New ride coming!

Finally our tax returns are in progress. With that I can finally afford to buy my own road bike and with the upcoming MS150 ride, a good comfortable road bike was what I was looking for. Enter the Specialized Roubaix - it is the distance bike of choice. The Roubaix takes its name for the Paris - Roubaix race held every spring. This race is notorious for its riding over cobblestones - which is very punishing on most road bikes.

At any rate I had been looking at a 2011 Specialized Roubaix Comp, but happened to stop by AJ's and saw they had a 2010 Roubaix elite - which is aside from a slight change in frame material, is the exact same bike but for almost $1000 less.

Here are some pictures of it:

2011 Ride #14 - Training Ride

Alex and I headed out to Flatwoods since we were both off today. He was on the TREK and me on the Specialized with road wheels on it. It started off nice and cool but the wind got progressively worse with each lap (or we got progressively more tired). It warmed up slightly as the morning wore on, but nothing too bad. I had initially wanted to get in about 30+ miles, but I am dieting so I was running a little too calorie depleted to make that a reality. We did 3 laps which is right at 22 miles. Not bad considering I did most of the pulls (Alex is still getting his legs back under him after not riding for a long period of time).

We did get a couple of crazy looks when Alex was drafting me - it isn't every day that someone on a road bike is drafting someone on a mountain bike, and since I was wearing my SWAMP jersey, that made it that much more entertaining.

Ride Stats and Maps:
Started: Feb 21, 2011 9:27:01 AM
Ride Time: 1:23:59
Stopped Time: 15:15
Distance: 21.93 miles
Average: 15.66 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 19.18 miles/h
Climb: 174 feet
Calories: 1567


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2011 Ride #13 Alana's first trailer bike ride

Today was absolutely spectacular outside. 76F, light breeze, and not a single cloud in the sky. Today was the first time we were able to get Alana into the bike trailer a friend of ours from work lent us to see if Alana would do OK with it before we took the plunge and bought one.


I don't know, this is her after the ride:

I think she liked it! She just talked and talked the whole way.

Most of the ride was pretty uneventful except for having to stop and wait for a 5-6 foot rattlesnake to cross the road. Since this was a first for both of us, I took it easy, with a few exceptions...When we passed the rattlesnake I put the hammers down and took us up to about 20mph...Alana started laughing and going weeeeee. So a few other times I did the same thing and she loved it. I tried to keep that to a minimum though so Ana could ride next to us and see her. We stopped once in the shade in the parking area at Bruce B Downs Blvd so we could make sure she wasn't getting a sunburn and wasn't getting overheated. We'll have to do this early in the morning once summer gets here.

Ride Stats and Maps:

Started: Feb 19, 2011 12:16:21 PM
Ride Time: 1:02:03
Distance: 12.20 miles
Average: 11.80 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 19.58 miles/h
Climb: 145 feet
Calories: 543


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2011 Ride #12 - Dirt Roadie Ride

Alex and I talked about going up and riding the Suncoast Trail since the access point off SR54 was just a mile or so down the road from his house. Since we were going to ride road, and only had one road bike, I put my new pedals on my mountain bike and mounted up the commuter wheels I had on it.

Now it was about 10am, 55F with a 10mph headwind. Sheesh. I just got my new Ultegra road pedals and Specialized comp road shoes. It is funny to me that my first ride on my mountain clips and shoes were on a road bike, my first ride on my road shoes and pedals were on a mountain bike.

We headed north on the suncoast trail and rode up to SR52, which was about 10 miles. We turned around and headed back south, which was great because we were riding with the wind. On the way back we rode into Starkey wilderness park, which has a 6.5 mile bike trail. We took a break at the far end of the trail recounting how beautiful the day was.

After our break we headed back to the Suncoast trail and then back to the car. 33.55 miles on a mountain bike, even with road tires is a long ride. I cannot wait to get my Roubaix.



Ride Stats and Map:

Started: Feb 13, 2011 10:09:45 AM
Ride Time: 2:17:16
Distance: 33.55 miles
Average: 14.66 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 20.94 miles/h
Climb: 362 feet
Calories: 2073


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2011 Ride #11 Second Dirt Ride of the year

So we are working on getting Alex back into riding shape since he hasn't ridden since football season started. Naturally since it is the weekend, it was sprinkling a bit and about 58F when we started out. If it was just not wet, it would have been outstanding.

At any rate we did the typical 14ish mile loop around the park. I also am evaluating a new app for the Android OS, this one was called Sports Tracker. While it is nowhere near as polished as Cyclemeter, it did a good job. What is odd to me is that the HTC's sports tracker said we had went 14.3 miles, the iPhone app said we did 13.8. Both using GPS. The HTC was more realistic based on top speed, putting us in a 21.99 mph for the top end (we really hauled butt on the speedway portion of the trail).

According to Google:
Ride Time: 1:29:12
Stopped Time: 32:54
Distance: 13.33 miles
Average: 8.96 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 18.48 miles/h
Climb: 725 feet
Calories: 896

2011 Ride #10 Lunchtime Ride

As I normally do on my work from home days, I hit the road at lunchtime. Today was probably THE BEST weather day I have seen on a bike. Not cold, not hot. If there was no wind - it would have been perfect.

One interesting note was that the workouts I have been following have been working. I felt so much stronger riding today. My splits show some really good hammer times...

Avg Max
12.35 15.95
14.07 16.64
14.85 19.7
15.22 19.18
14.5 20.39
13.76 25.31
19.91 25.14 Cookin!
21.21 23.67 Really Cookin!
18.1 21.12 Still going strong.
14.1 21.12 Got caught in the school zone...
16.55 20.8