Riding in the South: Road

Last week, a wedding dragged me and my family out to the beautiful South. I say dragged, but I was glad to get away from the sub-freezing temperatures of Utah and see some family I hadn't seen in a while. It was just pure good luck on my part that Terry (http://ridesandroads.blogspot.com/) lives near-by and through various connections and under-the-table deals was able to hook me up with a nice 56cm Scott CR-1. Though it had seen many, many miles, it was in fantastic shape. It was much nicer than I had dared to hope for in a loaner bike.

Though I usually look forward to dropping down in elevation and riding with people, I'd been down in the lowlands for almost a week before I did any riding--which was more than enough time for my blood to get weak and thin from all the oxygen in the air. I expected to suffer--what with my general lack of fitness and such--but I had banked my hopes on the general dearth of "mountains" in that area. I knew none of the climbs they'd subject me to would be longer than a mile or so.

As it turns out, they make roads differently in the South. Whereas, here in Utah we concern ourselves with such trivial matters as snow and ice when planning out roads, they don't seem to do that in the South. Might be because of the lack of snow and ice, but who knows? What this means is that they make roads steep in the South. Very steep. Steeper than they really ought to make them.

The ride started out innocently enough--for the first 1/4 mile anyway. After that, it quickly ratcheted up to a 8-9% grade. No big deal, really. I mean, We get that around here lots of times. What caught me off-guard was when I realized that was the easy part of the climb. That's right, within a mile of starting the ride, I already was looking at 9% grades as easy. This particular road jumped up to 16-18% right away. Soon thereafter, it managed to show us just who's boss by reaching a grade of almost 25%! Sure, the whole climb was pretty short (less than 1.5 miles, I think), but when you're going that steep, an inch feels like 25.4 millimeters! Or, possibly even 26!

Actually, it feels more like a mile.

After that, there was a nice steep and short downhill. Looking at the road ahead, I learned a valuable truth about road riding in the South. There are NO flat rides. Sure, we never climbed what I'd consider to be mountain, but there were hundreds--nay, thousands--of tiny rollers. The thing is, they weren't like the rollers here in Utah. No, these actually got quite steep. They just were short enough that you didn't really think about them. Until you were about 25 miles into the ride and you started to do some estimating in your head.

I couldn't find a nice rhythm because there was no consistency. I never got to just spin in a single gear, but was constantly working to find a good gear. It wore me out much more than I would have expected. Overall, in the 35 miles we rode, we gained about 2750' of elevation--none of which was gradual.

But it was such beautiful riding, I couldn't get angry. The sun was out, the temps were up (around 60-ish). The trees, the rolling hills, the exposed rock down by the river. It was an incredible ride! And, thanks to some going easy on the part of my riding companions, I was able to stay with them most of the way.

Thanks to Terry and the Beast for the spectacular scenery and the hard workout. And thanks for hooking me up with such a nice bike to pedal around on.

Short Day = Long Night

Today is the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. What better way to celebrate than to charge those lights up, and see how long they last. Take your time, these newer lights run for a very long time.

I'm out for the rest of this week, and all of next, but I'll be back in the New Year with more light news. Enjoy the holidays and from us here at Lactic Acid Threshold:

Quick Update

First off, there was supposed to be a post last week, but it never happened. The reason it never happened was that I was taking some finals and they drained me. You see, I am back in school--have been for a year--and getting a blog post out just wasn't in the cards. Now, on with the post!

I'm getting the first round of run time graphs complete and I'm happy to report that so far, every light is beating their run time claim.

It seems like--when it comes to batteries at least--manufacturers are more conservative. Keep in mind, though, that I test the lights in a room temperature environment and more than likely, you'll see less run time out in the cold.

Here's an example. The Magicshine 900 is rated at 3hrs, but I ran it for 3:42--quite a bit longer.

Not all of the other light's run times exceed their claims as much as the Magicshine, but any time a light runs longer than claimed I am happy.

I've also had the wonderful opportunity to use all of the lights in the rain--something we get plenty of here in Oregon--and aside from some fogging of the lenses, I've experienced zero problems with prolonged rain use with any of the lights. None have cut out and not one has refused to work after a good soaking.

Aside from the NiteRider Pro 600 and 1200, Exposure accessory lights and the Magicshine 900, I'll be checking out the upgrades kits for Lupine's Wilma and Betty lights and Exposure's Diablo.

Look for more info on the new lights in the coming weeks.

Storm Damage

I'll be the first to admit that winter is not my favorite riding season. However, it is the BEST time--at least in my neck of the woods--to ride during or just after a storm, be it a wind storm, rain storm, or the occasional snow storm. While I try to avoid riding in the worst rain storms, riding in the forest during a wind or snow storm can be... interesting.

A few years ago, Jon and I rode a section of the North Umpqua trail on New Years Day.

One of the nice things about the North Umpqua Trail is that it drains well, so year round riding is usually just fine, especially on the sections at the lower elevations. We thought it would be fun to ride one of the lower sections (I can't recall which one, but not the lowest or Western-most section) so off we went.

It was quite cold for that part of Oregon. The roads weren't icy, and the trail had running water on it, but there was ice buildup on the trees and it was snowing. It wasn't getting any warmer, that's for sure. We had to ride a section we didn't plan on due to a downed tree that took out a power line, leaving it draped across the road. We knew that this would not be a normal ride on the trail.

There was so much water on the trail that we were soaked in short order. Oh well, we were having fun, so we pushed on, heedless of the cracking and popping of the trees around us. There was quite a bit of ice piled up on the branches and they couldn't take the load. Trees were, literally, cracking around us.

The danger of the ride was driven home on the return leg of the out and back. There was a new tree across the trail. To date, this is the only ride I've ever been on where there were more trees across the trail coming back, than heading out.

We were frozen and even though the ride was short, it highlighted the danger of riding in the forest during a storm.

Not that that's stopped us since.

And it took us the whole way back to town to thaw out.

Jon--who has images to prove it--should relate the time we were caught in a flash flood in Moab. He and I are usually together when semi-dangerous rides happen.

And when I get speeding tickets.

My driving record has improved greatly since he moved to another state.