Step, by step. Slowly it turns…

So it’s looking a lot like this (an AP photo by Jim Cole) around here these days. The days are bright with autumn sunshine, the air is crisp and clean. I can’t say enough about this time of year… except when I get up to ride at 5:30am. This morning it was 32 degrees F… also known as freezing. And a bit breezy. The problem is that after a few hours it can be significantly warmer out, and you need to figure the layers and compressibility, so that you might be able to shed something later, and stick in a pocket.

This morning I guessed wrong. And I payed the price. We had a nice route going, where there is this nice steady climb. Especially this time of year, it kicks my butt. But that’s what I’m out there for, so that was fine. Sure, Gerry felt the need to inquire of my plans for succession at the top of a long climb, but fear not. I’ve been there before, just not quite under dressed for the weather like today.

The kicker is when I dress too lightly and then climb, it costs me. First, I’m cold starting the climb. I feel weak and small. Then I warm up, and start to sweat. All fine until you reach the usually joyful downhill. Now it’s just freezes that sweat to your body, and makes you feel exceptionally cold. In more serious weather it’s a great way to get hypothermic. Today, it was just annoying, but made me cut my intended ride short. I did find a balance again when we took a short break and I stood in the sun for a few minutes. The rest, the sun, and then a nice pace brought me back to comfortable enough, but the ride had been long enough and uncomfortable enough that I didn’t feel like continuing. 24 uncomfortable miles. Here’s the thing. Despite all the whining and all about my screwing up a ride, it was a glorious fall day for ride. The light is amazing, the leaves are spectacular, the neighborhoods we ride through are well kept and quaint. The folks I ride with all the time always have interesting topics and trivia to discuss, and never seem to have an agenda about well, just about anything on the rides. Just one more layer… one more layer.

(Two other mistakes I made today… thinking it would be warmer since it was “an hour later”, and “I should be wide awake” since it was “an hour later”. Not so much on either count.)

A bunch of friends got together to ride on a glorious fall day. I met Gerry early to get in some additional miles, and as always, appreciate his experience and insight. Gerry, for all the teasing he takes is a remarkable athlete who has ridden well over 100,000 miles this decade. And that doesn’t begin to include his running or anything else. Fortunately for me Gerry is an early riser, and since I almost always have to ride early in the day, I can often catch up with him somewhere, and often he’s already been riding for a while. I’m not sure how far he had gone this morning before he met with me, but I had layered up and was ready. We spun out and had a nice pre ride spin, and caught up a bit. He’s been competing in a number of events and doing rather well.

Back at Piermont, I said hello to the guys, checked up on a couple of little things and then headed out with the group. A lovely bunch of folks, including one person who has been rehabbing for a while and is finally back on their bike, and in a related way I learned that someone who I’ve known for a while (just as smartest and lovely person as you could wish to meet, Hi Rita!) lives around the corner from me. I can’t begin to count how many times I must have ridden by her house.

Anyway, today was the perfect day for a rambling ride, enjoying the beautiful fall light, the leaves, and the crisp clean air. Add a great bunch of folks… and it’s magic.

I also completely ripped up two town line sprints after getting toasted by Jenni with the excuse that (wait for it…) I didn’t know we were competing until after she blew by me.

And below… one more piece of soon to be acquired winter gear… although I intend to get the 183 version for the front.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

I continue to prepare for the winter biking season. It can be very hard to get out 5:30am on a Sunday morning this time of year. It’s dark, it’s cold, and generally not pleasant. Worse, you know it’s going to be much warmer and brighter later… when I can’t usually ride because of other obligations. That leaves me with a mostly mental battle — like my ride yesterday started out at 36 degrees F. Still some actual preparation takes place… I changed wheels on my road bike to a stronger wheel with rubber that has a bit more tread to it on the corners. The strength comes in handy hopping over fallen branches etc. The next step is over to the truly fat road tires (which requires a change of bike — heh). Clothing got sorted and cleaned. Gloves have gone from fingerless, to light, to medium. We’ve quickly blown through arm and leg warmers in the early morning, that season has passed already for me. But all in all, it’s mostly getting ready for the freezing cold starts, and often colder feeling finishes. It’s also remembering to bring something to blow one’s nose with, and taking a moment now and again to do so. That makes cold weather riding far more comfortable for me.

Below, a new set of King cages, featherweight titanium bottle cages made from “left over” titanium tubing from the airline industry. Light, strong, and they don’t markup one’s bottles, and further, match the “weapon of choice::winter division” very nicely. Coming soonish now… one hopes.

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.
~Carol Bishop Hipps

6:13am this morning I was already in Piermont, and starting my ride. Nasty for a weekend, but that’s the price I pay for having a full life. No real complaints… except it is seriously cold these days in the morning. And dark. Like, no going anywhere without lights dark. Fortunately traffic is light at that hour on Sunday. However, you can’t really relax, because the folks who are up at that hour seem generally annoyed that they have to be up at that hour on Sunday. Maybe surly would be a better description.

On a similar ride last week, I was feeling terrible. That is, I kept looking down at the speedo and seeing really low numbers. 9mph, 12mph and I felt I was working really hard. At first I chalked it up to the early hour. Then I got worried my ride partner would get annoyed at the pace and pick it up, and really I felt like I couldn’t really go a whole lot faster for very long. Strange I thought, that I have so little this day, but it happens sometimes (usually a mental thing) and since my ride partner was not complaining about the pace… who cares?

We get to the bottom of our loop and after a small climb we hit a gradual but long downhill section… one where we almost always enjoy gravity and push for whatever we’ve got. So off we go and I’m feeling like it should when we’re cruising at 24mph or so… except I look down at the speedo and 16.5, 17… Huh? not possible. There’s a permanent radar installation near a school we were just about to pass. I look up and sure enough 24 or so. Aha! Hey, Jenni! What does your speedo say? 23 or so Why? Tell ya later…

So here’s the payoff. After the last ride I commented to Jenni how slow the avg. speed had been on the ride. So she had tried hard to pay attention to the pace and keep things moving. (I, of course, thought I was going to collapse moving at what I thought was only 12mph.) Naturally, the speedo was set wrong for the previous ride also (the wheel size was set wrong). So she pushed because she wanted me to have a good ride, and I pushed the pace because I thought I was moving at a snails pace with the end result being one of the fastest rides of the year. Silly. And it leads me to this.

I often ride without any “data” like a speedo. I don’t have one on every bike. And there is something to be said for that. You trust your feelings entirely with no other gauge available. Now I enjoy seeing the numbers and having the data. Measurement is one of the few ways to ensure progress. But times like this make me want to ditch the thing entirely. All of us had a good chuckle about it though.