Posted on 03/01/2020 9:12:02 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
Gravel road bike? Its virtually replaced the road bike. You can ride anywhere with it.
Thank You for the ping Berlin Freeper :)
Since November 15th I have put 1800 miles, climbed 124,000 feet on my bike using a Kinetic fluid trainer and Zwift. 7 weeks away from my first century ride.
Yes, on purpose! I returned from SouthEast Asia, came to my family, and then biked down to my next assignment at Dover AFB, Dover, Delaware.
Thanks for the ping!
I give the Withlacoochee Trail 5 stars. A great trail in excellent shape and great surroundings.
As for the Pinellas Trail, I would give it 2 - 3 stars.
This is an urban trail that has too many intersections with car traffic.
I felt sorry for the riders that use this trail regularly. They don't have the opportunity for a good ride.
‘No fussy or fragile derailleurs for us!’
and no going uphill for any length of time...
‘7 weeks away from my first century ride.’
I’ve ridden five centuries; last time was 2004...a good ride for my aging body now is 30 something miles...
Hey, nothing stopped us 12 year olds. You just stood up and pedaled!
Are you using the online Zwift (virtual cycling) service? That's kept it interesting for me all winter, due to the variety of available rides and (virtual) locations, plus the "Tours" they run.
If you're new to it, at first you should worry less about wattage and more about endurance. If on Zwift, focus on the "flat" routes, and get your endurance up to a point you can go at least an hour non-stop. Then incorporate structured workouts or routes with more hills to up the watts.
And perhaps most importantly, watts per kg. is more important than pure watts. You can improve your watts/kg. by getting stronger, or by losing weight.
I’m here in NE Pennsylvania. The D&L Trail (Delaware and Lehigh) runs thru my town. We use it all the time. A good cardio workout.
Currently the trail is 140 miles long with 1 major gap (6 miles in Allentown PA). From the Lehighton trailhead I can ride north thru the Lehigh Gorge State Park and beyond about 38 miles, South about 21 miles. Most of this is off road, in the woods, either old rail road beds or canal towpath.
The trail is great, the people that administer the D&L are nauseating. There has been so much money spent on this trail it is borderline sickening. For example a bridge over the Lehigh River in Carbon County took 4 years to build and cost 4.5 million dollars. Not sure of the price but they built a tunnel under a multi-track working railroad just outside of Philly, I’m sure that was at least 3 million dollars. There are several other smaller bridges and misc. projects that together add up to 10s of millions of dollars.
I think it will probably be 3-5 years before the Allentown gap is at least functionally closed. You can ride city streets even now but the neighborhood is not nice.
I’m not using Zwift. I’m using Trainer Road. And I’m trying to do a combination of endurance workouts and FTP building. I can do an hour at low wattage but I’m aiming for some TTs this season and I need to get the power up.
I need to drop a few pounds too.
I need to drop a few pounds too."
I have a few cycling friends that also use Trainer Road - all have gotten much better & stronger by sticking with their programs. If you're able to do an hour non-stop (even at low watts), next I'd incorporate interval training. Great for the cardio & legs!
Other than that, it's time in the saddle - which is TOUGH when all you can do is ride indoors in the winter!). Fear not, spring is near. I was able to ride outdoors both Saturday & Sunday this past weekend. A bit frosty Saturday AM here in North Carolina, but mid-50's yesterday!
interval training ...as you say. The key to training.
Indoor training is a drudge. And I just don’t get the results I get when training on the road. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
One-hour endurance ride tonight. FTP intervals tomorrow (ugh!).
[DC Council 9th street bike land discussion]
The opening statement by the bill's sponsor is on target. Then there is a lot of meandering discussion by both proponents and opponents who are desperately dodging the real controversy. Finally, Councilwoman Elissa Silverman grabs the third rail at 1:56:50. The issues, as she squarely posits, are race and gentrification. Bike lanes are perceived as a white thing and a gentrification thing. If you have lived in a gentrifying neighborhood, you probably know how this goes. Virtually anything that spruces up the neighborhood will be seized upon by anti-gentrifiers as a threat. First a bicycle, then two, and then suddenly white yuppies are buying and fixing up run down homes, cleaning up the trash in the alleys, planting flowers … it never stops, and before you know it, "traditionally black" neighborhoods -- meaning neighborhoods that were built in the late 19th century and were mostly white until about 1968 -- become integrated. Horrors.
Note that every opponent of the bill at hand professes to be in favor of building better infrastructure. This is the familiar political double shuffle. They support biking in principle, but they will oppose any actual concrete action to take the next incremental step until, in the name of "equity" and "diversity," every objector is on board. As a practical matter, in Washington as in many other cities, this often means that the only way to get anything done is to buy off the opposition. The sleazoids know this, and they become professional objectors, blocking all manner of useful actions until their pockets are lined. Regarding bike lanes, however, there is also a substantive issue at stake. Good, safe bike infrastructure is indeed a very attractive amenity, and it will indeed speed the gentrification of rundown neighborhoods.
Though there is much more to be done, Washington has the makings of an excellent citywide bike network. One big remaining issue is creating links between existing trails and bike lane systems. There are still many gaps between bikeable neighborhood A and bikeable neighborhoods B, C, D, etc. If you want people to be able to actually get around, and for bike commuters to move efficiently, these need to be closed. That's what the 9th street project is about. Physical barriers to non-motorized traffic are also a problem. Most of our bridges are bikeable, but the railroads, arterial roads and interstates are often uncrossable without excessively long detours. This is where pedestrians get killed trying to cross the road. Pedestrian fatalities far outnumber cyclist fatalities; if we made the roads safe for pedestrians (i.e. adequate sidewalks and safe crossings at intervals reasonable for non-motorized traffic) we would solve most of the cycling problem at the same time.
Originally I thought she said walking 30 minutes a day three times a week is good for me.
I said we have a dog I walk so that adds up to cover it for the week.
But then she made clear what she said was 30 minutes walk three times a day not a week.
So I said: I like to ride my bicycle 30 to 90 minutes on many days, plus walking the dog should be good.
The doctor agreed that is good.
Two weeks ago I was diagnosed as having diabetes.
What I have learned is there are two types of diabetes, type one and type two.
No one wants diabetes but if you have it you want type two.
While the lab was working to determine what type I have, the doctors (I have two there) had me treating it as type one diabetes.
That means I had to inject myself with insulin shots four times a day as well as draw blood from a finger four times a day to test the blood sugar level.
The doctors taught me how to do that as well as giving me three classes on what to eat and what not to eat.
But today they had the lab result and it turns out I have type two diabetes which eventually takes me off the injections and blood checks and puts me on tablets.
Again, you don't want diabetes but type two is much preferable. I went to church and prayed for this.
Doctor called this tablet medication “gold staub” (gold dust). Besides diabetes it also is good for the heart and helps against cancer and something else I don't recall at the moment. She had me sign a contract agreeing to a bunch of stuff, basically that I have a chronic illness and will be following up every three months with health-care checks.
People with type one (the worse type) diabetes are officially handicapped.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
