Little Longer and A Nicer Place (With clipless pedals and shoes)

There is a lake (White Rock Lake) about 30 KM from my house. I have been to that lake before but not on bike :-). So I planned to go to the lake on bike. Had some difficulty finding the route (Tough I saw and remembered the route). But after a few wrong turns eventually I reached the lake. Great trail through the woods and green fields after first 10 KMs. Then fantastic ride around the lake and back to home. Fantastic!!! I am hooked. Will come again here often.

Additionally I bought new clipless pedals and shoes.

Bought these pedals: Shimano PD-R540 SPD-SL Road Bike Pedal. $43 from Amazon. These come with three hole cleats as well. One should always buy the pedals and cleats together so that they are totally compatible. After a few adjustments these are great.

Had to buy the shoes as well to utilize these pedals. Got these ones: Shimano SH-R077. These were expensive on Amazon so got these in $70 (Including taxes) from shoebacca.com. These are great and I don't have hot spots on my feet any more. Effective on power too. But is take time to get used to disengage and engage these on the pedals when you have to stop and stop quickly. Fell couple of times when I fotgot to take them out and my leg was not free to put on the ground.

Another Weekday Ride

So again I got excited and did one more weekday ride. Not sure I should be doing this one day before my long ride on Saturday. Let's find out how I do tomorrow's ride: too tired or more efficient due to this ride.

Beginning Weekday Rides

As I posted in my previous post, I have started one weekday ride. Not too long on the weekdays because I have  day job and no one is sponsoring me :-). I wish!!!
It was actually good to do an hour of ride on weekdays. I will continue to do it and find out later what else I need to do to improve my performance. If I stop improving too soon then probably I will  be demotivated. I know in the start I should take it easy rather than exhaust too early. So I will take it step by step with some improvement plan every few weeks.

Registered For My First Race

I think best way to stay motivated is to find a buddy and set targets. So I did one of that today. I set a target to do my first race. Not too big but a 100KM (62 Miles) race called Collin Classic 2012.

To know more click here: http://www.collinclassic.org/

To do this properly I have to make a schedule to do more than once a week. I think atleast once on a weekday should be sufficient. Let's see how it goes.

I AM ALIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god!!! I am alive today because of quick thinking I did today. To go to a bike route there was a half mile busy stretch that I had to pass through and on top of that I had cross three lanes to take a left turn on that road. I looked back and saw a car way behind me. But I noticed that idiot did not had any intention of stopping when it was just few yards behind me. I quickly decided to just crash the bike into the divider so that I can fall on the grass on the divider. So I did. When I got up I was right. That idiot was still going full speed probably talking on the phone or doing make up. Promised myself to never plan a route where I have to be on a busy route. If I have to then stop on the side, get down before I have to cross the lanes. Don't assume that the car is going to stop. Thank god I am alive!!!

Other than this incidence the ride was enjoyable!!!

Really unique...

What a ride today. Lot of things unique about this ride.

1. It was my birthday :-). I know you want to wish. Thanks for the wishes.
2. My first 50KM + ride
3. It was really windy: 35 KM/H head winds in at least half of the ride.
4. There was construction going on a stretch of the ride and due to that traffic was heavy. I was really scared of my safety but somehow managed to get out of there quickly.
5. In the last kilometer of the ride I got a flat tire. Had to walk home.
6. These GU energy gels really worked and game me the energy boost I needed.
7. Aero bars worked perfectly for comfort and speed especially in windy conditions like today's.

I also read and noticed that if I upgrade my pedals and get biking shoes then I can improve my performance in terms of doing more in same effort. So starting the research now.

Needs of longer rides

After reading at various places on the internet I have noticed following things are important for the longer rides:

1. Adjustments for Comfort. See the video below. Very helpful. So bought these aero bars: Profile Design Legacy Aero - about $60 on amazon. But these doesn't fit on GMC Denali. Returned them and found on youtube that the these ones will fit: Forté T2. Cheapest price was on Performance Bike. Picked up from a local store for $55. Fits great and are very comfortable.
2. Accessories: I found that I need to carry a tube, tools, extra water, sunscreen, phone and nutrition etc. To carry all these bought couple of different bags but finally settled on this under seat bag: Avenir Bigmouth Velcro Seat Bag (Large- 73/106 Cubic Inches). $14 on Amazon. Also bought a arm band for my iPhone 4S. This one (Sport Armband for iPhone 4S Bundled with EX3 Armband Extender-fits iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 3G / 3GS) fits perfectly without taking the iPhone out of the Incipio NGP cover. $17 of Amazon.
3. Nutrition: Read a lot about sports nutrition. In a nutshell it is about fast absorbing carbs. Your body uses carbs in high intensity exercise. These carbs are stored in your muscles in form of glycogen. You muscles have storage for about 70-90 minutes of duration. But you need to keep replenishing the glycogen if you want to keep going for longer durations. So it is about before, during and after the exercise. These articles are helpful. After reading the below articles I settled on GU Energy Gels and will report their effectiveness after the next ride.

http://bicycling.about.com/od/cyclingforabetterbody/a/nutrition_bikes.htm

http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/nutrition-weight-loss/munch-and-ride

http://www.livestrong.com/article/19328-nutrition-tips-cyclists/

I am so ready for the longer Saturday ride with these tips.

Comfortable now...

After today's ride I am comfortable with my bike and is familiar with bike routes and road hazards. Read a lot both the topics that that I talked about last time. Tried different time in last three rides to get myself familiar which roads are good and which are not. Not so good thing about today's ride is that I was on a one lane small country road and promised myself to check the routes beforehand using satellite view (not the map view) of Google maps. Now is the time to think about longer rides and along with that comes the needs of the longer rides. Will post about the needs later.

Charged Up!!!

I liked the first ride so much that I was really charged up to go to the next one at the earliest. So with a one day rest in between here I am again on the next ride. Used Google maps to decide my bike route. It was fantastic. Looks like before going to the next one I need following:

1. I have to worry a lot about the safety because there are a lot of crazy drivers on the road. One of them even honked asking me to get out of the way. I politely did.
2. I have a read a lot about the other stuff that I need for comfortable and more enjoyable ride.

More in the next post but here is my ride.

Getting Ready and The First Ride

Got the bike just yesterday. It's a GMC Denali an entry level aluminum frame bike. Though it is a little bit on the heavier side (28 pounds) but to shed a few pounds off of the bike you will need to spend thousands of dollars more. What else you can get in $160. If I continue to be involved in biking then probably I will upgrade to a better one which is lighter and faster. Also got the gear (Shorts, tools, under seat bag, bottle) a couple of days ago from Amazon. Already had some other things already.

This is the first ride and not bad for the first time.