33 Mile Training Mile

Today I decided to do another short training ride after school.  I rode a total of about 33 miles, essentially the same route that I rode on Sunday (only slightly modified).  While the route was the same, the ride today was rather special and unique for two reasons.  

First, essentially the whole ride was done in the rain/sleet at a temperature of about 39 F.  This made for a very wet and very cold ride.  For starters the ride proved to be a solid test of my rain gear, which held up excellently and kept all parts that were covered dry.  The ride also showed that getting some sort of shoe rain cover, might be a good investment... because soaked, wet shoes and cold weather lead to very unhappy feet.  

Second, this was the first ride I did with someone else.  This was a nice change, having someone to talk with here and there was a pleasant respite from the solitary of most rides.  I also noticed that in riding with someone and wanting to be able to talk with them does cut my average speed down a noticeable amount.

Thus, this ride was very successful.  It taught me a couple more lessons that should prove useful in the rest of the planning for this trip.  That's all I have for now.  Till next time.

Stats:

• Distance= 33.19 miles
• Time in saddle= 2 hours 44 minutes
• Elevation gain= 1098 feet

Elevation Profile

Route Overview: History, Route, Points of Interest

In this post, I wanted to provide some more information about the route that we will be taking this summer.  As I have previously mentioned we will be following the Via Francigena through Italy (until Milan to be precise).  At Milan we will be heading North and begin to follow the EuroVelo 5, which we will follow the whole way to London.

The Via Francigena is an old path that dates back to the (at the latest) 725 A.D.  It was designed to be a route for pilgrims from France to follow to pay Homage to the Vatican in Rome.  However, since it linked all the way to the North Coast of France it was quickly connected to the cathedral of Canterbury in England.  One of the first documents journeys of the trip from Canterbury to the Vatican was in the 10th Century by Sigeric the Serious, the Archbishop of Canterbury.  As such traditionally the path is intended to be followed from North to South.  However, for our purposes this summer, since we are not treating this as a Pilgrimage, we plan to do the route in reverse thus hoping to escape most the really hot weather of Rome in the summer.  Unfortunately, the Via Francigena is also designed to be a walking path and, as such, is not ideally suited for bicycles in many spots.  This is the reason that we will not follow the Via Francigena exactly after Milan.  Below is a picture of the route of the Via Francigena and as you can see, the Via Francigena goes much more into France than we will this summer.  

That being said though, through Italy we will largely be following the path exactly.  This will mean we will be winding through the hills of Tuscany, cutting through vineyards, and dropping to the coast at Massa just north of Pisa, where hopefully a scene like the one below will great us.

The riding through Italy will be some of the hardest (aside from crossing the alps), due to the very hilly terrain of Italy.  Looking at the elevation profile really shows the beginning portion very jagged and hilly leading all the way to the Alps, but after the Alps the profile shows a relatively gradual decrease in elevation all the way to the Channel.

Talking of the Alps brings me to the EV5.  As I mentioned, we will be picking up the EV 5 in Milan. From there we will head North to Como and then into Switzerland to begin the long climb to the base of the Alps.  We will be crossing the Alps using Gotthard Pass in Switzerland, where the below rode will await us:

After that day we cross Switzerland and then flirt with the Franco-German border for many, many miles before entering Luxembourg and the Belgium.  From there we enter France one more time to catch a ferry from Calais to Dover in the United Kingdom.  Once we reach London, we will have to leave the EV 5 (as this is where it terminates) and pick up the EV 2 to carry us to Hollyhead on the coat.  It all seems almost trivial, until you start to remember the mileages that we will be riding (to see a break down see the Planned Itinerary page of this blog).

The EV 5 is part of the much larger EuroVelo bike network.  This network composes 14 long distance cycling routes all over and around Europe.  As of May of 2013 the network had 27,962 miles of route in place, and the plan is to extend the network to 43,496 miles by the end of 2020.  The EV network is a project of the European Cyclists' Federation in conjunction with the European Union.  The goal of the network is simple, make long distance bicycle touring (much like we are doing) easier and more accessible to all.  The routes combine national bike routs, designated bike paths, existing general purpose roads, and stretches of brand new bike routes.  According to Wikipedia (a source for a lot of the information in this post so far) the current route infrastructure is broken up by type as follows (n.b. this is for all routes in the EV network):

• Bicycle path/lane: 14%
• Traffic-free asphalted road: 8%
• Traffic-free non-asphalted road: 6%
• Public low-traffic, asphalted road: 56%
• Public non-asphalted road: 3%
• Public high-traffic, asphalted road: 14%

Below shows a map of all the EV routes in existence (or in the planning/development phase) throughout Europe.

Below are some pictures from the EuroVelo website of what they consider are highlights of the EV 5 (EuroVelo Website):

Rome, Italy

Tuscany Region in Italy

The 3 Castles of Bellinzona, Ialy

Chapel Bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland

The Alsatian Vineyards in France

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Brussels, Belgium

The White Cliffs of Dover, United Kingdom

Canterbury Cathedral, United Kingdom

This is all just some of what we have to look forward to over the course of this trip.  I think I am going to end here, I wanted to giver a brief overview of the routes we are taking, talk a but about their histories, and a bit about what we will see, and I feel I have accomplished that.  With that I will leave you all.  Till next time. 

32 Mile Training Ride

Today was a short simple ride (only 32 miles).  I decided to make this a shorter ride because I have a lot of work I need to do for school over the course of this next week.  The ride was simple, I followed the same route that I had for my Ralston Creek 50 mile ride on Wednesday, and just cut it short by cutting straight back to Golden as opposed to going back the way I came.  The ride was all in all very successful, and as such relatively uneventful.  It was a pretty day and the ride went really well.  I was happy that I was able to get the 32 miles done in a pretty quick time, having just ridden 70 hard miles yesterday.  This really showed my that my training is going along very well and my endurance and stamina are increasing quickly.

The rest of today is going to be dedicated to homework, and I hope to get a bit more planning on the trip done.  As is stands right now, we have places either booked or inquiries out for booking for the first half of the trip up to Bastogne, Belgium.  Yesterday, I also added a page to this blog of the planned itinerary as it stands right now, so feel free to look at that.  It had planned start and end points and planned mileages for each day.  That is all I have for now, so till next time.

Stats:

• Distance= 32.80 miles
• Time in saddle= 2 hours 30 minutes
• Elevation gain= 1098 ft

70 Mile Training Ride

Today, I rode my longest training ride yet a total of 70 miles (granted this is only 2 miles more than my previous max).  This ride was an overwhelming success.  I managed to maintain a strong pace throughout, even with some long hill climbs mixed in at the end.  This morning I had originally set out to only ride around 50 or 60 miles but the route I intended to ride turned out to be closed (and completely torn up) for some reason, so when I found this out I decided "what the hay" I'll just ride on down to Denver.  What I ended up doing was riding my previous 68 mile ride (which as you my remember from my last post, was one of the hardest rides of my life) in reverse.  This time though I was prepared, and I brought food and I rationed my water effectively.  I rode for about 43 miles straight before finally stopping to take a break.  I stopped at the Nixon Coffeehouse, which was a cool little place along the South Platte full of other bikers looking for a quick stop (see the picture below).

After I finished my little cup of decaf and wolfed down some trail mix, it was back in the saddle again for the final push home.  This final part went well all smooth sailing, just a lot of hill climbing. The best part is that with rationing my water the ride went far better than my last attempt at it.  I made better time, and I didn't feel like I was going to die when I finished.

On a side note, I have decided to include elevation gain and an elevation profile from now of the routes that I ride in the Stats at the bottom of each post.

Stats:

• Distance= 70.03 miles
• Time in saddle= 5 hours 43 minutes
• Elevation gain= 2287 ft

Elevation Profile

Planning Update 4/22

I thought I would give you all a quick update on the planning, as Ben and I have been hard at work trying to get everything all planned.  For starters, we have finally decided on the bikes that we will be using for the trip.  The picture above is the picture of the style sent to us from Collalti Bici in Rome. The bikes come in black and white too, so sadly we will not necessarily be riding these exact light blue beauties.  But the bikes have everything we want.  They are a bit more expensive than some other options that we have seen, but the people at the bike shop have been very helpful, and the bike comes fully equipped so we don;t have to worry about finding other attachments and stuff for them. That being said the bikes are still far cheaper than many others, and they are custom hand made Italian bikes... and that is just special.

Second, equipment has started rolling in, and is slowly amassing in my room.  I have almost gotten all of my clothes for biking, and I have gotten a bunch of the equipment that I wanted.  Some of the notable is a skeleton mount for my GoPro so I will be bale to do a time lapse of the entire trip on the GoPro, which will either be awesome when all edited together, or just be an amalgamation of thousands of photos.  My new sunglasses have come in as well, which I super excited for, because it now means I will have to pairs of prescription eye wear with me (which when I crashed a couple weeks ago I learned was a necessity when the lens of my glass popped out when I hit the ground and almost got lost).  Otherwise the most notable is that the Panniers have been delivered to Ben in Ohio (now I just need to wait for him to ship my pair along to me).  We went with the Orlieb Bike Packer Plus, which from all the review I have read should be awesome.  Below is a picture of the panniers, it looks like I will be riding with blue and Ben will be riding with red.

Third,  we have been busy booking places to stay while we are over there.  As it stands right now we have the first couple of weeks done (or are at least waiting to hear back from people).  This is the area we are trying to work on the most, deciding how far about we want to ride and where that will roughly put us.  As of right now out planning has us in Bastonge, Belgium (about 1130 miles in) on day 18 (that is including rest days).  So as far as the planning goes we are making great time, hopefully we can just keep to our schedule.  I am hoping to post some more information about the route in a future post and go into a bit more of what the whole route will look like and why we chose it.

I think that is all I have for you guys right now.  As it stands at this second, I am 25 days 20 hours 9 minutes and 6 seconds from boarding the plane in Dallas to then fly to Boston and then on to Europe. As it also stands at this second I am 20 days 18 hours 18 minutes and 20 seconds from graduating from the Colorado School of Mines.  I am incredibly excited for all of it and can't wait for both days to get here.  Till next time.

52 Mile Training Ride

Another training ride done, today it was only 52 miles (I had done 42 miles on the indoor bike the day before so I wanted to take it easier).  I decided to day to do a basic out and back route, following clear creek down and then following Ralston Creek up the reservoir.  The ride was good, it was a chilly day but I got to test a bunch of the cycling gear that I bought, like my shorts, windbreaker, leggings, and gloves.  I am glad to report that everything performed exactly as I had hoped and I am very pleased with my purchases.  Today, I also tested out my little crossbar bag for my phone, and after I did a bit of redesigning (i.e. cut some holes in it so I could charge my phone while it was in the holder), it worked excellently.  The bag is not by any means brilliant nor water proof but it should get the job done.  What this did mean though was that today was the first ride I have done where I could track my progress real time and see my speed real time on my phone.  This was really nice to see and really helped to keep me going a good steady pace.  That being said though, I think I might look forward into those basic bike trip computers, as I noticed the app I was using started to have some issues in reporting my actually speed and 3/4 of the way in to the ride.  All in all though the ride was a great success and I am really pleased with all my equipment.

Unfortunately, since this was a complete success there was nothing particularly notable that occurred during the ride... I just kept pedaling.

Stats:

• Distance= 51.88 miles
• Time in saddle= 4 hours 03 minutes

68 Mile Training Ride

Today, I decided it was time for another training ride, my bike was fixed, my body was mostly healed and it was a gorgeous day.  I started out a bit late in the morning, as I hadn't really planned on this ride.  It was a Wednesday, so I did not have class and I knew I wanted to do some riding on Thursday, but I had a lot of simulation work to do for a class so I thought that would take most of my day.  But at about 11:00 am, I had about all of that simulation work that I could do.  So I decided I wanted to go on a ride and I decided I also wanted to go get a beer.  This coming weekend I was supposed to bike down to the Breckenridge Brewery with my roommate Laine, but the forecast for the weekend is supposed to be all snow and cold, so we had cancelled our plans for that ride.  But that did mean that on Wednesday I had a full route planned out and plotted.  So I decided to go do it and get a beer and then ride back.

I followed the bike path along C-470 down to south Denver to the brewery, only about 25 miles or so.  I made it down to the brewery (without crashing even once!) in about 2 hours.  I was feeling really good and had really enjoyed the ride, so as I sat there drinking my beer and eating some Lunch I started to look for a longer way back to Golden.  That was when I decided that it sounded like a fun idea to ride back along the South Platte River and then up Clear Creek (another 43 miles).  

When I set off from the brewery, I was still feeling great and I made great time through Denver averaging a solid 15 mph pace.  However, once I reached Clear Creek at about mile 22 (mile 47 cumulative) things started to slow down... a lot.  I knew it would be "uphill" along Clear Creek (obviously I was biking upstream),  but I did not realize that for how tired I was a few percent grade was actually quite noticeable.  On top of that I ran out of water at about this point as well.  What this meant was the next 21 miles were the hardest riding I have ever had to do.  It was slow going... very slow going (sub 10 mph for some stretches).  I even had to stop at certain points and just lay down, my legs, back, and neck were all getting really sore and my quads were cramping like crazy.  But I kept going on slowly and I did eventually make it back to the house, never have to get off and walk my bike.

This training ride, as exhausting as it was, was a great success I think.  I faced many walls and climbed over them, and despite utter exhaustion I was able to keep going.  I also learned that I need to drink more water and to not run out of water.  I am feeling better now that I have hydrated and can't wait to get into to bed and go to sleep.  So I will leave you all at this point.  Till next time.

Stats:

• Distance= 68.25 miles
• Time in saddle= 6 hours 16 minutes

First Training Ride

Today I attempted my first long distance training ride.  The goal of the ride was simple.  Ride from Golden to Avery Brewery in North Boulder (a little over 40 miles) and back.  I set out in the morning and I was making great time.  Until I got to a little past the halfway point, at which point I decided to have a disagreement with gravity and the pavement and crashed my bike.  Luckily, I was not going to fast, but it was still a very solid hit, tearing up my pullover and scraping me up all over.  I also managed to knock my chain off of my bike and knock my derailleur askew somehow.  Thinking I would not be able fix my bike and that I should not show up to the brewer caked in dried blood, I called my friend Nick to pick me up.  While waiting for him, I was able to fix my chain and get my derailleur to an "operational" state.  Since I fixed my bike, I decided that I would finish the ride to Avery.

So after cleaning myself up and bandaging myself up at Nick's girlfriend's house (luckily very close by to where I crashed), I climbed back on my bike and rode the remaining 20 or so miles.  I did make it to the brewery, though my speed was a bit slower due to the crash.  I was meeting a group of friends at Avery, so I decided to just cut the ride short and catch a ride in a car back to Golden.  For being my first training ride, it was not the most successful attempt.

However, I did learn a couple useful things.  First, after a bad crash, you can keep going, but the going will be slower (especially as the adrenaline wears off).  Second, that a beer after 40 miles is delicious... a beer after 80 or 90 miles, I can't even imagine.  I won't let this crash deter me and I'll be back on that bike as soon as I can. 

Stats (rough estimates, as tracker malfunction during second half):

• Distance= 41.08 miles
• Time in saddle= 4 hours