Hi all, I'm exhilarated at having completed the 72 mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe today! I was quite apprehensive last weekend, but then took control over my negative thoughts and decided to just ride it and see how far I got. And I got to the end!
I drove to LT yesterday and brought my Homer. Just for kicks, the Homer is equipped with 35mm Bon Jon tires with latex tubes, Honjo fenders, Compass Rando 44mm bars taped with Brooks leather tape, C17 Cambium rust saddle, front Sackville Trunksack small, rear Acorn large original tan saddlebag, standard Sugino triple crankset 24/36/46 and 9 speed 12-34 cassette (o how I love thee), DuraAce down tube shifters and flat pedals. I transported the bike on my new 1UP 2" Super Duty Single Bike Rack (first time I use it) with the adapter for bikes with fenders. The rack is outstanding! The bike didn't budge the whole way even when I hit 85+mph on the freeway. I also got the extension to be able to carry a second bike, but don't need it right now. An additional benefit of the single rack is that even when stored up, it doesn't interfere with the trunk door on my Highlander. https://www.1upusa.com/product-SDquikracksilver.html Wasn't sure about how I would do on the ride with my LCHF diet, so after mulling my options and getting discouraged to bring hard boiled eggs by a friend who said they go bad very quickly and easily, I decided to bring sardines in olive oil instead. I got them out of the can and into a ziplock bag and brought a spork. I also bought a bag of smoked almonds for the salt and taste and backed it all up with a couple of packets of GU chomps, just in case. I only had a black coffee in my room before leaving at 6:06 am and rode without eating anything for the first two hours, including the Emerald Bay climb. At hour two I decided to start taking the GU chomps (only one at a time) to ensure I had enough carb support and wouldn't bonk later on. Honestly, I think I could have done without them, at least until the second half of the ride when the climb to Spooner almost got me. I refilled my water bottles with just plain water at the first rest stop and had a banana on the second rest stop as well as a handful of almonds. On the third rest stop (lunch rest stop) at mile 42 I had my sardines with just some water and promptly continued. There's a water stop half-way up the climb to Spooner at mile 54 which I almost thought I wouldn't make. I had more Gu chomps (I had been eating them throughout the ride), but had to stop regularly during the climb. The sun was hot, my Garmin read all the way up to 107.4 degrees and there was no shade. I would stop when I felt my butt and legs needed a rest, wait a bit, and then continue. All throughout the ride I had made it a goal to pedal at a high cadence (for me) between 85 - 95 and that helped "save" my legs tremendously. Additionally, since there was very little load on the pedals, my feet didn't hurt until the very end when I was pedaling harder on the series of climbs you hit on the last 12 miles. Then they bothered me a bit. It also helped that I found a pair of really comfortable wide shoes in the Shimano Click'R CT71 with the SOLE Dean Karnazes custom foot beds reinforced with the Pedag Metatarsal Pads from Natural Footgear. I don't wear the shoes clipped in, but they offer the option. These are now my favorite shoes enhanced as described above. I wore my MUSA RBW wool zip top (black) under my MUSA RBW blue thin wool jersey. I was planning on removing the zip top when it got warm, but I actually kept it the whole time, even when during the Spooner climb when the temps hit 107.4. The breeze was cool and I just didn't feel the need. I wore AeroTech Designs (excellent for the larger among us) knickers for the whole day as well. Thin wool socks to complete my outfit. I forgot to bring a wool beanie and long fingered gloves, but even with the 41F morning temperatures, I did fine with my short fingered classic gloves. Now for some interesting (for me) stuff I discovered. As you may know, I've been training using the Maffetone method for the past 8 weeks and it's been great, coupled with the LCHF diet. You know the piece about how the diet worked during the ride, or better yet, how I managed it. On my next long events, I'll just do the almonds and the sardines, plus the bananas available at the rest stops. On my regular rides I don't eat, just drink water. The Maffetone method has you training exclusively at your MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function) heart rate, which you estimate by substracting your age from 180 and fine tuning it for your state of fitness, illness, etc. For me, at 56, it meant that my maximum HR is 124, and even though in some of my training rides it goes up to 126 or 127 during climbs, Maffettone is very specific that that is a big NO-NO. This means you need to actually train at 120, to allow for the delay in the HR when you do a small additional effort. Maffetone (and Sisson) recommend a minimum of 8 weeks of base building at the MAF HR and optionally doing very high training for up to 3 weeks after the 8 weeks of base reducing the volume a lot. The main emphasis is still on the base building which is what you should be doing almost all the time. The premise, of course, is that even though at first it feels like it is too slow, as you get aerobically fitter, you start riding faster without elevating the HR, therefore reducing inflammation and stress from excessive training. After 8 weeks, I'm a convert. I haven't finished reading Maffetone's big book on endurance training, but there were comments made in his book and in Sisson's book that usually during events, you go a bit harder; I just didn't know what it meant for me. So my plan was to ride the first half of the ride at my 124 MAF HR so I would be as fresh as possible for the Spooner climb and to be able to finish. And here I found my first glitch. At the Lake Tahoe elevation of about 6200', my HR was higher than that even at the start. The only way to hit 124 was coasting downhill. At the same perceived level of exertion, when riding flat terrain, my HR was around 144. So I went with it. My average HR during the ride was 144, my HR during the climbs when I was pacing myself to keep a high cadence (24/36 combo I love you!) was around 152 and only at the end, when I pushed myself harder did my max HR get to 167 briefly, hovering mostly around 162. So for me it's pretty clear. I'll continue using the Maffetone method, losing weight with the LCHF diet and ride into the sunset, faster and faster at my aerobic pace! Switching subjects, I got quite a good number of compliments on the bike, with the usual assessments that I was riding a vintage bike and/or old school. One rider recognized it and turned to give me a huge compliment. There were a couple of other riders riding true vintage steel bikes that also offered their compliments. The best assessment was from a volunteer at the rest stop on Spooner (last rest stop). He hovered over my bike while I was filling my water bottles and offered his assessment: This is probably the coolest bike of the whole ride I've seen; well, there were a couple of Moots bikes that were awesome, but this one is the best. Everyone else is on the boring carbon bikes with wireless DuraAce... How boring is that! :-) The biggest surprise of the ride happened during the Spooner climb at the arrival to the water stop mid climb. A gentleman named Tom, from the Carson valley, I believe, was riding a gray RBW Protovelo that I identified as a pre-Joe Apaloosa. He was less young than me, fitter than me (no overweight load to carry up the climb) and was also having a great time. I took some pictures, because they tell the whole story! :-) I'm writing this as I have a luxurious dinner of lamb rack and other stuff, not all LCHF but it's my reward (also not too off either). I'm a bit sore, but as you can guess, extremely happy and proud of myself. I didn't really think I would be able to do it, but I did. The Homer behaved perfectly, but I discovered a couple of quirks that don't show up in my regular rides. - My FD was a bit off, and in the high speed descents (I hit 39 mph in the morning coming down from the first rest stop) it would drop the chain to the outside. It never did that before, so on the second rest stop I asked a mechanic (volunteer service) to take a look at it and after complaining that the bike was SO HEAVY when he put it on the stand, he made some small adjustments that took care of the problem. Now the front shifting is better than ever! It's so incredibly smooth I'm completely mesmerized. All he did was rotate the rear of the cage slightly outward and bring the high limiter in a tiny bit. I'm going to take photos from all angles to use them as reference for all my other front derailers. - On the same high speed descents, when I would stop pedaling and bring my feet to a stop, the inertia from the chain and rear wheel would cause it to "bunch" on the top and then as the XT rear derailleur extended, it would snap back and kick the bike. There was no harm, but it was annoying. On the descent from the Spooner stop on the 50 Freeway, I hit 42.3 mph coasting. The Homer with the Compass tires descended so well that I didn't even feel scared one bit. I remember doing this descent years ago on my carbon road bikes with 23" tires and being scared sh__less. It was the only times during the day when I passed other riders. Everyone passed me on the climbs! :-) All in all, the Homer was awesome. I did this ride pretty much self-supported and it was awesome. Needless to say, I'll have to test how my upcoming custom compares against it when I receive it. I'm hoping it will be ready to do the Metric Century at the Marin Century in August, but we'll see. Photos are coming shortly, after I do a bit of editing and get WiFi to upload them. Thank you all for your support, and for reading all the way to the end! Now looking forward to meeting some of you on the Riv ride in late June, trying to come in for the day on Saturday. Best! René -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
