Posts from — August 2010

I was looking forward to this journey and Mother Nature cooperated by presenting a fabulous day for a bike ride.  I was hoping to start out with my friend Rob for the early part of it, but he wasn’t feeling well, so I started out solo for the duration.  The first 70 miles follows my usual course, and nothing really new came of it except for a critical mistake that I made in Nyack.  That mistake was the massive glob of oatmeal from hell.

The week previously, I had stopped at the Runcible Spoon in Nyack and had a lovely bowl of oatmeal.  I was a little cold and I figured a nice warm meal would do me some good.  Not this week though.  I don’t know if the oatmeal was bad, I had too much of it or I just simply ate it too fast, but on this day as soon as I finished it, I had a feeling that things weren’t going to go so well.  I should have just turned around and purged it roman style and made sure my digestive track remained clear; but no, that would have been the smart thing to do and I sallied forward marching, well riding, ever closer to New Paltz.

I climbed my usual hills – Little Tor, Route 98/106 into Harriman and then Tiorati Brook Road.  This saw me reach 70 miles, 30 miles since the oatmeal from hell and I was struggling.  I went to the bathroom at Tiorati and tried to clear out my system.  By this time I heard from my friend Rob, who told me he made it to the Ranger Station at the end of River Road and asked where I was.  I replied that I was taking a dump at Lake Tiorati.  He response was “Charming”; yes, that’s me, all class.  I should have just tried to clear myself from the other end as I was already spitting up every time my heart rate increased on the hills.  I sat in the sun to warm up after I left the bathroom and rested a bit on a picnic table.  Well that is I assumed a prone position on top of the table and tried to recover.

I thought about abandoning the ride at this point and simply heading home.  A round trip from this point would have seen around 140 miles, but I figured tougher times are likely to come when I do the Furnace Creek 508 and I should try to continue on a recover.  So off I went to New Paltz, taking roads that I’ve never traveled before.

From Lake Tiorati, I headed down Seven Lakes Drive towards Bear Mountain and Route 6.  I picked up Route 6 west and began a nice long climb on a very busy highway.  It was very noisy and I doubt any cyclists take this route, but it had a wide clean should and except for the traffic noise and the cars busy by at 80 mph it wasn’t so horrible.  I was looking for a road that was supposed to intersect Route Six just past Route 293, but I didn’t find it.  Actually, I think I past it, but it wasn’t something navigable on a road bike.  I instead continued directly to Route 32 and started to head north.  This wasn’t how I wanted to go, but I knew it would take me directly up to New Paltz.

I continued up Route 32, then took a shortcut on Route 300 at Vails Gate.  From here the road started to get a little smaller and wasn’t so filled with traffic.  I remained on Route 300 until it intersected with Route 32 again and stayed on 32 all the way up to New Paltz.  I thought the roads would be hillier, but maybe I am just used to riding hills and don’t think anything is hilly enough.  Anyway, as I reached New Paltz things started to look familiar from previous times I’ve been up there.  I decided to make my destination be a bicycle shop called “Bicycle Depot”.   It was as good as stop as any, as my left cleat was getting a little loose and I needed a screw driver to tighten it up.

Well, it was at the bicycle shop where my day came to an end.  Having got off the bike and sat down, I quickly began to fade out.  The people in the shop looked at me and asked if I was alright.  I replied that something I ate earlier didn’t agree with me and that I haven’t really been able to take anything into my stomach for quite a while.  The oatmeal was clogging up my digestive track worse than the toughest clog in any drain.  I doubted a bottle of Draino at this point could have cleared me out.  I could feel a lump in my bowels that was no doubt an oatmeal plug.

To make a long story short, the gents in the shop were very hospitable and accommodating and I owe them a world of gratitude.  They took care of me as best they could, first offering me a chair and then their floor to lie down on.  One of them ran out to get me a cold Gatorade and refused to take any money for it.  They told me about an urgent care facility just down the road and I debating going there for an IV.  With my digestion shut down, that might be the only way I could get water and nutrition into my system.  I dismissed that idea though, because if I was admitted, I’d likely have to have someone come and pick me up.  I didn’t want to force anyone to go through that inconvenience and I didn’t think my wife would be so accommodating as to come get me, nor be able to figure out how to get there.  I instead elected to take the train home, which meant a cab ride to the Poughkeepsie train station across the river.

I got the phone number for a local car service and then had to wait over 45 minutes for the car to arrive.  I missed the 4:27 pm train and I was now in danger of missing the 5:15 train.  When the cab finally arrived, one of the guys from the bike shop took my bike apart and put it in the cab for me.  I was too weak to even roll the bike at this time.  I lay across the rear seat of the car and slept all the way to the train station. 

The 5:15 train was an Amtrack train and cost twice as much as the Metro North train.  I debated spending the extra money, but didn’t want to take a chance that they wouldn’t let me on with a bicycle.  The Metro North train was only 30 minutes later so I just decided to take that instead.  When I got on the train, I put my bike in a spot that looked to be an acceptable place.  However, the conductor was a major hard ass and started to give me a difficult time.  I was laying across the seats with my eyes closed when he came aboard.  He first asked if I had a bike pass to bring my bike aboard and fortunately, I had thought ahead and purchased one a few weeks earlier for just such contingencies.  He started to give me shit about moving the bike to a different part of the train and told me to get it off if I didn’t like what he told me.  Apparently I wasn’t moving fast enough for him.  I was about to tell him he could go fuck himself and that if I moved any faster I was likely to throw up all over his nice clean train, but thought better of it as I was in no condition for a fight and just wanted to get home.   I moved the bike to where he wanted it and then fell asleep on a different section of seats.

When I got to Grand Central Station, I found a bathroom and got some water.  By then I was feeling a little thirsty.  I was glad I did, because the subways were all screwed up and it took forever to get home from there.  All totaled it took over 3 hours to make it home from the Poughkeepsie train station and when I finally got inside my house, I simply stripped off my clothes and crawled into bed without so much as brushing my teeth, much less washing up.  I lay like the dead until about 2 am when I woke up and had a bit of cereal.  I then passed out on my couch and slept there until around 5am.  I then went back to bed until around 11am when I finally found the strength to shower.  It felt good a refreshing, but as I write this now at 2:30 pm I still haven’t had much to eat, nor do I have much of an appetite.  I want to get back out on my bike, but a nasty headache is keeping me inside. 

I am disappointed how this weekend turned out, but I suppose it’s better that something like this happen now than during the race.  I’ve never really had trouble with solid foods before during endurance days, but I’ll be extra vigilant during the race.  I still have a couple of weekends in which to train and I am still hopeful for a successful race.

Click here for the route

Having had to abort my Hyde Park double century a little over a week ago due to my little bike accident, I was looking forward to this ride more than ever.  I left my house loaded for bear and carried with me enough food and equipment necessary to get me through the day.  Basically I had with me:

• 2 x 24oz water bottles filled with 600 calories of Hammer Nutrition Heed each.
• 1 x 2 liter Camelbak filled with water
• 3 x 6 serving gel flasks filled with Huckleberry Montana Hammer Gel
• 1 baggie filled with Hammer Nutrition Endurolytes, Endurance Amino and Excedrin
• 3 spare tubes, 1 pump, tire levers and patch kit
• Electronics  – Cell phone, spare batteries, GPS
• Lighting – 2 head lamps, 3 safety lights, plus 1 reflective vest
• Arm warmers, plus a long sleeve shell I purchased along the way

I think all the gear, food and water I had with me more than doubled the weight of the bike.  I figured though that it could only help me in the long run as I struggled up the steepest hills I could find.

For a change of pace, I headed to the George Washington Bridge following the route I usually take to commute to work, then through Central Park and up Riverside Drive.  I was tired of the time it took to navigate up the West Side Greenway and the slow going as you reached the end of the path.  I wanted to get out of the city in a hurry to make sure I got in all the mileage and hills I had planned for the day.

Things went pretty well until I reached the end of River Road in NJ.  This is when my Polar G3 GPS receiver started to give me grief.  This device frustrates me to no end, but I insist on carrying it so I can memorialize the route I took.  I wasted so much time over the next 20 miles trying to get it to work properly.  I am jealous of my friend who has the latest Garmin unit.  Not only does it never give him any trouble, it gives him information such as Average Moving Speed and Average Cumulative Speed.  Both are important to me when trying to figure out if I am moving fast enough to make a 48 hour cutoff in the Furnace Creek 508.

Eventually I got the thing to work correctly, but this was not before I had already climbed one of the steepest hills of the day.  I am referring to Clausland Mountain Road, which starts off so steep, that my front wheel never fails to start leaving the ground when I first start out on it.  After this hill, I have some moderate rollers until I get myself into Nyack.  I usually take my first break of the day here, which happens to be the 40 mile mark.  This day I stopped at the Runcible Spoon and had a lovely bowl of warm oatmeal with raisins and honey.  It was just the ticket as I was feeling a bit hungry and cold.

Feeling a bit cold was my theme throughout the day.  I guess I’ve gotten used to riding around in 90+ degree temperatures over the summer.   The temperature this days was in the mid-80s but for some reason I was still feeling cold.  I had a pair of arm warmers with me, but I didn’t think they would be enough for when the night riding arrived.  I decided to stop a Toga bike shop just after Nyack, but I arrived 15 minutes before they opened.  I really didn’t feel like waiting around for them to open and I couldn’t convince them to let me in a little early.  Oh well, they lost a customer.  I knew of a bike shop in Cornwall, which was quite a distance away at this point, but I decided I was better off hitting the road now and hoping the Cornwall shop has something I could purchase.  I hoped I didn’t regret my decision.

I continued on my merry way and headed up 9W to Route 304.  It is off that road that I am able to get to a steep climb called Little Tor/County Route 33.  It is always a bit of an effort to climb Little Tor and my plan for today was to climb it when I started to head home.  That was not to be this day, but more on that later.  Route 33 took me to Route 94 which cuts into 98.  At some point over the last few weeks, they put down loose gravel on 94, which made riding on it very treacherous.  I almost went down a couple of times and hoped that they didn’t do the same thing on 98. 

Fortunately, 98 was untouched, and I began my climb towards the junction of 106 and the climb into Harriman State Park.  This is a significant climb that I really like to do the downhill way.  Going downhill I can reach speeds greater than 50 mph, but uphill, the best I could muster was no more than 10 mph.  I cut left on 106 to the Church in the Wilderness so I could get onto Lake Welch Drive for the descent to Tiorati Brook Road.  That was another significant climb and would take me to Lake Tiorati, where I planned to take a quick bathroom break.

I left Lake Tiorati and head onto Seven Lakes Drive towards Bear Mountain/Perkins Drive.  I did my usual climb and ate a Hammer Bar once I reached the top.  I spoke to a motorcyclist for a while and we compared notes about riding.  I asked why so many people with motorcycles like to climb Perkins Drive to which he replied that motorcycles like the long and winding roads.  I wish they would go someplace else, because it can be disconcerting to have 50 motorcycles roar past you when you are struggling up the climb.

After the climb up Perkins, I headed towards Cornwall.  I made it there without incident and found the bike shop I had heard about.  It’s called Bryans Bikes and the people inside were very friendly and the shop was well equipped.  I found the perfect jacket/shell that I could wear later that evening.  The people working in the store looked at me a little funny when I told them I was a bit cold.  It was after all in the 80’s and they inquired as to whether I was feeling well.  I assured them I felt fine and told them the problem was mostly on the down hills.  The sun wasn’t shining and the lack of its rays on my skin kept me from warming up.  I decided to put my arm warmers on at this point and to pack the jacket for later.  I got back on the road and then headed for points north. 

I soon passed the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge, which henceforth set a Personal Record for how far north I traveled with each additional roll of the wheels.  It was at this point that I began to feel anxious about the ride.  I was now on unfamiliar territory and with each pedal stroke I was heading further and further away from home with an undetermined distance still ahead of me before I reached my turnaround point.  It was already pretty late in the day and I began to wonder if I would be able to make it back to the George Washington Bridge before it closed down to pedestrians for the night.  I contemplated alternatives to the GWB to make it back home, which included riding on the east side of the Hudson back into Manhattan.  I decided I could make that decision when I reached the Bear Mountain Bridge later on.

I continued to travel north until I made it to the Walkway Over the Hudson which is just north of the Mid-Hudson Bridge.  The bridge and area was quite bucolic and there were pedestrians and cyclist alike enjoying the crossing over the Hudson.  I stopped to take a couple of pictures and then made my way over it.  Once on the other side I inquired about how much further away was the FDR Mansion.  I debated just starting to head home from here, but was told that the mansion was only about another 5 miles away.  Having come this far, I couldn’t exactly just start heading home. 

I snapped a few photos in front of the FDR Mansion and then got to the business of pedaling my ass back home.  There was no clear cut way for bikes to head south, as route 9 became cars only after a few short miles.  I used my sense of direction and proceeded in a southerly direction.  After about 20 miles or so, I really wasn’t sure where I was and I couldn’t get a handle on it by using my GPS.  I was in a really poor neighborhood, but took a chance on asking someone for directions.  The person I asked knew the area very well and got me moving again in the right direction.  His directions were spot on and I soon found myself in Wappinger Falls and on Route 9D, which is familiar territory. 

I took 9D down to the Bear Mountain Bridge and decided to cross it to the west side of the Hudson and take my chances making it to the GWB in time.  I stopped at the entrance to Bear Mountain Park and called a friend to ask his advice as to which way I should go home and how much more I should do.  We decided that I had time for one more ascent of Bear Mountain, but not enough time to go back to Harriman State Park to do the Lake Welch Climb, nor the climb up Little Tor.  I was disappointed with that assessment, but I wanted to play it safe, rather than sorry. 

As I began the climb towards Perkins Drive, I saw some poor slob had spun his car off the road into a ditch on the side of the road.  It was a brand new car and I should have taken a picture of the scene, but it was really getting late.  I made my climb, had a PB&J and then made with the business of getting home.  First though I put on my lights, the jacket I bought and a reflective vest.  It would be getting dark very soon and I didn’t want to take a chance or stop to do so later on.

Fortunately, the ride down south on 9W was uneventful.  I didn’t encounter anyone too obnoxious on the road and for the most part drivers gave me a wide berth and didn’t buzz to close to me.  I just kept my head down, my eyes on the road and pedaled as fast as I could towards the GWB.  I only made one stop along the way to get some water at a gas station with a food mart.  The clerk behind the counter mumbled something about me not being allowed to bring my bike inside, to which I ignored so much that he probably thought I didn’t hear him.  In any event, he was going to have to physically throw me out of the store if he gave me anymore shit about my bike.

After refueling, I didn’t need to make anymore stops and hammered south.  I made it to the GWB with a half hour to spare, arriving at 10:30pm.  The bridge supposedly closed at 11pm, but I wasn’t sure if it actually did.  I asked a security guard on the bridge and was told it actually closes at midnight.  I groaned a little bit, because this meant that I actually had time to do the extra hills I wanted to do, but perhaps that was a good thing.  I could have gotten a flat or other major mechanical breakdown and then I would have been screwed.

I didn’t get home until around 11:45pm.  Fortunately, my brother-in-law was over my house earlier and had picked up a roasted chicken with accoutrements for me to eat.  I devoured the chicken and also drank a Hammer Nutrition protein shake.  Right after that it was off to bed, as I had another long ride scheduled for the next day… But that is another story.

If there is any question as to why I support Transportation Alternatives it was answered last Friday, the 13^th.  I was minding my own business, riding home from work and riding in the bike lane (or what should have been marked off as a bike lane) on Houston Street going from Bowery to Christie.  I was riding between the line of parked cars and stalled traffic to make a right turn on Christie, when a thoughtless and careless woman opens the door of a Taxi immediately into my path.  This is the type of thing that TA hopes to eliminate by campaigning for rules and regulations that make it safer for cyclists in NYC.  Had there been a marked off bike lane on Houston, perhaps this accident wouldn’t have happened.

As for the accident, I was traveling at about 16 mph and the impact sent me flying.  I smashed into the door of the Taxi, the park car to my right and then went over the handle bars head and face first into the asphalt beneath me.  I smashed my helmet, scratched my eyeglasses, and received abrasions on my nose, chin and arms.  I also severely impacted my knee and hip.

When I hit the ground my first reaction was anger.  I started kicking the cab and screaming and cursing.  I was pissed to have suffered this accident on my way home from work, the day before I was scheduled to do a very long ride in preparation for the Furnace Creek 508.  I knew I was hurt and saw all the days and weeks of training go down the drain.  Pedestrians immediately came all around me and asked if I was ok.  I just lay on the ground for a while rolling around until I no longer felt stunned.  EMS was immediately called, and they seemed to be there in a moment’s time.

I vaguely remember the woman who opened the door as being overweight and out of shape.  She was wearing some black and white top with a black skirt that made me think of dairy cows.  She was unapologetic and was clearly more concerned for herself.  She was hemming and hawing about what to do and when the EMS technician mentioned getting the police to fill out a report, she took off down the street.  A bystander went after her to stop her, but did not have any success.

The Taxi driver came around to see how I was doing and looked visibly concerned.  I didn’t really want to cause him any grief as the accident wasn’t his fault.  I believed him when he said he told the woman to be careful when she opened the door.  I suppose I should have gotten his license information, because it is the owner operator/owner of the vehicle that is responsible in situations like these, but as I said I felt bad for him.  Taxi drivers are some of the worst vehicle operators in the city when it comes to interacting with cyclists, but I know they also work very hard for their money and basically have a shitty job.  I didn’t feel as though I should cause him financial grief for an accident that was clearly not his fault.

In retrospect, I should have taken his information.  The accident is a mini financial disaster.  I had to buy a new helmet, new lenses for my glasses, bike repairs, x-rays, and a visit to my acupuncturist to help get some relief on my painful knee.  The good news is that the x-ray was negative for any sort of injury and the doctor said it was just contused.  It’s painful and other than needing to call off my long ride on the Saturday after the accident after only 30 miles, I’ve been able to ride.  Perhaps the time off from riding has even done me some good. 

So tomorrow, (Saturday, 8/21), I’ll do my planned long ride to Hyde Park, NY.  I plan to go to the Franklin D. Roosevelt mansion which is about 100 miles if you take a straight shot to it by car from my home.  I plan to take the hilliest way I can find, which will add considerable distance to the trip.  I am hoping to do the round trip ride in 17 hours and it will probably be in the neighborhood of 250 miles.  I really don’t know what I am getting myself into, but I can always bail out of the ride by taking the train back to NYC or at worst case, stopping in a local motel for the night. 

It will be a grueling ride and I will be traveling very heavy.  I’ll have 4 water bottles filled with HEED and multiple flasks of Hammer Gel (see www.hammernutrition.com), a CamelBak filled with water, lights, arm warmers, GPS, cell phone with spare batteries and a safety vest for the night time portion of the ride.  Hopefully I’ll have someone to talk to on the phone at times to keep me company while I ride.  Text messages and @replies from Twitter will be greatly appreciated and I tweet my progress during the day.

P.S.  Donations to TA would be greatly appreciated.  Help me help TA make safer streets for Cyclists and Pedestrians alike.  Donate here: http://ta.convio.net/site/TR/Events/General?px=1043046&pg=personal&fr_id=1040

Some people tell me that they could not imagine riding the distances that I’ve been doing.  Honestly, doing so is easy compared to other things in life.  All you have to do to ride great distances is to keep moving forward.  Unless you are dead, it’s always possible to move one inch further, to creep closer to the finish line, to keep moving forward.

I think other things in life are much harder to do.  Saying goodbye to someone you care about is one such thing.  Despite technology that keeps you connected, there is something about the physical connection that just can’t be replaced through modern telecommunications. 

The miles I ride as I train for the FC508 are soothing and fill the hours of the day.  They leave me no time to think about things I miss, want, desire or need.  My mind is filled with the kaleidoscope of moving images and I roll through town after town and ride on road after road.  It is easy to lose myself while training and the tiredness I feel after the training is over helps to put me to sleep at night.

In matters more immediate, I heard from the race director of the FC508.  I was reminded not to forget about speed training as part of my training regimen.   Over the past few weeks, I’ve become mileage and hill obsessed.  I am very grateful for his reminder and will start encompassing this aspect into my training at least once to twice a week.

I don’t know where I will ride this coming weekend.  I just did a 223 mile ride which saw me go from the GW Bridge, through Nyack, Harriman State Park, Tuxedo Park, Bear Mountain, Croton on the Hudson and over the Beacon-Newburgh and Bear Mountain Bridges.   (You can see the route here: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=741598).  Maybe I’ll ride up to New Paltz and back or perhaps Albany.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

So I wanted to be an ultrarunner.  However, that was not to be.  I developed Plantar Fasciitis and could no longer run without intense pain, no matter how many treatments I did for it.  So what is an ultrarunner supposed to do? 

Well, I decided to become an ultracyclist and signed up for this year’s Furnace Creek 508.  That’s a 508 mile bike race held in Death Valley, California.  The race has a 48 hour time limit and is billed as “The Toughest 48 Hours in Sport”.  It sounded like the perfect challenge for me.

I hadn’t really rode my bike much over the past several years, especially since I hung up my Ironman shoes.  My bikes for the most part sat forlorn and neglected and my bike shorts disintegrated in my drawers.  There is nothing like shotgun training though so starting sometime in May I began my quest to get in shape for this toughest 48 hours. 

I made a critical mistake in the beginning of my training.   I didn’t have proper bike shorts to carry me through the miles I would start having to ride, nor did I use chamois cream.  This set me up early to develop saddle sores, which have been plaguing me since I started training.  I’ve since replenished my cycling wardrobe at great expense and have become a firm believer in the soothing effects of a healthy dose of chamois cream being applied to my “taint” before I set off for a 4 to 17 hour ride.

Since I’ve begun training for the FC508, I’ve gotten to know the roads and towns north of the George Washington Bridge on both sides of the Hudson River very well and Long Island.  It’s hard not to, when you are riding 150+ miles in a single day.  For the most part I’ve ridden alone and learned where I can expect to find food and water and which stretches of road are vast wastelands.  I’ve ridden in the heat of day, the pouring rain and the darkness of night.  I’ve been on Route 9W long before any cyclists are out and long after everyone went home for the evening.  It’s been exciting and lonely, but for some reason never boring.  The roads keep changing, another hill to be climbed or simply just miles ahead of me before I make it home.

My family has been away while I’ve been training.  This has been very helpful.  I haven’t had the guilty feelings associated with abandoning my children while I go out for an extremely long training session.  I speak to them every few days on the phone.  My wife keeps asking me if I’ve done various things around the house, to which I reply with a resounding “NO”.  She doesn’t seem to have any idea what my days have been like since I started training.  It basically goes like this:

Monday – Friday: Wake 4am, ride 60 miles into NJ and back, shower, pack for work, ride to work, work, ride home, eat, sleep, repeat.

Saturday : Wakeup 4am, ride until I can’t ride anymore, come home eat, sleep

Sunday: Repeat Saturday.

I’ve never trained as hard as this for anything else in my life.  It is all consuming.  Even during my Ironman days, I wasn’t putting in the training volume that I am now.  So far I am injury free, with the exception of intense saddle soreness.

I do have a few friends that know and appreciate how much I’ve been training.  Their support is much appreciated.

As much as I’ve been training, I am worried that I will not be able to complete the 508 in the time limit.  The simple fact is there is not enough time in the day, nor enough long and steep hills in my area necessary for me to feel confident.  Maybe this is a blessing; perhaps it is making me over compensate by training all the time.

So far since I’ve begun training, I’ve logged 5,500 miles.  I keep planning trips further from home and more difficult.  I ride with a ton of stuff:  A full Camelbak, two water bottles, work and personal cell phones, GPS, pump, spare tubes, suntan lotion and lot’s of singles for the vending machines.  I don’t ride particularly hard, but I am not slacking either.  My moving average has been about 15.1 MPH and my overall average has been about 12-13 MPH.  This isn’t too bad when you consider I am stopping every couple of hours or so to get food, rest, eat and drink.  Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with only getting two flats while I was out riding, both of those is the same rear tire… I guess it’s time I changed it.

I am actually surprised that I got into the FC508.  I didn’t think I had that impressive of a race resume, especially when you consider I don’t have any major recent accomplishments.  I think part of the reason why I was accepted was my willingness to raise money for a charitable organization – Transportation Alternatives (www.transalt.org).   TA is a cycling advocacy group based in NYC that tries to make it safer for cycling and encourages the use of public transit.  I felt that having lived and cycled through NYC all my life, I should support an organization that helps make it safer for me to do so.  If you want to help me raise money for TA, you can make a donation by clicking on this link:

http://ta.convio.net/site/TR/Events/General?px=1043046&pg=personal&fr_id=1040