Sunday, May 20, 2007

Last week on the bike

Well this past week was a pretty good week out on the bike, but the very windy weather continued which is making it hard to keep my motivation up.

I did make it out both Tuesday and Wednesday and both days were pretty cool and windy. Especially Wed. where the gusts on my way back were pushing me all over the road.

Saturday started out like that and the first 10 miles of my ride were rough but I rode out of the wind and then it was great. Went form NE down the cedar lake trail and around to the greenway which I followed down to the river, then crossed over at Franklin and came back the usual way down Stinson. Longest ride of the year at about 28 miles total and it felt great. The whole length of the greenway I was averaging 20+ mph and I never felt tired. I definitely need to find some new longer routes to ride. Might try to go down to Fort Snelling in the next week or two.

ON a product note I have been trying the sports gels this week as a way to refuel. I tried the Clif vanilla on Tuesday and it was just ok. It had kind of an odd, fake flavor to it. Saturday I tried the GU vanilla bean and it was pretty good. Flavor wasn't too bad and it kept me going so I can't complain. this week I will try the powerbar version and see what I think. All in all I was pretty skeptical on the whole gel thing but it is much better than trying to each a power bar while riding. the only downside I see is that you need to drink a good amount of water with them and if it is hot out that means carrying extra bottles in the jersey. Not the end of the world but better if you can avoid it.

Weekly Total - 47 Road/9 Commuter
Season Total - 313

Giro update: Well as a Quickstep fan it was a disappointing week with Bettini just missing on 3 different stages but still impressive. So far it has been mildly interesting which for week 1 of a grand tour isn't half bad. Tinkoff has been impressive getting their men in every possible break and creating them if they have to. It will be interesting to see how things start to shake out this week.

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