Finishing the year strong.
The first ride of the month on the first day of the month was the group ride with the Orange County South Riders club/group on Strava. The route was the flat-ish scenic ride. I worked hard and was able to keep pace with the fast guys and make a run away from them at points. It was a good time. I came away feeling the last couple of harder months of riding are making a difference along with my diet changes. The goal this month is of course to finish the year strong, as well as better my November numbers.
The weather began chilly enough the light wind jacket was a nice addition. Fifteen minutes into the ride I was fully unzipped, then partially re-zipped a few minutes later the weather being down to 9°C. The ride enough warmer I wore shorts and flip-flops for our post ride family walk to the local cultural center open house. We have a bit of a chill this week with our weather so, I’ll be working against that then we’re taking a long family weekend so I’ll lose those four days or so of riding, but I should be able to manage more than the 15 days of November. The larger battle for the upcoming weekend will be controlling eating. I’ll try and mitigate with walking.
I cut Monday’s ride short after feeling my legs just not being up to the task of a big day. This provided an opportunity to drop by my sort of local bicycle shop and shop.
I decided on a 100mm stem. This allowed me to use my stem cap I’d bought a couple of years ago.
The Easton stem has a bit of a rise where the shorter Specialized stem was adjusted to a 0° rise. This set up fits me better. The stem needs to drop down the steerer maybe a couple of ring spacers to give the front brake cable some better slack. I’ll get to that next.
My first week of the month finished with four rides for 227km. The last one was pretty cold for me, but I managed a gran fondo.
The wind/rain jacket was good until I began to get too warm, not too much further up the road than this photo. I need to find a jacket I guess that works better for the chilly days. It was a couple of degrees colder when I got back to the harbor on the way home.
My weight has dropped below 160 pounds, 73kg. Things are headed in the right direction. I’m getting stronger, week after week. Feels good.
I lowered the stem two rings or about 110mm. That change compensates for the extended stem and slight rise that came along for free.
I think I need to work on the left cleat position and rotation a tiny bit more. That will be next on the menu before I get to cleaning up the old drivetrain for the last of the year push.
Once the stem was lowered and the bike back on the hooks, the Ranchilio had warmed so I made a morning coffee. Then while enjoying my coffee, I got the left shoe out and began more carefully comparing the positioning of the new to the old. The new got some tweaking done. I’ll get to checking how that went next week.
First ride for the second week of the month was to again deal with the left cleat position. I think I have it corrected now. I stopped at my usual park and adjusted the cleat. The remainder of the ride felt better.
Our version of winter hits a bit different along the coast. The smoke out at the horizon is from the fire in Malibu.
A second ride this week is a short one of 2:31, for 60km. My HR monitor battery was too low to power up the monitor and trying a second battery didn’t work either. I decided to work on it later, pulled the strap off and set out. Cool ride at 14°C at the beach. Only warming to 17°C inland. I took the river trail back to the beach to chop some time off.
Saturday was laundry day, so no riding. Instead I cleaned up the bicycle. I moved the cars in the drive, then set up the work stand and washed off the bike and wheels. Then into the ultrasonic cleaner with the chain. After an hour it came out sparkling.
Then into the wax pot for an hour.
Out of the wax, wiped down and back on the bike. Good to go.
Time for a treat from all that work.
A coffee and some YouTube, “The Stars and the Water Carriers”. Ready for the group ride tomorrow.
I skipped the group ride. Cold and other stuff needing doing got in the way.
The week before Christmas ended for me on Saturday. I readjusted the left cleat, yet again. This time I looked at how the Sidi is oriented relative to the crank arm when clicked in, then tried to match that with the Lake.
This worked better on my Saturday ride. I started the ride with a bit of a tow up the coast. The guys were riding about my usual speed into a headwind. Once we get between the taller beach homes and the taller bluff up ahead the wind is blocked so the pace picked up. One guy up front was doing all the pulling. I was content to sit back and enjoy the ride. There was enough traffic on foot and bicycles to make passing four fast riders more work than I wanted at this early stage in my ride. The long tow made it so I wasn’t really loosened up until a few kilometers past Dana Point.
My week ended with this three hour ride. I’d decided to again skip the group ride Sunday morning and avoid the chill and get some home stuff done. We have a heavy marine layer that is breathing in and out all morning into the early afternoons then returning before sunset to keep things very chilly. I still need a pretty good week of riding for Christmas week, but I’m going to give that a go. The cleat feels good, after this test. I put some efforts in and didn’t feel any big discomfort.
Christmas week starts off with a long ride on Monday. This would also end up being my longest ride of the year. 128.7km, 5:08. Plenty of flat riding into and back away from Tustin. I explored this route as I develop a self-supported full 100 mile century route.
My plan is to add to this routing through the Newport Back Bay to PCH, then take that back toward the start at home. I’ll have to work on the route a little with my GPX editor to see what the mileage is. Eventually I’d route up Newport Coast to get some more climbing in then back over to Moulton to get southbound to home. The GPX file is problematic thanks to getting GPS data very second. That is a lot of data over more than five hours.
My modified route works out to around 102 miles, or 163km with about 1,435m of climbing. Probably an eight hour or more day for me. I might need a new saddle before then. I’ll definitely need more warm sunshine hours.
The last group ride with OCSR was Sunday the 29th and a flat back bay roll. The route was sort of defined, but had a jog, I and another rider missed then missed again. He headed back to the start and I took a route across Balboa Island to the ferry to catch back up on the peninsula. I was successful in catching. Cost me an additional ferry ride.
Wet and cold. Not quite wet enough for fenders, but damp enough to make the shades useless. Shortly after the above shot, I stowed my shades in the helmet.
I made some efforts and worked semi-hard. Got into the red zone plenty and amazed myself at how fast I recovered from an effort. Quite cool to feel the benefits of some good work. Makes me want more.
Good ride today for nearly my last ride of the year, but first ride of the last week.
My ride began in single digits, but grew warmer as I rode inland. I saw a high of 15°C. the vest got unzipped and rezipped and unzipped again and again. The. neck buff got stowed in a pocket. 109km at a faster pace for me. I’ll see if I can get one more ride in on the last day of the year tomorrow. My post ride coffee and cake were cranberry bread from the French bakery uptown and the usual coffee. My flat milk isn’t so flat with this latest carton.
I managed one last ride for the year today. 2:43 with 76% in zone 2. An easy spin to loosen up my legs from the day before and be ready for the first ride of the new year.
The weather was chilly at 9°C along the coast. Warming all the way to 10°C inland, then cooling again so, I turned back toward home rather than go longer. It was also a bit damp in spots and I was chilled with my feet tingling and nose dripping.
A good enough end to the month and year.
Totals for the month:
Distance: 1136 kilometers
Climbing: 6,604 meters
Time: 46 hours
For the year,
My weight rose a bit with the holidays so, I’m only down about 6 kilograms for the year. Still not too bad considering how much I’m eating. I plan to continue my alcohol pause and increase my riding. I also plan on adding weight training back into the mix. The plan is to get to where I wake in the morning and do my crunches and push-ups, breakfast, ride then on light riding days and rest days lift. Heavy riding days I’ll skip lifting, but not the crunches and push-ups. Ideally I’ll be doing some more stretching on a regular basis as well. My cycling goals for the new year are to double my distance, 16,000km (or 10,000 miles) and get that self supported century done and dusted. I feel like I can do the century once daylight is long enough to get me eight hours and warm enough I’m not starting at 9:00am in the single digits. I’d like it to be closer to 15°C.
My analysis of my year indicates to me I can easily hit 10,000km, because now 1,000/month is pretty normal. I am not quite to the point of riding back-to-back 100km days. I am not too far away from that though. I plan to add some actual climbing where it is long enough and steep enough I am forced to stand. Pacific Island is the road. It is a big climb I’ve not attempted in years. But, it is right off my usual 100km route so it is going to get added. Then of course I can add a day where I ride the Olympic road course which has a couple of climbs. One of those climbs is what I would describe as unreasonably steep. But, a great challenge, so it is going to become a monthly event for me.
I am also planning on joining the Orange County Wheelmen and become more active with that group. Just a riding club. I am not going to be racing.
I finish the year happy with how my cycling fitness has progressed. I’m also very happy with my weight loss and pausing alcohol intake. I think eventually I may take the occasional drink, but more on the order of one or two per year. But, not until I’m down to my weight target. And maybe not even then. I am still hoping to figure a way to finagle a new bicycle. But, that is not a high priority. More a daydream. For now, I’ll work harder to wear out this Roubaix.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year to all.
Along The Way 