Youth

I have this problem with my two boys Joshua and Caleb.


       JOSHUA                                                                          CALEB

You see those two can eat a cow and a pig, with gravy, and a wedding  cake every day, I know because I feed them a lot. Now what annoys me is they never gain a teaspoon of fat. Me, if I even smell a piece of cake I gain 2 lbs, if I think about eating that piece of cake I gain 4 lbs, if I actually do eat that piece of cake I gain 8 lbs of pure lard and it takes 5000 bicycling miles to wear it off. It just isn't fair.

                                                                              ME

Before I forget my sister Dawn asked me to post a picture of her. I guess I can. being she now realizes I am famous and all that with my news paper article and my own fan club. She wants to try to capitalize on my fame and gain some for her self. So here she is, my sister Dawn.

Dang, no riding this weekend, yeap NONE, I have to work overtime all weekend. Long days too. There will be more weekends like this over the next two months. Oh well goes with the job. It will just make me more grateful and hungry to ride.

So I will be reading all about you biker bloggers and live vicariously through you. 

Ok, I think I should go and try something called sleep. My eyelids grow heavy. Lata
DAve.

Road riding.

I posted this picture and this caption on my FaceBook as I was leaving the house to spend the better part of the day on my aluminium horse with wheels.

‎3 Simple Rules for Today's road ride.

A. Avoid ice patches.

B. Avoid mad carnivorous chasing dogs.

C. Avoid huge chunks of metal rolling on rubber wheels.

Some people thought this was a puddle I was headed into. Actually it is the hood of my car and I put my camera on top of it. 

Rode all over town, rode a lot of hills. 62 miles, thought I should at least do a metric century on pavement. Bike felt so light, took me awhile to trust cornering at these new speeds, that I haven't experienced since last Nov, with all the snow riding.

Here is a picture of the frozen Mississippi River.

Meet Mister David T. An endurance athlete. From bicyclist racer, to endurance skier, to canoe racer. Last week at the pre Birkie Ski Race during warm ups Dave fell backwards and dislocated his shoulder.  Unable to race he skied for 2 hours and packed up and went home. A week from this weekend is the "Big Birkie" 11,000 competitors. Dave has been working hard for this one and will be there. We chatted 90 miles per hour for 10 minutes all buzzed on endorphins and then decided to get back to moving so we didn't freeze in our sweat.

A wet drizzling day, but a day on the bike on a drizzling day is better then a day off the bike on a sunny day.

 I stopped and had a visit with Peter and gave him a peck. Another skier friend asked me if it was a 'long lonely rife' :-)

Feel well zonked now, the chill, the drizzle, lots of hills, the miles, left this guy with the 22 year old brain who wants to keep going all the time and the 58 year old body stiff and tired. That's a good thing. :-) I think?

Lata

Me.

Winter

My dog, Pitty, has the winter blues.

Winter for me simply means Increased obstacles to overcome to maintain regular and frequent hours bicycling outdoors.

Winter is over for me. I know it is only Feb 16th in NorthEast Iowa, but enough snow has melted to now road ride. The 10 day forecast has  everyday reaching above freezing. So we might get snowstorms or below zero temps yet, maybe, but the riding options are headed towards being wide open.

The trails are off limits, with a  chunk of frozen tundra 3 feet thick is will be a ice jam for a couple more weeks now.

SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have tomorrow off and I have 'her' ready to go. My Trek Cycle Cross XO2. I haven't rode my Metric Machine of 2010 since November.

I thought about should I go bonkers and shoot for 100 miles? The lighter bike and pavement should fly. I decided no. My only  goal is to spin the wheels and just have fun. I am going to explore all the places I haven't rode in over 12 weeks. Hill climb, have fun, no goals, play like a kid. Yahooo, I am excited.

DAve

Just an "Out and Back"

Was going to ride out on pavement today, wanted a change from riding snow mobile trails since December.  But 2nd thought after LQQKing at the roads saw there was not much room with all the snow still choking off the that narrow survival path between parked cars and moving cars. This town's motor travelers often do not like it when we bicyclers impede their travel to any degree.

I was still feeling yesterday's grind in the legs. So I thought I would keep it easy, 12 miles out 12 miles back on snow covered trails with the 'FatBike'
Two light layers of wool, covered by a bike jersey, with long legs was all that was needed to stay 98.6. Was  nice not to dress as the Eskimos dress as has been typical this winter.
My tires were starting to spin out on the 12 miles out as temps went into the 40s and my tires started to sink. The pedal got harder as my legs complained.
The 12 miles back I was sliding all over, fish tailing, zig zagging back and forth trying to find a good line as the ride got sloppy.

There is an art to riding in snow ruts. I am still working on it. It is the tactic of "soft steering" You have to let your front tire find it's own route while you keep pedaling. Trying to steer out of it or trying to steer into often flops ya. You sorta feel like a bobsled in the track bobbling back and forth. Most my couple dozen or more fly off the bikes this winter were caused when my front tire would kick out against a hard frozen side in a rut.

Finally I have my FatBack snow bike dialed in right.
The Surly handle bars  give me good power transfer both sitting or standing with comfort. I'll be putting her away soon. It's time for a different ride. I want to break her out early next winter season. Be better prepared for a few runs with those that race these things.

Matt (Lonesome Luddite) and Lisa (Lisa outside the box) have both posted on their blogs their epic journey with ArrowHead 135 they had this year. The first time I met these two amazing humble ultra endurance athletes they were  on Heritage Trail. Matt was competing and so was I, and another time Lisa was out training actually playing would be a better word to use here, and so was I.

Well, another weekend has come and gone. Seems it was again centered on pedaling a bicycle only to end up back at the same place I started. What can I say?

LaTa,
DAve.

Saturday's all right

Loaded up the FatBack on the bike rack and car drove to the trail head. I like it much better when I can just ride my bike through town, out the back trails and where ever I want to go with out relying on CarPower. But for now with all the snow there is no room on most the streets for me and passing cars. The cars are bigger then me, so for now I will use motorized travel to bicycle. Seems not right, but the thaw is coming.

I installed my new Surly Handle Bars for the ride today. I had to install longer rear brake cables and housing. Fixie Dave recommended them to me. He is right. Well he knows what he is talking about, he is riding the Tour Divide race this year 2750 miles across the Rockie Mountain tops unsupported on a fixed gear bike. Go Dave Go. This bar offers the best options for comfort, control and pedal power. They have a bit of flex inherent to them

which provides some stress relief. My Bar Mitts and Ergon hand grips work well with them also. Also I had good hand position in and out of the saddle.


I saw something today I haven't seen in some time, and that was somebody elses bicycle tracks besides mine. Yahooo, another rider out here. So I began the watch, and then I saw him, it was Troy, he was piloting a Mountain Bike, making pretty good time too. 7-8 mph is a good speed for snow covered trails. Troy's blog is funny, he has wit. His tales of training and competing in Triple D are a good read.  


I rode 6 hours, was out there for 7, spent an hour talking to all the weekend traffickers

Skiers, runners, snow mobiliers and Troy. Bike rode good today,  rode hard and was Zonked when I finished. Hope I have some zippity zap left for tomorrow
 Taking a break, with my friend Stanley who provided the hot coffee.

Also one of my favorites. Pop-Tart.

Gears as you can see here were icing up and skipping. 

The Snow is deep and packed. See my bike is sitting on top of the this bench. There will be a lot of mud, slop, and slush, I can hardly wait for those rides. Perhaps I will revert back to being a roadie during such times.









Here I am, finished, end of the journey. Was a good day on the bike.






A big arse eagle swooped right in front of me, it's size just amazed me. I landed in a near by tree, I tried sneaking up in snow past my knees to get a good pic. It soon flew away, this picture doesn't show how big it really was, it was magnificent.

Well, I haven't even hosed my bike down, dry and lubed yet. I gotta get going it's almost 10:00 all ready.
You take care.
DAve.

Pimping my ride.

Working on my ride this evening. Put Surly handlebars on, required longer brake cables and housings. Modified my Ergon grips, changed Bar Mitts and tuned. Ready to Rock.
Looking so forward to riding into ZONKville tomorrow. My ACE mechanic Tiny-T did most the work on the bike modifications.

I am not sure I know how to dress for tomorrow. I know what to exactly wear for 15 degrees and colder, it has been the norm for some time. But the now warmer temps 30-40F, will be quite a bit different.  I want to ride 'light' tomorrow. Temps will be in the mid 30s.


Went into work this morning and Joleen one of the operators said to me, that she saw a picture of a bicycler riding on Heritage Trail on the Telegraph Herald News Paper online edition. So being I have been riding on this Trail whole bunches and haven't seen another bicycler since the Triple D race last Jan 16th I was really curious to who this be.
So Joleen shows me this picture online. Photograph taken by Dave Updegraff.

So I say, "Hey that's me!!!" I recalled a fellow on last Wednesday's ride, driving his car to a trail crossing jumping out of his car, setting his camera quickly and taking a picture of me. It was like zero degrees out and I was really pushing the pace here, and didn't want to stop, just wanted to get home. I thought he said something to me as I passed by. About 250 yards later, I thought that was rude of me, not saying anything, I looked back and his car was gone.
So I did a little Internet research on his name at the bottom left hand corner of his photograph of me. I discovered his blog, with this mention of that moment.


He had this comment on his blog regarding this.
"I was off on a personal day yesterday as I had my annual physical and some lab work. When I finally finished up it was about 1:30 pm and even though the sunlight was harsh and it was colder than a Witch’s brew I decided to drive around the country side for a while and try to find some wild life or a great Winter scene.

 What I found instead was this guy (well I think it was a guy) riding a mountain bike on Heritage Trail in full Winter survival gear. I can’t imagine how hard he had to work to get through the packed snow still on the trail. I was thinking black and white all the way with the images I took. When he/she went by me they gave a little wave of the hand but I could tell they were struggling to keep it upright".

So I commented on Dave's blog that it was me you took this picture of. He wrote me  back, neat genuine guy. As the world  turns.

Good Grief!!!!!. Do I Look like a girl or guy? That is funny. Because I might be just the average ugly guy, but it would be totally butt ugly scary if a girl looked anything like me.

I don't know what the deal is. But my muscles are so stiff lately. Legs some, but my shoulders are really sore. Feels like tendentious. Is the reason I changed my handle bars I want to see if this helps. I've been riding hard this winter, and I ain't getting any younger, so perhaps I am just riding beyond what I can recover from.


Time for bed, I stayed up later then I should again. I want all the energy I can gather for riding on the thawing, slushing trails tomorrow.
Dave

Winter riding

about 6 hours and then some

about 40 miles and then some

about whooped and then some

Browned some Pig and Cow and Crocked Pot'd em before leaving. Was beyond beautiful out in the country today. Rode 40 some miles and saw only three humans. Temp was zero at start time, with a 5-10 mile wind.





                                Eyesicles were forming.


Meet Stanley my new riding partner. For some reason I thought hot coffee with cream and sugar would taste good with wind chills below minus 10F. For some reason I was right. Trails rode ok, with a head wind rode 7 mph, turned around and 10 mph with a tail wind. Snow was froze, with soft spots from snow mobile grindings. Never slid off the seat once. That's a bit a-typical for a day of snow riding.
Millions and millions of Tons and tons of snow out there. The Fat Bike knows I will ditch her with a thaw. Trade her in for XC bike and a Roadie bike. Only to come running back with the first snow storm next December. Fickle.


I returned back to my car in about 6 hours, and saw a biker friend's car there who is a endurance XC skier in winter months. I was zonked but thought I would go see if I could find him. I followed a skiers trail for about 3 miles, and gave up and turned around, the sun was going down, I had no head lights, and a rear blinkie that needed batteries, and I was tired. No lights on a snow mobile trail is dangerous, when I've seen them go by me at 60 mph. However there was not a snow mobile seen today. 

Now to share my big secret, I snapped a picture of this Alien wandering around my deck this morning before I left. I knew they would be trying to contact me.
 

That's about it, I've rambled on long enough,

For some reason tonight I feel like an old guy who spent most the daylight hours outdoors in zero temps riding a bike in snow. ZONKED.

 

lata,

DAve.

Brrrrrr

Ride time: 2/9/11 9:00 a.m.
Temperature -4 F Wind Chill -24F.
Ride duration 6 + hours.
Miles: To be determined.
Clothing required: See picture below.

Feet: 2 pair of heavy weight wool socks. SIDI winter cycling shoes. Adidas Shoe covers and chemical warmers between the two pair of socks.


Torso: 1 lt weight wool T-shirt. 1 Turtle neck. 2 med weight wool long sleeve. Cycling Jersey. Wind Breaker (thinking this might be a little too light)


Legs: Heavy weight Pear Izumi riding pants. Fox below the knee cycling shorts.

Head: Heavy wool socking hat thinsulate filling. Pearl Izumi heavy weight balaclava.


Hands: ATV handle bar covers, med full finger gloves and 12 hr chemical warmers.


Have had plenty of snow, to ride in this winter but haven't had temps this low yet this year. I think I am prepared. Looking forward to riding, I have day off work. I have pouches sewn in on the front and back of my long sleeve turtle neck, if I start to freeze out, as an emergency plan, I bring along extra chemical warmers I can put them in the pouches to keep torso warm.

So, some would ask, what would possess a person to use a vacation day, and spend it on a bicycle  on one of the coldest days of the year in Iowa riding on a snow mobile trail in the country. Hmmmm, darn if I know. But I'm gonna love it, what can I say.  The sun is gonna shine.

So plan some fun, and get er done!!!!!Thanks for stopping DAve.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE TWO WINNERS FROM YESTERDAY'S CONTEST.

Craig and Lori congratulations, you have successfully won the "First complete this phrase' contest. For your reward you will both receive an all expenses paid trip to visit all the planets in our solar system as soon as I complete the finishing touches on my rocket ship I have kept hidden in the garage. Thank you everybody else for participating.

Would you like some 'whine' with that cheese???

After Hee-Haw'n around for most the morning, and part of the afternoon. Whining about how sore various body parts were from popping off my bike yesterday and landing in the snow. I finally loaded the FatSo on my bike rack and headed out of town.
There is a lot of snow on the trails, temps were in the low 30s, and we just got 3 more inches of snow. Hence, I wasn't going much where on the bike. The snow was deep and my tires were sinking in. I stopped and bled the tire pressure down to 5 psi. Traveling about 3 mph, tires spinning, continuously sliding out and off the bike.  My cleats were completely packed with ice and I could not clip into my pedals. Riding with my feet trying to stay on the pedals. If anybody has experienced what it feels like to have your foot slip off the pedal, and the other foot back spin the pedals so the opposite foot gets whacked by the pedal in the shin, you know my pain. Makes a grown person cry. That happened twice in the same spot.

SLIDING IN THE SNOW

 FINALLY I AM RIDING AND STAYING ON THE BIKE.

After .85 miles, that is POINT 85 miles, I came to the 'I Quit'  position and turned around to go home. BLAHHH!!!! I couldn't get started, I tried to get a start by paddling with one foot to get enough speed to start pedaling, I would finally get going, and spin out shortly afterwards. So out of desperation I let more air out of my tires, I was either going to get this bike to pedal, or have flat tires. I measured later, but I let the air out of my tires until there was less then 3 PSI. Amazing. I could now ride. 4 mph mind you, with sidewalls bulging. But I could stay on the bike. The air psi was so low when I crossed an intersection and was on blacktop the tires would roll off the rims and the front tire would try to turn. It was hard work, but I could stay on the bike and keep pedaling. I rode back to my car, and wondered why am I quitting? I said to myself, "NO YOUR NOT!!"

THE SCENE OF THE CRASH

So back out I went, one crash, 3 hours, and 14 miles latter I could say I had a good ride.
The weather people are talking below zero Fahrenheit temps in the middle of this week. That will freeze this soft snow, hard. That will make a much improved riding surface.  I will try to get mileage in versus hours

My HAPPY ENDING, watching the Super Bowl with my favorite team bear on my shoulders, drinking a cold one. OK here's a quiz. What "word" is my beer can blocking on my sweat shirt?

Ok now back to the game,
Peace
DAve.