garmin was completely failing (not recording cadence or heart rate), and had to stop and spend a couple minutes both waiting for everyone to catch up and trying to fix my gear. As it turns out, we only managed to fix half of the problem... and then I forgot to turn it back on for a couple miles, so my data is utterly borked this week. After a small snafu in which I thought I dropped my chain after the descent (I actually just dropped two rings), the ride continued without much drama.

The rest of the loop wasn't hugely exciting... at least not in a storytelling kind of way. I started the ride feeling strong, and despite trying to burn off the energy by attacking some baby climbs, was restless for most of the ride ride. I felt fast (and darted ahead of the group a few times), but still had to make a game of chasing Hilton - who was definitely kicking my tail. The group ended up spread out a good bit for most of the ride, meeting up every few miles to refuel, check the route sheet, and chat a bit. Despite a good number of breaks, our overall finish time was about the same as the week before. My average moving time was actually up, although my missing data log doesn't show it very well.

We all hit the Safeway parking lot just before noon and decided that we'd earned a good brunch reward. With belgian waffles as a requirement (per Julie), we quickly settled on Mike's Cafe as the location of choice. I think everyone enjoyed the chance to eat food mostly guilt free and attacked the breakfast fare with gusto. I jumped on the belgian waffles bandwagon (plus bacon) and thoroughly enjoyed the food. And the company. But mostly the food... Hey! I worked hard!!

I might not have had time to test the new bike fully on Saturday, but you can bet I took full advantage of the long weekend to test her out Monday. And man, what a great ride it was! Hilton, Julie and I synced up with Mike (who sadly missed our early weekend adventures) at the Safeway in Menlo park for a 21 mile Woodside-Portola Valley loop. This was a new route for all of us, and I have to say... we really enjoyed it. There were no major climbs, but we passed the access points for at least two that could be easily added to make the ride more challenging (some other day). All but one road had a large shoulder, and the scenery was great. Highly recommended!

After a minor mishap involving me, a brand new bike and a dropped chain 500 yards out of the parking lot, we started with a baby climb up Sand Hill Rd. True to form, Hilton all but sprinted up the thing, leaving Julie, Mike and I to follow along behind him and varying speeds. We reached the summit and were treated to fresh roadkill deer (ew) and a nice decent. Or, more accurately, a descent that would have been nice had a minivan not raced up behind me and honked loudly for... existing (at least as far as I can tell). Asshat. Because startling and knocking over a cyclist going 30mph or so who isn't even in your lane is such a good plan? Apparently he thought I should take a major highway on-ramp in order to better stay out of his way. Grrrrrrrr!!

Moving on. I spent most of the ride focusing on two main things: learning my new shifters and chasing Hilton's tail. I've heard you improve the most when struggling to keep pace with people who are faster than you. I'm not sure if it's true yet... but trying to catch him - or even just trying not lag too far behind - was certainly more challenging! The new bike was both fantastic and frustrating. I've never had a smoother ride (oh how I love thee already carbon frame!), and the bike felt very responsive on those "I can almost get him, or at least stay ahead of the guy pulling the baby in a cart" sprints... but I was *really* struggling with the stupid half-click front chain ring positions. In some ways I felt like I was back in time two years, trying to how to learn how to shift all over again. At least I didn't have to re-learn how to clip too!

Beyond some terrible gearing noises (and a second dropped chain just before we ended), there isn't much to complain about. California apparently realized that Memorial day is traditionally the start of summer and gave us absolutely beautiful weather. All the roads we hit were nicely paved, and everyone was riding pretty strong - if a bit strung out (definitely still some wildly different speeds). I tested and shared a few new food/drink samples and actually found a couple winners! (I seem to be cultivating popularity on rides by bringing enough snacks to share... even when they kinda suck. Guess I'm not the only one who likes to try out new eats!)

Brand	Flavor	Rated (1-10)	Notes
Food
Clif Bar Mini	Chocolate Chip	8.5	Possibly the highest rating I've ever given a bar. Clif took some of their classic flavors and shrunk them to roughly 1/3 of normal size. I already liked the flavor, but *really* dig the tiny form factor. I've never managed to eat even an entire half of a Clif Bar... so this is perfect for me.
Clif Shot	Chocolate	3	Clif giveth and he taketh away. I don't want to chew my gels - ever. Chocolate toothpaste might have sounded cool to me as a kid, but as a cyclist looking for a quick, easy to eat snack? Not so much. The flavor didn't compare to the GU version and the texture was terrible.
Luna Sport Moons	Pomegranate	8	I expected to hate this. Pomegranate just sounds too... rich for a successful cycling food. But I have to say that I was shocked at how much I liked the flavor. Super tasty tart-but-not-too-sour goodness and the exact same nutritional goodness of a Clif shot. I'll be stocking these.
Drinks
Clif Electrolyte Drink	Lemonade	2.5	I think I'll just rule out the rest of the Clif energy drinks out now. Same problem as the apple from last week - decent upfront flavor (actually slightly better than the apple) and a crushingly salty aftertaste. If I can't do Gatorade, there's no way I can do these.

We celebrated our ride success and the holiday with the traditional Memorial Day meal - P.F. Changs - and vowed to hit that same route up again soon. As it turns out, we'll be riding it again tomorrow!

OH! And for all my data nerds: Garmin is in the process of shutting down MotionBased and migrating to their new site, Garmin Connect. Most of my activities have already been moved over, save a few larger ones that will lag a few weeks. The new site is pretty awesome -- I love the look and feel, and the player functionality -- so I'll likely be uploading all my rides there going forward (MotionBased is actually shutting down for good later this year... I'm just trying to stay ahead of the curve!). That said, GarminConnect does not yet have any ViewPorts that I can export for this site, so for now you'll have to deal with screenshots from my dashboard. Never fear - they'll still click through to all the ubergeek info! Check it out!

After last Saturday's ride from Chain Reaction, I decided that I had the time (and energy) to go for a quick test ride on one of my new bike candidates. As it turns out, I was only right about the former. I asked the first saleswoman I saw free if I could take a short spin on the Trek 5.2 Madone WSD. They had to do some hunting in the back room for awhile -- only one 54cm frame left -- but quickly got my pedals swapped in and heights roughly adjusted after that. Rather that riding up and down Foothill, my lady recommended a route that wound up through mostly residential neighborhoods; less cars (and less chance of me ruining their bike) plus a baby climb.

Apparently my 23 mile ride just before this test loop had taken more out of me than expected. Almost as soon as I started uphill, I felt like my energy reserves were totally tapped - just this side of Bonkland. Darn it! Utterly worn down is not really how I imagined testing a bike. Still, I didn't know when I'd be back in Los Altos (or when I'd feel not guilty enough to ask someone to set a machine up for me again). I made three full laps around the neighborhood before I decided it was head back or pass out. By that time I'd learned pretty much what I needed to: I liked the bike, hated the saddle, and failed at the new shifters.

Big decisions are definitely not best made while starving. I gave the store the pretty ride back, reclaimed my slightly abused one and headed for the time honored cyclists standard refuel meal - Mexican. I recruited my two riding buddies for the "talk me out of" (aka "talk me into") buying that bike conversation. Their arguments were persuasive (seriously -- that pair made some surprisingly good points), but I still wasn't sold. We parted ways at the end of the meal, intending to chat more at Monday's scheduled ride.

I made it all the way to the car. I really did. I sat there and thought a bunch. Called the boy. Thought some more. And then, in case you somehow missed my 45 million tweets this weekend, I went back in and bought a bike! (Yes, I do feel a bit of shame for using the word tweet in such a trendy way. No, that doesn't stop me from doing it. Stop judging me!) It took almost 2 hours to get her fitted for me, geared up and paid for... but by 4pm I was on my way home with a two bikes in the back of the truck. Don't even get me started on what a pain it was to fit them both in there!

It was too late (and I was too tired) by the time I got home to ride again Saturday night. I contented myself with a bunch of pictures and the knowledge that I had an extra day of riding due to the holiday weekend. For your viewing pleasure, my new baby (kickass name still TBD).

At the store Back at home

As previously mentioned, she's a Trek 5.2 Madone WSD. I made a few swaps from stock in the store - higher stem, Terry Fly saddle - but mostly I have what's shown on the site. By Sunday night I'd also picked up and/or migrated over the necessities (bottle cages, tail pouch, Garmin), and had everything ready to roll for a Memorial Day break-in ride. She's new and she's mine... just in time for summer season kickoff!!

I love testing new cycling food, but (true to my ultra-picky nature) tend to hate most of it. Oddly enough, this never seem to diminish my enthusiasm for experimentation. I am consistently drawn in by the shiny packaging, cheap single packet costs and exciting sounding flavors... only to whine about them later. For extra bonus fun, my love for testing food has to be balanced against my general inclination to forget to eat on rides, or to only eat the bare minimum that'll keep me going (as too much food tends to make me nauseous). Therefore, in order to test new foods and actually complete rides, I typically have to carry backup items that I know I'll eat in case of emergency... and then force myself to consume one or the other in its entirety.

And man are there are lot of exciting, new, and (so far) mostly terrible things to try this season! I'm trying to front-load my testing phase (no sense bonking on a 60mi ride due to lack of electrolyte drinks), which means I've already started ripping through the bright neon pouches.

Brand	Flavor	Rated (1-10)	Notes
Food
Clif Shot	Razz	3	Sticky sweet to the point of nauseating, with that chemical-fruit flavor problem. Texture wise it wasn't terrible, but I couldn't manage to swallow more than a quarter of the packet
Clif Shot	Vanilla	3.5	Too sweet, but at least didn't sport a terrible chemical aftertaste. Overly pasty texture, but I did (with a lot of water) manage to eat the whole thing.
Clif Shot Bloks	Orange	6	Decent orange flavor and I always love their texture. Also dig the new "easy access" packaging. Odd aftertaste (possibly due to the caffeine?) knocks this one slightly below typical Clif Shot Blok average.
Clif Shot Blocks	Mountain Berry	8	Good flavor, no funky aftertaste, good texture. Excellent non-caffeinated block option.
Gu Chomps	Strawberry	8	Solid strawberry flavor with a non-offensive (not too sweet) aftertaste. Good texture, but a little annoyed at the giant packaging. Fully support anything that can combine caffeine and berry in a tasty way though.
Drinks
Clif Electrolyte Drink	Crisp Apple	2	Excellent apple flavor on the front is utterly crushed by terrible salt flavor on the back end (had I read the website before buying, I would have known this was the intention and sidestepped this one). Definitely not for me. Ewie... salt.
Luna Sport Recovery Smoothie	Dark Chocolate	4	Someone took a chocolate milkshake and removed the milk, leaving... chocolate water. Tastes exactly like what it promises. May try again blended with milk, but not sure how much dairy I actually want in a post-ride drink.

No good news on the drink front so far, but the chewy snacks are faring well. I've got at least a dozen or more options till to burn through, so I'm still hopeful for a few more gems to come out!