3 posts tagged “galisteo”
I am trying to keep up the volume AND intensity on the bike(s) - and trying to keep up the postings here; but I'm just slow (at both!).
After last Wednesday's lunch ride - I went out and killed the hill climbing workouts on Thursday (Cameron was rocketing up the steeps like Andy Schleck on Crack!), then took Friday off. Then, alas - had to take Saturday off for house related reasons. Bleh. I did take Victor out for a few hours of trail work on the Little Tesuque Creek trail - which got mangled in a freak deluge last week (3" of rain in 27 minutes!). 2 days off the bike + a few hours hiking and manual labor makes a guy feel like crap.
Sunday I went out for the weekly Galisteo Group Ride - which was composed of myself, and one other guy! Doh. Everyone was up racing at Tour de Los Alamos (Go McCalla and Cam!). Our little NM road series is drawing some regional hammers, like Anthony Colby out of Durango - helping keep our fast guys honest. The result was that most of the regulars were either racing or helping out. So Sunday's ride was far easier than usual. Greg, my company for the ride, was sporting an insanely tricked out Time road bike - complete with the weirdest, low profile carbon rims I've ever seen. Me and my ghetto Scattante kept up just fine, and in fact pulled most of the way home - drilling some hefty 550-600 watt pulls up the rollers in the last 10 miles. He sat on mostly - but would come around for a minute here and there to give me a little break - then I'd stand up, gradually wind it up and push on again.
Good stuff!
I was trashed Monday a.m. - so settled for a very Mellow 2 hour mtn. bike ride. Did some local Dale Ball Trails stuff, then headed up Hyde Park Road to the same Little Tesuque Creek trail mentioned above - and while the meager improvements I made were great - there is a lot of work to do further in. There are a few places - including the trail head itself - that have always needed major work, or re-routing - but now need work desperately. The trail head forks right off the pavement, creating a nasty little drainage - which looked like it was ripped apart with a 12" - 16" deep erosion channel right down the middle. A number of areas where the creek and the trail are right next to each other need shoring up - or re-routing entirely, as the raging creek tore a whole lot of the bank away.
Then further in, behind Bishops Lodge - a fancy wild west resort type of place, that leads horse tours and has a shooting range, as well as a spa - there was fresh damage on top of erosion from horse traffic out hen the trail was too soft / muddy. Yay. Post holes everywhere.
This mornings edition of Tuesday / Thursday Worlds was moderate (thankfully) but well attended. As usual, I did 1+ hours of climbing drills and tempo work prior to the group departure (6AM) but then peeled off early to get home to help out before the day really began. At least I got to sleep fairly well, especially compared to the night before where at 130AM I was up to check on a howling Victor - and ended up on my ass as I quickly through a leg up to get over the 'baby gate' at his door. The (supposedly) planted foot slid away as I high-stepped and WHAM! On my ass/shoulder in a flash of boxer shorts and cursing. Not an entirely atypical night though.... worth it? Yes. Easy? No.
Victor in front of a 'horno' - an ancient oven used for baking breads and such - on a recent trip to the Jemez:
What a perfect morning! Cool, calm, and slightly humid. Did a quickie recovey ride after yesterdays team group road ride throw-down, where I chased National tandem TT champ John Verheul (he recently won the 90+ group with Andy Coggan) and another guy for 15+ minutes of agony towards the end. Good stuff, and saw (2) items on my PowerTap I've not seen in a long while; one was that chase - which netted an average of 360 watts over 16 something minutes - and that was after the peppy first 1.5 hours of the ride. Two - a solid 450+ watt 4 minute effort up 'Lamy Hill' after dangling at the bottom but steadily crankin' up from behind and cresting the top smooth and steady - where I chased down JV before he launched his blistering effort up the road. I had not realized the top of the hill was a regrouping point - and damned if I'm going to ease up / slow down the little inertia I had just hammered to achieve! Ah well, next time.
Other highlights included a good sized group - perhaps 12 or 13 riders - including an extremely strong gal from Los Alamos Irene (?), the aforementioned champ and local coach John Verheul, super bad-ass local Jim 'Waz' Warsa who turns the biggest gear I've ever seen, and Tony no Baloney - back from a fractured hip, Matt " I just ran two hours" Desmond, Charlie Two Jerseys Drysdale - as well as some new faces, which is always good. The regular Galsiteo Ride feels different every single time I do it, as the make-up of the group is always very different - which translates into a wild variety of efforts in the 50 - something mile route. We held a steady pace right from the start - hammered a sloppy sketchy paceline down to Lamy, turned onto HWY 41 and started smoothing the rotations out a bit. John and I acted as the fussy patriarchs, urging folks to pull through smoothly and ease off a notch once rotated. Down near the turnaround, one blistering sprint came off the back - I dove ahead and grabbed a wheel - but then noted it was WAY too early, as there were many hundreds of meters to go - so the smarter faster folks flew by me. Ah well - next time!
We regrouped, headed out of town back toward Santa Fe - and it was on (see above chase comment).
This morning was a quickie north of town; up and out Old Taos Highway down to the Opera, back through Tesuque, and the nice climb up Bishops Lodge Road. Legs were not peppy - but were solid and felt just fine for the effort. 330 watts up the main climb for 8 or 9 minutes...
After a couple of weeks on the new road bike - a bargain basement frame/fork built up with SRAM Red - I'm hooked. The Red Cranks are the stiffest cranks I have ever spun in circles. The shifters are crisp and precise. The brakes are brutally powerful. The Easton EA90SL wheels are stiff and fast. I finally put the PowerTap back on and though suffered the weight gain, am seeing some good numbers (for me).
Little by little!
Since my mud-mania ride a few eeks ago, I've retreated entirely to the roads. Got my Redline Conquest Team CX Bike set-up with the PowerTap and road tires. That way, I can see real-time, how much I suck! And then, I can download and study just how much I indeed, suck. The hammer crew of four - Chandler (the Captain), Dave (Silly Strong), Tim (aka Dr. Tim), and of course - me (Big G). The plan was to get in 4 hours of 'work'. When I say work, in the context of these guys - it means WORK! 1 minute FTP + 10% pulls for 4 hours. No shit. The reason this is hard for me now-a-days, is that all three of these guys can ride circles around me what with my lower fitness and higher weight, but dammit! I try. We need to carefully plot whos where in the rotation, as the worst thing that can happen is Dave pulls through after I've done my 1 minute. Why? Because sitting in with him on the front, I'm usually 30-50 watts OVER my intended wattage for when I'm pulling! Yow.
Chandler is just as strong - but a little nicer out there, so I try and get on his wheel as I can survive there sometimes...
I have been insisting that after the 2.5 hour mark - when I start coming unglued, that they should adjust the rotation to a 3-man one, and let me drop off. The last 2 weekends they've been too-kind and waited for me, or let me just sit on and suck wheel while they all fight the wind, cold, and fatigue.
This past Sunday, the route plan was a good one: Las Campanas, Prison Loop partial, La Bajada down to Cochiti, then east to the Galisteo Dam. THEN turnaround and climb right back up La Bajada and into town via the Prison Loop route and 599 and Las Campanas. Pain guaranteed! I did fine to the dam, came off on the 10-12 minute climb back up La Bajada, then was struggling on my pulls. For the 3rd time, I said "go, I'm cooked", but they kept adjusting for me. When we turned off the I-25 frontage road heading across Bonanza Creek Rd., I popped and rode solo for a while. Once again, the fellas were waiting at the turn onto Rte. 14, and insisted I should not try and pull, but sit in and hang on. This was very fortunate, as the cross/head wind was strong. And it seemed to be getting colder. Eh. As we approached the next turn - onto the 599 frontage rd., we made a quick pit stop, where I inhaled a Starbucks Vanilla Frappacino and a PayDay . Tim clucked at my 'feed', but I know my stomach, and have some good experience with endurance riding. As we rolled on our way, Tim and I quickly decided we'd skip the Las Campanas loop on this last leg, and head right for home. As Dave and Chandler turned off, it was like Tim and I were being paced by some little old ladies with walkers! I felt OK at easy tempo, but Tim was cramping like mad. Finally, I got to help him, and pulled an easy pace back up to Buckman Rd.
130k door-to-door, right at 4 hours. Just over 3K kj - so it was in fact a hell of a workout.
Note to self: Sushi is an excellent recovery food!
