Your trail: Home  Bikeman Blogs Spank you very much
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The Bikeman Blogs section is our collection of blogs from our Team Bikeman members and friends of Bikeman. Contributions from regular riders and commuters, bike aficionados, and world class racers.
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Howdo. My name is Zach Magoon and I have been commuting year-round by bike for the last 7 years in both Boston, MA and Portland, ME. Because each day brings new challenges, whether it be changing weather conditions, crappy drivers, sore muscles or mechanicals, I think my ramblings will be, at the very least, moderately amusing. | |
Commuter Files Archives. |
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Greetings and salutations. My name is Rick Nelson (no, not that one damnit) and I am a rider for Team Bikeman.com. You can check out my profile in the team rider section. “Racin Rick” covers my trials and tribulations as a mountain bike racer, commuter, new father etc. In truth, its just a way for me to kill time at work and to see pictures of myself on the web. So here are some excerpts from all my blogging, hope you enjoy. | |
Racin Rick Archives. |
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Welcome to Tales From The Soiled Chamois. This is going to be an online journal taking you through my season of training for and racing marathon, 6, 12, and 24 hour solo endurance races all while working a full time job, being married with a two year old son. I'm no pro, even though I do occasionally race against them. I'm just out there having fun pushing myself. | |
The Soiled Chamois Archives. |
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Not to be confused with the time-trial and women's-specific 650C wheel, the 650B wheel is all about comfort, versatility, and speed over varied terrain. The key to this is all in the tires. A 650x38B setup is about the same diameter as a 700C wheel with a 19mm tire... | |
650Blog Archives. |
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Spank you very much |
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Written by Rick Nelson
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Sunday, 10 June 2007 |
Wednesday night I made it out on the group road ride for the first time in about a month and boy did it show. I got out of work a bit late (or should I say, I wasn't able to sneak out as early as I had hoped) so I had to drive part way there.
I parked in the ghetto of Waldoboro, mounted up and spun the 18 miles in at a comfortable pace and rolling into the Maine Sport parking lot with 5 minutes to spare for the 5:30 start time. After a very short neutral roll out I stupidly (I would find out later at least) went to the front and started to push the pace taking several hard pulls and playing around by shooting off the front on occasion, dropping back and then going again. In short, I was feeling great.
 | | The start. |
Check out the guy in the yellow jersey. He had his jersey tucked into his shorts (on purpose). I wanted to smack him up side the head but I didn't cause I'm a pus.
Before long, though, I started to notice some cramping signs in my calves. Uh-oh. So I dialed it back a bit and hoped to come out of it. Unfortunately, when the next gradual climb came (I did 4000 feet of climbing total during the ride) the calf cramped and I shot out the back as I watched the lead group disappear over the hill.
 | | Off the back. |
I wanted to cry but I figured I couldn't afford to lose the electrolytes. I figured my best course of action was to guzzle some heed and perpetuem and hope it would pass. After about 30 mins (felt more like 90) of sheer suffering in the land of bonk I noticed my head beginning to clear and my legs starting to turn over more quickly. Together, myself and another co-bonker worked our way back to the front and regained contact with the lead group.
Once with the lead group I told myself not to do anything stupid like take a pull, make an attack etc, just sit in for a bit and wait for the strength to really come back. Unfortunately, as always happens when I ride in a group, I couldn't stick it and before long I was feeling anxious and heading to the front. After a few pulls and a couple of attacks I was feeling great again.
Soon after, we were pulling back into Maine Sport's parking lot at the end of the ride. I now had a choice to make, ride the 18 miles back to Waldoboro and potentially suffer like a dog or take a ride from Mad Mike and hang my head in shame. I chose to suck it up and ride back to the car. After heading out I realized the energy levels were getting low again so I had some more heed and perpetuem and settled into a nice easy pace-one that could get me back even within the worst of bonks. An hour fifteen later I suffered up the final climb and descended to the car with 3:47 and 68 miles in. It wasn't my best ride of the season but I figure it was very good training for the longer races coming up over the next couple of months.
Rick
"Racin' Rick" |
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; "The start.")
; "Off the back.")
