Moving the blog

After more than 6 years (and with my blogging slowing greatly the last few years), I've decided it is time to move this blog.  I may eventually redirect this URL to the new location, but not just now.  I probably won't be blogging much more, but it is on a system completely under my control now.  I'm moving the blog to wordpress.clausing.us.  I've imported all my old posts over there, so nothing is lost and probably no one but me is actually reading this so, probably no one cares, but there it is...

Xav 2004-07-02 - 2015-05-01

Almost 5 years to the day after I lost my cat, Smokey, this morning (after midnight last night), I lost my other cat.  Okay, Xav came into the house as Erin's cat, but he adopted me relatively early on. He was just shy of his 11th birthday.

Flight Log-2015-04-12

Well, I now have 2 flights in this calendar year (a flight review and an IPC) and am again IFR current (though the picture below shows I am very rusty and in need of more practice).  Another 1.6, 1.5 of it under the hood, so no sightseeing today.  The weather was finally beautiful, after having the 1st 3 attempts cancelled due to weather.  Temp 16°C, winds calm to 160@04, alt. 30.16, clear.  It was a little bumpy at times at altitude which contributed to some of my difficulty hand-flying these approaches, but the later ones got better.  First ILS22@KZZV including once around the hold after parallel entry, followed by VOR4@KZZV, followed by VOR22@KZZV, and finishing up with GPS27@KVTA. 

Takeoffs & landings: 1
Approaches: 4
Time: 1.6
Total time: 226.0

Flight Log - 2015-01-05

After more than 14 months without flying, I finally got back in the air today and completed a flight review, so I am again legal to act as pilot-in-command and carry passengers.  It was pretty dang cold, temp -9°C, winds 270@10, alt 30.51, clouds clear (at start, high clouds were moving in by the end).  I need to knock some rust off, but Harold (the instructor) actually complimented me on the smoothness of 2 of my 4 landings (the other 2 were fine, too, just not as nice as the 2 he commented on).  Not bad after so much time off.  Next month I'll get an IPC (instrument proficiency check) and become instrument-current again, too.

Takeoffs & landings: 4
Time: 1.0
Total time: 224.4

The year in riding 2014

Sigh...  Ok, I did some longer rides this year, I didn't come close to my plan to ride 2000 miles this year or to ride 3 days/week.  Having said that, it wasn't a bad year, just not what I had hoped for.  It turns out I was mistaken, I thought I had only riddent 1107 last year, so I thought my final ride to bring me to 1112 put me over last year, on closer examination, I guess I rode 1115 last year, so I ended up 3 miles short of last year.  I had 6 rides of 50+ miles,

Of course, the "highlight" of this year was my collision with the deer.  I guess I didn't really write about that here, so let me summarize.  I was 42 miles into what I had planned to be another 60+ miler doing about 22mph on a flat-to-slightly downhill stretch of Palmer Rd, when a 6 or 8 point buck came bounding out of a corn field on my right, one hop and it was right in front of me with no time to react.  I'm glad I was on my recumbent and not on by road bike or I suspect I would have been hit by the antlers instead of having them pass 6 or 8 inches in front of my face.  Also, fortunately for the deer, I was on the big chain ring or I think I would have ripped its abdomen open.  The buck absorbed most of my momentum so that when I went down, I had some road rash on my right shoulder, elbow, hip, and knee and a cracked rib, but did not rip the shorts or jersey.  The only real damage to the bike was a bent large chainring and the fairing was destroyed.  This was day 4 (Tuesday) of what I had planned as 8 straight days of 60+ miles, I took it easy thereafter, I rode 26.5 on Thursday and then the Pedal with Pete 47 miler on Saturday.

Anyway, I'll summarize my year again as I have the last several.  I actually did one more organized ride this year (6), than the last 2 years, but ended up with fewer total rides this year than last.

• Ride 2 Recovery Honor Ride - 36.24mi (58.32km) in 2:22:28 = 15.26mph (24.56 km/h), Erin rode the first half, some hills right after the rest stop
• Tour de Cause, Adventurer course - 64.70mi (104.12km) in 4:52:01 = 13.28mph (21.37 km/h), I paid for lack of base mileage, the hills (~1900 feet of climbing, max grade of 9.8%), and the heat (it was up near 95°F).  I lost 0.6mph just in the last 15 miles because my legs felt like jello.
• Delaware County Friends of Trails (DCFT) - 64.54mi (103.87km) in 4:22:23 = 14.76mph (23.75 km/h), I hadn't ridden in the 2 weeks between the Tour de Cause and this one, but at least there were fewer hills (only 1055 feet of climbing), though half the climbing came in the last quarter of the ride. This was to be the start of 8 days of 60+ mile rides, it didn't end up that way.
• Pedal with Pete - 47.56mi (76.54km) in 2:53:37 = 16.44mph (26.46 km/h), I cut this one short rather than do the metric because of the thunder I heard at the rest stop, I just beat the rain back to the finish.
• Steve Barbour Memorial Ride - 60.61mi (97.54km) in 3:44:34 = 16.19 mph (26.06 km/h), humid (foggy at the start)
• Ride Deaf - 64.93mi (104.49km) in 4:19:16 = 15.03mph (24.19 km/h), very chilly and windy (didn't reach 60°F until last 8 miles, and headwind for the first 36 miles)

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• Total # of rides = 36 (down from 43 last year)
• Total mileage = 1112.80 miles (down from 1115.10 last year)
• Total time = 72:22:41 (down from 73:16:41 last year)
• Total climbing = 19,281 ft (up from 18,033 last year, but down from 21,660 in 2012)
• Avg. speed = 15.37mph (up from 15.29mph last year)
• Avg. time of ride = 02:00:38 (up from 01:42:15 last year and 02:00:08 in 2012)
• Avg. length of ride = 30.91mi (up from 25.93 last year and 29.64 in 2012)
• Rides over 20 miles = 28 (same as last year)
• Rides over 29.75 miles = 16 (down from 18 last year)
• Rides over 50 miles = 6 (up from 2 last year and 2 in 2012)
• Rides over 01:30:00 = 23 (down from 24 last year)
• Rides over 02:00:00 = 10 (same as last year)
• Rides over 03:00:00 = 6 (double the 3 from last year)

Ride Deaf 2014

Yesterday, I rode the Ride Deaf Challenge metric century.  It was very chilly at the start. Not just the temperature, but the wind.  Also, it didn't help that for 15 of the first 20 miles, I had a very full bladder which made climbing torture. Temp 50-68°F (didn't reach 60°F until last 8 miles), strong wind from NW (meaning headwind for first 36 miles), max grade 5.7%, 1323 ft of climbing, HRM zones 3-5 2:56. 64.93mi (104.49 km) in 4:19:16, avg speed 15.03mph (24.19 km/h), max speed 28.5 mph (45.9 km/h).

Steve Barbour Memorial Tour 2014

This is a ride I've never done before.  They run 3 distances, a metric century (actually 60.6), an 80 miler, and a century.  I chose to ride the metric.  It was very humid today, by far the most humid ride of the year, the fog took over an hour to burn off, temp 68-86F, wind from NE @ 7, max grade 4.1%, HRM zones 3-5 3:11. 60.61 mi (97.54 km) in 3:44:34, avg - 16.19 mph (26.06 km/h), max speed - 32.1 mph (51.7 km/h). My goal was to complete the ride in under 4 hours and I accomplished that with plenty of time to spare.

 

Pedal with Pete 2014

I went out with every intention of riding the metric century despite the encounter with the deer earlier this week (maybe I'll do a separate blog post on that later), but when I heard thunder at the 24mi food stop and my knee was beginning to stiffen up, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and decided to try to beat the rain back to the finish (which I did), so I ended up doing the 47 miler again (for the 3rd year in a row).  I actually really like the ride and it is pretty flat.  This year, despite the crash earlier this week and being even heavier than last year (by 2+ lbs, making this the heaviest I've ever been for an organized ride :-( ), I shaved another 3:23 off my time, so I guess I'm in half way decent shape.  The temperature was perfect and I was under an overcast (as the rain tried to catch me) for the last half of the ride, so conditions were nearly ideal.

DCFT 2014 - 64 miler

My 3rd organized ride of the season already.  Of course, having spent the last week at Dad's to celebrate his 80th birthday, I haven't gotten any more riding in since the last organized ride (where I already paid dearly for the lack of miles).Temp 62.6-87.8F, moderate wind from S, shifting to W. HRM zones 3-5 3:37. 64.54mi in 4:22:23 (14.76mph). First hour I averaged 14.7mph, 2nd hour - 16.1mph, 3rd hour - 14.6mph, 4th hour - 14.1mph, last 22 min - 12.6mph. I have some words for the sadist who designed the course where nearly half the climbing was in the last 1/4 of the ride. There was a stretch about 10mi from the finish where I felt like a sprinter on Hautecam.

Tour de Cause 2014 - Adventurer course metric century

I haven't ridden anywhere near as much as I had hoped for the last 6 weeks and I really paid for it after the rest stop at 49mi today.  My legs just felt like jello and I ended up losing 0.6mph in that last stretch.  There was more climbing in the first 7.5 miles than what I have in my 30 mile loop (which I've only ridden once this year).  The temp ranged from 64°F at the start to reading 95°F at the finish, though it was probably just 89-90°F.  HRM zones 3-5 3:05 though it was a little flaky right after that second rest stop and was reading in the 90s-low 110s for a while when I'm sure it was in the 140-150s. 64.7mi in 4:52:01 for an avg of 13.28mph, max grade 9.6% (even worse than the Lancaster County Covered Bridge Metric from 2012 where max grade was 7.8%, though that had 1200+ more feet of climbing than this one in total).