Rest Day in Springfield

Today is our second rest day of the tour. Woohoo! I've got a massage scheduled for 10:15 am about 2 miles from the hotel. The hotel we are staying at is very nice. Good breakfast, free drinks at happy hour and just down the street from a Panera Bread. I haven't had a Starbucks since Balm Springs on day 2. Its killing me ;)

All my various ailments are coming along well. My legs are sore but not nearly as much as they were in Albuquerque. My saddle sore is healing well and not even much of a nuisance while I am on the bike. Though, it does remind me to get off the saddle every now and then. I wound up getting out of the saddle in Missouri more than I ever have because of all the rollers and steep gradients. Its just more natural to stand up and push a big gear over the next rise than to sit back on the saddle and spin up.

Plus Two Minus One

Two new riders have joined us in Springfield. One rider, Gary, will be completing the leg from Springfield to Amesbury. The other rider is Romita (did I get that right), Philippe's wife. She will ride with us for the next few days. I told Phillipe I am not going to be happy if she winds up making me look bad by blowing by me on all the climbs. Good women riders can have a very high power to weight ratio making them excellent climbers. But, they can't do nearly as well in the wind because it pushes them all over.

Another rider, Eric, has decided to leave us here is Springfield to get back to his family. We all tried to convince him to stay and finish the ride to Amesbury but he was really missing his family and wanted to get back to them. So, he is renting a car and driving 11 hours back to his home near State College Pennsylvania. He said he may try to rejoin us the last few days and I hope he does. He is a strong rider and has done some much work to get this far its a shame not to finish with us.

Spinning vs. Grinding

I have discovered I guess I am a bit of a grinder. At least, that is what my body is accustomed to now. Ever since the LA Grand Tour last June, I've noticed I like to take hills and push into headwinds with a low pedal cadence (60-75). I think it has something to do with the way I have trained. While on training rides, I learned to use a slightly bigger gear than I was comfortable with to strengthen my legs. In the weight room, I would do leg presses at high weight and low speed (3 sets of 30 at 450 lbs) to really push my leg muscles to their fatigue limits. But, all this has made me more or less of a "grinder" kind of rider. Most of the riders here are "spinners". Their cadence is 85-95. The rider from the Netherlends, Floris, rides at 100+ cadence continuously for several hours each day.

My understanding is that part of Lance Armstrong's big comeback to cycling after recovering from cancer was to change his cadence from a grinding style to a spinning style. He did all his Tour de France rides at 90+ cadence and his time trials above 100 cadence. Well, I guess we've learned quite a bit more about Lance's "techniques" for improving his cycling but a lot of cycling literature out there suggests that the higher the cadence you can tolerate the better.

What I have found is that while I can spin at higher cadences (occasionally I will do a 1-2 ride at 90+ just to work on my technique), my heart rate is higher than I would normally see for the same speed. So, for me, keeping my cadence low also means keeping my heart rate low which means I am not breathing as hard, etc.

I will probably have to learn to adapt my cycling style in the future to become more of a spinner because it will have the effect of reducing pedal pressure on my feet where I sometimes experience problems. But, I am not planning on changing anything about my riding style until after I finish this ride.

The Technology it Takes

Almost every one of the 24 riders here is blogging. When we roll into a hotel, I think we bring the internet down because the first thing we all do is get online and start blogging about the day's events. I've uploaded several gigabytes of video from my droid phone.

My roommate, Richard, is one of the more high tech riders here. He has a Garmin Edge 800 cycle computer and a power tap hub in his rear wheel to measure power output. His Garmin Edge measures his heart rate, power, pedal cadence, speed, calories expended, current temperature, current elevation and gradient and lat/lon GPS location several times a second (I bet he'd rig it up to measure electrolytes in his urine if he thought it was possible ;). It sends this data via wifi to his cell phone in his back jersey pocket. The cell phone then uploads the data continuously (live) to a web page. He sends everyone he chooses a link to that day's page. So, anyone he selects can click on the link and get live information about where he his in the country, what his heart rate is, how much power he is generating, etc.

So, on the day he first started experiencing problems with his left leg and jumped in the van, about 10 minutes later he got a voice message from his wife full of concern because it looked like his power output and plummeted. She was watching his data live on line and noticed a sudden slump in performance and was concerned what was going on. She then got on line herself and scheduled an appointment with a sports physiology lab while we were in Quincey. By the time he got the the hotel that day, he had an appointment with a physical therapist and doctor and they examined his leg, gave him a compression sleeve and told him to rest it for a couple of days.

One other funny note about Richard I hope he won't mind my sharing here... He has a wifi scale at his home in Roseville, CA. Whenever he stands on it barefooted, it measures percent body fat and his weight and wifis the data to his cycling performance web pages. Turns out a family member is in town visiting his wife. So, while Richard was online from our hotel room examining his performance data from the last several days, all of the sudden the numbers started changing on him right in front of his eyes. Someone was at his home in Roseville, standing on the scale and it was uploading different percent body fat and weight data. It did this several times in the space of 10 minutes. So, he had to get on the phone to Karen, his wife, to ask if she could remedy the situation.

Control that Ego

All the riders here are very strong. There are also a lot of type A personalities too. I would like to think I don't count myself among them in type-A-ishness but I had a bit of a setback yesterday.

For the most part, I have tried to ride this ride well within my limits knowing that often it means I am near the back of the group and last finishers each day. Hey, as long as I get through the day safely and ready to pedal the next day, its a good day. That is what I tell myself anyways. The first week involved so much climbing and I have a heavy bike and I make it even heavier with all the "creature comforts" I carry such as extra clothing, food, a misty mate for those high temp days, etc. so I knew I would just have to ride steady and consistently and I would make it through each day. That has worked.

More recently, we've been seeing more flats. That is where I kinda sorta excel. I spend so much time riding the flats around Davis that I am really used to just getting down into my aero bars and pushing through for long sections. So, I have noticed that I am starting to finish near the front of the group of riders now. I am frequently passing riders instead of riders passing me.

But, something happened to me yesterday that kinda perturbed me a bit. I left the hotel with a group and pulled for several miles yesterday morning. I was fine pulling for a long time because I was comfortable with the pace. I even reduced the pace on a couple of different occassions at the request of other riders in the paceline to ensure we weren't dropping anyone. Eventually, I moved off the front to rejoin at the back. But, the rearmost rider didn't give me anything to work with. He was wavering all over the shoulder never giving me anything to really draft from. On top of that, the road was wet and I was getting a face full of whatever the next guy's tire was spinning up into the air. On wet days like this, I have fenders on to prevent that. I thought it was somewhat purposeful too. Maybe that was my imagination.

Then, when we hit an uphill section, the rider at the front accelerated the pace and they dropped me. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I just didn't want to work all that hard going up hill. Eventually their gap grew to several hundred yards. But, then we hit a flat section. I got down into my aero bars and just cruised and quickly caught back up to them. I drafted for a few minutes but their pace seemed a bit slow to me at that point. So, I moved out to pass them. But, I was no longer in any mood to be charitable with my draft. The wind was coming a bit from the left and so I moved as far to the right hand side of the road as I could. Ordinarily, I will offset my line of track several feet to the left of the shoulder to give 2-3 riders space to stagger to the right behind me. But, since I was a bit perturbed, I decided not to give anyone behind me any space to work with. You couldn't fit a sheet of paper between my wheels and the edge of the road. I quickly dropped them.

I was the first rider after the fab 4 (Floris, Tom, Roger and Dave) into lunch. The riders I passed came in several minutes later saying they were sorry and hadn't realized they had dropped me. Yeah, right. They have mirrors and can see whats happening behind them. Again, maybe my imagination but they seemed ancy to leave lunch ahead of me. I needed to relieve my bladder but opted to leave just after them to keep them within a few hundred yards. The 4 layers of elastic banded clothing I was wearing didn't help the bladder situation either. I followed them from that far back for 10-15 miles hoping all along they would start to tire or I would gain some strength to pass them. Then, it happened. They came to a stop for a pee-break. As I sped by I asked "Everything Ok?" with a smug smile and pedaled on ahead. Yes, its sad that I derived some sense of accomplishment from strategizing a tactic and then having it "pay off" in passing them later on. I mean, who cares what ordered we all finish the day's ride in as long as we finish it? Thats my ego. But, after many days of hearing comments regarding how old and heavy my bike is, how odd my compression knee-high sox look or how much stuff I am carrying on my rear rack or the fact that I have fenders, I guess I took a little comfort in proving I can still be hard to keep up with. But, I paid a price too. By the time I reached the hotel, my bladder was ready to pop. But, I suffered through it so I could beat 'em in. Isn't that just sad?

Care Packages

At almost every stop lately I have had cards and/or care packages when I arrive. Its great! Some other riders get care packages too but mine are great. I just got another full of cookies from Andrea and Terry. Thanks. And, thanks to everyone for following this adventure and commenting on my blog. Its great to know you are thinking of me.

The Days Ahead

Tomorrow should be  the easiest day yet. Just 77 miles. And, we'll likely have a tail wind. My plan is to extend it to an active rest day and put very little stress on my already tired body. After that we have 4-5 100 mile days of mainly flat riding that should also be easy assuming the weather continues to cooperate. We have one really long 140 mile day but if the winds are typical, it should go easy too. The last two days of the tour are bigger climbing days with ~7,000 feet each day. Then, we'll hit the Atlantic ocean and I will get to see my wife for the first time in 31 days. That will be something special I am looking forward to sharing with Sandy. Please continue to send me well wishes and prayers for safe riding. There are still many miles to go but the end is coming into sight.

Using my bike as a clothes drying rack.

Care package from Andrea and Terry

Tiffany my message therapist. She did a great job.

A seriously warn cleat

Three of the fab 4 riders; Roger (far left), Floris (middle) small Tom (as opposed to big Tom)  (right)

View of some smoke stacks from Denny's around corner from hotel.

Phillipe and his wife and Jim Bensen (the mechanic) rear left and Jody.