Ride OzGolf Ride

[Toolish]

Got a computer...no cadence option so will have to be a new one to get cadence. Also need to look at getting some shoes too.

Did 40min on the trainer last night...sat on about 140bpm to see how it would go. tougher than road riding for sure as there is no break. Thinking for the next bit will be a couple of weekday sessions on the trainer then a long ride outside on the weekend.

[goughy]

Got up to 56k today! Longest ride yet, but still need to get it higher over the coming months. Bloody cold though!!! Got out to Cambooya and the ground was covered in frost. Must have been close to 0 degrees. Ordered a thermal jacket/vest on Friday so hope it turns up soon. Layered up in full skins (bigW cheapies of course), jersey and cycling shorts and arm and leg warmers, beanie etc. Was almost enough but not quite. And the fingerless gloves just don't cut it.

[giddyupgaz]

What type of bike would you guys recommend for someone trying to get started riding?
I am looking to stay on the roads mostly, but the trip to the Cricket Club does have a short patch of gravel.
looking for comfort, ease of pushing and as light as possible. would rather not pay $1k as well, what am I looking for?

[Grunt]

Go for a hybrid if you are going to do more that a little off road riding. Not sure of what you can get for $1000.
Maybe a decent 2nd hand Mountain Bike. Fit some slicker tyres on it and you have a decent hybrid of sorts for waht you are looking for.

[giddyupgaz]

Cheers grunt - will troll the bay

[goughy]

Grunt's pretty much right! Keep an eye on fleabay. Either a mountain bike or a flat bar road bike (looks like a cross between a mountain and road bike) would be the go. Sometimes called commuters, sometimes hybrids.

[Toolish]

Got up to 56k today! Longest ride yet, but still need to get it higher over the coming months. Bloody cold though!!! Got out to Cambooya and the ground was covered in frost. Must have been close to 0 degrees. Ordered a thermal jacket/vest on Friday so hope it turns up soon. Layered up in full skins (bigW cheapies of course), jersey and cycling shorts and arm and leg warmers, beanie etc. Was almost enough but not quite. And the fingerless gloves just don't cut it.

Nice work, how did you pull up. My couple of 50km+ rides have left me feeling pretty spent and very hungry. Are you planning to do some 90ish rides before the big day to see how it goes pace wise etc?

I see Torpedo 7 has a special on arm and leg warmers so about to order some of them.

I had big plans of a long ride this morning but the baby decided she needed to be awake from 11pm to 3am overnight so I slept in, no ride. Will head out to the trainer later tonight though.

[goughy]

I'll be trying to get up to some 80+k with a bit of a brick off of them. And maybe some 40 to 50+k with maybe 5 to 10k run afterwards. Basically I need to keep up one long run and one long ride a week, but can probably keep up my speed work, swimming etc.

Didn't pull up too bad actually, and planned on bricking off of it but the fam wanted pancakes instead.

I'm most keen to get into the new house 'cause I'll have room for the trainer and spend some decent sessions in the mornings on it.

[Toolish]

Just spent an hour on the mag trainer keeping heart rate between 140-150, bloody hard work. Much harder than road riding!

[goughy]

It is. And riding you will average like 10bpm less than if you'd been running. I struggle to get my hr up on the bike. My knees give out before my heart does!

[goughy]

Longest ride today, about 60k. Kind of an easy ride where the avg speed was only 21k/hr for most of it. Can't wait till my garmin gets here as I think it'll chart things more so and also I think it'll keep a check on how much climbing we do. I seem to spend a lot of time going uphill at 15 to 20k/hr.

But booked it over the last 7 or so k home keeping it up around 30 to 50k/hr. I'd love to get on a flat course and actually see what average I could keep up. I just don't know what my 22k average is worth on a flatter course. But I'd like to average at least 30k/hr on a flat track.

[Fishman Dan]

Geez Goughy... you wouldn't get off the first cog if we were to ever cycle together!

I finally threw Ella into the baby seat yesterday. She sat in there comfortably enough while I did 2 laps of the kiddy park at Homebush, but she kept murmuring for her Mum so the fun was short lived. She quietened down when I picked up some speed - I don't know if that was due to terror or enjoyment, but hey - it worked!

It was a triumph though - I bought her a helmet about 2 months ago, and any time we put it near her in the house she'd back away and say "Nooooooooo" - not sure what she thought of it, but it couldn't have been good!

I ended up cycling home from Homebush - an 8 km lap around the precinct then over the rail bridge to Meadowbank. Far hillier on my side of the Parramatta River, I think I took a bad route home to avoid traffic, some shocking slopes for a guy who hasn't been riding enough. Still..... I beat the girls home (they stayed at Homebush to play on the swings).

[Dotty]

Fish, when I was living at Denistone and just starting, I used to take the road bridge (no cycle bridge then), stay close to the river through Putney and head up Tennyson Avenue, right onto Victoria and left onto Ryde Road. (Anything west of Tennyson Road was too steep to get up to Victoria or Blaxland Roads.)

This thread got my arse into gear last week and found some more suitable handlebars. (It was as bad a driver shafts, with diameters, bend points, lengths, etc. and managed to get a 'pullout' from a mate's mate, and he also had a carbon seat-post in the right size.)

Had a quick ride, while fitting the bars. Felt great, but nervous as hell on the wet road. Now EOFY changes are done, I might try for a few midweek rides.

[goughy]

Geez Goughy... you wouldn't get off the first cog if we were to ever cycle together!

You should try the spin sessions I do on Tuesday mornings. 3 minutes at 130+ cadence is a killer!

[Fishman Dan]

Dotty - that's how I came back... across the bridge, around the TAFE and up to Morrison Rd to Tennyson Rd. I didn't think Tennyson Rd would be too bad, but it really kicks up for the last 200-300m. I was shattered by the end of that (considering the climb on Morrison to Tennyson as well).

Having said that, I haven't been riding much at all lately. It will remain a good challenge down the track, but in the meantime I will probably go from Meadowbank TAFE to Victoria Rd - at least that route skirts along the ridge and is relatively flat.

From there I wasn't game to stay on Victoria Rd, so it was a first left onto Monash, and then backstreets home (only about 4 blocks).

Flying down Morrison to Putney shops was great fun though - and thankfully the lights were in my favour when I got there!

Goughy - If I were to try 3 minutes @ 130, it might just be a killer!

[Toolish]

Longest ride today, about 60k. Kind of an easy ride where the avg speed was only 21k/hr for most of it. Can't wait till my garmin gets here as I think it'll chart things more so and also I think it'll keep a check on how much climbing we do. I seem to spend a lot of time going uphill at 15 to 20k/hr.

But booked it over the last 7 or so k home keeping it up around 30 to 50k/hr. I'd love to get on a flat course and actually see what average I could keep up. I just don't know what my 22k average is worth on a flatter course. But I'd like to average at least 30k/hr on a flat track.

When is the Garmin due?

Roads around here are flat, but the wind is a killer. Other day I rode an out and back of about 40km total...took over twice as long to get back in as it did to get out.

Makes me wonder if a power tap is the only truly accurate way to track cycling improvement.

[goughy]

Another fortnight still! Was spose to be a few weeks ago originally but the worldwide release date keeps getting pushed back. A power tap would be worth 3 times my bike, though the garmin is worth like twice my bike

[goughy]

Have joined a group of riders on tuesday mornings! These are some serious guys and someone often has to double back to pick me up. Jeeze these guys can ride. One has ridden sub one hour at the Noosa triathlon, and a couple of weeks ago rode 100k around Toowoomba in under 3 hours. With all our hills that's incredible. I was invited by one of the group who I do tri training with (outstanding rider, ok runner, not great swimmer) and a couple of the others from swimming are there + a few others.

Last tuesday we were rained on from almost the start and only got in 20k. But today we got in the whole 40k - seriously the toughest ride I have ever been on in my life!! Just the way they can accelerate from a stop and the way they ride up hills. Insane.

If this doesn't improve my riding nothing will. Now to go and stand on my legs for the next 10 hours

Oh, new garmin is here. Maps out my course for me and all. Today my hr maxed out at 179bpm on some of the climbs and averaged 157bpm for the ride. Burnt 1200 calories and I'm f'd.

[Fishman Dan]

Sounds great Goughy. Good stuff, you should really benefit from hanging around some of these freaks.

Have you seen Bikely.Com? Great for mapping routes and picking up routes from others.

[Toolish]

Nice work Goughy…I have joined the local cycling club but have not had a chance to join in a bunch ride yet. Think I might feel a bit out of place given I don’t own a cycling jersey or shoes. Anyhow, will hopefully get there on Saturday morning as apparently that is a better bunch for a beginner.

Did 60km on my own on Sunday at an average of 27.5km. Took about 2:15 to complete with an average HR of 135. I did not have anything to eat and I hit a massive wall after about 90 minutes, thinking if I want to go any longer at that sort of effort I will need some sort of nutrition.

[goughy]

One of the guys last week was telling me for my ride at the goldie to maybe keep my hr around 140 for the entire ride so I don't wear myself out. I have no idea what that will equate to on a flat ride. Here it's constant up and down hills. Based on the graphs there was about 15k of climbing, including about 6k of between 10 and 15%.

I need to talk to our PT about nutrition and how much water and gatorade I need to suck down on rides etc and am also gonna investigate the gels as well!

[AndyP]

Gels are for pussies!

[goughy]

Not like you'd be able to keep one down camel back boy!!

[AndyP]

I've had one. It wasn't too bad, although messy to take on the run. Snakes or jellybeans are better.

[Fishman Dan]

I finally did a practice ride from home to work. It's not a huge ride (about 12 km's), but has some chunky hills and weaves in and out of a lot of general traffic. Much of the ride is along a shared footpath (i.e. slow going), and much of that is downhill. It was great riding across the Anzac Bridge.

In all it took a leisurely 45 mins (about 15 km/h average).

I found it harder being a 'commute' rather than an exercise ride. A lot of higher traffic roads, shared footpaths meant bus stops, side-street crossings (i.e. slow going) and a lot of glass shards. It was a good journey though, but I probably won't do it for work purposes until it warms up.