The new Oakleys...not a fan.

As this blog post might suggest, I'm not a huge fan of the new Oakleys being sported around. I first saw them at last year's Tour de France on Thor Hushovd and George Hincapie. I'm not even sure what model they are and I couldn't find them on Oakley's website.

Sorry, no pictures in this post, just links to the pics.

Lance recently started wearing them instead of his Oakley Radars (I have a pair of Radars and love them):
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2009/feb09/california09/index.php?id=/photos/2009/features/astana-pretoc-feb09/Armstrong_SantaRosa

You can see a couple of pictures of Thor wearing them through these links: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/DV356611

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/bettiniphoto_0028586_1_full

Here's big George Hincapie in them (not sure before/after which race): http://www.velonews.com/photo/79686

While I'm on a roll, I don't really like these sunglasses either: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0818/DV363483

However, I am a fan of the Oakley Radars and Giro Havics. They just look better.

Radar: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour085/DV358342

Havic: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0816/bettiniphoto_0029406_1_full

Next blog post should have some ride data or some pics of "what I normally eat in a day." My fans (all 2 or 3 of them) have been clamoring (this is a blatant lie) for more pictures of my food. I don't want to disappoint.

Fuel for the ride

Cezanne makes fun of me because I like to take pictures of our food.  This was breakfast this morning (along with 2 cups of Peets coffee).  Cezanne only gets one pancake even though I'm always trying to force more food on her.

These were banana/blueberry/blackberry buckwheat pancakes with strawberries on top.

I had to take a pic from this angle, pretty thick.  They kept me full on my 3-hour ride today.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1967608

I used the "lap" function on my Garmin 705 for the first time today.  I wanted to do a sort of 20 minute TT to see how I would feel.  I started it after riding for an hour and 40 minutes.  I wound up going for about 23 minutes, 91 cadence average, and my average heart rate was only 164 bpm.  As a comparison, my heart rate last September for the Mission Bay TT portion of the triathlon averaged 175 bpm for 27 minutes.  

For my "trial TT" today I averaged 19.8 mph which I don't think is too bad considering there were just over 1,400 feet of climbing in that 7 miles.

I recently downloaded a program for Apple computers called "Ascent."  It's basically a biking training data repository program with a little more functionality than Garmin Connect.  It gives you time in HR Zones (power too if you have that), the grade at any point of the ride, the steepest gradient during the ride, your average VAM (climbing rate), as well as all the usual min, max, average stuff (speed, heart rate, cadence).

My average VAM during my trial TT today was 1200 meters per hour.  That is pretty aweful when you compare it to Lance's TT up the Alpe d Huez in 2004.  He had a VAM of 1790.  Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France on the Alpe d Huez this year doing a VAM of 1650 and the favorites behind him had a VAM of 1550.  Got all this data from a bicycling.com article.  I'm a nerd. 

JW, this is for you.

JW, we have very similar taste.  I crafted this little photoshop beauty (I mean, we were on the red carpet together...) back in 2005.

I really like your post: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/01/kate.html

I'll see your Prague picture and raise you

One of the funniest blog postings I've ever read is JW's post where he responded to my "Cervelo R3 around my neck" post with a hilariously similar picture.  Check it out here: 

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2008/05/chris-this-is-for-you.html

I don't have anything that funny, but I do have a response to one of his recent posts with a picture of a church in Prague, taken while he was on vacation (or holiday if you're from the UK).  His post is here: 

http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/01/random-prague-vacation-pic-to-appeal-to.html

My response pic is below, followed by raising him one pic of "Prague at night."  These are pics I took while on vacation in 2005 before seeing the first few stages of the Tour de France.

The weather, the weather!

I used to live in La Jolla, now I live in Washington D.C.  That's the end of the story when we're talking about weather.

Sure, you get spring and fall here, which are great times of the year, but you also get really hot and humid summers and wet winters.  I think the winters would be a little better if D.C. didn't find itself on the freezing rain/sleet/wintry mix side of the house more often than the white fluffy stuff.

This past Friday was the coldest day in D.C. since 1996 or 1997.  I forget which year, but that's obviously over a decade.  You can see from the pic below that the forecast for Friday wasn't too good.  It's tough to see, but the darker number to the right is the low.  It called for 8 degrees on Thursday night/Friday morning.  

When I woke up it was 4 degrees.  I haven't been in weather that cold since SERE school, 8 years ago, the 2nd weekend in January on the Maine/Canada border in 3 feet of snow, no food for at least 3 days...but that's a story for another blog.  I actually got a ride in on Friday.  When I went it was 21 degrees and weather.com was saying that it "feels like" 11 degrees.

And then there is the weather where I USED TO LIVE!  On the iPhone you have the option of flipping through different weather locales with the flick of your finger.  So, I check Washington D.C., then flick to La Jolla.  I guess it may be cruel and unusual punishment.

Below is the pic of the La Jolla weather I flicked to.  Oh man, that hurts.  Is that January weather?

I finally bought a torque wrench for my bike.  Not having a torque wrench meant that I couldn't do simple things on my bike like adjusting or replacing my handlebars and left me wondering if I was tightening my seatpost too tight.  Turns out I was on my Madone and I put a crease in my Easton EC90 zero setback seatpost and now the carbon is compromised, so that nice little piece of >$200 carbon is useless.

I've been wanting to put my Specialized S-Works handlebars back on for a while now, but didn't want my bike to be at the shop for more than a quick visit.  My white FSA handlebars are great, but the 42cm feel like 40cm, so they felt too small for me.  I did like the reach and drop though, but felt like my stem needed to be 10mm longer.  

I'm finding that handlebars, probably like a lot of things are very different depending on the company even though the measurements are roughly the same.  42cm Bontrager feels like 42cm Specialized.  42cm FSA feels like 40cm based on those other bars (not sure about other FSA bars, but mine are wing pro compact).  The reach is 80mm and my Specialized reach is 79mm...However, just by looking at them it looks like the Specialized bars have further reach and I confirmed this by measuring from front of the saddle to the top of the hoods on both handlebar set-ups and the Specialized was 16mm further away from the front of the saddle.

Maybe that's a little anal.

My Monday ride was interesting.

Having encountered the same puddle of water on my Sunday ride, I decided to ride on the bike path and endure deeper water, but for a shorter period of time.  On the road the cars seemed to spread the water out and drag it down the road which makes for more riding in wet conditions that spray up on my white Assos jacket! 

The water froze up a bit which made it a little more of an adventure (pic below).

I think you can see a little snow on my bike computer in the below pic.  I started to get a little nervous and having done the same ride the day before I was "following history" on my Garmin, so I toggled over to the page which gives you turn by turn directions...distance and estimated times to those turns.  Pretty cool.

If you click on and enlarge the below pic you can see some snow on my saddle, on the road and some falling.  This is where I stopped for a little #1 break.  I just kneeled down behind this tree and pretended like I was adjusting my shoes...which had booties over them making them impossible to adjust...

And then the snow really started coming down hard (below pic).  This actually turned out to be a really nice ride.  It was my first ride in the snow, so I just treated it like riding in the rain and taking it easy on the downhills and curves.  

Street View of Alpe d' Huez

There is no other climb in all of cycling as famous as the Alpe d' Huez. It's not the steepest or longest, but it is "the climb."

There are probably thousands of pictures of it and videos of cyclists going up it, but I found it a lot of fun to do my own virtual ride up it using Google's "Street View."

Google hasn't street mapped many places in Europe, but luckily they decided to drive up the Alpe d' Huez. Maybe they are cycling fans...

Below is a snapshot of what one of the 21 switchbacks looks like with snow capped mountains in the background. A great thing about street view is that you can look 360 degrees from every point along the route.

Nice Temps, Nice Ride

I skipped the 8am group ride for a later solo ride.  I decided banana blueberry pancakes and 2 cups of Peets coffee as well as 39 degree temps instead of 29 degree temps were all worth the wait until 11am.

My plan for this ride was to do an easy ride and not push my legs.  I think I need to do more of that this winter.  My legs are feeling a little heavy.  This is my new favorite ride out this way.

I first went on this ride with the NCVC Cat4/5 group a few Saturdays ago.  That's the group I didn't go with this morning.  It was doable, but I didn't feel like dealing with the cold and knew that I wouldn't ride the exact pace I wanted.

The ride wound up being 47 miles and the temperature got up past the mid 40s.

Below is a pic (click on the pics to enlarge them) of the first part of Berryville Road.  It's a fun, quiet road that is a little rough, but worth it.   

This is the biggest house with the most property on Berryville Road.  I stopped to get this pic and eat some of my Clif Blocks.  

A screen shot of the ride is below.  You can also see it at: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1689761

Northwest of DC is definitely the best place to ride around DC, I'm convinced/sold.

If I'm riding a new route, one thing I like to do is see if Google Maps has a "street view" for that area.  Street view is priceless for previewing a route and looking at what kind of road it is and what the shoulder is like.

Google hasn't gotten over to Europe with their cameras to record too much for street view, but they happened to street view the Alpe d' Huez climb.  Lucky cycling fans!  That's for the next blog post.

Below is the street view scene of the beginning of Berryville Rd.  Surprisingly similar to my pic above.

And below is the street view of that huge house.

All in all, a relaxing and quality ride today.  Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow to get out for an easy spin.