Heavy Rain, Storm, T-Storms -- a good maintenance and recovery day

Last three days Py rode to the Camp as the weather was really nice, just little wind...



Following C's idea the RP2IPBP ride was scheduled for this morning but also was questionable due to uncertain weather conditions -- and so it was, a heavy down pour around 8am flooded the roads in no time -- a "wash out day". Good to take car of some shopping and do some over due maintenance, as Py recently noticed more and more noise from his rear dérailleur, a closer look clarified the issue -- old and new:


At his local well stocked shop he got a new set of pulley wheels -- XTR so, but it seams to be exact the same size and works just fine for Ultegra also.

Alternative Hill Laps Riding

Py was late this morning, it is a Holiday. And missed the Holiday Harbor Hill Ride :-(
May be not too bad, very windy, lot's of flying around dirt and pollen making eyes itchy. He went out late for an short alternative ride, intense at sections, some multiple laps on well known smaller low traffic roads and hills. Still too many cars making the dirt even flying more, arggg.

Here is the profile -- the locals may identify the route by that ;-)

Early Birds - Big Peleton - New Experience

Again, Early Birds. The night before Py was figuring out a way to mount his favorite pump on this bend top tube without interfering with the open cable, some spacer and little art with cut parts of old tubes did the job, to mount it rattle free and with out scratching the frame. The whole idea behind this was to leave this Camel bag home... and improve aerodynamics and comfort. Sunday morning Py got up early to get rolling towards Manorville at 6:40am.

As he got to the meeting place several riders were already there preparing, and more and more and more were showing up -- he did no head count, but more than double of usual, some where around 50 riders he estimated, must be the biggest and longest peleton he had ever see on this ride so far!

A few minutes late they rolled out of the parking area -- the big field took the whole lane for a while until a long pace line formed...

Here are some photos, click to see the album:



On the way two flat stops and a dropped computer were holding up a little, but still, moving fast in the big group felt quite effortless today. They were flying out Dune Rd, over the bridge, and did some record like home run which needed some more work:

Section one to the after the bridge reassembly: 38 km @ 35.6 km/h
Section two until the Seven-Eleven: 23 km @ 34.0 km/h (little chilling)
Section three home run: 22 km @ 39.2 km/h !!
Over all: 83 km @ 36.1 km/h

MB map and stats are coming later -- MB is not working right now -- sorry :-(

The new pump mount worked just fine as expected, still all in place. Photo taken after the ride at the obligatory Starbucks stop and small talk...




A quick movie of the head of Birds Peleton:





Statistics of my ride, including to and from sections:





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MTB @ RP/RCA trail

Today Py went off road on the trail, once in a while it is nice to escape from the damn cars. Nice fresh green trees and ferns, still a few blooming plants, very nice. The trail was in perfect condition, smooth and well packed. Py and C were flying, and still one quite fast rider was coming along... they meet him later again at the main plot.

Total lap time for all of it 1h28.


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The bike did OK with the overhauled rear shock, but he has to keep an eye on it, as he got the impression the performance wasn't as good towards the end as is was at the beginning -- but he could be wrong also.

Ride of Silence

Wednesday Mai 21th 2008 Py went out with a few buddies in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways -- to participate the Ride of Silence starting from Bellport, just across Kreb Cycle. Just a few rider showed up, may be due to late notice and the chance of a few drops of rain??? Well, we got a few drops, that was it. However, a nice little ride to enjoy the scenery of a few little towns...






The Ride of Silence, Bellport tp Sayville to Bellport:


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The Ride stats -- keeping it at 12mph as recommended:

Bloomin' Metric 2008

This Sunday was a special one and the annual 2008 Bloomin' Metric ride in CT was on Py's list.

Early rise at 4:30... So he got ready to ride, everything was ready, just that stupid (nonessential) GPS toy Edge 305 did not cooperated and just did not turned on, dead, nothing. He was sure he charged it up while downloading the data from The Harbor Hill ride, even that just very partly used the battery. However, this thing sucks occasional -- he ripped off the now useless HR belt, but still took the Edge -- never know, can play with it on the ferry. So now no good time on the bike, just that little old style computer with some clock about 10mins behind the time as reference. Heading out at about 5:40 to pick up M on the way riding to the Ferry at Port Jeff. They took the most scenic route via NC, Shore Rd and Old Post, shooting down the last hill to the harbor and arrived early. Really nice out there this early, no cars at all :-) He managed to get his GPS going (by pressing random buttons together at a time...) by the time, but as it's battery status showed a very low level he turned it off again in the it may last for the ride in CT.

Here a few of us waiting for the ferry to arrive...


Out first stop, basically only to meet up w. C to continue on some nice rolling smooth and fast back roads. Py was having some fun....



Here was our first cookie & water stop, some nice huge soft oatmeal raisin cookies :-)

Proceeding a few more little climbs and fast downhills. Close to the last stop the GSP showed battery low....
And at out 2nd stop (actual the official start/stop). Here were some good sandwiches and more cookies waiting for us :-) Little looking around at some exhibitors... one especially nice bike was displayed, a new Cervelo w Red groupo.


Well, and here the GPS turnd itself off, as the battery was dead now. So just a partial map :-(

Here is what he got from it today -- his total for today was 150km:


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From there, they rode back the actual 1st leg of the Metric route, the sun started hiding and the temperature dripped a bit but it stayed still nice and dry. Little later they bared off to return to the ferry. They had to wait about 30mins for the 1:30 boat.

Back in Port Jeff a few scary little rain drops came down... but he had to ride back home and made it w/o getting really wet, as the road was just very little wet and still dry most the time.
Just back home a few more drops came dome... nice day.

Last Minute RP 2 Harbor Hills Ride Improvisation

Py woke up little late, no RP2IPBP ride planned due to never-know last minute changing weather... However, the sun was coming out this morning, it warmed up quickly and the strong wind was drying all off nicely.

It just turned 9am as he noticed a message from M... not much thought with that nice day coming up and he got ready and on his bike and meet M at 10am on the way out West today.

Nothing in particular in mind, just riding all the Harbor Hills on the way West always close to the Sound and with several scenic overviews and a few stops at "Dead Ends" all the way to the water. Here at Mt.Sinai Harbor, end of Harbor Beach Road -- quite some activity was going on out here, some scuba diving and kayaking:


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What a nice day..., just a strong Wests wind -- quite a head wind going out here:

(M.)

(Py)

Backtracking the narrow land section was fast and proceeding further west. And on the other side looking back over -- we could have possible swim over in less time...



And a little further east beyond Port Jeff... A little Light House:



And the usual statistics, just a nice ride, easy going, some good (for the island) climbs. Only issue to complain about was all the debris getting airborne by cars and trucks and blown all over and at times into Py's eyes by the strong wind. And, well, almost normal, thousands of pot holes and terrible rough road......

Early Birds North Flight

What a nice Mothers Sunday :-) Still, it was quite chilly early this morning, 8..9C at 6:30am as Py got out to ride to the start, it felt even colder and he was a bit shivering almost all the way out. A big group showed up... some were little longer fiddling around with there bikes and they got a little late start.

North Route Today, as South Route encountered some flooding of Dune Rd today.

It took them also a while to get to some speed and a longer slowdown coasting along in between to allow some one to catch up after some mechanical. But from that point on a good pace developed. And the big group was whoooshing along, it must look pretty, as it already was nice to see from some position in the middle -- a nice ordered single file pace line -- it was photo perfect looking, but no way to capture it while moving: Imagine about 12 riders in front, there silhouettes projected perfectly clear on the road to the left by the sun -- and about twelve more behind.

Nothing special otherwise. Here at the first reassembly stop after "The Tanks" run:


And later at Cutchogue again.



From here a close to hypersonic speed developed on the way back, they averaged little over 37.4 km/h or 23 mph.


Ride stats including Py's ride to the start and back home.

Group ride average today was 36km/h.

RP2IPBP2Cutchogue

The rain stopped over night and Saturday morning slowly the sun made it out :-) With 15C in the morning still a little chilly but fine for riding, the roads were just dried up, few puddles left.

9am Py meet at Tildas with C and M for a 75mi ride.

Again North Cross Winds... here at IPBP, enjoying the sun:



Today they proceeded East, C did some good work out on Oregon Road into the strong steady Cross Wind. Turning South and towards the Cutchogue Deli was nice and fast with the Wind behind....


The way back home was a good flight...

The ride:

6'164km - Experiment got to its end

PyZahl is very happy with the result of his long term experiment which was running since September 1st of 2007, Tarmac odometer reading 16'722km, and can not really complain at all about the very first flat of his rear tire today, Tarmac odo 22'886km, on his way home from the Camp as a sharper edge or little piece of usual gravel -- no sight of glass or new cuts, just a tiny dull damage of the tube -- must have just hit the only small cut or damage of the tire seen here:

The tire got quite "flatenend" over the last 6164km, yes 6164km. The newly rounded and much thicker running surface is almost gone and the wear is about a good 1600km beyond the by now fully gone wear marks:


Here is the profile of the worn out tire:


And the new shiny tire in place looks like this:



All over, the Continental GP 4000 is an excellent long life and very robust and flat proof tire, PyZahl can not complain about any flat within the 6'164km he rode it and even the "final" flat he took as trigger to end his experiment would under normal circumstances (no damaged surface) most likely not have had a flattened it. He rode it all winter and kept the pressure at the recommended 7.6 bar (110 psi). However, as he did not want to play Roulette any longer with chances of sharp objects finding just the bad spot at the tires surface... a new tire is in place for the next 6kkm.... hope fully.

PS: For all non local readers, Long Island roads are general speaking quite bad, plenty of holes of all sizes, very rough road surface, sand and salt (this test was over the winter season) and all kind of debris to run over at times.

Bloomin Season

A nice Monday got to it's end... a good day for riding, the usual route to and from the Camp via Wading River, the Pond and around Lake Panamoka.

Here a few views snapped at Camp -- beautifully blooming trees.

Heavy Morning Fog

This morning PyZahl got up at 5:30 and lurked out of the door, condensing water on the screen and all over, slight drizzel and drops out of the sky, all soaked wet and heavy fog sitting over the island. No no, he would be soaked wet and have bad vision as glasses will be covered with an dense 2D array of micro droplets in no time from outside...., so he decided not to ride to the start nor to drive there, as the forecast and radar was not so inviting for a ride, also it was pretty chilly., went back to bed :-) And it did not cleared or change a bit withing the next few hours... Oh well, Saturday was kind of rained out/foggy/miserable already -- that looks like a full recovery weekend by mother nature.

As time was approaching noon the situation improved, but he had some work related project in mind to finish and for this he needed to get to his office at the Camp as there at the GXSM HQ all the equipment to test and finish up the project he needed is located. But a little workout would be nice, the roads were still wet in his neighborhood so he drove to the Camp and his plan was to do the still outstanding run of last week... so he did, a 1st lap of the "10k Bluestone" route back into the woods of the Camp, easy with I and then he had the idea to find out how a 2nd lap at decent pace would work out, not to bad at all -- about 19k total and 1h22.

Good Sunday EBs alternative once in a while...

That done he finished up his little Sunday GXSM project and it just fit all together, to look after some lab stuff before he went out for dinner to JRs with friends -- good different Sunday.