Eric's Arcana and RiderX

What you get when you’re heading on the door on a group ride…

The posts that I referenced in my comparative insanity all came from my work(ish) blog. You can find all the cycling posts listed here.

Cycling is an exercise in progressive insanity. No matter where you’re at, there’s always somebody who’s just that little bit crazier than you are, no, not the total whackos that do things that are ridiculous, but just that next little step…

It all starts with riding an hour on the flattest roads that you have around, and finding that pretty challenging. And maybe one day, you ride for two hours, and it wipes you out, but you’re happy you did it.

And then meet somebody who is doing a charity ride, and you think “maybe I can ride 50 miles” at once – it’s pretty intimidating, but you ride some more, and then you finish it, and you’re happy, but dead.

The next year, you decide that you’ll do a century. This is a real milestone, and you can tell its a real milestone by the reaction of the people you mention it to. “In a day?” they say. And you do the century, but you’re slow, and while you finish, you don’t have a lot of fun.

The next year, you do a bit better in the century, and then you do a multi-day ride.

And then you start riding with a group – not a hardcore group, but a group that just likes to ride. You get a new bike – a fast one – and suddenly that century isn’t a goal event but a training ride on the way to a double. That two-hour ride that used to be a goal event is now the minimum – you don’t leave the house for less than two hours. And you start adding hills to your rides *on purpose*. You even start up a website devoted to hills.

You start looking for the hilly organized rides. You do one, two, three, four, and in there you throw in a double century.

And then you decide that RAMROD looks like fun. It’s 143 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing.

A long time ago at my job, I met a co-worker who was into cycling, and he told me about RAMROD. I had driven the route that he rode, and I thought that he was absolutely bonkers.

And now, in three weeks, I will also be officially bonkers.

The scary part is that as I’ve progressed, I still know people who are just marginally more crazy than I am, and that makes me seriously worried.

Since I tried out the CTS Classic Training last year, I’m still on their email list.

Today, I got some helpful advice for athletes who travel to events.

1. First, create a checklist of what you will need before, during, and after your event
2. Second, do not wait to pack your bags
3. Finallky, set aside a few important items for your carry-on, such as shoes, helmet, and pedals

Wow, what insightful tips those are. I never would have thought of creating a list, or packing my bags ahead of time.

I can add a few that I think might be more helpful:

1. Go online and find your accomodations ahead of time. Print out a map, and if you have time, the location of grocery/convenience stores.
2. Pre-pack items into gallon-sized ziploc bags so they’re already grouped. If you have stuff to put in your jersey pocket, put in all in one place so you don’t have to go searching.
3. Don’t assume you can locate decent food and refreshements. Plan ahead

Climb4Cancer ’07 will be on August 4, 2007 benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

This goes up infamous Zoo Hill. Last time I rode the Zoo, I think I did it in about 27 minutes all the way to the top. The time trial will be “Zoo Light”, which is only about 1000′ of elevation gain in 2 miles. If I was in equivalent shape, I’d be expect around 20 minutes, but I’m hoping to do it in less time than that.

Last year’s winner did it in 11:34.

I ride Tuesday and Thursday night on a ride sponsored by Cascade Bicycle club.

This time of year, the weather gets nice and we get a lot of new riders, which makes things a bit more… exciting… than usual.

There are a few of us in the group who try to watch out for everybody – including the new riders. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t.

So, last night, we were in the parking lot getting ready to go, and one of our new riders fell over. Now, we’ve all fallen over when we’ve been stopping (I once did in front of approximately a zillion riders at a century rest stop), so that wasn’t any big deal. That was one.

Then, we’re pulling out onto our main street (W. Lake Sammamish, if you know the Redmond area), and one of the front riders slows down to stay at the corner (we use corner people so the group knows where to go), and a new rider runs into her, falls over, and another rider runs into her and falls over. So, we’re like 3 minutes from the start, and we’ve had three riders go down. A few bumps and scrapes, but no real problems.

We then headed down south, where we did a few climbs, including the very painful Somerset Drive.

On the way back home, one of our regular riders had a car turn out in front of him, and he got to play stuntman. Also no injuries, but enough to call police and the aid car, and for me to take the group back so our ride leader could deal with the situation.

I rode all last year without being near any crashes. This year I’ve had two people crash right in front of me, one crash a couple riders ahead, and another crash in my group.

RiderX is a serious recreational cyclist.

And by that, I mean that, in an average week during the season, RiderX will ride anywhere from about 40 miles to perhaps 150 miles.

RiderX likes talking about himself in the third person, but he’s already tired of this overly pretentious post, and is going to start writing like a normal person.

So, what’s the deal, and why am I here?

Well, I’ve written a work-related blog for a few years, and have sometimes written cycling-related posts. But recently, I’ve wanted to write more about cycling, and I don’t want to do that on my work blog. So, here we are…