If you have been following this blog for a while, I'm sure you have noticed this picture in the upper right column. It's one of those graphics I found funny a long time ago and added here because I was essentially documenting my own evolution. You may recall reading a post where I detailed many of the changes that my first bike went though back in 2012. When I wrote that piece, I had only been a cyclist for about a year. I had learned a lot about the equipment needed, but honestly had just started to understand what I needed as a developing cyclist. Looking back, I can tell that as with so many other riders, I was an equipment junkie. I liked getting gadgets, and dressing the bike up. There is nothing at all wrong with that, but my own performance on that bike was a secondary concern all too often.
Since November, 2012, I have learned a lot about myself as a cyclist. I have grown, and developed into something that I would have never considered possible. It's no longer about the bike (although, I still get a lot of joy dressing it up), it's about the engine that motivates the bike. This post will hit the highlights of that very important evolution, the evolution of the cyclist.
2011
It has been said that it takes three years for a cyclist to really come into their own. I am pretty sure that I subscribe to that concept, as I've seen the theory play out in my own riding. However, that three year tenure had to start somewhere. For me, it was in June, 2011, that the seeds for cycling were planted. I needed to find a way to help teach my seven year old how to ride without training wheels. Since I was not really able to run after her so she could keep pedaling, I decided to get a bike to ride with her. Not knowing anything at all about cycling, I went to Wal Mart and got the only bike that would fit me. I was the proud owner of a 29" mountain bike. I proved that I had not forgotten how to ride a bike (just like the saying goes), and I went out several times a week with Sierra to help her get accustomed to riding.
As I showed her how to get started, turn, and stop, I found that I was starting to feel like a little kid again. I was looking forward to getting on a bike after work and playing for a bit. The basic handling drills were helping me out as I started to remember how a bicycle handled. Hey, it had been some 20 years since I had last ridden one. I thought I was doing good not to fall over. Circles around buildings turned into rides around the neighborhood. Eventually, I was wanting more than what Sierra was interested in doing, so after I spent some time with her, I would set out on my own to explore other neighborhoods. I even found that some of the construction sites in a neighboring community made for some really fun off road adventures.
I enjoyed playing in the dirt, but somehow felt a little unstable when I was on the rutted ground. I would experiment with different speeds over different terrain and found a good bit of excitement in these rides. However, after some time, I started to feel a little silly riding in the dirt. I felt that it was time to try some road riding again. When I was about 13, I got my first 10 speed bike, and rode all over my Grandfather's neighborhood and I wanted to experience that again. For that, I was going to have to venture onto some of the secondary roads beyond the neighborhoods I had been riding in.
We live off of a pretty major road, but there is a secondary street that runs out of the neighborhood into Walkertown which looked like my best bet for a road ride. One evening, I filled a water bottle up and started off down the street. It was slow going, and I felt very exposed out there on the street with traffic whizzing by at near 50 mph. There were hills I had to climb (well, they felt like hills), and what seemed like many miles to ride before I got to my destination. There was a school about 2 miles down the road where I had planned to turn around at. I'm not sure how long it took me to get there, but I recall it being a significant amount of time. Once I arrived, I remember having to get off of the bike and sit down on a bench to drink my water. I used that time to call Toni and let her know of my accomplishment and the fact that I had to go back that same distance to get home. That seemed like a such a long way to go, and I was already tired.
I made it back and didn't pass out. Over the next month or so, I added to that mileage and was riding 10 miles routinely, several times a week. It would take me about an hour to do, but I found that I was having a lot of fun doing it. I was starting to explore different roads, and was even starting to climb some hills that I had looked at and thought "OH HELL NO" just weeks before. It wasn't long before I was riding into Kernersville on the weekends, and even did a 32 mile ride into Greensboro.
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| Wedding day, 01-11-2011 |
By the end of July, I had pretty much decided that I was going to really give cycling a good try. I was loving everything about it. I had also left the dirt trails behind and settled into being a roadie. Being a pavement pounder was not easy on a heavy mountain bike, and the general quality of the Wal Mart bike was lacking for the use I was throwing at it. The decision was made to upgrade to a new road specific bike. On my first ride, I immediately reaped the benefits of the lighter frame, and more speed oriented design. I managed to go 50 miles my first time out, beating my best distance by 18 miles, and doing it at an average speed of 16 mph as opposed to 13 with the mountain bike. I was sold!
2012
2012, was my first full year as a cyclist. It was full of wonder and excitement. It was also full of hard lessons that had to be learned. If there was a basic mistake to be made, I think I made it. It was months and months, maybe even a full year before I figured out what the little ring was for on the crank. I had strong legs, and I wanted to push big gears. All I did was eventually blow my knee out, kill a cassette prematurely and wear out a chain in under 900 miles. Sometime at the end of the year, I finally allowed myself to use the little ring for warming up and for climbing. It did make everything much easier, and strangely enough, my average speeds started to climb into the 17's.
One of the biggest areas where I faltered as a newbie cyclist was in my pedal choice. As many others do, I had a fear of falling because my feet were trapped in the pedals so I resisted making the move to clipless pedals until many thousands of miles had passed under my bike. At first, I wasn't really sure that I had made the right decision to move to clipless, but in time I started to develop different muscle groups in my legs which really took a lot of strain off of my overworked quads. This allowed for better climbing, more efficiency for longer routes, and after some time, my speed really did improve. Yes, I fell...twice as a matter of fact due to the pedals. It took a few months before that happened after making the switch, and I can only assume it was when I started to get comfortable with them and stopped thinking about them as much. At any rate, I was one of the statistics now. When you go clipless, it's a matter of when, not if, when it comes to falling.
The addition of the new pedals brought to light another problem that I had been ignorant to until my feet were planted on the pedals. My fit was way off, and I was now developing some pretty significant knee problems. It was time to get a professional fit to establish a proper position in the saddle. In short order, my knee got better and I found a much higher level of comfort on the bike. All of a sudden, I was starting to feel like a "proper cyclist." I had the funny clip clop shoes, the little pedals, I was concerned with the degree of my knee bend, as well as endurance vs performance rider positioning.
An interesting aside from my bike fit was a bit of extra knowledge that I picked up while talking to the fitter. He had been instrumental in getting me to go into the little ring for warm ups and significant climbs, but now he was taking it a little bit further. Since I was using a Garmin computer with a host of sensors, I knew that my cadence had been averaging about 60 or so rpms. As part of the fit, I had to share that bit of information. I had heard that proper cadence was usually around the 90 rpm mark many times, but when I had tried it, I felt like I was going to spin right off of the bike. However, since I was having knee issues prior to the fit, my cadence was really brought under scrutiny. Essentially, I was putting a lot of stress on my muscles and not relying on my cardio system to motivate me down the road.
I was under strict orders to increase my cadence to take some of the stress off of my legs and knees. Despite feeling like I was going to spin the pedals straight off of the crank, I worked on this for the remainder of 2012. I got into the 70's really quick, and then managed to average in the low 80's by the close of the year. My speeds were slowing it seemed, but my legs were feeling better overall, and my endurance was starting to improve. Slowly, I was starting to get my original form back. The awkwardness started to dissipate and my speed and power started to return.
One other benefit from my fit was learning the importance of stretching after my rides as part of recovery. I had always read that your muscles needed protein to help rebuild after a hard ride. This was only part of the formula though. To help the muscles repair and speed recovery though, stretching needs to be done after a ride as well. It's amazing how tight your muscles get after several hours of riding. You don't really notice it, but when you are trying to stretch, you can really feel it. By stretching you actually seem to calm the muscles down, and usually avoid major stiffness after a workout. With the protein, and lots of water added to the stretching, you are typically ready to ride the next day. This was a change from before when I would have to rest a day after every ride, or risk feeling very bad on the bike.
Probably the best bit of knowledge that I took from 2012 was pacing myself, or as a friend would say, "riding your ride." I found that despite how far I was riding, or the terrain, I would ride the same way. It wouldn't be flat out, but I was always looking to squeak out just a bit more speed. This is fine for a short ride, but looking back at my splits, I could see that my averages would drop through the course of a ride. By the time I got finished, I would be nearly limping in with nothing left in the tank. It wasn't that much of a problem until I rode on the Blue Ridge Parkway for the first time. For the first time on this ride, I found out what it meant to totally burn up midway through. I had never done hills like this before, and I was having fun going up and down. The only problem was I was burning up every bit of my energy and left none for the big climb of the day which I had a terrible time completing. The return leg was a constant struggle and I was seriously concerned about whether or not I would make it.
A few months would pass before I had the opportunity to tackle the Parkway again. In October, I went back with a couple of friends and put some things to the test to see if I had actually learned from my earlier mistakes. The theme for this ride was to ride my ride and control my pace. I saved my energy for the mountains, and didn't stress myself on the easier sections. Sure, my speed was well below what I wanted to see, but I was climbing bigger hills than before with none of the pain from last time. I had proven to myself that picking the proper pace works wonders, not only for climbing, but also for endurance rides. This single epiphany prompted two of my bigger goals for the following year. The first was a 65 mile ride in NC and SC mountains with a category 1 climb, and the second was a single day double century ride to the coast of NC.
2013
This was the first year I considered myself a "serious cyclist." Now by serious, I don't mean one that rides for long distances, or is faster than a regular cyclist. What I mean by this is I was looking at riding much more scientifically than I had been. I had a good idea how to ride, and I knew a good many things that I should be doing, I was even incorporating most of them on the majority of my rides. What separated 2013 from the previous years was I set out at the beginning of the year with three major goals. Each of these goals would require work and training to accomplish. This was going to be a year of training, not just riding...and trust me, there is a difference!
My three goals were simply to ride a 50 mile route with an average speed of 20+mph, Complete the Assault on the Carolinas, as well as complete Double Down to the Beach. Honestly, I thought that the first goal was going to be the easiest to achieve. At the close of 2012 I was averaging around 19mph on a 50 mile route so I was very close. Well, my assumption was very wrong. There was not a single time in 2013 when I achieved that goal. I just couldn't make it happen no matter how hard I tried. That was my only failure in that year though.
My next goal was to complete the Assault on the Carolinas 100K route. It was not the distance I was having to train for, but rather the arduous climb up Caesar's Head. This was a seven mile long, 2000 ft climb...otherwise known as a category 1 climb. Since it was in April, I would not have much good weather outside leading up to the event. That forced me to embrace the stationary trainer. I was fortunate that Toni had surprised me with one of these little satanic devices in the closing months of the previous year. It was not long before I was doing interval workouts while it was snowing outside, or very cold, or wet...or just not fit for cycling. These workouts were not fun, but I was feeling improvement as the weeks went by so I continued on with it. By late March, I was getting some road time back and I was actually seeing improvements in both my speed and endurance from the previous fall. I actually had not only maintained my fitness from the previous season, I had built on it in several ways. This marked the first "training" that I had done on a bike. I was no longer riding, I was looking for specific performance gains.
Thanks to my work on the trainer and a short amount of time on the road, I was able to complete the Assault on the Carolinas and prove to myself that I could actually climb a category 1 climb! This was incredible considering how poorly I had done on my first ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway not even a year before. I was well on my way to improving as a cyclist and I was gaining confidence in my personal training programs.
My last major goal for 2013 was to complete a double century ride known as Double Down to the Beach. While I had completed around ten century rides since I started riding, a 200 mile ride was a huge step for me. It was so much more than just conditioning on the bike. I had to learn my body all over again and figure out just how to fuel it for a ride of this magnitude. I experimented, read many suggestions, and fine tuned what worked for me. I was learning how to be an ultra endurance rider. I wish I could say that all my preparation for this event worked out flawlessly, but I can't. I found out that I didn't quite know myself as well as I thought, and that knowledge kicked in around 135 miles. I finished, and I finished very strong, but there was about 20 miles or so when I was really worried that I would not be finishing.
Probably the biggest thing that I took away from this ride had nothing to do with riding a bike, or how to fuel myself for an ultra endurance event. The most important thing that I took from this ride was when my body feels like it has to quit, and I don't think I can muster any more effort, my desire to finish what I've started will take over and pull me though. Obviously, I had the physical ability to complete this ride, but I learned that with cycling, among other things in life, it's mostly mental. I learned that I can quiet the negative voices in my head, and pay more attention to the positive ones...those are the ones that will get me through the rough times.
As the year drew to a close, I made another trip to the mountains of NC, and I made one last century for the year. Neither of these rides I would have been able to complete at the same point in the previous year. With over 7000 feet of climbing over 65 miles, I felt like I was in my element in the mountains for the first time. It was a smooth ride and I actually enjoyed the straining as I crested each climb. The Carolina Century, while just another century (11 for the year), was probably the most miserable ride I had taken. I would venture that 80% of the ride was in the rain, some of that was heavy downpours. I was cold and wet because I didn't dress appropriately. Even though it was miserable, I can't help but look back and see that I was conducting myself as a "real cyclist." Yes, I was cold, yes, I was wet, but I did ride the route and make the full 100 despite all of the hardships. You see, bike rides can't all be sun and fun. It's the hard ones that define who you are, and I felt rather defined after this ride.
By the end of 2013, I was really feeling like a cyclist. A friend of mine told me that he had always heard that it was the 3rd year in the saddle when you really come into your own as a cyclist. Doing the math (carry the 1, thumb, pointer, middle finger), 2014 was set to by my year! I should have been excited, and I was, but I was also burned out, and I had no more big goals ahead of me. Did this mean that I would stagnate, and not live up to the third year charm? I actually started putting a lot of thought into that, and was thinking about it more than normal on a early November ride.
It was windy, and I was really starting to ask myself why I was putting myself through this physical exertion over and over. What was I training for, why was I riding? I told myself that I was riding to remain fit, and I was very happy at around 180lbs which was some 68lbs lighter than I was before I started cycling. Even that wasn't much of a motivator for me though. I wasn't sure how my cycling would progress into 2014, but by the end of the ride I had my answer. It came in the form of a gust of wind from behind a U Haul truck.
I had ridden for over 12,000 miles at this point in my cycling tenure and had never had a major incident. I was very lucky, but on November 3rd, that luck changed. As the U Haul passed me, I got pushed over to the edge of the road and as it cleared, I started to move back to a more comfortable distance from the edge. However, once the box truck stopped blocking the wind, it caught me just as I was starting to move to the left. The bike shifted to the right just a few inches, but enough so that the front wheel left the asphalt. Since I was already in the process of moving to the left, I didn't have time to correct and stay off the road, but found the bike trying to hop back on the pavement. This is what causes cars to flip when they run off the road, and essentially that was what happened to my bike. The wheels came out from under me and down I went. My left side was covered in road rash, but I had nothing major as far as injuries. I was able to limp the bike back home as well. From this, I figured that my evolution as a cyclist was finished. I had accomplished all that I set out to accomplish with the exception of the 20mph average. I was busted, the bike was busted, it was time to hang up the helmet and quit while I was ahead.
2014
Yes, I realize that I just said that my evolution was complete. I guess I lied a little bit to myself. Between November, 2013 and July, 2014 I had steadily lost my fitness and started putting weight back on. I found out that getting old sucks (previous link) and I didn't like it. I also did a lot of evaluating of my life and why I was going through some of the issues that I had been dealing with recently. What I ultimately determined was that I was far from done with cycling. I actually needed it in my life and was really missing it much more than I could have ever imagined. Emotionally, I think that this was probably the pinnacle of my evolution. I was no longer wanting to ride for distance, or for accomplishments. I was wanting to ride for myself, and my own well being. I just hoped that I wouldn't have to start from ground zero again.
On my first ride after getting my new bike, I found that I had not lost everything I had worked to get, but I had lost a significant portion and I had a lot of work to do in order to get back to where I once was. On the brighter side, even struggling with a maiden 50 mile ride, I was having a blast and truly enjoying being back in the saddle again. I was far from the svelte rider I once was now topping out at 205lbs, but I knew that I would be able to whittle that down in time as I had done once before.
I started work on finding my form once again. After being sedentary for about 10 months, I was willing and ready to spend some time on the bike. I was starting to find my stride again and started getting optimistic about regaining much of my previous performance in short order. Then it happened...another flippin' crash! This time, it wasn't the wind that knocked me down, it was the side of a Dodge that turned in front of me that I hit. This really should have been the end of my cycling as I'm pretty sure somebody was trying to tell me something. However, after so much soul searching about why I needed to ride, I actually just viewed this as a minor hiccup in my return. I was very fortunate that the driver's insurance really came through and made me whole again. I was only down and out a couple of weeks before I had my crashed bike back and mounted to the trainer once again.
2015
As the year opened up, I was firmly committed to riding the indoor trainer. Maybe I should have been committed because it is totally absurd to spend 6 out of every 7 days on a stationary bike grunting and sweating like I was doing. I was starting to see results though. My legs were feeling much more like what I remembered, and even better, my numbers were starting to mimic those that I had been producing at the peak of my previous cycling career. I was very excited that I might actually see a return to my former performance before my estimate of a year was up. My interval sessions were showing higher speeds, and more power with each passing week. As I was looking at the numbers, and figuring out the rough conversion from what I had seen before, I was starting to expect that I could ride on the road at a relatively comfortable 20mph pace. Wait a minute, what's that? The elusive barrier of 20mph?!?!? If you will recall, that was the one goal that I had to abandon in 2013 because I could just not break that wall. Here I was still in the off season development stage looking at a very real possibility that I could finally see that goal happen. I think that motivated me to push even harder, and harder I pushed.
The more I saw performance increases, the more I started to think about setting goals for myself once again. When I got back into cycling, it wasn't going to be about the same types of goals that I had once chased after. I was going to be happy just being able to ride at a respectable pace. But this is where my competitive nature comes in, and I was seeing that I would not only match that fitness level, but surpass it very soon. I wanted to put my body to the test and see just what I was capable of doing.
It seemed only logical that my first goal would be to complete a 50 mile ride with an average speed of 20+mph. Yeah, I've tried that before only to be disappointed, but I had a feeling that I would crack that barrier at some point in the season. My second goal to make a repeat appearance at the Assault on the Carolinas and climb Caesar's Head one more time. I would follow that up with another go at a double century with the Double Down crew. You may be wondering why I chose to do these two repeat rides since I have already conquered both of them previously. The answer is actually rather simple. I wanted to be able to make direct comparisons to known quantities to gauge exactly where I am in my training. Beyond those two events, I have chosen to ride in a multi day event that is similar to my previous Tour to Tanglewood rides, but has an extra day, and about 90 more miles to it. This is "A Ride to Remember" and I'm expecting it to tax my body due to the increasing distances each day (67, 87, 100 miles) and the fact that it is in the middle of July in South Carolina. This is the unknown of the year, and what might actually prove to be the most difficult for me.
As of the writing of this entry, I have made some headway on my goals. First of all, I cracked the 20mph barrier on Jan 1st. I clocked a 50 mile ride at 20 even! I followed that up with a 64 mile ride in April at the same average. Just to be sure I wasn't seeing things, I did a repeat performance in May with a 71 mile ride with an average speed of 20.6!!!! I think we can safely say that I have finally achieved my long standing goal of a 20mph avg speed ride. While not a huge deal overall, this was a huge boost to my confidence on the bike. I really felt like I was riding at a different level than before, and it came in what could only be described as my third year on the bike. There might just be something to that urban legend.
In April, I had my second meeting with Caesar's Head. It was all too familiar for me, but I could tell quite a few differences. The final numbers actually look very similar to each other, but I was able to look deeper into the ride when I was examining it. The first 40 miles of the ride this year were actually harder due to so many cyclists on the road. It was darn near impossible to get around them to find a patch of open road to "ride my ride." That kept my averages down lower than 2013's averages. That didn't really bother me since my main purpose for doing this ride was the climbs. The first big climb of the day went very well. So well, in fact, that I found myself actually passing other cyclists on the road and being able to accelerate at will. I wasn't expecting that, but I was sure happy to see it. By the time I got to the cat 1 climb, I found that I was able to climb it a touch faster than before, and without feeling like I was going to die. I felt so good by the top of the climb I didn't even take advantage of the rest stop, and just continued on to the finish. Even though my numbers looked very similar, the way that I felt on this ride was worlds apart from my 2013 experience. In short, this ride was not that taxing on me. No matter how you look at it, I came to the party in better shape in 2015 than I did in 2013, and I rode much smarter to boot.
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| April, 2015 |
Here we are at the close of May, and I actually feel like my evolution has been completed. There will still be improvements along the way, but for the first time, I feel like an honest to goodness cyclist. Also, for the first time, I think that I'm becoming an all around cyclist. In the past, I had only been about endurance rides. I was unable to sprint, I was marginally fast, but in the eternal "B group" it would seem. When it came to climbs, I could do them, but they hurt me, and I didn't like them. Here we are in cyclist 2.0 territory, and I still have my endurance legs (4 full century rides, 2 additional 200K rides so far). I've also added a good bit of speed to my repertoire making my official training pace 20mph. Heck, even my centuries are in the 19's now! When it comes to climbing, I have almost gotten to the point that I enjoy them. The short ones, I try to sprint up in a big gear just for fun. The longer ones, I will take at a more comfortable pace, but I still push myself to get better times in the climbs. Thanks to all the time on the trainer, I have learned about active recovery which allows me to recover after a strenuous effort while still riding and making good time. This allows me to attack the climbs, recover, and then hammer the flats all without taking a break.
There are now 16 days left before I tackle Double Down to the Beach once again. Of course, I can't look into the future to see how that will go, but I know that I have really ramped up my training compared to 2013 and based on everything that I am seeing so far, I fully expect to turn in much better numbers this year, and have a stronger second half. My centuries are faster, have less breaks, and are more consistent across the splits now than ever before. A good many of my centuries and 200K's have even shown noticeable increases in pace with each passing 25 mile block. I expect this training to transfer over to my three day ride as well. I'll have to work on a few things before so that I don't burn out before starting the century, but I have the basic fitness and endurance to get me through this ride as well.
So, there you have it...from June, 2011, to May, 2015, my evolution as a cyclist. When you take out that 10 month break, I am in my third year of riding. At 41 years old, I can't imagine how I am able to do the things that I do on a bike. Had I been riding all my life, that would make sense, but I haven't. What I am accomplishing has taken place in just three years. I think that I was meant to be on a bike, and when I am on a bike, I feel more like "me".
