Things I learned on my bike

Update:  Wednesday, June 20

Just found out today that the bike course at the triathlon actually runs in the opposite direction. Now what? I can't train on it that way because the traffic goes in the other direction.  Oh dear ... this is going to worry me ... the unknown. Help, anybody? Ideas?

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This morning I planned a 30km bike ride before/on the way to work.  I learned a few things:

The idea behind this ride was to keep my heart rate below 130bpm, and according to my heart rate monitor I had an average heart rate of 133, so I'm happy about that.

With nobody on the bike path, I found it hard to slow down and keep my heart rate low. I kept wanting to speed up just to see how fast I could go.

Decided to do a few laps around the F1 circuit, given that's where I'll be racing in September and boy am I glad I did. I will be going back there a lot now. There are a lot of twists and turns but the hardest part is the straight-away.  Wow, is that windy! On my first lap I slowed down to 19-something/kmh, and coming out of the straight-away there's a slight incline and a turn and that seemed to slow me down even more! Was not in the right gear at all.  Second time around went a little better but still couldn't maintain a good speed on the straight-away. Third lap went much better. That surprised me because I thought I'd be really tired by that point, especially after struggling through the first 2 laps. But I changed gears and found something comfortable that allowed me to keep above 20/kmh (only just, but still) in the straight-away! Was pretty happy about that. Lesson here:  I have gears on the bike for a reason - use them!

Then up to work and made my last big effort to get up the hill without having to walk my bike up. I did it! Not at 130bpm though - hahaha.

Final count was 1 hour, 22 minutes to ride 28 kilometres (2km short of my planned 30km - oops), average speed I think was 20.5/kmh. Obviously I have some work to do. But on the whole I'm pleased. I kept my heart rate down-ish, I discovered I can change gears and finally, I should really plan my route before hand to meet my distance goals.

Also, I did all this before 7:30am!

Crap reading

Not a lot of reading going on recently. No, that's not quite right. A lot of crap reading going on. Books so bad that I can't even bear to finish them or add links to them on the sidebar here. That's how bad.

Would rather re-read Persuasion for the millionth time than read one sentence by some popular "author" who can't create a good character or write an interesting story. ENOUGH!

Back to Austen I go.

Poke-O-Moonshine

Have a bunch to say about a cool hike I did this weekend on Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain, in the Adirondacks (New York). Also have a few pictures. Will try to get that sorted out this week.

Update:

First - here are the pictures!  Not that many because, honestly, that was a tough hike and I had to keep my camera packed away or risk smashing it into rocks and stuff.

Second - the details!  We left early Saturday morning and even with a 20+ minute wait at the border, we were ready to start the hike by 10am. Poke-O-Moonshine trail, which I chose as a hike thanks to its hilarious name, was a short but strenuous hike. It took exactly 1 hour 25 minutes to reach the top, and that included a few minutes lost when we got to the washed out trail at one of the beaver dams, and another few minutes enjoying the magnificent view on a cliff ledge, about 10 minutes before reaching the top.  Once we reached the top, the first thing we did was climb the 5 or so flights of stairs up the Fire Tower. Unfortunately the top part of that was locked, so we couldn't get all the way to the top. But the view from the last landing was pretty incredible anyway. The online guides and reviews I'd read beforehand mentioned a 360° view and they weren't lying! It was truly breathtaking!

We spent a good hour or more up at the top, enjoyed a picnic lunch and even a little rest under the clear blue sky.  The hike down went significantly faster; I stopped my watch at 1 hour 2 minutes.

Next we'd planned an easy afternoon hike at Silver Mountain Lake but a little detour looking for a gas pump had us heading to Ausable Chasm, so we decided to enjoy a little stroll around that park before heading back to Montreal in time for a late dinner.

It was a fantastic day and next time plan to stay a little longer to enjoy a few more hikes in the Adirondacks.