No Trevors #9 for PyZahl

Sunday, about 6am, Py got hardly up and checked out the conditions, dark, dry, windy, feeling very cold -- and he did not really felt like start riding within the next hour. He adhered his inner voice and decided not to go this morning and wend back to bed. This was good and he almost got full five more hours of sleep in!

The usual breakfast turned into brunch and to his excitement the sun made it a little through the clouds, also the temperature made ot a little above freezing, how nice, but still this cold wind. However, a little riding would be nice -- he prepared to be ready for RP2IPBP, but may be short version.

The strong steady and cold North wind in his face was cold going out north east, he worked hard and got warm. Feeling that nasty wind, he decided to stay a little protected and instead of going all the way out, to do a short but intense hill sprint series ride. On the way out to Wildwood SP some flurries started coming down... Kind of nice, but at higher speeds these did also not feel so nice in his face... so he turned around at WWSP and back tracked his route, and close to home he added a few hill sprint laps to get to about 600m elevation gain and an good hour of riding. Not too bad.

Sometimes it is good to break up routine and do it different.

Later, he took his dead Swinger 3way rear shock apart to figure out the trouble, at least two problems, a bad O-ring at the SPV valve and too less oil in the damper system, i.e. air inside -- this is not gonna work right...

Bouncing around at Glacier Ridge

Change of routine for this Saturday: Riding Glacier Ridge w K&C, a fun and technical narrow winding single trail with many options to hit trees o-)

This morning he checked his Lightrider alias Humwee, the shock he had some trouble with lately, where he got out some Aluminum chips and though it'll be OK -- as it now hold the pressure for a long time, and a short test ride, it all looked fine again...

Starting the ride at GR it felt just fine, but after the first 5 km and a set of bigger bumps it get worse again, the SPV lost air, and pumping up just hold for the next few hits... so that thing dead, he had a bouncy ride winding around trees and over bumps almost all of that little place... the damping knob seam not do have any effect either -- arrrg.


That's it:

Cyclo Cross Ride -- the woods only -- escaping from the arctic wind

This title says it all. Monday morning was really cold, about -8C at Py's home, windy, and crisp crystal clear sky. He enjoyed sleeping in this day... Around noon the temps were climbing up to some where around -4C... He got his Stonie Cross Bike ready and jumped into the cold weather suit and off he was on the most secret trails, all frozen rock solid to perfection mostly smooth winding narrow single trail -- he got about 2 1/2 hours riding in today. The fresh air and sun in his face felt good. Once in the woods he even stripped the outer wind blocking shell :-)

Nice trails, red leaves and a little snowy powder just looking nice:

Ice Age

Saturday night the view at the next day appeared like this:



PyZahl had ideas to escape into the woods for a Cross ride, but no real responses to that.... so he thought that'll be a great day to sleep in once in a while and let the icy storm get going.

Good recovery is an important part of the game :-)

RP2IPBP - variant and pre ice age return ride

Again, Saturday 10am at Tildas RP2IPBP ride, a little on-the-fly-variant today. A grey overcast cold day, 0C, may be 1C at time of return. The sun not really mad it through the dense cloud cover, at times a faint shadow might have been spottable...
PyZahl did not really warmed up along the whole ride, even trying to ride had and spin a lot, it just was cold and little windy but dry. A few frozen puddles at the road side, no issue at all. They, C & Py, had a short food stop at IPBP, too cold to stay longer out there.

On there way back at the junction of Middle and Mill Rd it happened they could jump of the Kreb Team group which just came along from North... and they flew back together, which was nice as there was some head wind. They stayed on until Yaphank, where the Kreb Team finished there ride and C&Py rode back to there start... Good ride, OK day, little chilly but dry.

Stats:

Trevor's #8 + EB's North extension

Sunday, January 13th, 6am, PyZahl slowly woke up to prepare breakfast and get ready for Trevors ride #8. Usual procedure, 7:30am he rode out of his back yard up the little steep hill and it was nice to see the just rising sun through the trees -- nice clear intense deep red -- the whole morning was supposed to be nice, clear, dry and sunny -- just still a little chilly, about 1C at his house, -2C at cold spots, some ice and frost along the way, but a dry road surface.

One more good day for a good ride before the next snow storm kicks in at midnight as predicted so far -- up to 4 inches possible -- that sucks o-) The only thing he did not yet anticipated, the ride would bring him the first Century of the new year 2008 :-)

He got out to meeting point in PJS @ Bagels et more pretty quick this morning and felt good.

Surprisingly many riders already there at 8:05am, the early group gathered around one of the cars as usual. Py stripped one layer, as the sun rose higher and felt nice and warm.

The early group left and some nervous moving was going at the some of the others, soon he figured they were up to some special longer 80mi ride... some confusion, as they tempted to start out a little early... Others came, the regular Trevors ride started little later at 8:30 as usual, while a few, well the second early group for the long and slower endurance pace formed spontaneously and Py decided to go also.

They rode out the same old route but proceeded much further east and added a Early Birds North route a north extension.

All the way out they were about 12 riders... here one the way back, one more flat to fix...


A good long ride and great day and easy constant moving pace for about 90miles -- Py totaled today a little over 100mi or 164km to be precise.

Moving Statistics:

RP2IPBP with west extension

Today PyZahl did his RP2IPBP ride again and as the day was so nice sunny and warm he added a few miles with an west extension.

Here at Iron Pear Beach Park -- almost a spring day :-) But, unfortunately, the next snow is expected by Sunday night already with significantly dropping temps......



With a small group of three, two pulling.... they did a good job:

Trevor's #7

First Sunday in 2008 and first Trevors ride of the year. A pretty warm (38..41F), humid and wet morning, but no rain any longer -- there were some rain showers during the night.

PyZahl got up little after 6am and rode to the start as usual, he felt a little tired from the ride of the day before, but reached the start within the usual 35min. The warmup felt good.

After a while a reasonable big group of about 17 riders got ready and they started out at 8:30, this is at exact t=1 hour in this diagram:


Usually there would be no further elongated stopping, but here we get SEVEN more stops.
What was wrong today he wonders, OK, roads were wet and little more debris flushed all over, but not too bad. However, the group stopped for a total of TEN flats, multiple flats at times and it happened to riders having a flat in the rear first and front later! This is more than one flat per every second rider ?!?!?! He did never ever saw that numbers of flat at any ride before. PyZahl was happy or better lucky today, no problem, and used the occasions to take photos, which are normally rare to find along the route. Here just one of todays photos.



And the ride stats:

RP2IPBP

Today we rode out the scenic route to "Ice" Pear Beach Park :-)

Nice day, good ride -- PyZahl was glad he was not alone today -- even he pulled most of the ride and got a good workout.

Some Ice left overs of the last deep freeze period....

And some posing.... Ice Biking o-)


.... he missed to add the the ride stats, here they are:

20080101

Frohes Neues! Happy New Year!

The new year silently just started out with a few early rays of sun but shortly it all became like this...


a good day for a good book and to think about the past and what the future may present to PyZahl in 2008. He is wondering if the time has come to start something new all sudden?