In October I went to Cycle University to have a bike fit and fitness test for me on the bicycle. My knee problem was a bit concerning from the St Helens ride. I thought maybe my seat was too low or my shoes were no good. All things that can cause knee pain when cycling. I wanted to really get a bit more involved in cycling and just wasn't sure if I was physically strong enough to race. The technology they have to test you is pretty amazing. It reminds me of plugging the laptop into the motorcycle and adjusting the fuel and air mixture, throttle response etc. etc. They have similarities but instead you are the motor. They can tell you which leg is stronger, which one spins faster, your average power output, max power, heartrate and pretty much anything else you can think of. It was a difficult test that lasted around a hour but I learned alot and got my bike fitted for $125. My results were pretty good the coach told me. The first test was a 2.2 mile all out sprint. My max power output was 602 with a average of 280. I did that in 5 minutes. Then we did a 6.2 mile TT course. This was hard because trying to put out a certain amount of effort and hold it consistantly for 6.2 miles and finish strong is harder than I thought. I finished that in 18:17 minutes with a average wattage of 211. I wasn't really impressed with this and knew I could do better in the future. The next test was a all out 30 second burst. My max power output on this was 729 watts . Your average light bulb is 60 watts for a basic comparison. The way they get these figures is they hook your bike up to a bicycle trainer that plugs into a laptop that is directly in front of you with a cycler and all your readings. Pretty cool and if I could afford one at home
($1000) it would be alot of fun. I spoke to Toby the coach that worked me through this about there development road race team and he showed me a chart that showed where my averages would put me on the novice to pro list. Some of my tests showed me in the 3 category and my TT put me in the Cat 5. All in all a pretty good idea of where I was and come to find out my seat was like a 1" to low. I spoke to coach Ed a few times (who is in charge of the road team) leading up to my joining the team as well as attending there intro class. I decided I would like to give it a try. So I am now apart of the Cycle U Road Race team.
Cycle U puts on Friday night races where you get 7 guys or gals hooked up to there trainers and they have a projector shooting on the wall as you race against each other. It is beyond cool. This is the same TT 6.2 mile program/course I rode on back in Oct. Its now December and thought I would give one of these things a try and stack myself up against some others. Of course I get put in the front row. The 3 next to me are all racers and the guy next to me was real cool and immediately started talking it up. He said he has been racing for 3 years and asked if this was my first time and we talked about some other stuff but it was relaxing. We warmed up for 10 minutes or so and then we were off. I tried really hard not to blow myself up right in the beginning, however I tried I just couldn't. I was in 7th most of the first few minutes then I moved up to 6th and held that for a while but it was really hard to maintain and when I hit the wall at around 3 miles or so I was done. I was trying to gage how much power (watts) I could put out on average with out killing myself but I could never find a happy medium. There I was in dead last and hating it but I told myself before going in that I was going to get my ass kicked and not to expect anything. I finished with a average wattage of 240 and finished the race in 17:30. I improved pretty big time compared to Oct. So after I got home and realized that I was really happy with my performance. The magic number is 240 next race I do.
The team and I will start training in Jan. for the upcoming season so stay tuned.
Brad
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Question
Its been a while since I wrote on this thing. Alot has happened since Sept and my Mt St Helens ride. Where to start.
Well on my way down to Helens I had set up a meeting with my girlfriends dad to have a drink and ask him if he thought I was worthy enough to have his daughter in marriage. After a few drinks he said it was ok. : )
So the drive down to Helens was a bit of a relief after that. I mean I only had to crush the pedals for 114 miles and climb something like 8,000 feet. That was nothing compared to the nervouses of asking her dad. The plan I had was to ask her if we got on the cruise in November to Mexico. I wasn't sure what port I was going to ask her or how, I just new it was then I was going to do it. After the ride that week I went down to the Shane company (plug) to look at rings. Thankfully some information I gathered from a mutual friend was that she wanted to pick out her own ring if we ever got married. That bit of info was 2 years old or so but I thought it would still be the case. I walked in not knowing what I was going to get or how much to spend. They were really helpful and I found the one I wanted and got out of there. The salesman was really nice but his laugh was something you would see on a Saturday night skit. It was bad and got higher in pitch the harder he laughed. I left the ring down there knowing I would get to excited and want to give it to her. It wasn't to hard after the first week. I thought about it alot and hoped that we got on the cruise because that would be perfect.
See the plan was to surprise my parents and Glenn and Dana (god parents) who were going for the anniversaries and Dana's birthday. I thought this would keep Lindsay's mind busy so she didn't expect it. I mean we were in Mexico and just bought a house together in August so I am sure it floated around in her mind but the more of a surprise the better. We finally got confirmed about 2 weeks after we purchased our air tickets. Now I knew I had to seal the deal. There was no backing out now. We almost slipped a couple times hanging out with the folks and it was hard to continue to lie to them about it but hey, it was for a good reason!
November 15th we get up at 4 am and head to the airport. The family was already down there and the night before I was getting text's from Ma and Pa and I tried to schedule them to show up at the port late so we could get through the port and onboard before they saw us. I was standing in line getting our luggage checked in and I turned around and there they were. I was like oh sh*t Linds there they are, what do we do. Linds was like we are going to see them anyways and they might notice us standing here so lets just go over there. The looks on there faces after they realized I was standing there for a few seconds was pretty unforgettable. We had a good laugh for the rest of the loading process.
I had the ring in my back pack the whole time and had a few scares when I accidentally put the sun block in there and security asked to see it. I was freaking out a bit because I forgot I had it in there. I was like great there goes the surprise and I will have to get on a knee at the airport. The tried to hide the look of relief but it was close. Lindsay had the back pack a couple times to which made me a bit nervous. We enjoyed the first day at sea and the cruise was awesome. We stopped at Cabo and I asked her on a beach called Lovers Cove, go figure. I waited most of the day and we only had about 30 minutes left before we had to head out so I stalled as long as possible.
When we got back we saw my parents out by the pool having some drinks. Again we weren't sure what to do by decided to just go over there and show them. My mom started crying and was obviously pretty happy along with everyone else. The rest of the cruise was great. We got some champaign and wine delivered from our friends and my parents sent us a dozen roses. I work for Holland America Line and I couldn't be happier with the way things went. Everyone should go on a cruise and should go with Holland. All those other companies are just pretenders. haha.
So that gets you caught up on that. I am getting married. Weird to say that and call her my Fiance... Lindsay and I had some fun with that.
Well on my way down to Helens I had set up a meeting with my girlfriends dad to have a drink and ask him if he thought I was worthy enough to have his daughter in marriage. After a few drinks he said it was ok. : )
So the drive down to Helens was a bit of a relief after that. I mean I only had to crush the pedals for 114 miles and climb something like 8,000 feet. That was nothing compared to the nervouses of asking her dad. The plan I had was to ask her if we got on the cruise in November to Mexico. I wasn't sure what port I was going to ask her or how, I just new it was then I was going to do it. After the ride that week I went down to the Shane company (plug) to look at rings. Thankfully some information I gathered from a mutual friend was that she wanted to pick out her own ring if we ever got married. That bit of info was 2 years old or so but I thought it would still be the case. I walked in not knowing what I was going to get or how much to spend. They were really helpful and I found the one I wanted and got out of there. The salesman was really nice but his laugh was something you would see on a Saturday night skit. It was bad and got higher in pitch the harder he laughed. I left the ring down there knowing I would get to excited and want to give it to her. It wasn't to hard after the first week. I thought about it alot and hoped that we got on the cruise because that would be perfect.
See the plan was to surprise my parents and Glenn and Dana (god parents) who were going for the anniversaries and Dana's birthday. I thought this would keep Lindsay's mind busy so she didn't expect it. I mean we were in Mexico and just bought a house together in August so I am sure it floated around in her mind but the more of a surprise the better. We finally got confirmed about 2 weeks after we purchased our air tickets. Now I knew I had to seal the deal. There was no backing out now. We almost slipped a couple times hanging out with the folks and it was hard to continue to lie to them about it but hey, it was for a good reason!
November 15th we get up at 4 am and head to the airport. The family was already down there and the night before I was getting text's from Ma and Pa and I tried to schedule them to show up at the port late so we could get through the port and onboard before they saw us. I was standing in line getting our luggage checked in and I turned around and there they were. I was like oh sh*t Linds there they are, what do we do. Linds was like we are going to see them anyways and they might notice us standing here so lets just go over there. The looks on there faces after they realized I was standing there for a few seconds was pretty unforgettable. We had a good laugh for the rest of the loading process.
I had the ring in my back pack the whole time and had a few scares when I accidentally put the sun block in there and security asked to see it. I was freaking out a bit because I forgot I had it in there. I was like great there goes the surprise and I will have to get on a knee at the airport. The tried to hide the look of relief but it was close. Lindsay had the back pack a couple times to which made me a bit nervous. We enjoyed the first day at sea and the cruise was awesome. We stopped at Cabo and I asked her on a beach called Lovers Cove, go figure. I waited most of the day and we only had about 30 minutes left before we had to head out so I stalled as long as possible.
When we got back we saw my parents out by the pool having some drinks. Again we weren't sure what to do by decided to just go over there and show them. My mom started crying and was obviously pretty happy along with everyone else. The rest of the cruise was great. We got some champaign and wine delivered from our friends and my parents sent us a dozen roses. I work for Holland America Line and I couldn't be happier with the way things went. Everyone should go on a cruise and should go with Holland. All those other companies are just pretenders. haha.
So that gets you caught up on that. I am getting married. Weird to say that and call her my Fiance... Lindsay and I had some fun with that.
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