Escape from work

After being stuck in work all day, consistently checking my weather widget to see the temperature climbing, I was able to escape at two.

After the short ride home, I realized that I needed to make some food. While office coffee may be vital to getting me through a work day, three cups on an empty stomach had me feeling a little queasy.

So after taking care of the snack situation with some barley and mushrooms, I got my bike ready for its first voyage off the rollers in a long while.

Here she is in her winter trim:


So after hitting the road, I decided to take a loop up and around Lake Rockwell, one of the many country-esque roads surrounding the Kent area. It was nice to get some miles in on the fixed gear and try to work on my pedal stroke a bit. Which I realized has become a bit bothersome.

Not trying to be an analytical camera nerd, but I set my camera up on a tripod and filmed myself riding my rollers for like 15 minutes. Took the footage into Final Cut Pro, and slowed it way down to like 20%. I discovered that I wasn't flattening my foot out enough on my downstroke, and was pointing my toes wayyyy too much on my upstroke. So these base miles are a great opportunity to work on this sorta stuff.

So that aside, the ride was pretty mellow. There are some all right rolling hills in the area to give a little bit of variety to the ride. Most of it looked like this:

Which isn't too bad, I figured the bumpy road provided me some good training for cross, and I know I need it, because Robert seems to be working pretty hard to be in top shape for this season, so I should get off my butt and not have him embarrass me too badly this fall :D

After I had enough, I turned back around at Infirmary road and started to finish up the loop. FInishing it out, I was a stretch of Lake Rockwell that I think is my favorite stretch of road in the Kent area. Just twisty and turny enough, and FAST!


So after Lake Rockwell and navigating a busy intersection at 43, I was on Ravenna Rd. After hanging a Left onto Hudson Dr. I was home free back into Kent.

I decided to throw in a mini hill on Graham Rd, just to see if I had some juice in my legs. Lucky I did, and made it back in one piece.

Here's the aftermath of my nice weather cruise, plenty of road crap all over the bike.

So today is going to be spent relubing all the necessary bits, and giving my frame a coat of wax. Probably 45 minutes or so on the rollers just to loosen up my legs and watch the Simpsons.

So the vitals for the ride:
• 23.32 miles
• Total time 1:26
• Average speed of 16.8
• Max speed of 31.4 @ 42-17 fixed = a max cadence of 158, which was pretty fun for hamster leg status.