mileage « Bike Noob

To get better — ride more

November 1, 2009 at 11:34 pm | In Records & stats, training | 3 Comments
Tags: mileage

I joined the club for its Sunday morning ride today. The B’s did a 30-mile round trip over rolling hills out in the country. It’s the fifth time this year I’ve done the ride, and I noticed one thing above all else: it’s getting easier.

That’s not to say it’s an easy ride. The hills offer plenty of challenge. But when I compare my ride time and average speed from when I first did the ride this year, they’re better.

I think there’s only one reason for it. I’ve ridden more this year than last. In fact, when I checked my stats at the end of today’s ride, I found that I hit 2,679 miles for the year. That’s two miles more than I rode all of last year. And there are still two more months to go. I should finish 2009 with a nice mileage total.

Although I haven’t done a century ride this year — my longest ride was 77 miles — I’m putting in more miles on the typical ride. I’m at 21.6 miles on average now. That might not mean much, but I think riding longer toughens a person, and helps prepare for the longer distance rides.

I’ll keep it up, I hope, at my current pace. I ride three times a week, four if I get lucky. I work on different aspects of my riding — cadence, hills, intervals — but mainly, I just ride. Let’s see — by riding another 320 miles over the next two months, I can finish the year at 3,000 miles. Heck, that’s doable. We’ll see if I reach that mark by Dec. 31st.

Autumn doldrums

November 30, 2008 at 2:11 pm | In training | 1 Comment
Tags: fitness, mileage, winter riding

Yeah, I know, the doldrums are associated with hot weather, and it’s actually starting to get a bit cool around here now. But given the way my biking has been going over the last few weeks, I think I qualify for being in at least the biking doldrums.

I’ll blame it on my century ride. Leading up to that ride, I worked hard to put in the mileage that would allow me to finish it without struggling. I got stronger on hills, my endurance improved, my weight dropped (a little bit). It was fun to see how many miles I rode in a given month. I was in the mid-300s in July and August.

After the century, I no longer felt the urgency to get out and ride. I still tried to ride often, but found it easy to make excuses: Since the crash in October, I haven’t been motivated to go out on the Sunday morning rides with the club, Daylight Saving Time is ending, it’s getting chillier during the times I prefer to ride, I’m just not up for it today, etc. That’s really had an impact on my riding in November. My weight, too. I’m up about seven pounds.

After a 12-mile ride today, I made my usual visit to Bike Journal, where I entered my mileage figures. No 300 miles this month. My whopping total for November is 132. (At least I got out today. On Thanksgiving, we went to the fitness club where Mrs. Noob belongs, and I “rode” a stationary bike. Whoopee.)

Hey, I’m not Mr. Hardcore. I’ll get out there as the spirit moves me. I bundled up today to deal with a stiff wind. But I think I’m in the maintenance mode for awhile. Around February, I expect to step it up as I start getting ready for the MS 150 in April. On the plus side, Austin’s winters are mild enough that we can get out on the bike all year around.

Two grand

September 21, 2008 at 1:15 pm | In Records & stats, Rides, clubs, training | 4 Comments
Tags: clubs, hills, Loop 360, mileage

The Sunday morning club ride was another hills excursion. Geez, these guys like to ride hills. I took one look at the proposed route, and figured it was not for me. However, to get out to their hills, they would take a route I’ve done before — so I told the ride leader I would ride part way with them, but then break off on my own.

Once we got started, a familiar rider pulled up next to me — my friend David. He had gotten a late start, and was about a block from our Starbucks starting point when he saw us pull out. He pushed hard to catch up.

But he didn’t have it today. After about five miles, we hit some moderate hills — a precursor of things to come — and he dropped off the back. I thought he would be able to catch up, but we didn’t see him again, even after waiting awhile in a church parking lot at the top of a killer hill (I walked my bike up that one!). By the way, church parking lots probably are not the best places to regroup on Sunday mornings, especially between services!

Then we headed out to Loop 360, the best-known biking road in Austin. Long uphills, followed by long downhills. Six mph going up, 38 going down. Fun. The group turned into a ritzy golf course neighborhood to head for their hill route. I kept going north on 360.

Pennybacker Bridge. Image from www.texasescapes.com.

I hadn’t been this far north on 360 before. You get to cross an Austin landmark, the Pennybacker bridge, over Lake Austin (which is really the Colorado River). The bridge surface is roughed-up concrete, so if it ices up in cold weather, car tires will still get a grip. So crossing the bridge is not smooth going. No problem, though, and I soon found myself at my predesignated turnaround spot, the Arboretum. It’s not a park with flowers, but an upscale shopping center. With shade! I took a break, ate a Lara Bar, drank some Heed, shook out my foot, and turned around to head back.

The trip home was uneventful. My average speed was slower than I’d like — 14.4 mph — but no big deal. A more telling stat is my new total mileage for the year: 2,031. I crossed the two-thousand mile mark for the year on this ride. Never in my wildest imagination last January did I think I would put in so many miles. It took me five-and-a-half months to get my first 1,000 miles in this year, but only three months and eight days to get in the second thousand. Summer will do that for you — more riding time, longer mileage per ride, and a big increase in monthly mileage. I’ve also noticed the length of my average ride is increasing. Rarely am I satisfied to go just 14 miles anymore. Eighteen is closer to the norm.

I still am not shooting for a mileage goal for the year. The miles will come, and I’m more focused on the century ride coming up next month (I’m concerned that my long rides aren’t getting long enough, fast enough). For now, as David Bernstein of the Fredcast says, I’m going to “Enjoy the ride.”

Measuring improvement

July 2, 2008 at 9:42 pm | In Rides, training | 6 Comments
Tags: avg. speed, improvement, mileage, Mopac

I got out for a short ride today — a bit of a treat, because I rarely get to ride two days in a row — and a bit of a downer, because I had to cut the ride short. But as I was mumbling to myself about what rotten luck I had that limited me to only a 13-mile ride, it occurred to me that I could put this ride to good use.

The ride was one loop of my Mopac route, one that’s popular around here not because it’s scenic, or challenging, but because it’s convenient. It has enough hills to make you work a bit, and there’s one downhill section where you can easily top 30 mph. There’s usually enough wind to add to your effort. By the way, the road is called the Mopac Expressway because farther north in Austin, the Union Pacific railroad tracks run between the northbound and southbound lanes. Before Union Pacific took it over the line was the Missouri Pacific, or Mopac.

Another rider leads me up a long hill on Mopac on a recent Sunday morning ride.

It’s the very first ride I logged when I realized I was going to get serious about biking last year. So that means I can compare my times on a ride of the same length over a period of months. Maybe I can learn something from this exercise. The route is 13.1 miles long.

August 8, 2007: 57 minutes, 8 seconds — avg. speed 13.65 mph.
August 15, 2007: 54:30, 14.51 mph
October 12, 2007: 49:53, 15.65 mph
November 30, ‘07: 56:04, 14.08 mph
December 31, ‘07: 55:53, 14.07 mph
February 29, 2008: 45:50, 17.15 mph
July 2, 2008, 47:08, 16.7 mph

In 11 months of riding, I have cut 10 minutes from a 13.1-mile route, and improved my average speed by just over 3 mph. These results are very gratifying.

An important factor in my improvement is my new bike. I got the Specialized Allez Elite in February, so the Feb. 29 ride was the first one on this bike. Its lightness over the old steel Raleigh is perhaps the main reason my times have improved so much. But so is conditioning. I’m only about 10 pounds lighter than at this point last year, but I’ve got more power in my legs and more endurance, and I hope I’m a more savvy rider.

Eleven months ago, a single loop on Mopac was a long ride for me. Now, as the table shows, I don’t do single loops much anymore. Usually, I’ll do two or three loops in a single ride, or I’ll combine a Mopac loop with another route.

That’s part of improvement, too — adding distance. My current shortest ride is longer than the 13-miles of Mopac. So I’ll just keep plugging away, knowing that over time, I’ll just keep getting better. I’m encouraged.

A milestone comes early

June 13, 2008 at 9:13 pm | In Records & stats, training | 7 Comments
Tags: mileage, Rides

When the year began, I tried to predict how many miles I’d ride. Based on my numbers for the last five months of ‘07, I guessed I would cover about 1,200 miles in ‘08. Looks like that will be inaccurate.

After today’s ride, I found that I have already broken the 1,000 mile barrier. To be precise, 1,008 miles since the beginning of the year. I might be able to hit 1,200 by the end of the month.

So, how far upward should I revise my mileage goal for 2008? A reasonable figure would be 2,000 miles, which would give me six months to duplicate what I’ve already done in the first six months. Or should I set a mileage goal at all? Why not just plan on riding as regularly as possible, and let the chips fall.

I want to get some more long organized rides in this year, and have even been kicking around the idea of going after a century, perhaps in the fall. To do that, I will have to increase my weekly mileage as well as my long ride mileage. That seems a more sensible plan than just trying to hit a big number by year’s end. And by working on the training goals, the year-long mileage will just take care of itself.