Steveston Not a Bike Club

I did a ride on Saturday 86km. It is my second longest ride this year and I was marginally faster than that one. The World Cup has been a distraction as I have watched many of the games. Some were excellent. I really wish they would punish those stupid players who roll on the ground pretending to be hurt then pop up and run around. It makes me angry. See I am distracted.

The wind continues to annoy me. At the airport the wind sock was having a hard-on straight from the west. Yet on one east bound leg I hit a headwind? It always finds me. I also found the Garmin thing gave me a good score on anaerobic effort. I did nothing different than when I get a zero. I did not have a snack at the midpoint of my ride, but I had a sugary ice tea mix in the two bottles I took.

I will say I felt more than the usual tired. I was pretty well spent when I got home. The Bike computer told me I needed 58 hours to recover. I think that is a new record. Part may have been that I skipped two weekday rides. They are modest, but they help. I have roughly two months until the Granfondo. I am pretty well on track, I think.

I feel fine overall. So much is happening this summer.

I feel fine.

I did an 82 km ride on Saturday with no issues.

I did not do a ride in the week, as I had to wear a walkman sized plastic box around my neck with wires clipped to my chest. During a routine physical I had an ECG which is 20 seconds of heart monitoring. That doctor said there was a tiny thing he noticed in those 20 seconds.

He asked if I could do a stress test on a treadmill. I said I could, but I would prefer a bike as well obviously. Then I mentioned I rode A LOT and figured I would crush any such test. Hmmmm. I think I better send this to a cardiologist. That was the person who needed this old tech monitor thing rigged up.

So I spent 24 hours with this stupid thing on me. Trying to sleep and live life almost normally. I have several things about my heart that are unusual for a old geezer. I have a high maximum heart rate. I am 2 Standard deviations above the "normal" 220-age max rate. I also have a pretty large Heart Rate Variability, and of course a low resting heart rate. I could not shower with this device. Otherwise it was fine. They gave me a sheet of paper to note any symptoms over the day like dizziness or fainting. I had no such events. I made no notes. Nothing happened.

I considered doing a ride, but that could have been weird. So I did nothing.

I have an appointment in two weeks to discuss this stuff with the heart specialist. I know of one condition that would concern me. Tachycardia. I had a friend with that. The heart beats with such speed and in an uncoordinated fashion that it does not move blood. It is real. I hope it is not that. On my rides my heart rate goes up and down, and my blood pumps reliably.

I have a fair distance to go to exceed last June, and I will probably not make it. I have a series of tests that will impact what and when I can do things. But I got a good ride in on Saturday. 79km.

The weather was cool, almost the perfect temperature hovering around 20C. I had an undershirt and my jersey and was comfortable. The sun was full on and there were no clouds in the sky. So very blue. And yes the wind was annoying. Most of my ride was sheltered by the trees and buildings in the city.

In Stanley Park I actually hit low 30s in speed for the stretch from English Bay to Coal harbor. That was long in coming, but it was more from trying to clear this tourist's car that could not decide what lane to use, if not actually deciding what a lane is. The left side of the road is more smooth with less bumps and holes.

There were hundreds of other riders out. I did not see any of my old clubs out, but I tend to leave home about an hour after they start.

I felt good and was less tired afterward. I put ice tea mix in my bottles with a wee bit of creatine. I find that stuff helps with cramping. I do not subscribe to the Gatorade myths as they just add salt. That dehydrates you. I hold my body responsible for holding its electrolytes in balance.

I have new shorts. It is sort of a big deal. Your bottom has a big job to do on a bike and if it is not happy it does not go well.

I have tried a few brands over the years, and settled on CASTELLI for my last few pairs. My previous pair have lasted 4 years and still are in good shape. The pair before that, also CASTELLI started to look funny after a couple years. Castelli fit me. I know a few riders who have a hard time with fit. One guy even shops in women's sizes as he has quite chunky legs and the usual insect shaped legs do not suit him.

I am almost like that. I am a bit chunky in the legs and once I knew that XXL bib shorts fit me comfortably I was set. Recently they have adjusted the sizes so now I fit an XL. I guess Europeans are quite skinny but they are selling more stuff to us meat eaters.

The type I got were called cargo bib shorts. They are just like ordinary shorts but they have pockets. Not lumpy pockets but slim flat pockets. They are a great thing. I can put my smart phone in one when I am walking about, or snacks when I am snacking on the road. Road kit usually has pockets on the back of jerseys, but that is not convenient when you are not on the bike. The pocket is also an extra layer of fabric that may help resist abrasion injuries when you go down. There is also a pocket in the back center of the bib which is nice and secure also for when you lose the battle with gravity and momentum.

As they are Castelli they fit me and the bum pad is really nice for me. Once you find a brand that fits and works keep it up.

I have done three rides with them and I am happy.

Saturday rain was forecast. When I woke up the sun was beaming into my bedroom. Blue sky was off to the south and I thought hey good enough. I had a short breakfast got geared up and went outside.

As I waited by the road for my bike computer to find satellites and sensors I saw a HUGE cloud off to the West. Tall and pretty well black at the bottom. But that is west and I am heading north. Ever the optimist.

I started out and as I got close to the airport where I could see farther there were full on storm clouds on three sides. Sun and blue sky behind me. Oh dear. I called it and headed back to home. Some wind blown rain found me to give me a kick for even trying. There is not bad weather just wrong gear. I did not have my fenders, or a rain jacket, or warm enough clothes.

When I say storm clouds I mean those big prairie sized thumpers. Even with full rain gear I get nervous. Lightning is scary and dangerous. I have been close to a strike. Close enough to make my ears ring, and smell the ozone. I was walking, and had neither a bike or a car. The bolt struck an antenna on a building and set off every alarm they had. Serious stuff.

So I called it and went home barely a 20 km ride.

Sunday I tried again. There were still some heavy clouds, but they were mostly over the city farther to the north than I was heading. I did a simple loop to UBC.

As I was hitting SW Marine a small group came up behind me. As we got to the boulevard that climbs to the campus they passed me. I jumped on and followed them in a paceline. Their last guy started falling behind the other two and as he slowed down I passed him. He was fairly large and I was marginally quicker up the slope. He jumped on my wheel which is fair play and I lead him up the rest of the hill. That hill is a gentle slope, but it is a hill. I was doing my usual hill pace.

His friends had gone ahead as this was a "free zone", but they would wait near the top. I pulled until the hill crested and they had come back together. They were heading into the city and I was looping back. They were going to get wet.

I have a few war stories. I have put over 106,000 km on my bikes since I started this nonsense. That is a lot of used up rubber and three worn out bikes.

If you get into this and even start following professional cycling you will wonder about hills. If you wonder about hills, that will lead to mountains. The area I live in is in a River Delta and is FLAT. The neighboring cities and towns have some hills and across the way there are real live mountains.

These mountains are not snow capped all year long type, but those type are close. The accessible ones here are road accessible to 1000m ish above sea level. I live at sea level so that is what a climb starts from.

I saw that American Doper win 7 Tours d France and had a bike and saw those mountains. I had not even gone up any real hills. My typical rides were about 25 to 40 km dead flat. I had a friend who lived in the next town over and wanted to show me some hills when I bought a "real" bike. That was a painful experience. I knew nothing about fuel or pacing and I was very tired at the end.

Later I found a steep hill next town over to practice on and build my strength, but more important learn the pace I needed to summit. I found that pace was the most important thing.

As I got experience and did longer rides I found more hills. These were only short ones that I could climb in under ten minutes. I learned about going "red" where "yes that was too hard and I gotta stop and rest by the side of the road sorta thing".

After a couple years of that I decided to tackle a mountain. I was relatively fit, but not fit enough. I can say I got to the top, but I had to rest often, and I ran out of water. My heart rate maxed out for large parts of an hour at a time. Looking back I was lucky I did not die. My body was stressed from effort, and heat and dehydration. I did not pass out, but felt maybe like I should have. I had brought power bars and stuff to eat, as I had learned about that at least. Shit I was a stubborn fool.

I will say though that once I got to the top I was euphoric. I had pain and cramps and thirst, but euphoria is the only word. Now all these years later I have never failed to summit one of those mountains once I started.

I have been fortunate to escort a few riders up that same hill for their first time, and yes Euphoria lives at the top.

I just cleared 2000km for the year. This is good. I know "serious" cyclist do that in a month, but they be crazy and I do have a life.

This was a weekday ride out to YVR. It was warm and I actually got sweaty. On the bit out by the Runway I encountered an olde acquaintance. It was Francis, a person I met in a Granfondo training group years ago. I often see him and one or three others on the same route usually going the other way. This time they came up behind me, said "hi", and let me tag on. I and three other people.

If you have never done it a paceline is a lot of fun. This time it got up to 33ish kph which is about 6 kph faster than I was doing alone. From an effort point of view that is about 50% greater effort, or better efficiency depending on how you look at it. I basically tagged on the end and watched the wheel in front of me. The Idea is stay really close but DO NOT TOUCH. It takes concentration and you only glance up every few seconds to see if there is anything else to avoid.

It is a mental effort for sure, but you get a lot of free speed. The best ride I ever had was in a paceline with one other guy and two women. At my age I can mostly match flat land speed and power with younger women. These two were in my club and had taken off from their group and passed me and my companion. We chased them down and did a great group ride at speed for about 20km. Even the uphill parts were OK as I can put down some power for a minute or so. That was fun.

I am ahead of year-to-date last year and my 5 year running average. Actually by a generous amount. June is usually the month when it gets warm and I can get serious.

I finished off the month with a ride up to UBC then over to the big park. This time in the reverse direction from usual. That hill between UBC and the beaches on Spanish Banks is much faster going down. I almost hit 60 kph. The wind was westerly. The air was cool and I had two layers on top. That was just enough.

There were a couple things with traffic. In Stanley Park there was an ambulance responding to someone's bad day. Cars and busses backed up quite a distance. On my bike I snaked through the chaos. The Hill to Prospect Point was routine and I saw some familiar faces from the Lotus Club having lunch at the Cafe. They must have just come down from one of the mountains on the North shore.

I cut through Kits and was heading up the spine of Vancouver. An "older" woman was on an Ebike heading up the same route and of course passed me easily. I have to be careful with the age descriptions. She could have been younger than me. But I was using my body for the motor and not electricity.

There is a street crossing this route and it had stop signs on their sides of the intersection. Sometimes people in expensive cars do not think traffic signs are for them. I heard a car accelerate then suddenly stop. Just off the nose of this Mercedes was this woman on her ebike. I think she was experiencing a bit of adrenaline and had trouble moving. I shouted "Stop Sign!" at the driver and pointed to the sign she ignored.

The driver waved me off behind her designer sunglasses. Good thing she was rich as I think the car stopped when it detected the ebike in front. A less featured car would have made a bad day for Ms Ebike. My first aid skills are rusty.

I see a lot of bad behavior with cars on my bike. Taxis are the worst heavy trucks are pretty bad. Then there are ride-share-cars. There are a couple of ride-share or car-share type companies around here. Many people using them are real a-holes. I saw several giving themselves exemptions to one way do not enter areas, or bikes only this day.

I have to say the thing that makes me most uncomfortable is when I am passing a line of cars waiting at a light, and I get hit by a cloud of Mary Jane smoke. Often strong enough to give me a bit of a "boost". Talk about impairment. Yes I saw that on this ride.

I did a Stanley park loop on the weekend and a YVR loop yesterday. In 18.4 km I will pass May 2025. That will happen for sure. I am really far ahead of the year to date numbers so good for me.

Strava gave me a PB for the year to date over 30 km. My average speed was a full 1 kph better than my previous best now at 26.94 kph. The wind was much less, and it was finally almost warm. Warm air is thinner you know.

Garmin is now giving me a VO2 Max of 42 which is top 5% for geezers. Yeah me.

Over two rides I did 120 km. One was 88km which becomes my longest of the year. The weather is teasing us with nice temperatures. Just Shorts and Jersey now. Gotta use sunscreen. My bike tan is developing.

That 88km loop I did two circuits of Stanley Park and then went by UBC. The wind was not fun. I had two power bars for fuel over about 2 hours. I had one water bottle, but refilled it in Stanley Park.

Later I did a YVR loop and it was not slow. I just fell short of 26 kph average by a decimal point. The wind was blowing the right way this time. I could have pushed harder, but I dint want to.

I am well ahead of my pace from last year by the cushion I built up in January and February. In 110 km I will beat last May and I have two weekends to go. If I was ambitious I could do that in one go. I am not ambitious.

I feel good physically.

The type of weather that is actually scary on a bike is a lightning storm.

I got home after work and got ready for an airport loop. It was sunny to the West and off to the east it looked OK but there were distant big clouds. Off I went. It was almost warm. I had just my shorts and a jersey. My right leg is covered in shallow scars and scabs. I had a fall and fortunately it was cushioned by a large berry bush with plenty of thorns. Looks worse than it feels. At least it faced away from traffic.

As I got out to the turn around 17 km into the ride there were a few raindrops here and there. A big grey cloud had a wisp of rain falling off in front, and the wind was blowing bits of it towards me. It was moving off to my left and seemed to be far off.

As I was returning this cloud was keeping pace with me and moving East and South. It looked like I had two possibilities. I could just miss the rain now falling from it or just catch a bit of it for a few minutes. A few minutes of rain is no big deal. A short time in the wind would dry me off.

Just as I was turning south towards my home a huge lighting bolt swept across from this cloud reaching West. I was startled. It seemed close, but there was no thunder. I started counting one, one thousand, two one thousand, etc. To measure how far it was. But there was no thunder, which I took as it being very far off. I passed below the edge of the cloud and it started to rain a bit. I got a few drops but the road was still dry.

I cleared that cloud and thought I was home free. Roads were dry, and the sky looked good ahead of me.

Boom! Oh that was close. I did not see any lightning but it was up in the clouds. That is not good. Looking up and behind there was a full on storm cloud. Then I found myself in a bit of rain and melting hail. Hail is not good, that means a very violent air currents churning up there. Boom!

The road was now wet. I was starting to get wet, but not much. The rain was light. I had to keep going. They say cars are the best place to be in lightning, rubber tires, and a metal box. I had rubber tires, but nothing else. I had to keep going.

After a few minutes I got to a dry section of road. I started to dry out. The thunder kept up but was off to the North and East. I got home still a bit damp, and with a few drips on the bike frame.

I did that as a back up in case the bike computer rebooted again. It has several times recently. And of course the Garmin App gave me credit for 168km instead of 84. The Strava App was slightly more intelligent as I credited me with riding with myself each doing 84km.

I cannot be the only person who has both a watch and a bike computer. It would be trivial to program the app to recognize 2 recording devices. It could just ask. "Hey these two rides are the same which should I count?"

The watch had some interesting features the bike computer does not. It estimated my water loss in sweat at 2.13 liters. I had about 1.7 bottles worth of water which is less than that. It was an estimate. The bike computer has access to the same data. They are both discontinued models so maybe one is a bit more obsolete.

I saw a thing on the BBC app talking about ways to keep your brain healthy as you age. Stuff like that always gets my attention. The top of the list was using or developing your natural sense of direction. That involves no GPS following. When I look up a place I have never been I have to use Google maps or the equivalent, they don't have real maps anymore. I always look at it and put it away. In my bike club days my super power was knowing where I was and how to get to where I was going.

Longest ride of the year. Both in time and distance. Gotta say I am tired now. I know in a couple months this will be a modest time and distance. I have been down this road before many times.

I was also pretty quick in places. I encountered people from my old club, twice. Two different groups. I was able to slipstream one of them for 5 km. It is easy to go fast in a group. Even if you pull at the front for a bit. I do miss that. The second group recognized me. I even remembered this woman's name.

I have a job. I am old enough to have retired, and I know a few people who have. I do not have a pension or generous investments. So I gotta keep going. That is one side. The other is that many retired people are bored to death, and I got stuff to do. One of the people in our little company had died. I think he was younger than me. That doesn't matter though.

What does matter is we are short of people. We bring stuff in shipping containers from a factory we own in China. This late guy was key to getting this stuff unloaded. Sometimes now it is all hands on deck to unload those things. That was last week and again this week. For all the complaining I do I am a fit old geezer. Actually I am fitter than everyone else in our office. I never planned on this. No really.

I started in this thing for practical reasons. How do I get to work without a car? I got a bike. Then I found I liked it. Then yes I went far down the rabbit hole. Really far down. I was a couch potato. I now have good numbers. Well my blood pressure is higher than "they" say it should be. but my resting heart rate is great. My max heart rate is that of someone 40 years younger.

So today I was being a "swamper" which is the guy running around rigging gear for the forklift guy. Slings and shackles and stuff. Kinda cool in that this is industrial equipment I designed. I was using this body and I was not just keeping up I was racing ahead. It felt good. And my numbers are getting better. Is this cross training, working in the yard? I just checked my VO2 Max and it got better. Top 5% for "someone my age".

I am really looking forward to calm windless days. Yesterday was almost warm, but the wind just kept blowing and always from the wrong direction. Wind is like hill work so that is good for training. On the way back I was pushing hard into the wind and it was, well very hard. I got into fuck it mode. So I slowed down and cruised the upwind leg.

The aero wheels worked fine. They no doubt helped.

For a while I was doing very well. Oh and the damn Garmin computer crashed again. That is very frustrating. I lost about 400 meters of the ride. I know what the real distance is so I plugged that in. I assumed the time was right as it knows the start and the finish. I could fire up the watch to record it, but then I have to delete one as I get double credit.

It is an Edge 130 plus and is obsolete. I do not need touch screens and maps. I know where I am, and with constant construction no map is correct. Seems everything is touch screen now. A replacement is going to cost. I looked and some look promising, but battery life is questioned. I need at least 10 hour battery life.

Got some color on my arms and legs. The weather is actually warming up. Our Climate is two seasons here. One is the rainy bit in fall, winter, and spring. The other is summer, when it is dry, sometimes hot, and is perfect for getting bikes on the road. So I was not a lone warrior. There were a lot of people out.

Did 72 km. The wind was annoying. The year is about 1/3 done.

I got caught in Stanley Park as they had the Vancouver Marathon in part of it. I had to detour to the Georgia Street exit and loop back down Denman. I found the Australian Meat Pie shop there and took a picture for the Oz branch of the family. Meat pies are a big thing in Oz. They put most Murican fast food to shame.

I found the first pie shop in Whistler after my last Gran Fondo. There are a lot of Aussies in Whistler and BC in General. They like our mountains. I got a message from my daughter and her guy who were hiking in a mountain range in Victoria, Aus. The highest peak there is not quite as high as the hills on our North Shore, but the pictures are very nice. She met him when he was over here doing the Rockies. Yup lots of them upside downers.

I also pulled off my winter wheels with the fattish tires and put on the Aero wheels with the less fat tires. That gave me the access to clean the frame properly and de-grease the rear shifter. Soap and water and a brush and a hose, and WD40. The chain actually looks like metal now and not a black greasy thing. All that should be good for 5 kph more speed.

After that I even washed two cars. I was in the groove. I got tired.

71.25 km in 3.25 hours.

It was sunny, but still cool. I had two layers on top, one being a cycling jacket. I actually used sunscreen on my legs and face and back of neck.

It was a good loop.

I saw some people in my old LOUTS club. They were coming back from the north shore. That's where the big hills are. Its too early in the year for me to hit the mountains like that. I could, I just don't want to. A trip to that side takes over 5 hours and I need to build to that still. I will follow my not-quite-a-plan.

I am 34 km short of April last year, but far ahead of the year to date against last year and my 5 year average. One YVR loop will cover that off if I tag on a wee bit.

I have other pressures. My grandson is starting baseball. His mom sent me a video of him hitting a ball pretty far and a good base run. Those happen during my usual ride hours. I would like to see him play. I had to work on my car. It had a silly problem. These things have computers and turbos and no room to work under the hood. There was a lot of swearing.