RP2IPBP2OP extension to 105 miles of blooming spring scenery

Green, fresh green, white and a mix of purple yellow was the dominating mix of colors of today's ride -- only slowly clearing up sky of an over casted morning. Six riders came out this morning to join the long ride all the way. A good mix as it turned out. With the little over 100 miles in mind, a steady pace around 20mph worked out just fine.

A few photos of todays ride:

Thanks to every one for joining the ride today and big thanks to Dan to stay with Dan S for the last miles!


Here is the ride in coordinates and such...

PS: real work for today ride: 3481 kJ and "xPower": 195 W.

Easter Early Birds North Ride

A all rained out Saturday, a foggy wet night and foggy Sunday morning ride to the "Easter Birds" ride today. Kind of cool fog, but fairly warm temperature already.

At Manorville already few riders were fixing flats after riding there -- before the actual ride... and a few more flat stops on the first few miles but from then on no more.

Good cruise out East, roads were still pretty wet on Oregon but from half way on it dried up nicely and the sun was feeling really good! What a day compared to all the past cold rides! Big thanks to the Easter Bunny for that!!!

And on the return Py did a few good long and strong pulls also good working with Mike today... feeling good, hope fully not too strong to damage things again.

Return home part way with GAB Mike :-)


...Bike wash...


And good Easter Dinner + boat and bird watch with Shea's & friends :-) Thanks!!

Early Birds North - wet windy "warm" + sunny!

After a heavy rain and t-storm last night it cleared up in the morning but left messy wet roads behind. Py got up a little late but just good in time to get moving towards Manorville at 7:10.

Fast moving out East with some great tail wind :-) Full speed ahead at the Tanks and out to Mattituck, from there are strong move and break with this new rider in Blue and Gerald on Oregon. Good and fun work. Little messy -- wet and sandy -- but not too bad... starting to dry up quickly with this wind.

The return was a little more "windy" and steady work, some how Py's rear wheel/power tap got all loose spokes and he hat to ride a bit carefully on the return -- good to have some team buddies who stayed with him. It was as bad out of true that it just not really touched the frame, seams nothing broken, just all loose.

Also big thanks for the ride home from Manorville in a huge truck.... :-)

Beyond a few stronger moves, a fairly easy ride all over today -- good after yesterday's basically solo (in front most the time) wind work out.

RP2IPBP -- were was everybody?

Today Py needed to dress a bit warmer again for his ride. Some 7..8C, overcast and a strong ESE wind. With some rain proposed to move in by the late afternoon and Saturday night and eventually a wet Sunday morning he expected a few more riders today, but had to find that only two showed up. The moist feeling cold wind was sneaking into the jersey and it needed some good efforts to get a little warm. Ed joined on the fly... Riding out East mostly into the wind was some good work... until the park for a quick snack and a good "Schokolade Osterei" -- he took a few of these mini Eastereggs along ;-) The return was a more fun, with a few good tail wind supported fast moving intervals.

Tour of the Battenkill 2011 -- new dirt

Tour de Flandern, Paris Roubaix or Battenkill, Cobbles or Dirt -- Holland or New England?

George, Mike, Owen, Chris and Py from Team Green Arm Bandits traveled this year again to Cambridge in Southern Washington County, New York to dust up the dirt around the river Battenkill.

Moving in at the Beattie Inn near Salem, NY Saturday afternoon. Team dinner with a few additional guest riders and again C. Grady and buddy... a lot of small talk.

Big thanks to Mrs. Schwenker for all the outstanding dinner preparations!

Sunday, race in CAT4-Pink for Owen, Kris, Chris, Py and Mike, start 10:10. Everything went smooth and on time. Easy neutral roll out in a field of about 100. A little pace pick up towards the covered bridge, nothing serious so. Shortly hitting first dirt, pretty hard packed and smooth, just a few holes -- still enough to let a few bottles fly out of insufficient holders. No issue today for Py, having a good strong bottle holder.

Just sitting in and floating up the first climb mid field near by his team mates. Pretty much the same for the famous steep dirt climb Juniper Swamp already seeking for a more top of the pack position, following a fun fast dirt descent.


Moving up to the top ten, always good and more safe. Hanging at top 5 for the cruise to Salem via Feed Zone 1 and few rollers and a fast road descent into town heading to Salem, 90 deg turn in town proceeding to the Jo Bean climb trying to avoid been too much in very front spots. Typical pace pick up at the bottom of Joe Bean to secure a good position. A few strong guys jumping ahead a little, Py was not yet concerned about those few, he kept passing mostly others but did his best not let them go too far off. However, it all stringed out quite a bit and over the repeated more and less steep sections he could not see all the way up. Mike came around at some point and managed to close up on front, Py missed a critical moment to give it all and try to get there and found a break of possibly 18 rider taken off and gaining a at this point unknown time advantage. This goes quick from 30sec to a minute -- while you are slow working at the last steep and they are just over and off around the turn to the fast dirt downhill on Ferguson Rd.

But what Py did not realized (missed looking back) at this point turned out been painful for the good hour to come -- there was virtually no one near by close behind him either -- a huge gap. Sounds good, well, bad luck same time as he now had to ride solo and keep chasing with tiny little to zero chances to catch up -- or eventually been picked up by the "field" not putting the hammer down. He could not know how the "field" be hind him was assembled if any left at all.

So what now?

OK, downhill, get flying... nothing in sight behind. A few not identified single spread out riders ahead. He caught up to several and found them either way, very slow and out of other earlier field just passing by (a lot of "CAT4-brown") guys. Eventually he found one with a Pink number of his field and they tried to work together for a while -- this happened about two or three times -- but never lasted really longer then a few flat miles and Py (un)fortunately dropped them all on the next climb and was on his own again. To this point not a single other rider passed him. A little help on the fast easy open roads with minor cross winds would have been welcome.

Heading on solo again, towards new the rolling loose dirt section North-East of the Battenkill -- curious how this would be. Nothing in particular, just nice scenic winding rolling loose gravel roads, few minor steeps.

Heading to Feedzone 2 with one more picked up rider in "Pink" of his field, working together fine for a few miles -- thanks buddy! And sorry for dropping this poor guy at the next climb again -- more dirt on Mountain Rd towards Becker and turning on the infamous Meeting House Rd. This is a pretty funny totally strait but up- and down rolling road featuring one in particular insane steep what puts the hurt on every ones legs. Plus some photographers take their chances for good snap shots.

Here a few impression of this spot from one of the photographers -- click to see more:

From there on a little more rolling dirt a few turns and some paved road sections to recover or just fly on. Reaching top speed of some 80km/h shooting into Buskirk. Getting once again shocked with the last steep dirt section -- minor cramp issue in right leg due to the downhill ease off and full power again attempt, but this issue faded away quickly and Py pulled still Full Speed Ahead towards the finish line -- last drop of water with 4k to go.

His bet of the break of about 15..20 (his toughs while racing) was pretty exact, he picked up and dropped 3 riders of his field (and passed many many others). Py's result was at race day posted with 16th place what got some how later adjusted to 17th as one more rider seamed to show up?!?! GAB Mike did a great job staying with the break a little longer and got 12th!

Py's GPS Data:

And the Official Results.

And last a word about the organization of this huge race event -- over 2000 racers and numerous starting fields! -- basically everything went just smooth and efficient -- virtually all coordinations seamed to be nearly invisible in background. May be it felt easy as he already did it once lats year and knew where is what. However, great job behind the scenes! And many thanks to all the people and volunteers making this event once more a premier one.

Thanks!

Not ideal, but no options

Missed weekend rides, sick until Monday, wash out on Tuesday, cyclo commute Wednesday and little added hill ride on return, wet Thursday morning, last moderate cyclo commute Friday. All what was left and possible before getting up there to the Tour of the Battenkill on Saturday. Race Sunday. Will find out soon how that goes.

Getting ready for the Early Birds -- and finding his way back to bed

5am the radio turned on, about 15 more minutes to wake up. Felt a few slight "sweat attacks" at night, what should this tell Py? This can not be right -- it's his big #40 Bday today. Getting up trying to defeat this. A few things needed to be done first -- preparing his bread sour dough, making Cappuccino, cooking an egg and having some cereal (what is unusual for a Sunday) today, but he did not liked the last left over of his getting over 10 days old bread this morning. Just a bad phase timing, so what. As a Py bread cycle is a little over a week. [You must know, he is baking exclusively his own bread now for over a decade!! No exception.]

Having the Cappuccino checking FB and Email... he got more and more concerned about his current health status. Felt a bit warmish, not really bad, but definitively not good to get out. Quick call to John so he did not wait for him. Well, back to bed. Best and only thing good to do now.

Py now got a good clue what already yesterday hold him back -- it must have been in his system already.

Thanks for all the good wishes on all the online channels -- he hopes this kind of virus is not sneaking over the internet -- or is it???

This could have all been just one more fine birds ride for Py. Hoping for the best as the BIG Battenkill ride (or race) is coming up next weekend.

Unmotivated attempt for hill repeats

Py did not posted his RP2IPBP ride due to interferences with an major SBRA event and the suggestion not to post rides. Instead he did some spring home clean ups...

As noon approached the temperature reached 12C, the sun was up and a good wind blowing from West. He decided to go out solo for a set of hill repeats. Just riding at endurance base pace out East on NC to Wading River, deciding to use the smooth longer uphill starting at the Pond on Trevors route full gas to the top for this purpose. Getting up to speed at the shallow start he felt already kind of slow, struggling for no reason. Even two rest/rain days previously -- strange. Just trying hard getting no more than short power peaks and falling back to some still decent, but far from full gas moving speed. Weird. Kinda unmotivated?? No his day, what ever. Rolling it out all over to the Wild Wood SP on the other end. Quick stop fiddling with the computer's settings... Returning back over the little hill into the head wind felt really tiering. Thinking... down at the Pond he decided to just do the uphill -- initially he had 5 full repeats in mind. Struggling up hill again, standing to get a bit more out. Just rolling down. One more, come on... He managed to get three up hills plus the one on the other side in and felt like neither really tiered or out of breath -- just could not go.

Well, stopping at the Velo thingy to see what's up there today -- Mark was working on a new bike assembly in front of the door. Py finished the banana he took and decided it's just not his day -- things a like should happen. And rolled home.

Little frustrated with this, cooking some dinner from left overs... and went for a shopping trip to Trader Joe's.

Went to bed early -- with a better day to come and a good Early Birds ride on Sunday in his minds.