Tour de Taco

Our coach Mike Clark holds an annual team ride from his house in Holland. It's called the Tour de Taco because afterward Mike fixes up a whole passel of Mexican food. It's always really good and the ride is always fun. This year we did two loops. The morning loop started at 10:00 a.m. this past Sunday and incorporated parts of the Holland Hundred route. Sixteen of us rode south out of Holland toward Fennville and Hutchens Lake. We went around the south side of the lake and past Fenn Valley Winery. Since it was too early to stop at the tasting room we kept riding toward Saugatuck/Douglas. As we headed north back to Holland we picked up a pretty good head wind. We ended up with 41 miles. Truth be told, a few people (Mary for one) ended up with 44 miles because they missed a turn.

Loop number two headed out at 2:00 p.m. This was a shorter 30-ish mile route that took us in the reverse direction of loop one to Saugatuck and then back up to Holland. We had about 25 people on this route. After finishing with the lead group in the morning I was very happy to be middle to back of the pack in the afternoon. I ended up with 68 miles for the day. Add that to the 31 I did on Friday and I rode 99 miles in three days. So I feel like I'm where I need to be to be ready for the century ride in Nashville in six weeks.

The West Michigan Team enjoying post ride tacos.

Half century

I've been doing a lot of rides this summer in the 30 to 40 mile range. This was starting to concern me because I didn't want my body to get used to that particular distance. Especially since I'm planning on riding 100 miles in Nashville in September. So I was looking to do a 50 mile ride this weekend. Today I got my chance.

My friend John Despres took up road cycling about a year ago. He has a friend in Chicago who was going to do her first half century today. John was going to give her virtual support by riding 50 miles in Michigan at the same time she was riding 50 miles in Illinois. John invited me to go along. Unfortunately it was raining at our start time. Ever since the JDRF Killington ride in 2009 I am very reticent to start a ride in the rain. Probably the memory of almost getting hypothermia has something to do with that. So John started without me and I caught up with him about an hour later on the White Pine Trail. I rode 10 miles before I saw John and then 20 miles with him. That left me 20 miles to ride on my own to get the half century. John finished his ride in Riverside Park and I continued on to downtown Grand Rapids. From there I rode out to see Mary at Connie's Cakes. She gave me a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. I then rode to East Grand Rapids and around Reeds Lake before heading for home. I pulled in with 50 miles. I made my goal and virtually supported a new rider in Illinois. And the best part is it never rained on us.

Riding not writing

Even though I haven't written a lot lately I have been getting some miles in. Last week I rode 95 miles. 40 on the Sunday team ride, 15 on my own in the middle of the week, and another 40 at the Holland Hundred on Saturday. It was a great day at the Holland Hundred. The weather was a bit cooler and we had almost 30 JDRF team mates taking to the road. I would have loved to do the full century, but we had a wedding to attend so I had to cut the route short. Ian and I rode in a double pace line with about a dozen other cyclists, most from our team. We were buzzing right along at an 18 -20 mph clip. We got to the pancake breakfast after 30 miles. Breakfast was good and afterwards we said goodbye to most of our team mates who continued on the 100 mile route. We took the short route back to the starting line, which was only 10 more miles.

Most of the JDRF contingent before the start of the Holland Hundred

Tonight Mary and I went out for a short 17 mile ride. I'm not saying the Holland Hundred is flat, but we had almost as much climbing in our ride tonight as we did on the 40 mile ride Saturday. And this was a relatively flat route for this area. The hill work is good though, because we'll be doing a lot of that in Nasville this September.

Ride those hills

Sunday was a JDRF team ride. It was a hot day and a hilly route. We started near the corner of Pettis and Knapp on the northeast side of the greater Grand Rapids area. This is close to our house and well known for the many, many hills. We started with a 30 mile loop that featured over 800 feet of climbing. The second loop was also 30 miles and basically covered most of the same roads (Pettis, Egypt Valley, Honey Creek) as the first loop but in the opposite direction. We had a family party to attend so we had to cut the second loop short. When the team turned left, we turned right and cut the 30 miles down to 10. Taken together that's 40 miles and almost 1,200 feet of climbing. Our coaches informed us that they weren't trying to be evil, they were just getting us ready for the big JDRF ride in Nashville in September. That one is 100 miles with over 4,000 feet of climbing. Personally I don't mind the hills, but there was a lot of suffering going on this past Sunday.

Busy, busy, busy

July has been a crazy month so far. Lots of traveling along with a little bit of riding thrown in. I figured the best way to break it down was with a list.

July 4 - We we're at our friends Susan and Elvin Hayes' cottage on Lake Paw Paw. Mary, Ian and I rode from there to South Haven. Colleen had rented a beach house there with a bunch of her college friends. We briefly visited her and then rode back to the cottage. The ride was a little over 33 miles long.

July 5 - I rode with Susan and Elvin. We looped past three different lakes on a 17 mile morning ride. A pretty relaxed pace since we had also been playing lots of volleyball at the cottage.

 Mary and I took a couple of pedicab rides while in San Diego. A different type of biking.

July 9 - I was at a conference in San Diego and Mary went along. We rented bikes from the hotel and rode 7  miles along the harbor. It was very flat and very crowded. The bike route and the pedestrian walking route are the same. So it was a slow ride but very beautiful. The weird part was the coaster brakes on the bike. It's been decades since I rode a bike with coaster brakes. I was sure I was going to crash. How embarrassing would that be to crash on a one speed, fat seat, tourist bike.

July 12 - Back home finally and Ian and I got out for a fast, hilly ride from our house. We went out along Cannonsburg Road to Townsend Park. From the park we jumped on the Cannon Trail. It's a pretty trail but difficult to ride. With all the twists and turns, bridges and small hills, it was impossible to maintain a consistent speed. We came home via Blakely and 7 Mile hill which was a very fast finish to our almost 18 mile ride.

Le Tour and Le Moi

The Tour de France started this morning. I watched the first stage on television and then went out and rode myself. I went north on the White Pine Trail up to 17 Mile Road in Cedar Springs and then back. That's a total of 25 miles. It was a pretty good ride, I averaged a little over 16 mph. This ride gave me almost 60  miles for the week. I also went out on Thursday between work and a Whitecaps game for a 23 mile ride. That one was only supposed to be 15 or so miles, but I got going and the loop I was on turned out to be a little longer then I thought.

Trail riding and hiking up north

We've been real busy lately with work, volunteer and team stuff. Most of that has meant dealing with large numbers of people. So yesterday Mary and I decided to have a decompression day, get away from people and out into the wilderness. There is a spot on Lake Michigan between Ludington and Manistee that is just perfect for this kind of detoxing. The beach is about 12 miles long, with hardly a soul to be seen. The hiking trails are many, varied and nearly devoid of people. In fact yesterday we did a three mile hike and didn't see anyone until we were on our way back along the beach. We also spent some time just lying on the beach all alone. Not as peaceful as it sounds because of the black flys and the high winds that made us feel like we were being sand blasted. But it was a beautiful day to just be on the beach.

Mary entering the Children of the Corn portion of our mountain bike ride

The highlight of our day was the 11 mile mountain bike ride we went on. There is a trail that loops the entire camping area. But there are also logging roads and unofficial trails that crisscross the main trail. We went off on several of those until one trail went from sand, to mud, to a 2 foot deep pond, to nothing. We went all the way to the end of the this particular trail and found ourselves in the middle of the forest, with the only way out the same way we came in. So back thru the pond, mud and sand until we found a hard packed service road that was big fun to ride on. We were actually a little surprised that we rode 11 miles. It didn't seem that far, but maybe that's because we were having so much fun. Click here for a link to the route.

Four times the fun

It seems like I'm making up for the crapping early spring we had by getting out quite often the past couple of weeks. See below.
Friday 6/14 - 18 miles
Sunday 6/16 - 30 miles
Monday 6/17 - 15 miles
We4dnesday 6/19 -18 miles

Friday morning was a quick jaunt on the 20 mile loop for Sunday's team ride, except that I rode it in the opposite direction just to keep things interesting. I went north on the White Pine Trail to 12 Mile Road, took that out to Edgerton and went south via House/Pine Island/Post. More detail in reverse in the Sunday description.

Sunday was Father's Day and we had our annual JDRF post Lumberjack team ride. Our coaches Mike and Derek and team mate Kaat all rode 100 miles of dirt trails on Saturday. They were moving a little slow on Sunday. Our team ride was a very hilly 30 mile route. It was supposed to be 40, but since it took the group 2 and 1/2 hours to go 20 miles we figured it would be best to cut the route short. This is a great loop. We crossed the Rouge River three times, rode past Meyers Lake and the Luton Park mountain bike trails. The roads were all twisty, turny, and hilly. We started by riding out of our neighborhood north on Packer and then hooking up with Post Drive for a big climb. Then we followed Pine Island to House, which follows US-131 and is a really fun road to ride. We worked our way north and west until we ended up at the sports park on Algoma and 13 Mile for an extended break. We even met a guy who was traveling by bike from Milwaukee to Syracuse. We then took 13 Mile to Summit, followed the Rouge River for a bit and turned east on 12 Mile. We rode this until we hit Meyers Lake Road and it was time to head home. We rode down Kies and past Luton Park and finished the ride by screaming down 7 Mile hill. Several of us had speeds in the 40 mph range.

Monday was the Rapid Wheelmen Time Trail in Ada. A 15 mile race against the clock. No team mates, no drafting, just you going as fast as you can. The 30 miles the day before must have taken a little out of our legs because Mary, Ian and I all had slower times than the last time we did the race. Of course Ian and I did play 18 holes of golf Monday morning, so that may have had something to do with it.

Tonight Mary needed to pick up a prescription at the Knapp's Corner Meijer. Rather than drive there we decided to ride our bikes. It was a beautiful night for a ride and we got in 18 very pleasant miles. That makes 81 miles in six days time. That feels good.

That's more like it

Riding along on a beautiful Sunday.

I've gone out on three rides in the last four days for a total of 80 miles. That brings my seasonal mileage up to 289, not great but improving. On Saturday morning I did a solo ride of 14 miles. It was just a quick ride because I didn't want to overdo it before our team ride on Sunday. The team ride left from Elden's Shipyard in Holland. This is an annual event for us that usually draws a good crowd because of the pool and cookout after the ride. There were loops of 19, 30 and 42 miles. Mary did the 30 mile loop and Ian and I did the 42. Our loop took us through New Richmond, Fennville and Douglas before returning to the south shore of Lake Macatawa. The group stayed together for most of the ride at a 17-18 mph pace. This particular loop also has a fair amount of hills. I didn't ride Monday but tonight Ian and I went for a sprint ride down to the ballpark and back. 14 miles at and 18-20 mph pace, which is pretty good since it was just the two of us swapping off the lead. I think I'll be able to get out once or twice more before our next team ride, which is this Sunday from our house. That route is going to be 40 miles with over 1,000 feet of climbing. He he he.

Hill training

Yesterday I went out on my hill training route. It's 10 miles long with six climbs of varying difficulty. I've done this route many times, but this time I decided to map it with Map My Ride and post the result below. There is 330 feet of climbing on this route. That doesn't sound like much but if you extrapolate that over a century ride you'd have 3,300 feet of climbing, or more than the JDRF Death Valley ride. There is also one Category 5 climb on the route. That's the easiest of the climb ratings, but it is rated. This year our JDRF ride will take place in Nashville, Tennessee in late September. That ride has over 4,000 feet of climbing, so I'm likely to have lots more hill training in my future.

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