Finally the snow has cleared enough that I am feel safe enough to do my qualifying ride this week end. My backyard is still covered in 1.5feet of snow.
The riding trails are still covered in snow so my routes generally are highway and some city.
I have broken my route into two separate rides on Sat and Sunday.
Section one is a 54km circuit, Section two is a 36km circuit.
To be sure I qualify the routes total 90 km each day. I can’t confirm the elevation thing with my Garmin 201 Forerunner watch gps so to be safe I’m planning two day of 90km’s (Who cares about elevation anyway).
Today I rode 17km’s on the route to insure I’m safe while riding on the highway sections. Felt comfortable so all systems for making the offical qualifing attempt this weekend.
I just completed my qualifiers today. Because of hilly and windy conditions, I was able to qualify with rides of 63k each. The riding was around the loop in NY’s central park, which has a length of almost exactly 10k and an elevation/descent of about 137m. There were gusting winds for most of the morning yesterday, but today the wind was nowhere near as strong.
I budgeted 6 hours for the first ride, partly because I’d neglected to check just how much the conditions affected the rating of each ride. Just before I went to bed before day 1, I realized that I didn’t need to ride 80k but only needed about 65. Then the winds hit! Still, I managed to finish in under 3 hours. Then today, armed with the experience of the previous day, I gave myself 4 hours – until I got delayed in traffic heading into NYC (I live 80 miles north). I managed to complete the riding in 3 hours again before racing back to my office for the afternoon.
The only thing sore at this point is the spot above my right ankle – maybe from my mild UPD on day 1.
I do a mildly hilly loop around town, on which I average about 18kph, which I’ve sustained up to about 1:10. I think in RTL, we’ll be switching riders at intervals of less than 60 minutes, so I’ve been focusing on sustaining higher speeds for shorter periods of time.
Make sure you contact Andy or Nathan soon, because I think they’re looking to close team registration.
Today I road 85.46km in 7.52hrs (According to my Garwin GPS watch)
I did this in three section courses.
The first circuit was on my 36" and completed 52.11km highway.
I traveled from Fredericton to Burton Bridge and back. Bad spots on highway shoulder due to still melting snow and soft shoulder and mud.
The second circuit was on my 29" throught the bike trail. Beleive it or not still lots of snow on trails here (as a matter of fact I still have .5 ft of snow in backyard. Rode 23km’s in mud, snow, ice and wash board trails. This section took me almost longer than 52 km section.
Completed the third section on my 36 and rode 10kms
For tomorrow I intend to just ride the highway section so I can reduce my 7.5hr ride time
Wow thats all really impressive. RTL seems like it would be a lot of fun. I think my long distace riding is up to par. I f only I could form a team so I could go, but there aren’t any people I know of around here who would go:( Good luck to all the people who are going, I envy you.
Fredericton, New Brunswick: steep climbs. Check Google E.
Hey Man.
As they say in NB: go hard or stay home. Hope we can see you here in June.
Good work. We’re putting together a good time, all the Stages can’t wait to have RTL riders in their towns, and we’ll be riding through 136 of the most hospitable in Nova Scotia. Watch our site, big things happening.
Best, from where we need spurs to ride a Lobster.
william
Uh, there are at least four teams going from the extended Bay Area. Two groups of representatives rode through Danville a couple weeks ago on our way to Mount Diablo.
To begin with the St John River has rose quite a bit. Some of the section I road yesterday were dry and bare, today where under water (one spot over 1 meter under water so I had to walk around, rode 2kms in water almost touching my pedals.
Today I faced headwinds which severly slow me down for 4.5hrs
After I finished my first 54km I was exhausted so I lay down before beginning my 2nd circuit.
On my 2nd circuit my right knee was sore so my riding pace was again slow. When my 30km loop was done I thought I would not be able to mount my unicycle one more time for the day.
Now for my third loop. I really wanted to break the 90km ride but I was too sore in the saddle region, so I seattled on 88kms and 8hrs 5mins of riding time.
I used a really crappy DV Jazz camera/video. The pictures are crap. This video is boring. Only important stuff is the shot of my GPS indicating riding distance and time.
These last two days really challenged my riding skills, lots of variety, snow, water, wind, hills, some off roading in snow and mud mixture, riding in soft muddy shoulder of road.
Looks like I’ll be on the Radio again for Ride the lobster
I was spotted by another local radio station 106.9fm.
The radio station news fellow noticed me on my unicycle and asked the Fredericton radio listeners if they knew who the guy was riding the unicycle on the bridge.
Two people called in. Actually my wife was the second caller. They put her on the air live and she told people that I was qualifying for Ride The Lobster race.
I got a call for a one - on one interview on the radio show called “That Sunday Show”. They are pre-recording the show this week and playing next sunday.
I must be missing the full URL to enter my ride report.
Can someone post the full URL.
I also would like to know how others uploaded their picture. I mostly captured video, not pictures so it may be a problem.
