Hi everyone!!

Registration just opened for NEXT years MS150 and I'm debating whether to sign up. It was a GREAT experience.. but the training.. well.. I DO like to do things other than bike ride SOMETIMES..

Someone asked about biking in the winter.. well in Houston, it's not a heat/cold issue, but when the weather is inclement, I take spinning classes at the YMCA. It REALLY helped me with strength last year (we don't have hills here like you guys in Colorado). The instructors usually push you to your limit too, and with music and other people, it's the next best thing to being outdoors.

Mike

ah you know you want to do it good luck on your decision

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on an Elite Fluid Trainer and a few spinervals DVD's. I'll let you guys know how they are after I've had an opportunity to try them out. I'm also bidding on some rollers from Ebay.

I had to work this weekend, but next weekend is going to be a solo century around the rolling farmland of SW Ohio. It's a great ride that I do at the end of the season, and the foliage should look great. I'll try to remember to take some picks.

Sounds great - please do! I've been riding every other day again - feels great and the weather is incredible. I was hoping to do my mountain ride this past weekend, to see the fall colors, but it unfortunately didn't work out. Guess I'll just have to see the colors in town this year...

Looks like my year end century is gonna have to wait til next weekend. A bit to chilly for my tastes and too much stuff to do around the house.

I'm down south (Houston, TX) so this cooler weather makes it PERFECT for me to bike. I went about 15miles yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful!! My computer seems to have quit working though.. so I'm estimating the mileage.

I wore my heart rate monitor yesterday.. do you guys wear one while you're training??

Mike

I went for a 30-miler around Boulder, CO yesterday - couldn't have been a nicer day! I do wear a HRM, it's part of my Vetta cyclocomputer which also features wireless speed/distance and cadence. A nice, all-in-one unit that works great!

Today it's raining hard and Denver has a forecast for SNOW beginning tonight into early this week. Bummer...

I biked to Boulder yesterday, about a 32 mile round trip. I went to the Performance Bike store and got a bike rack and three tires. I haven't figured out how to install the rack yet. Two of the tires are town tires to replace the knobbies on the MTB. I no longer go to the trains, so the bike is now my around town bike and the knobbies were getting irritating. The rear tire on the road bike was getting threadbare and needed replacing.

The weather was fantastic and I got quite a bit of vitamin D inot my body from the sun.

It was interesting biking the 16 miles back home with a bike rack and three tires strapped to my handlebars.

Hello all,

I went on a 28 miler yesterday too and used a bike I hadn't been able to ride (too fat) for a couple of years. I dusted it off, lubed it up and went for it. It was a beautiful fall day in Southern California with NO SMOG and temperatures ~ 75 f.

I actually cut time off my trip 'out' to my destination from the week before by using the lighter bike with a 26" tire in back.

As a result, when I got on the scale this morning I was down
2 lbs for the week. Just about 10 more lbs to go and I will start
the hard task (for me) of maintenance.

Bicycling in the Fall and the Spring are the greatest? Yes?

Ned
Easy Racer EZ1-SC http://www.easyracers.com/ez_1_sc.htm
Lightning Thunderbolt http://www.lightningbikes.com/thunderbolt.htm

Do you guys have decent shoulders on most of the roads?? There are either no shoulders or tiny shoulders on most of the roads around here.. it makes it hard to just hop on the bike and ride.. except through neighborhoods.

Not the most bike friendly town.

In other news.. I've gotten a couple more emails about the MS150 for next year. Ours filled up last year (they have a cap of 13000 riders).. I wasn't sure I wanted to do the training again.. but there is a certain "pull" I'm feeling..

Have a great week everyone.. sounds like most of you had an excellent weekend for riding!

Mike

Our bike club plans rides on quiet back roads. These normally don't have paved shoulders, but there is little or no traffic to deal with. I got in 32 on Saturday morning with a nice mix of flat and hills on an old Trek Pro 560.

I wear an HRM all the time when I ride. It's seperate from my cyclocomputer, which is handy because I wear it on the rare occasion I go jogging.

As far as shoulders go, our busier roads do have pretty decent and 3ft or so wide shoulders. We have a great rail-trail network out here as I have been able to do a century with only 7 miles on roadways.

Most of the roads around my place in So. California
have BIKE LANES. Those that don't have mostly
decent shoulders BUT, I don't ride on the shoulder!

The way I figure it, the shoulder is for emergencies
only, as in if some lunatic gets too close to me and
I need to GO RIGHT in a hurry.

I tend to ride bold, yet defensively. If I am on
a 4 lane road, (two lanes each side) I tend to
take enough of the RIGHT LANE to make people
go around me with a wide birth even having to
take the LEFT lane to avoid me.

I figure it is safer to ride bold and defensively than
to ride like a mouse and have *ssholes run me into the ditch.

For the record, I broke my hip on a bike 3 years ago
but it was due to a mechanical and a human error.

I tend to be extra careful, especially on left hand turns.

Sounds like it's time for Houston to get with teh program.. no WONDER we got dubbed "fatest city in the country".

Mike

Did a century yesterday but the batteries in the camera were dead

I ended up bonking about 1/2 mile from home just as I passed the 100 mile mark so all was not lost. It was a beautiful day and I'm dreading the "off season".

I did aquire a set of rollers, a trainer and some Spinervals DVD's. I tried out a couple and you can get a great workout with them. I did Muscle Breakdown a couple of times and if you want to do sprint intervals this is a great one. I'll get into the others next week and let you know how they are.