First Road Ride

goFast laid out this perfect 18 mile bike ride for me and on Friday we went over it and I printed it out figuring I'd try it today. Using the technique professional athletes use called 'visualization' I can see it quite clearly laying on my desk at work, next to the phone.

So I decided to wing it today and spent some time on Google Maps potting it out blah, blah blah. I watch a bit of the tour on TV and then hit the road around 9:30am. Not too much traffic and anyway there's lots of room. The first thing I noticed was this weird quiet as I headed around the round about and towards my first turn. The second thing I noticed was that this road was pretty crappy given the taxes I'm paying, what's up with that? The bike path looked smoother but was not for me, bike paths have other issues.

But 'The Quiet' was interesting to me, almost as if I had fallen into myself and could self reflect. Now I'm a guy so that didn't happen but it could have and probably will in the future. Kind of like a pool waiting to be jumped in, forever patient.

Where I live, honestly, can only be described as flat so when I hit this one 'ridge' my muscles were not prepared and it took me a bit of fiddling with the gears to find something that I could peddle without dying and go faster than that dude on my right with the oxygen tank an a walker. As I push myself further out on this course hills will be interesting to me until I figure them out.

Now my bike has bar end shifters, it's a classic cross country bike with the panniers and what not and I like it just fine. This fluctuation in shifting that I noted has me thinking about changing to a different type of shifter. I'll mull it over.

I wasn't pushing it but I wasn't coasting either - my average HR was 65% which is about where it should be for a Saturday and my average cadence was 72 which was OK. My average speed of 14.5mph is laughably slow to some of my buddies but again at the moment I'm good with it. I figure as my confidence grows so will my mph a bit.

Here's the funny part, of the 18 mile course laid out I only did nine. I turned right (towards home) way to early but you know what? I'll go further tomorrow and get the 18 in or maybe a bit more. I learned a lot today and my confidence is good at the moment. Thanks for the route
goFast!

PS: I'm very disappointed in what the US team Garmin/Chipolte did to George Hincapie today. It's gonna make me rethink my loyalty to that team in next year's Tour and going forward. Right now it doesn't matter loyalty wise since I'm pulling for Lance (Astana) and Lance alone. How incredible if he does eight of this bad boys!

Breakfast

• Coffee with French Vanilla
• One egg, two bacons, one toast

Lunch

• Three slices of summer sausage
• Five pieces of stone wheat thins crackers

Dinner

• Green beans
• Salmon 3x3 inch
• Salad

Treats

• One Drumstick no nuts
• One slice of chocolate cake
• Three cookies