Cycle the Sunshine Coast, BC

It was a bit of a letdown packing up and leaving Healdsburg.  We just finished 375km in 3 1/2 days including the King Ridge Granfondo 160km and we were tired.  On the first ride, it was 34 plus deg and it seemed like a dry sauna to me (before you throw the water on).  Within no time, my head felt on fire, I went through 2 water bottles of Gatorade and my buddy dumped some of his water on me which felt like a hot shower.  We stopped at a Shell and I dumped a litre of cold bottle water on my head and back that did enough to cool me down.  We stayed in the valley (dubbed Dry Creek Valley) which was shaded and few degrees cooler and rode for another 3 hours.  We visited Sonoma Lake, rode along the Russian River and rode through Healdsburg.  I had a blast!  and whew, that ride was hot! The next day was an "easy" ride before the big race and we rode on the Mill Creek Road.  This road is along a creek and amongst huge redwood trees.    T...

So with the King Ridge Granfondo a month away, I went to camp for 10 days and didn't ride. Prior to being away I was getting pretty strong. But with little more than indulging on buffets and too much beer, my first rides after camp was like I was riding in a sumo wrestler suit. I gained 6lb and it took more than few rides to shed the pounds and gain some form back. Fast forward to today. My dad brought a couple of deep dish carbon wheelsets back from China and I finally put wheels together today. Man, these wheels are the steroid-like injection I needed to improve my game. They are so noticeably faster that I set personal bests on 4 out of 5 hills on my training route! These wheels are the single best upgrade to my cycling that I can think of. ----WAB1234---- - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's just little over 2 weeks before the 160km King Ridge Granfondo and I'm alittle under-trained not riding from a couple of weeks.  But in the 10 days off from riding, I wanted to share with you a place that I visited while working.  Highway 37 from Kitwanga to Bell 2.  I saw many cyclists completing this part of the journey where they flew to Alaska and spent months riding back to Vancouver.  Hwy 37 is one of the most underutilized highway in BC.  Hwy 37 is definitely on my bucket list!

Okay I get it.  Being over 40 means that any exercise is not easy.  Let start with when it was easy.  When I was in grade 8 I ran a low 5 min mile. Running was easy.  When I was grade 11, I played for the Under 17 Vancouver Rugby team.  Rugby was easy.  I proved that in high school not many people where faster than me.  In my 20's, I think like many men that follow a career path, family, house and such; fitness took a back seat and the bricks of butter piled on me like someone stuffing them in a backpack while I was wearing it. Enter the 1/4 life crisis - I picked up mountain bike racing - I was 28 and in the Senior Sport class - It took me forever to eek out 10 points to advance from beginner because the young guys would show up and blow by me like I was standing still.  These guys made it look easy - and what I figured - they had no career yet, or a job at least so they could ride all day long and perfect their fitness to top me.  Thats w...

Woke up at some un-godly hour to complete a ride into Vancouver.  I usually complete a nice loop from Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal along Marine Drive to UBC.  I added a nice little loop to Iona Beach which considering my motivation level lately, made all the difference for me to enjoy the trip.  100km in the bag. On the way back on the ferry, I bump into a rider that I passed along the way a couple of times enroute along Marine Drive (I stopped for coffee) and she was on a older mountain bike with normal clothes on.  I probably looked so foreign to her with all my biking specific clothes (called a kit in our circles).  She complained that her seat made her butt sore, but she was really looking forward to seeing Gibsons (somehow the pain would be worth it when she got to her designation).  She said that she's  never been to the coast and decided to take her bike from the west end to the ferry and to Gibsons- good for her! She wasn't too ke...

Okay, a couple of weeks ago I hit a nice peak and I wanted to ride all the time.  I put 900km in the month of July and my avg km/hour basically bumped up a couple of k's.  So, today I forced myself to wake up early, decided to drive to Sechelt and join a group ride to get me motivated.  So I waited at the meeting spot and no one showed (or bothered).  I started with the motivational talk with myself - do a long ride and you'll be better for it. Trust me you'll be glad you did...F-it was my body's response.  So, do a short ride. At least you can justify driving for 1/2 hour to get here.  F-it was the response again.    Why don't you turn around, go to a lung association fundraiser breakfast and talk about cycling.  Ah! that is an awesome idea! - So I turned around and got a 8min ride in. So this is the lows of cycling - two to three weeks ago I had awesome energy and power.  This week - well I need someone like Tony Robbins to keep my i...

Its July 19th and for the last week I've been feeling awesome when I ride. Awesome means hills are molehills, power and recovery is always available and you feel that you have tons of energy. It wasn't more than a month ago that I was complaining about just the opposite effects - no energy, burning legs walking up stairs and not motivated. In June I wrote in my diary "feeling crappy - need to rest" and the last June entry "I'm getting slower FML!" on a training loop that use to measure my performance. I was thinking what the helI do i need to do to get faster???? It was like i was slamming the course but when i reviewed the data , i was slower. Urggggg! The solution was that i rested fofor about two weeks by reducing my mileage and effort, putting on easy miles. Then on July 1, I slammed 190km; the next weekend, 120km and now the granfondo at 115km. I rode the the course where I was slower in June, to a new personal best and I thought that I wasn't ...