Sunday, April 16, 2006

my first real ride

so today we rode at 10:00am. we did what the locals call the lake loop. it started off with about a four mile long hill, then a screaming downhill, another three mile long hill, a screaming downhill, and then started rolling. after fifteen miles they were like okay most of the hills are done. but to them hills are what we call mountains. they call hills "rollers." the hill into ft. benning would be called a bump. yeah, its insane. i heard some estimate of elevation gain per 10 miles. i think they said the average here is about a thousand feet for 10 miles. not sure if that's right or not, but its something ridiculous nonetheless.

so back to the actual ride... my ride data shows:
total time (total time gone) 4:53:26
actual saddle time 4:39:28
average speed 15.4 mph
total distance 71.90 miles
maximum speed 47.8 mph
avg. HR 150 bpm
max HR 186 bpm
cal. burned 4578 kcal

basically all that translates into pain. not to mention i only applied sunscreen to my arms and not the tops of my legs... i came home and took a nap and well, woke up with great pain in the top of my legs. then i noticed they were as red as could be. oh well. i was proud of myself for stepping up and doing the ride. i didn't mind being off the back of the group all day. i was the guy that'd roll up to the group at the stop sign and then they'd end their break. i guess that sorta translates into the closeness of the total time and actual ride time. haha. it was a great day though. i figure a few more like today and i'll be ready for clemson. i'm excited about seeing some of the columbus race team crowd at clemson and then the following weekend at dauset trails in jackson, ga. okay, with all that said... time for a movie. i hope all is well for my friends and family in columbus. i miss you all.

jg

Friday, April 07, 2006

blah

okay i think it happened today. i realized i moved. far away from columbus. i started to doubt my finances, found a $100 error in my checkbook. and in general started to miss some of my friends and family from c-town. not many people, but a few for sure.

on the flipside. i had a good time today. rode my mountain bike down in wilkes county with Kent and his neighbor Greg. its about a 30 minute drive from Boone. worth every minute and every penny in gas. the trail was like a combo of pleasant hill trail, tsali, and phenix city. yep. i put those together. ssschweeeet. and there was a DH course. it only dropped a few hundred feet for sure, but it switched back and forth very mountain cross-y down this good hill and had a bunch of log jumps and rollers and what-not. i decided i'm going down there next sunday with my DH bike.

we came back to the bike shop and i finished running cables and stuff on my newly improved road bike. andy helped my tape up the bars with some white bar tape. why does this bike look so PIMP?!? okay. thats the phrase up here. why is... so pimp?!?

i'll put a picture of it up soon.

going to tsali sunday morning to race SERC #3. hopefully it will be fun and i'll do well. my goal is going to be finish in the top half of the field. all season. if there's ten riders, i want to finish top five. if there's a hundred riders, i want to finish top fifty. i think thats a fair goal. alrighty then. going to eat some ramen noodles...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

settling in. missing home. sort of.

so boone is really growing on me. or i'm growing on it. one or the other.

i've been to work three days now, and i'm enjoying it. it's not super busy yet here, as it's cold, windy and still snowy. i had snow on my car monday morning. wow!! the first day in my life i wake up to actual snow on my car.

i'm meeting people really quickly. the shop has a close knit group, of which i know a few so far. but they all ride road. gosh. mountains like this and they ride road. although the roads are cool here too. we went for a ride tuesday for just over an hour and climbed almost two thousand feet. yes, almost two thousand feet. the climbs go for miles. its neat-o.

i rode my mountain bike today. it was great. the trail here they refer to as a joke or whatever is really great. it's comprised of some fire road climb, and then super tech singletrack and a few high speed sections. i liked it, and the few mtb-ers here think its a joke. can't wait to go to the forest as the call it. thats pisgah forest. oh, and tsali this weekend. i'm going to race the serc #3 event and hang out with barry and glenn.

i'm really excited about the supermarket in town. its called earthshare "the healty supermarket." its the size of publix, but everything is the quality food you'd get at country life natural food store in columbus. sweeeeet!!!! oh and people here are into recycling and that is super cool.

me and bobby at my going away festival okay party okay dramafest, whatever you want to call it. it was cool having my friends come together to send me off.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

new home

so we drove up to boone north carolina today. it was a really long drive. i came up a few weeks ago for my interview and it took 5.5 hours. today took more like 7.5 hours. ugh. the past few weeks at home were pretty good. i just worked and rode my bike a little. i've re-developed an interest in my road bike which will surely help my speed/intensity on the mountain bike. speaking of which... i found a climb tonight that is probably at least a few miles long and few hundred feet elevation. its on campus, so i don't know if i can get in trouble or not, but it should be fun. there is no real way back down though, just grabbing the brakes. anyways.

the commute to work will be a non-stop downhill. but well then, clearly, the ride home will not be fun. although, i can detour around and it will be less of a climb. anyways. still no idea about the in-town mountain biking. i've read some reviews, but none were very definitive. and speaking of all this riding... i should mention i'll be headed down to tsali this coming weekend to stay with some of the CBR team. barry, glen and ursula are coming up on friday i think. i'll be headed down saturday evening. then race on sunday. i need to ride some this week or tsali is going to be a joke. i mean, it is going to be for me anyways, i haven't gotten to ride much. packing stuff away, working extra hours last week, and eating too much fast food all sort of screwed up the progress i'd made on my bike. oh well.

i will post some pictures when i get a chance. until then. arve wah. or however the french say it.