Country Church

On one of my bike routes I pass by this country church. The church steeple has chime music that plays out every 30 minutes. I also use this church as my starting point on some of my rides and park my truck in their parking lot.

Today I parked at Wild Cat Den State Park and rode east and north eventually ending up at this church before turning around and heading back to my truck.

The wind was blowing out of the southeast at 23 mph today, but the sun was shining and the temps had warmed up to the mid 60's. We are starting to turn the corner on winter and warmer temps are here to stay I believe.

Wind, Wind Go Away

It doesn't seem like the wind will subside anytime soon. Today the weatherman said we had gusts all day in the 30 mph range. I needed to get in a longer ride today and sure wasn't looking forward to doing that long of ride on the trainer. So it was outside into the wind. It made for an interesting ride. As long as I stayed parallel with the wind either as a headwind or a tailwind I was fine, but when I went perpendicular to the wind I had trouble keeping my bike on the road. The wind did blow me off onto the gravel shoulder twice today. I ended up with a 31 mile ride, but with the high wind it made me feel like I had been outside in it all day.



This picture was taken of the Pine Creek Grist Mill near our house. With all the rain we had yesterday Pine Creek's banks were full.

Return To The Trainer

After I returned from Reno the weather has been unforgiving. It has rained yesterday and today with high winds. Unable to get outside on my bike I have resorted to getting back on the trainer for an hour of exercise yesterday and today.


Today's hour on the trainer was interrupted unexpectedly, when severe weather came to our area. Three tornadoes were sighted within 15 miles of our home and we went down to our lower floor and took cover under the stairway. Thank goodness the storms passed us by without any damage. We did get a tremendous amount of rain and the temperature dropped from 72 to 46 degrees in a matter of 2 hours. This picture was taken of our pond next to our home. It had been very shallow and thanks to the rain it filled up.

The weather tomorrow looks much better, then it goes back to rain and colder temps. They are even talking about snow and a hard freeze by Tuesday.

Reno

Today was the last of my meetings and early tomorrow morning I will be heading back to Iowa. I was able to get outside the hotel this afternoon and take a walk with a couple of friends. Enjoyed the exercise and fresh air. The humdity is very low out here and the weather is still pretty chilly. The mountains that surround the Reno area are all covered in snow.

Reno is an old mining town and there are lots of smaller casinos in the downtown area. Most of these hotels are older and do not compare to the flair of Las Vegas. There is a huge Asian contingency out here and lots of the hotels and restaurants employ Asians and many of the gamblers come over from Japan and other eastern countries.

I was able to get down to the exercise room and spend 45 minutes on a recumbent exercise bike and also did some work with weights.

Business Trip

I flew into Reno yesterday for a 3-day business conference. It is quite cold out here, 20 degrees below normal. Last night it got down to 20 degrees and the highs are in the upper 40's to mid 50's.

The conference is in Harrah's. Had a great dinner last night across the street at El Dorado's Roxy's restaurant. Now I am sitting in a meeting and getting bored.

Hold Off Rain

The last two days have been rainy. Yesterday I was able to squeeze a 50 minute ride in before it started raining and I hurried back to the truck before I got soaked. Today my chances weren't much bettter; however, I was able to get in a 75 minute ride before it started sprinkling. As you can see from this picture is was a rather dreary day.

Cross-Training

Today is such a beautiful day. We hit 70 yesterday and today, but the big difference is the wind. Yesterday was very windy, while today we only have a 5 mph wind. Today I went out for a short 45 minute ride at a moderate pace. I had another dog chase me, but I had a can of wasp spray and this made him retreat.

Yesterday, I visited a vendor in Selkirk, Manitoba. I took a customer with me and we flew into Minneapolis and then caught another plane into Winnipeg. Selkirk is only a 30 minute drive north of Winnipeg. It was up and back all in one day. The temps were 20-25 degrees cooler up there and they still had some snow standing in spots.

I wanted to include this picture of our friends Dave & Sylvia. On Tuesday nights, Patti and I have been joining them for dance lessons for the last 4-5 months (good cross-training). This picture was taken this past Tuesday night, when we had a dance for all the class participants. It was fun to dress up and practice a little of what we learned. We danced the Waltz, Fox Trot, Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing and the Texas Two Step.

Trivia Time

Last night Patti and I joined six other friends and competed in a trivia match at one of our local towns. There were 68 teams of (8). We have competed in this trivia match several times before and enjoy the game and the company. Tonight we got off to a bad start on round 1 (we only got 6 out of 10 right). It was catch up the rest of the night. By round 10 we had moved up from 35th place to 15th place. I believe we ended up with 775 points (out of 1000).

Spring hasn't quite arrived yet--but the long-range weather forecast says this is the week for our temps to finally get up in the 60's. On my ride today it was in the low 40's with a 15 mph wind, which made for a chilly ride. I ended up logging 60 miles today.

Windy

There were storms last night through-out the Midwest as a cold front made it's way across the plains. We had a tornado watch yesterday, but received only high winds. This morning the temps were in the upper 40's with rain chances at 30% until noon, when rain is supposed to be a reality. The winds were out of the southwest and were in the range of 25 to 35. I couldn't motivate myself to do a 90 minute ride on my trainer, so around 8:45 this morning I headed outside to ride in the wind. As you can see from the windsock that I have out at the end of my driveway--the wind was gusty.

As long as I had the wind at my back or in my face I was ok, but if I angled and got a cross-wind it was very hard to keep the bike on the road. With the wind in my face I used the granny gear quite a bit stayed in the 7 to 9 mph range. This may sound like a crazy way to get some exercise, but actually going into the wind was great strength building exercise. The course I picked was also a very hilly course--so I would be embarrassed to tell you what my average speed was today. I did get in some steady state intervals today--getting my heart rate up around 85% of my maximum. I made it back around 10:30 and didn't get rained on--lucky me.

Biking Colorado-2008

I have finalized plans for this year's Colorado trip. A biking friend from Detroit, Tony will be joining me this year and we fly out on June 28th. We will start our cycling tour of southwest Colorado on June 30th and finish on July 4th. A friend from the Quad City Biking Club, Steve will be in Colorado on vacation that same week and he plans to join me for 2 days of riding and will be bringing his 2 sons along.

Our route leaves the Montrose area with overnight in Telluride on day #1. Day #2 takes us over Lizard Head Pass (photo above taken in 2005) and down into Cortez and we overnight in Mesa Verde National Park. On Day #3 we tour Mesa Verde and then bike over to Durango. On Day #4 we head to Silverton and go over Molas and Coal Bank Passes. On Day #5 we go over Red Mountain Pass and through Ouray before ending back in Montrose. We should end up with around 25,000 feet of climbing. We will be self contained and will pull BOB trailers behind our bikes with our camping gear and clothes. I did most of this same route in 2005 on my maiden cycling tour: http://www.mytour2005.crazyguyonabike.com/ . The picture above was taken at Lizard Head Pass on that trip.

It is only 2 1/2 months till I leave on this trip, but it seems like an eternity away this morning. I am looking out my office window and the winds are whipping at 30+ mph and it is raining. The forecast calls for rain most of today and tomorrow. It looks like I will be back on my trainer today for the 60 minute ride I have planned. I posted my first entry this morning on my Colorado biking web-page: www.lonstour2008.crazyguyonabike.com

Nice Day For A Ride

For the first time in several weeks the wind was below 5 mph. Even though the temps were hard pressed today to get up to 50 degrees, without the wind it felt ok. Did a 90 minute ride which included 60 minutes of Tempo riding.

With the weather starting to moderate I started thinking about getting one of my muscle cars out for a ride. We live on a gravel road and the roads are atrocious this spring. They need to firm up just a little more before I pull out my 1966 Chevy Impala SS for a spin.

Back On The Trainer

Well I spoke too soon. Last week the weather was great and I spent 4 days outside on my bike. I took a needed rest day yesterday and got a lot of projects done around the house.

I had planned on going on the Melon City Bike Club's Tuesday night club ride tonight, which is a fast paced ride with some of our racing members. The weather was absolutely lousy today and it was raining when I got up and here it is almost 8pm and it is still raining.

So it was back on the trainer for a 60 minute medium paced ride for some endurance training and I also went to the YMCA and did a 60 minute Pilates class to help build up my core muscles. I started with this Pilates class back in November and it has helped me strengthen some weak muscles in my abdomen and lower back muscles that are showing some improvements in my cycling abilities.

Spring Has Come

I went on a rather long ride, 60 miles. It finally warmed up and got to 66 today. As part of my training ride today, I did 4 Tempo intervals of 20 minutes each with 10 minutes of recovery in between each interval. There was a rather strong wind today (15-25 mph). I chose my route by riding into the wind for the first half of the ride.

Since the Mississippi River is in my back yard, it is always exciting to see the river traffic starting to move up and down the waterway. I took this picture on the bridge in Muscatine as I began my ride just a little past noon.

Dog Trouble

Yesterday and today on my bike training rides I have ran into dogs along my routes. Yesterday I was chased by a very big dog who wouldn't give up. He stayed within 2 to 4 feet of me for a good 100 yards and just when I was getting out of his domain the neighbor dogs were alerted and they joined in on the chase. So for another 50 yards I had 3 dogs after me. I couldn't outrun them and had to go very slow so as not to make them attack. For those of you that have been through this it is a tedious process. Dogs like to bite at things that go around, like wheels, pedals and your feet and legs. So I would coast a while and then when my speed had decreased to the point that I was going to tip over I would pedal just enough to get moving again. Each time I pedaled the dog would lunge toward my moving foot on his side. Luckily, he never grabbed a hold of anything. Last week I ran across the big dog on this very same route.

So today I thought I would try a different route. I had my first encounter at two separate farms where single dogs took up the chase, but I was able to easily outrun them (the wind was at my back). On the return trip, I never saw these two dogs, but as I neared the end of my ride, two dogs gave chase at another farm and with the wind in my face I had to struggle to outrun them. It was nip and tuck for a while, but as my speed increased I pulled away.

I have a plan for my next ride to prevent any dog mishaps. I will either bring some pepper spray or better yet a can of wasp spray. The pepper spray has a very short range (4 to 5 feet), while the wasp spray can easily reach 20 to 30 feet.

Sign me doggone tired of being chased by man's best friend.