Sunday, June 22, 2008

On the road and VT ride warmup

No Birds this Sunday morning. But a long drive up to Vermont. Py took the 9am ferry boat to CT and kept moving with his four wheeler up North. At about 12:15 he passed the border to Vermont and the terrain got little more rolling. It got dark and a heavy rain poored down...

Getting deeper into the Apalachians, nice little villages...



some passes and winding roads...

Approaching the destination at about 2:30 the sky cleared up a bit...


Here a nice barn, just a few 100yd from the base camp in Warren, up West Hill Rd.


The domizil of a few "Birds" for the next couple of days...

In the middle of the woods a nice rustic house, cosy inside :-)
Py checked out the area, a pretty good climb up on W. Hill and smooth dirt road at the very end.



There was some time left for a warm up and get a taste of the area ride later afternoon.









Very nice so far :-)


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Friday, June 20, 2008

Camp, Wildlife and Bike preparation

Just one more set of good TT rides to and from the Camp. And again rain shortly after getting indoors -- that's perfect, a nice warm and sunny day, rain at night.

Here one of the wild turkeys wandering around at the Camp.



Also today Py tested the new equipment he put on his bike in preparation of the upcoming rides.



KMC X9 SL on 12-27

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Race against the Storm

It was a nice comfortable day. Py rode to the Camp as usual in the morning, very pleasant, little wind, clear sky, sun, just in the 70ties and fairly dry. The whole day stayed nice, abut around noon a few darker clouds were around, but nothing of any concerns so far. As the clock approached 5:30 -- Py just again missed the official North Gate opening hours -- from North-West some scary dark clouds were approaching................................................

He checked the radar -- few little red spots and a bigger red zone approaching Port Jeff from West, but having some tendency moving off the Island onto the Sound. Hmmmm, he decided on a go and put down an offer for an car ride home. Time approached 5:45, radar looked little more questionable, however, he hurried up and rode full speed ahead out of the Camp. To his left some scary dark zone.... OK, he decided on his regular route -- if it is coming, he would get first out of it's way going little east and around it, at least for the most of the way -- so he did and put in a race like Time Trial flying at an average of little over 32km/h on his own all the way.

Some tail wind on 25A. Still dark west of him, but moving towards the Sound.... Still perfect temperatures and all dry.

At good speed going around lake Panamoka towards Wading River.

Still all dry, dark clouds seam to stay or move little towards North. Some rumbling far away...

Still all dry. Stupid light at 25A... seamed to stay red for ever, too much traffic. Waiting.

Still all dry. Full speed ahead down to the Duck Pond... no car is passing Py now, taking the road and going even close to the speed limit.... may be scaring cars at the intersection before the pond.... wooosh....

Still all dry. Skipping dinner at the beach today. Flying up North Country solo TT like....

Still all dry. Up coming cars also looking dry -- good. Getting darker, feeling a cool breeze......

Still all dry. Riding at warp speed over the two little crests and down and taking the long pull all the way up into Rocky Point.

Still all dry. Reaching Rocky Point and turning into the almost home and safe neighborhood. Kids playing to his left and right.

Still all dry. Easing up on speed. Huge dark cloud almost over Rocky Point. Making his way into the maze of Rocky Point to his safe home.

Still all dry. Greeting the neighbor, doing some yard work. Made it. Grabbing the mail and entering his porch. Just under the roof a scary high pitch ZzzztschtooongKrawoooom close by hit down not so far, the just turned on light flickered.

Still all dry. He quickly disconnected all sensitive electronic gadgets. More thunders striking down around. He postponed his shower, never know, water and too many electrons, may be scary and shocking....

Just a few seconds later the rain started poring down as if some one would empty thousands of buckets all over.....

Good to be indoors now -- he won the race today.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Early Birds North Flight in a Cloud of Humidity

Sunday, 6:30am, 72F/90%, no wind, grey sky, condensing water all over, partially wet roads -- Py stepped outside and rode to the usual EBs gathering at Manorville/KK. As he merged onto 25A he spotted a familiar looking rider and joined him on the way. Today the North Route was on schedule.

A nice group assembled and rode out north east at a nice warm up pace. Nothing exiting today, the usual sprint sections --- he learned that the lead EECT riders - they have power taps on their bikes, he was in between and in front of the pack moving for a little also, put in an average of 400 Watts along that "Tanks" section, with peak powers close to 1000 Watts, sounds scary but makes a lot of sense as he was pushing at his limit flying at over 55 km/h over that bumpy roller coaster like road --- and good moving, not as fast as last Sunday, but still close to 37 km/h average:

(36.1*34.91 + 35.7*13.75 + 37.4*23.93 + 36.7*15.48)/88.07 km/h = 36.50 km/h

Py started to collect Early Birds Photos now here:
Early Birds


Here are the usual ride stats including Py's to the start and home ride:



... and the map:


View Larger Map

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hot LI - Beach&Laps - Short Sprint w TT Rider

Long Island just received it's first heat wave with a couple of hot and humid days, almost reaching the 100F mark on Tuesday. Py just recovered a bit of his "hot" weekend on Monday and started riding to the Camp on Tuesday, the hottest day so far. On his way home he took a refreshing cool down at the Beach of Wading River and as it was so nice warmed up already he put in a few relaxed laps of swimming before riding the last few miles home with still little wet pants, so he did today.

But as he approached the Duck Pond from North today, he saw a unknown rider passing by going west on NC, the same way he is going to take. Just curious, he got moving a bit faster and caught him at the top of the short climb out of Wading River, said hello and passed by... the other rider was on a Cervelo TT bike and seamed to wake up the same time hanging on soon as Py let off a bit, but putting in a little sprint up the second short climb -- this is a nice one, you can gain good momentum and just push up and over in big gears at good speed... He kept pulling at good speed down and though the nice gentle high speed left bend for a while, as the grade flattens out to horizontal before a slight constant uphill tappers speed a bit down and wind resistance takes over at higher speeds... still going over 24...25mph the TT rider took over the lead and did a good job pulling for a while until Rocky Point and they swapped position again.

He kept going some where west, as Py left towards home.

Maybe the TT rider reads this... if so, just say hello...

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Early Birds South -- a hot day and a fast ride

No rest after the race, Sunday is Early Birds day :-)

Today Py got up early as usual and started out at 6:30am for an easy ride to the start -- the mercury already rose to 24C at 85% humidity, feeling really warm already. Today he got even into a little group as M&J joined his ride to the meeting point at about half way -- nice start of an hot day.

A pretty good number of riders showed today. He was little worried about his post race performance today. South route today, his favorite, good. They moved out at a good pace and the whole group nicely worked together, very nice constant fast pace -- he did his best, took no long pulls but mostly floated in high efficiency mode from tail to head and back...
No worthy special occurrences, well, one rider had bad luck and got two flats and Py the chance for a few more photos ;-)

A new (to the route) rider had a little hard time at the end but made it back. Py rode half way back home again with M&J, but left in Wading River towards the Beach to check out the water. Still little chilly, but he enjoyed a little few minutes in the water after a careful slow toes and finger tips to body cool down... felt very nice after that ride. And with temps up in the 33C range no towel needed, he did not had anything but his bike outfit.

C said: Hot day with a hot pace today. You said your computer was not working so well. So, if you didn't already get the average for today, it was 37 km/h (23 mph).

Py's GPS was out of order today, this stupid widget was once again out of battery as he tried to turn it on this morning, and he is 100% sure it was charged up, but about 4 days ago -- these little oddities make Py alway little upset, as he would have especially liked to have some HR&CAD parameters while riding, caring less about the route so. However, it also works all fine without it, even less distractions.

A few photos:

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Keith Nintzel Memorial 5k Run


For this Saturday the annul Keith Nintzel Memorial 5k Run 2008 was on his calendar.

The race went very well for Py, he meet his goal to come in under 19' and was very happy with his result.

Results 2008 are here.

Here is Py's favorite KN5K photo selection:





Official Sayville Photos...