Tour de France CHALLENGE!

TDSeest

I rode yesterday and today, for a total of 524 miles for the month. Don't have ready access to internet where I am camping. Looks like everyone else is riding fine.

nerdieprofessor

Rode 51 minutes today. I did three laps of the hilly neighborhood loop. I did not do it in record time but I had a record max HRT.

Glad you are enjoying the camping, TD!

I hope Ragbrai is going well today, hawkeyegal!

How's everyone else doing?

hawkeyegal1995

Day 3 is in the books....rode 70 miles-I honestly don't know the time but it was well over 5 hours. I was feeling really blah today and the knees were not too happy so it was a long ride. But we had one massive hill - Twister Hill (it was used in the movie Twister) and I climbed that sucker which was a major accomplishment when there were so many people walking their bikes

Lance rode today but he didn't start out till after 9:00 and by that point I was already about 3 hours into my ride so no lucky on pictures.

Hope everyone had a great day on your bike!

nerdieprofessor

Yea hawkeyegal! You beat Lance! LOL!

And, congrats on making it up that hill on your bike! WOOHOO!

TDSeest

Road 17 today for a monthly total of 541. On track for 600 still. Stay cool out there.

CDGolden

I have in commute miles for Monday and a nice long Tuesday morning before work...

will try for a quickie today.

Enjoy
Chris

hawkeyegal1995

Day 4 is in the books. Took about 4.5 hours to ride 60 miles. I have been dealing with pretty strong leg cramps the last 20 miles or so for the past three days. I have come to realize that my knees after 5 surgeries are really not meant to deal with this much pedaling each day. At least we are half way done-thankfully!

Take care

nerdieprofessor

Day 4 is in the books. Took about 4.5 hours to ride 60 miles. I have been dealing with pretty strong leg cramps the last 20 miles or so for the past three days. I have come to realize that my knees after 5 surgeries are really not meant to deal with this much pedaling each day. At least we are half way done-thankfully!

Take care

You need more electrolytes if you are cramping. Get some pills if you can. Take at least a couple, then take one an hour or something like that. Given how far you are riding it's probably an electrolyte issue or a hydration issue. I'm assuming you have enough sense to hydrate hydrate hydrate!

I rode only about 45 minutes this morning. I was planning for an hour before I had to go to a meeting, but a motorist pulled up beside me, rolled down her passenger window and proceeded to have a conversation with me about my bike lights. I didn't think riding down the road was a good place for a conversation so I pulled over in a parking lot and talked to her for a while. She was amazed at how bright my lights are in broad daylight. I ride with two sets of Dinotte lights (on separate batteries), even in day time. I have wired them to my bike rack in back on the hybrid (hard to get that many lights on the road bike). She liked them but didn't much like the $300 a set (at least that's what I paid a few years ago) price, I imagine. It was funny though, to have a conversation with someone in a car while cycling.

CD's going for a quickie... <laugh>

TD 600 miles is awesome! I didn't track my miles much (just time) until I got the new Garmin. I'll have to set a goal for August miles, for sure.

TeteDeLaCourse

"CD's going for a quickie... <laugh> "

I'm glad I'm not the ONLY one who had to laugh at that!!

nerdieprofessor

I rode 20 miles with a friend today. Since my left knee was so unhappy yesterday we avoided hills (not easy to do here) and rode mostly flat neighborhood roads and had a nice two hour conversation. )

TeteDeLaCourse

I used to have knee problems myself, so I feel your pain!

hawkeyegal1995

Another day of RAGBRAI is in the books.....kind of cheated today. Started in the first past through town so I cut the ride short by about 10 miles. Ended up with 45 miles in about 3.5 hours. I figure I am about 7 miles off the total up to this point so I will try and make it up over the last 2 days-tomorrow is the long day with about 76 miles. Didn't cramp up today but I was good and took gatorade with me to drink during the ride instead of just water-of course today was a pretty short ride.

nerdieprofessor

Yea hawkeyegal! Keep up the Gatorade (or something similar with electrolytes and less sugar). Pure water is good, but not enough for the distances you are doing.

TeteDeLaCourse

I bought a couple of tubes of Nuun tablets. They have all the electrolytes but not all the sugar and calories that Gatorade has. They have a lot of different flavors and they're not bad. Kinda taste like salty, watered-down KoolAid.

skywalker

Been swimming and cycling regularly, but haven't been reporting. I'll be watching for the Vuelta challenge though. :happy:
Great pedaling, everyone!!! :drinker:

TDSeest

I did not want to ride tonight, but I rode anyway. 554 miles for the month now. Headed to bed.

TDSeest

Rode 17 miles this morning; at 571 for the month now.

nerdieprofessor

I did 20 miles of mostly flat alone this morning. I only planned to ride an hour (11 or 12 miles at most) but I felt good so I went for 20. Woohoo!

hawkeyegal1995

Day 6 of RAGBRAI is wrapped up....I am overnighting at home tonight which is nice. Rode 80 miles in 5 hours and 40 minutes. I ended up pacing with another ride for a good hour and we were clipping along at around 17 to 18 mph so I averaged about 14 mph which is my best time of the week. No cramps again--woo hoo. I didn't eat much on the route as I really didn't find anything I was interested in. One finally day-65 miles-and then I will be dipping my tires in the mighty Mississippi.

skywalker

I had a similar experience, prof. I planned on doing about 15 miles today and ended up doing 25. :happy:
However, I planned a shorter ride and was going to do a short run after, but didn't do the run. Nasty thunderstorm swept in after my ride.

nerdieprofessor

Day 6 of RAGBRAI is wrapped up....I am overnighting at home tonight which is nice. Rode 80 miles in 5 hours and 40 minutes. I ended up pacing with another ride for a good hour and we were clipping along at around 17 to 18 mph so I averaged about 14 mph which is my best time of the week. No cramps again--woo hoo. I didn't eat much on the route as I really didn't find anything I was interested in. One finally day-65 miles-and then I will be dipping my tires in the mighty Mississippi.

I hope you post a photo of that tomorrow! )

Have fun and be safe!

skywalker, I was going to swim this afternoon if I had only biked an hour, but I worked instead (and was very productive!). My swim partner doesn't swim on Fridays so I would have been going alone anyhow.

The parts finally arrived so I can use the garmin on more than one bike. Mr. Wonderful has set up my Bianchi road bike (which I've ignored for weeks) so I might get brave and try to road bike tomorrow and ride toward the hinterlands... it always makes me nervous to do that, thus, I haven't done it in months. Not sure I can get over the first huge hill about 2 miles from home, that has to be crossed to get to the hinterlands (and has the meanest drivers... hopefully not on Saturday morning, though). It's a nicely paved wide two lane road marked with "share the road" signs but the hills mean most cyclists are slow and the drivers, they aren't the most patient... I might give myself a goal to ride to the nature center or something (which is over that hill...). I dunno.

TDSeest

Day 6 of RAGBRAI is wrapped up....I am overnighting at home tonight which is nice. Rode 80 miles in 5 hours and 40 minutes. I ended up pacing with another ride for a good hour and we were clipping along at around 17 to 18 mph so I averaged about 14 mph which is my best time of the week. No cramps again--woo hoo. I didn't eat much on the route as I really didn't find anything I was interested in. One finally day-65 miles-and then I will be dipping my tires in the mighty Mississippi.

Cool. I want to bike the entire Mississippi river from the headwaters to the outlet in the gulf next year.

nerdieprofessor

You dream big, TD. At least that bike ride would be mostly downhill! ) Of course, much of it (the parts I'm familiar with) will be on the other side of a levee and you won't see the river much.

I'd like to bike the whole Natchez Trace (much more reasonable!) or bike across (the short way) my home state or my current state... or something.

At the moment, I'm content to get on my bike and ride most every day, though. Bigger goals can wait until next year.

This is the first year I haven't reached a big goal. I had one (swim a 4.5 mile race) but didn't achieve it as I got very sick two months before the race. Last year I attempted a half ironman. In 2009 I completed an olympic distance triathlon (and some shorter ones) and a half marathon (my first, last, and only).

Next year, no idea what I might try. I do better with a goal, though, for sure. Thus, the Tour de France Challenge this year. )

CDGolden

Well I had a nice ride on Friday, 22 miles before date night....

Planning on commuting to work this afternoon for some more miles.

Chris

nerdieprofessor

Good job, CD! I hope hawkeyegal is having a great last day of RAGBRAI ride!

I rode 20 miles on the Bianchi (first time in ages) and I went over the big long hill (first time in 10 months at least) and I went into the hinterlands alone (first time in over 10 months). It was weird, but alright.

I'm still not very comfortable on it (I'm a much better bike handler on the heavier and more upright and bigger tired hybrid. I'm still having hand pain and knee pain on the Bianchi. I think shorter crankarms (if I can find some) will help the knees. I don't know what to do about the hands. The problem is I have very short arms and there's no way to shorten the bike frame horizontally. I already have the tiniest stem available and I ride a 47 cm frame.

At least my back didn't hurt! ) And it was good to get out and over that hill to the south that scares me so much (long long hill for a heavy girl like me to climb and famous for rude drivers). It was nice riding those roads which i haven't seen in 10 months and catching up on all the construction going on down there (first stages of a new interstate being put in - overpasses but no actual roads). And, not many cars, so that was good, but I did see a lot of other folks out riding, one of whom called out my name when passing (no idea who she was) and loads of butterflies. )

This is my first week (that I know of) this year over 100 miles in a week and I haven't done Sunday yet.

hawkeyegal1995

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I can now proudly say that I have biked across Iowa on RAGBRAI. Ended up with 65 miles today....around 5 hours--not sure on the time as we had to walk about 2 miles to our car from the dip site and I did not look at the ending time just my miles. I ended up with about 450 miles over the past week. Plan to take a few days off the bike to give my body time to recoup-not to mention the bike needs to get looked at as the chain was chattering like crazy the last two days.



I have never tried to post a pic so I will apologize in advance if this does not work

nerdieprofessor

You are awesome, hawkeyegirl! That is truly amazing! Rest up a few days (and eat well!) and then get back on the bike. WOOHOO!

hawkeyegal1995

Cool. I want to bike the entire Mississippi river from the headwaters to the outlet in the gulf next year.
[/quote]

Hope you practice for lots of hills--I don't know how many times I heard out of staters comment about how they thought Iowa was a flat state. Have you thought of trying TMRV (tour of Mississippi River Valley)-it is a two day ride up here in Iowa that has some of the best views you can every imagine-I think it covers about 100 miles of riding on the river road.

TDSeest

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I can now proudly say that I have biked across Iowa on RAGBRAI. Ended up with 65 miles today....around 5 hours--not sure on the time as we had to walk about 2 miles to our car from the dip site and I did not look at the ending time just my miles. I ended up with about 450 miles over the past week. Plan to take a few days off the bike to give my body time to recoup-not to mention the bike needs to get looked at as the chain was chattering like crazy the last two days.



I have never tried to post a pic so I will apologize in advance if this does not work

Great job...

TDSeest

Cool. I want to bike the entire Mississippi river from the headwaters to the outlet in the gulf next year.

Hope you practice for lots of hills--I don't know how many times I heard out of staters comment about how they thought Iowa was a flat state. Have you thought of trying TMRV (tour of Mississippi River Valley)-it is a two day ride up here in Iowa that has some of the best views you can every imagine-I think it covers about 100 miles of riding on the river road.
[/quote]

I'm working my way up to lots of hills. I've driven that way many times, as I spent lots of time in the Dubuque area.

I'm going to bike highway 101 from up by Canada across the state of Washington at the end of August with a friend, and then I plan on biking the route 66 trail from downtown Chicago to St. Louis in September and October.