Glider ride today. We did the loop through Alachua today. It was about 40 degrees and my hands and feet were suffering. Within a couple of minutes The Semi ran over an exacto knife blade which totally lacerated his tire. He was done for the ride and had to call his wife to pick him up. The tire itself had a big gash in it. Boss Hogg had showed up for the first time in weeks and preceded to pull at the front for the first 20 minutes. Classic Boss Hogg. It was just as well because the only other people were the Parakeet, the Ride Captain and  2 B-17 riders from a couple of weeks ago.

Turning north on to 241 there was a decent headwind. The dude (B-17er) in front was struggling, going 16mph. After he dropped back I sped it up some. I was doing over 300 watts for a couple of minutes going over hills into the wind. A bunch of riders were dropped. And by dropped I mean they were way far away. I couldn't even see them when I turned around. How did this happen in the span of a few minutes?

It's hard to gauge how fast to go into a headwind because as the lead rider I am working a lot harder than the others but they are exposed to it too. Also it doesn't help that I have a small frame and lean way over tucked down by the drops so the person behind me doesn't get much shielding. Anyway after the group reconstituted it was Boss Hogg and I taking turns leading the rest of the way.

My other rides of the past week were solid efforts. No records set or anything but no problems. I did my usual routes, Millhopper, Hawthorne and Racetrack. Rode the Hawthorne trail solo. I didn't see a soul for the first hour on the trail. Still working on getting my cadence back up to where it was before a started riding in harder gears.

This weekend Virginia and I biked  some on the Hawthorne trail as well as downtown to eat, which was something we hadn't done in a while.

December starts tomorrow so I'll restart my monthly assault on all my power records. I never did best my 5 sec mark from October but I nailed all the other ones.

Practiced changing my tire today. It took a little longer than I would have liked but I'll try it again tomorrow.

It was raining this morning (Wednesday) but it had pretty much cleared up by the time of the Glider ride. I dutifully went down to the meetup at 8:30 but no one showed. There hadn't been a cancellation notice posted online so I guess it was just assumed.

I decided to take advantage of the situation and do an all out 20 minute ride. There is this thing in power meter cycling where you are supposed to periodically measure your watts going all out for 20 minutes. Then that gets plugged in to a formula which determines how hard your future workouts should be. I don't really adhere to that very strictly but I hadn't done the test in 10 months so I figured I'd go for it and see how much I had improved. I choose to ride north on 441 so I could avoid lights and turns.

I miscalculated a little and had to slow down at one point due to traffic and road debris, but it was minor. My glasses were also gunked up with water drops. I wound up with a power reading of 234 which was an improvement over the 208 I did last January.

On the way back I tried to tackle my 5 second power mark but I didn't get close. I don't know how I'm going to approach that one. It's kind of frustrating. Later in the afternoon I tried again on a hill by my house, still no luck. 

It's my anniversary this weekend and I'm writing this Sunday morning from St Augustine. Yesterday I made a last minute decision to ride the Hawthorne trail early before we left. I set my sights on setting new power marks for the 3,4 and 5 minute time frames. I still felt tired from the previous day's Racetrack ride. I entered the trail head at 7:30 and there weren't many other people around. Going up the 2nd hill I tried to assault my 5 second best for watts but I came up short.

I decided that once I was out of the Hammock I would go for the other power records. So I started cranking it and things were going well. The last  3 minutes were tough.  I was lightheaded and my heart was pounding.  I made it though.

                                                             Click image to enlarge.

I made 2 other attempts at the 5 second best but the closest I came was 783w.

I saw several deer. Also there were some of the largest cycling contingents I've ever witnessed on the trail. One was this massive group of kids chaperoned by a few adults. Later a really large group of faster adult riders going the opposite direction rode by when I was about 2 miles from the exit. I think big groups of people going relatively fast on this trail presents a safety hazard and freaks out the more casual exercisers.

I stopped at the 8th ave Bike and Coffee House. I blazed in on the Sempre in full regalia with the Molteni wool jersey and scored a pumpkin muffin.

While there I saw this bike
 


There was also a whole rack of sweet ass retro jerseys I'll have to check out later.

Afterward I went by Bikes and More and spoke to Paul about many things such as batteries, gloves, and God versus Christmas. I think if Paul was a cult leader I would join his cult. Maybe I already have. Note to self: start side project called God versus Christmas.