Week 38

Date
September 21st, 2013

Distance
107 Miles

Time
6:47:23

Route Map/Profile

Out and back

Weather

Cold and windy

Picture

Mountains in the morning

Ride Report
It was a busy week and I had to wake up early on Saturday to squeeze in a ride. The weather was not cooperating. It was cold and windy and I got rained on for the last 10 miles or so. I had to beat 7 hours, so I didn't do any climbing. Nevertheless, it was good to be out there. Aside from commuting I haven't been able to ride much lately.

Later that night there was snow on Mt. Rose from the storm. Snow in September. How about that? It's all gone now, but it was fun to look at while it lasted.

Strava Link

Week 37

Date
September 15th, 2013

Distance
108 Miles

Time
6:27:19

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Picture

Ride Report
This is a route I've done before. It starts off with Mt. Rose, travels along the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe to the easy side of Kingsbury Grade, then is mostly flat and easy for the second half of the ride. It's good for a windy day like today because the wind is at your back for most of the second half.

The route is an indication of how I feel right now. Summer is over, the days are getting shorter, and things are winding down a little bit. I still want to get some climbing in before winter, but I don't really feel up for huge climbing days right now.

Strava Link

Week 36

Date
September 4th, 2013

Distance
108 Miles

Time
6:48:36

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Picture

Donner Lake

Ride Report
There is still smoke out there, but today was much better than last week. I headed out to Donner Summit for the first time in a while. Now that it's past Labor Day, Tahoe is less crowded. The weather is still great, so it's the perfect time for a visit if you've never been out here before.

There was hardly any wind at all on the first climb of the day (US 50), so I was able to put in a good time there. The plan was to take it somewhat easy until Donner, but by the time I made it to Donner there was a pretty good headwind, so I wasn't able to put in a good time there. Oh well. It was a fun ride and I should probably ride Donner more often than I do.

Strava Link

Week 35

Date
August 28th, 2013

Distance
101 Miles

Time
6:06:46

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Picture

Smoke (11:00 AM)

Ride Report
We've had a lot of smoke in Reno ever since I got back from Utah. It started with the American Fire in Tahoe National Forest and recently has been much worse from the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park. Visibility was poor today, as you can see from the above photo, which was taken at 11:00 AM when it would usually be bright and sunny outside. Physically, the smoke hasn't seemed to bother me too much. I can only hope I'm not doing any long-term damage to myself. It's been more of a problem mentally.  

Week 34

Date
August 21st, 2013

Distance
103 Miles

Time
6:28:56

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Plus some rain and hail

Picture

Hail

Ride Report
The vacation is over and it's back to life as normal. It was a rude awakening. The weather took a turn for the worse about 75 miles into the ride. It started off with heavy rain, turned to hail, and finished with flooding. The hail was small at first- small enough that I kept on riding. However, the hail kept getting larger, forcing me to stop. I assumed the time trial position, hoping most of the hail would hit me in the back. As it turns out, I could have used a TT helmet because a few of the hail stones made their way through the vents in my helmet and hit me directly in the head.

The hail didn't hurt too much, but for some reason I got hit in the left ear 3 times and one particular spot on my right leg kept getting hit over and over again no matter how many times I moved my leg. It's hard to say how long the hail lasted. Time moves very slowly in a moment like that. I would estimate 2 minutes, but that's probably an overestimate.

The rain was fairly heavy after the hail stopped, which caused flooding on the roads. Luckily, most of the water was on the westbound side of the road and I was going eastbound. The rain started to die out as I continued east. It wasn't raining on the Geiger descent, so I didn't have to freeze my butt off on the way home. I was thankful for that and now, a few days later, I'm thankful for the whole storm. It made for a more interesting ride.

Strava Link 1: Before the hail
Strava Link 2: After the hail

I got dropped by the Schleck brothers and Jens Voigt

The Schleck brothers were in town yesterday to train and help raise money for the Tahoe-Pyramid Bikeway. Here's the link to a local news video, where I make a few cameos (especially at the 58-second mark).

An easy ride was scheduled through Reno, followed by Mt. Rose (13.7 miles at 5% from Thomas Creek Rd). I just got back from my 5-day, 500 mile ride from Bozeman to Salt Lake City the night before, so I was either in really good shape or really tired from the ride. I would find out soon enough.

I did an easy ride from home to downtown (14.5 flat miles) and showed up a little bit after 8:00 AM. There were already tons of people there. One of the first things I saw was Frank Schleck doing a TV interview.

Frank Schleck doing an interview

Shortly after he was done, Jens came out for his interview.

Jens doing an interview

Jens doing an interview

After Jens came Andy.

Studying up on nice things to say about Reno?

Jens came back out dressed and ready to roll. He had a nice white, German-themed bike with "Shut up legs" on the downtube.

Jens' bike

After the interviews, the guys signed autographs and took pictures for a while. The ride was scheduled for 9:00, but it started closer to 9:30.

Getting ready to ride

Lined up and ready to go

Finally the ride began and I was pretty far back in the pack. To be honest, I was more concerned about crashing than anything else. As the ride headed south and got hillier, things spread out a little and I made my way towards the front.

Getting closer to Mt. Rose Hwy

Jens Voigt

I wasn't too sure what to expect once we hit the Mt. Rose climb. Would they drill it right from the start and leave us all in the dust, or would they play around and let us hang around for a while? 

It turns out that they took things easy and let us hang out for a while. We were going 14-15mph on the section before the fire station (the first 2.5 miles), which isn't exactly an easy stroll for me but is sustainable. Then we hit the downhill after the fire station and it was anywhere between 12-14mph for a while. Again, a pace I can actually live with. We had a pretty steady pace going up until about the 7,000 foot mark, which is about halfway up the climb (summit at 8,900 feet). I was starting to believe that we were all going to make it to the top together.

After 7,000 feet there is a short flat section, then the road goes back uphill again. Not too long after the road went uphill again, Andy Schleck went off the front. I think he was more playing around than actually attacking, but he blew our pack apart and I could hear Jens behind me say, "Attack!" I did what I could to get back on, but I couldn't do it. I could see the pace kind of settle down a little bit ahead of me, but there was no way I was making it back on at that point. What can I say? I guess I was dropped on Mt. Rose by Andy Schleck.

I went into the red a little bit trying to chase back on, and I paid for it for a while. But just like they say on TV, once you get dropped all you can really do is ride your own pace and try to limit your losses. I was able to do that and when I got to the top Jens and the Schlecks were long gone. I still came out of the day with a PR on the section from Thomas Creek to the summit. This will be a fun PR to try to beat. If I end up beating it I can give myself a good pat on the back. If I can't, I have a pretty good excuse.

Here are some videos I took along the way. I wish I had a recording of the moment I got dropped!

Spectator Report: 2013 Tour of Utah Stage 2

Stage 2 started in Panguitch, ended in Torrey, and passed by Bryce Canyon National Park.

I didn't have enough time to go to the last KOM (Boulder Mountain), so I planned on parking near the Grand Staircase KOM, riding out to the Hogsback KOM, then riding back to Grand Staircase to watch the race. However, on my way back from Hogsback I noticed that they had set up the feed zone right after the sprint point in Escalante. I rode back to the car and drove ahead to Escalante to check out the feed zone.

The ride out towards Hogsback from the car was easy with a downhill and a tailwind.The riders must have enjoyed this portion of the route.

1k to the feed zone. This is facing the opposite direction.

The intermediate sprint, facing the opposite direction.

When I got back to Escalante, the team cars were all ready for the riders in the feed zone. I picked a spot past the feed zone without any other people around. It had a nice sidewalk that I could ride on to search for discarded items before the caravan was done moving through.

Feed Zone

My spot

Looking left from my spot

Looking right from my spot

I had a few riders throw bottles right at me and I also picked up quite a few bottles after the peloton passed through. I could have picked up a lot more, but the volunteers were picking up a lot of them before I had a chance to get out on the road. After two days I had collected 20 bottles and 4 musette bags.

If you haven't seen them, check out my other spectator reports:

2013 Tour of Utah Stage 1
2012 Tour of California
2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge
2013 Tour of California Stage 4
2013 Tour of California Stage 5