Making The Commute Count

Yes I'm riding a road bike on the dirt...

I live about 8 miles as the crow flies from my house to the office.  On a good day, depending on traffic lights, I can straight-shot this on my road bike in 15-20 min - faster than I can drive usually.  For a long time this is what I would do on the 2-3 days I rode to work each week. The ride back home was a steady climb and I could push pretty good for 30-45 min.  Not bad considering I could be sitting in traffic with everyone else wasting time.

This year I started incorporating more training into my ride to work.  Rather than a straight shot I started leaving earlier choosing less direct routes with more elevation loss/gain. That 8 miles turned into 22+ one-way.  Add an extra 10-14 lbs in a backpack with a small laptop, lunch, and a change of clothes and I was set up for a pretty good workout.  Still all I was doing at this point was riding semi-hard (hard at times) for 1-2 hours.

Some weeks these commutes are all I have to keep my fitness up with the demands of work, family, life, etc.  Recently I decided to take things to another level with some more specific training in the form of 20-40 intervals.  I like these because they are simple only requiring a good steady climb and 4-5 min per set to complete.  I got the idea from Dave Wiens in his ROAD TO LEADVILLE: RUN FOR THE HILLS blog post (I am self-coached currently and try to glean what I can from the professionals).  No doubt there is much more I could be doing, but these are simple and straight forward and one can "throw a set into a ride at anytime, early on, toward the end, etc".  

I've been experimenting with different sections of my commute to find the perfect hill I can get a set or two in on without too much interruption and may have it dialed in.  It will be interesting to see how I feel  next month in the Park City Point-to-Point with a few more weeks of these under my belt.

Update:

I found another 20-40's quote from Wiens in this post.  "I’m toying with throwing in a set of 20-40’s, too, like I did yesterday. That’s the cool thing about 20-40’s, you can just drop a set in anytime you want to, even riding your townie to the store or the pub. People might think you’re off your rocker but who cares what people think anyway, right?"

More Training Links From Dave's Blog:

AMU (All Mixed UP)

Ready, Set, Suffer! Scenes From The 2010 Colorado Trail Race

I spent yesterday morning at the start of the 2010 Colorado Trail Race.  Below is a look into the start of one of the hardest endurance races in the world.  Look for a full writeup in my Epic Riding blog post.

Interview with Jeff Kerkove of the Topeak-Ergon racing team.  My interview skills were lame but he was a good sport about it.




Ethan Passant Introduction



Riding around the start of the race with my Flip Ultra.



More riding around killing time at the start.
The best quote of the day came from Eszter Horanyi "I could be at work right now."




 The view from the top of my head as the race gets under way. There was some confusion leading into the single track as there are multiple trails to choose from.  I might have disqualified everyone in the whole race by shouting "keep going straight" but we'll keep that a secret.  I do 70% of my riding in Indian Creek so the trails here are familiar.




The view riding the first few miles of singletrack.  Here you will see the likes of Dave Harris whom I crashed right in front of  for no apparent reason (sorry Dave), Jesses Jakomait, and Jeff Kerkove.  I rode behind Jeff for 15-20 min before stopping to get some footage of the riders behind us at Lenny's Rest - where the Indian Creek dumps into the Colorado Trail.




Racers leading into The Colorado Trail at "Lenny's Rest" near Watterton Canyon.  I pretty much got a shot of everyone excluding the leading 3 riders.



Flickr Photo Stream: Race Start + Many others



Jeff Wolfe riding with Bob Butrico



Flickr Photo Stream: Jeff Kerkove's Photos




And lastly.... I have this baby for sale if anyone wants a CTR race bike for 2011!

Related Links:
CyclingNews.com
Dave Harris (2-epic.com): CTR decompression chamber
Gooneyriders
Jeff Kerkove : Race Report: Colorado Trail Race
Mountain Flyer: Passant Wins 2010 Colorado Trail Race
NPR: Denver to Durango...The Hard Way

Singletrack In The Dark?

Yes I do it occasionally.  I ride my bike on winding singletrack, in the mountains, in the dark with a light attached to my helmet.  Some people think this is crazy.  To them I say try it.  It is a load of fun and yes a little crazy at times.

For some reason darkness can bring a whole new excitement to ordinary life.  Remember those neighborhood night games you used to play in the dark as a kid (ok perhaps you had better things to do, I didn't)?  The trees, streets, and side yards provided a whole new exciting experience when coupled with the task of "capture the flag" or "kick the can".  In daylight the backyard was just the backyard.  At night it was a battlefield of night game fun.

Similarly, riding at night can make those trails you've ridden hundreds of times come to life again.  Bumps, rocks, corners, climbs, descents.. they all look very different.  Add a few friends and the experience only gets better.

Last night I partook of some of this madness on the one-track at Indian Creek.  I added this fun riding to the 2+ hours of pain I put in earlier in the evening making a total of 4+ hours on the bike.  I'm in the last few weeks of training in preparation for the Park City Point-to-Point in September so this was some much needed saddle time.

Laurence Sones - Contemplating what he as gotten himself into.

Roger Stones - Ready to light the rocket engines up the shack trail.

Google Earth view of my ride.  A few trails were repeated.

Vacation

It's been a long time since I stepped foot in the cubicle I call home 40+ hours a week.  Two weeks in fact.  It's also been a long time since I mowed the lawn.  From the looks of it I need a lawn bailer rather than a lawn mower to get things back under control.

I've been on vacation... and it has been nice.

Plenty of family time to go around.

Amy and I atop Mount Baldy - Uinta National Forrest

Java in Fehr Lake - Uinta National Forrest

Fehr Lake - Uinta National Forrest

Plenty of riding time to go around as well.

Bald Mountain Pass - High Uintas

Wardsworth Trailhead - Hobble Creek Canyon / Mapleton Utah

Aaron Smith and Adam Lisonbee - Near Mount Timpanogos in Adam's playground.

Adam's Huge Stan's Monster

A cool photo Adam took of me that made me look really cool.  Did I mention I think this is a cool photo?

More video of the trails we were riding in that area.  Also check out the Epic Riding post.

Even with all of the family fun, I did manage to get in a race at Sundance with Keith Payne.

It was a long and hot drive back home over the Utah desert.  The Subaru almost gave up the ghost near Grand Junction but we made it.

Hitting The Redline In Sundance

Tonight I participated in one of the Weekly Race Series races at Sundance Resort which is about 15 min east of Provo, Utah in the shadow of Mount Timpanogos.  This was one of 17 short XC races in the series which bounces between Soldier Hollow and Sundance every Wednesday.  I tagged along with Keith Payne, team manager of the local Mad Dog Race Team here in Utah county.  Keith has been in his role as team manager for over 10 years.  The team had a very strong showing at this evenings race and it was great to meet and race with a few of the members.  For anyone that isn't aware, northern Utah has some AMAZING singletrack.  Sundance is no exception.

The course was pretty straight forward: 3-laps that climb up one side of the resort and descend down the other (clockwise starting at the bottom in the photo shown above) with a short uphill start on paved road.  The whole race was just under 2k elevation gain in10 miles.

The race started as expected: hammer-down up the road to the singletrack (not my forte).

I rode 1/2 of the race with Keith sticking on his back wheel until mid lap 2 where he let me by (apparently had enough of my loud breathing on his wheel).  Keith has a strong engine and a good downhill game.  He had no trouble keeping up with me on my dual-springer on the downhill riding his hard-tail 29" Gary Fisher Superfly.  It was pretty rough in sections and he held the bike to the trail really well.  I rode a little timidly on the descents for the first 2 laps not knowing the trail really well even after a pre-race lap.

By lap 3 I was sitting in 5th place with Keith and another rider a few turns behind.  I settled into a good pace (I'm hard-coded to endurance racing at this point) and maintained my lead on those behind me as we all closed the gap between the 3rd and 4th place riders who were riding together.  A final straightaway at the top and it was all downhill to the finish line.  I knew from lap 2 that the rider with Keith (and Keith himself) had a strong downhill game so I needed to bomb the descent to try and hold them off.

The plan was working until ...

1/4 way down I heard my back tire hiss as I mowed over a rough, rocky section.  Great I thought as I started getting sprays of Stan's on my backside. I rode a little further then stopped and injected some compressed air, then rode a little more and repeated hoping the hole was small enough to seal up.  This process took a few min but did work.  By then Keith and two other riders had passed me.  The good news was that my tire sealed up and I would not have to throw in a tube.  The bad news was that I had slid back to 9th where I remained to the finish.

Good times!

Riding to the race with Keith Payne.  Adam Lisonbee is on the phone.