Round Up: August 8th through 24th

8/8/06: I rode 28 miles in 2 hours including Old La Honda Road in 30:10.

8/10/06: I was in Tahoe staying at Fallen Leaf Lake. I rode from Stanford Sierra Camp along Fallen Leaf Road to Tahoe Mountain rode with was a short climb of less than 1 mile to a long decent to Lake Tahoe Blvd, which also decended to its intersection with Highway 89. I made a left on 89 through Camp Richardson and then another left back on to Fallen Leaf Road. Instead of heading back into Stanford Sierra Camp, I stayed straight at the firestation and rode up Glen Alpine Road. Glen Alpine is a very steep, narrow and pot hole ridden road that does have some cars traffice. Its only about .75 miles but with the road conditions combined with the altitude make it a challenge. To give an idea of how bad the road was, I actually went slower, squeezing my brakes as hard as I could, going downhill than I did uphill. 19 Miles in 1 hour and 45 minutes.
8/11/06: I had some intention of riding around Lake Tahoe (72 Miles), however, I woke up too late and by the time I got on the road at 8:30am Highway 89 already had enough traffic that I wasn’t comfortable riding a road with little or no bike lane. From Fallen Leaf Road I made a left on Highway 89 and road up to the pass at Emerald Bay. Climbing Emerald Bay is only about a mile, but it is very steep on a very narrow road that has moderate traffic. Furthermore, as the road twists it hugs the side of the mountain on one side, with a steep drop off on the other. There’s barely enought room for cars on the road let alone a bike and being passed by cars was hairy. Add in the altitude and this was a tough climb for me. Any thoughts I had about attempting to do the entire lake were squashed as my lungs and thighs burned climbing up the pass at Emerald Bay. Reaching the top was very satisfying and the views are amazing. Afterwards, I backtracked 89 to Lake Taho Blvd, where I made a right. I made another right and climbed back up Tahoe Mountain Road, which is good climb. I don’t know how long it was but it felt like about 2 miles. The grade was steep enough to get me down into my lowest gear but not enough to really hurt me after climbing up Emerald Bay. Lastly, I made a left back on to Fallen Leaf Road back into Sierra Camp. I road 24 miles in 2 hours.8/13/06: I rode 28 miles in 2 hours including Old La Honda in 29:47.

8/14/06: I rode 41 miles to Sarratoga and back. I was very tired and my legs really burned up the short climbs on Mt. Eden (6.6% grade over .75 miles) and Pierce (7.9% grade over 0.6 miles).

8/17/06: I rode 27 miles out Alameda de las Pulgas, up Woodside, over on Portola and down Alpine.

8/18/06: I rode 28 miles in 2 hours including Old La Honda in 30:06. I was a little bit disappointed that my time up Old La Honda was slower than the 29:47 that I rode on 8/8/06.

8/20/06: I rode 17.5 miles time trialing around the Portola Loop. I set new recent personal best with an average mph of 18.2, my previous best was 17.7mph. I hit the top of Alpine road at 16.2 mph, which was significantly fast than my previous best of 15.6mph, so I knew I was on for a fast time. Admittedly, I did get lucky with all green lights down Sand Hill Road, which probably boosted my time by .1-.2 mph.

8/21/06: I road 28 miles up Edgewood back to Woodside on Canada and then over to Alpine road on Portola.

8/22/06: I road 31 miles including going up Old La Honda with my college roommate. I dont’ know what my time was up Old La Honda but I really struggled up the hill. My legs were soar and my back was absolutely killing me.

8/23/06: I road 7.5 miles in the Marin Headlands with my college roommate. We were planning on doing a longer ride but his girlfriend called and asked him to make some dinner in Fresno. What ever happened to “Rides before Brides?” Anyway, the short ride that we did was amazing. We started at the parking lot on the south bound side of 101 at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge on Conzelman Road. The ride starts out with a 1.75 mile climb up Conzelman Road. The first half mile is the steepest and then if flattens out a bit. Conzelman is beautiful looking out over the Pacific Ocean and Golden Gate Bridge. It also winds past WWII bunkers that are kind of interesting. At some point, I’d like to go back and explore them a bit more. After reaching the top of Conzelman you get a very very steep down hill that definitely requires braking from the drops. A right at the T-Junction, which I think is Field Road, takes you through a misty valley. Make a slight right, basically staying straight, on to Bunker Road. Bunker Road comes to a one way tunnel where you wait your turn to cross under highway 101. The tunnel rarely drys out completely from the rain and mist, so it is very slippery and caution is required. After exiting the tunnel make a right on Sausalito Lateral Road, which crosses back underneath 101 again where it becomes Conzelman and takes you back to the parking lot.

8/24/06: I rode 34 miles out to Highway 92 and back around the Loop.

Lots of Riding, Little Posting

Over the last 2.5 weeks, I’ve been neglecting this blog.  Fortunately, I have been riding my bike and in my next post I’m going to do a round up my exactly what I’ve been up to.

A Note About My mph on the Portola Loop

One point of clarification about my average mph on the Portola Loop is that I take my final time on Sand Hill Road near the Stanford Shopping Center because I like to cruise home across Stanford’s campus or through downtown Palo Alto as a cool down.  This typically drops my final average mph by 0.2 – 0.4 mph.  So if anyone were to take the time calculate my average mph from my final time and distance it should be a little bit lower than what I am reporting.

8/8/06: The Portola Loop (17.7 mph)

Today I rode the Portola Loop and set a new recent personal best with and average speed of 17.7 mph. I’m really happy with this time because its a huge 0.5 mph jump up from my previous best of 17.2. Also, yesterday my legs felt so weak going up Alpine road and then having climbed up Old La Honda, that I figured today would be a slow lap. Considering the circumstances, I would have been pleased with anything over 16 mph.

One thing that may have helped was eating right yesterday. I had a bowl of Cheerios, a banana, two apricot cliff bars, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a large plate of fettuccine with semi-homemade bolognese sauce. I essentially packed in tons of carbs to restore my muscle glycogen levels with out adding much fat or sugar.

Eating right surely helped but my muscles did feel tired today. Despite feeling tired, I did feel strong, which is the exact opposite of yesterday when my legs felt rested but weak. I worked very hard up Alpine and I knew I was on for a good time when I hit the intersection of Portola with an average speed of 15.5 mph, which was 0.6 mph than my previous best at that point. I pushed hard the rest of the way although I did notice that I wasn’t quite as fast in the descents as normal. I climbed the back of Sand Hill between 11.5 and 13.5 mph. However, there was a lot of traffic crossing 280 and I was forced to come to a complete stop before crossing the freeway, which killed a lot of momentum at 30+ mph. I also got stopped at the light next to SLAC but fortunately I caught a green light at Alameda de las Pulgas.

Here are my ride stats:

17.43 miles

17.7 average mph

36.6 max mph

59:47 ride time

145 average heart rate

170 max heart rate

447 calories burned

8/7/06: A Mixed Day Up Old La Honda

After taking the weekend off I decided that I would try to climb Old La Honda. I’ve definitely been building up my leg strength over the last several weeks and with 2 days rest I was anticipating a good ride. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it all the way up to Skyline Blvd. but I felt it would be a good test of where I stood. That said, I was a little nervous that not making it up Old La Honda would expose just how out of shape I was in relative to my previous form.

As I was pumping up my tires I decided that I would go up Alpine Road in order to compare my average mph on fresh legs at the corner of Alpine & Portola against my recent best, which was 14.9 mph on the way 17.2 overall. I figured that even if didn’t make it up Old La Honda I could at least gauge progress and build confidence by beating 14.9 mph up Alpine. However, once I got on my bike my legs just didn’t have it.

I don’t know exactly how to explain what was going on. My legs didn’t feel tired so much as they did weak. It was very windy and that had something do with it but as I reached the intersection of Alpine and Portola wind couldn’t explain posting 13.2 mph. I was really disappointed and adding to my frustration, my heart rate monitor continued to intermittently read zero beats per minute. All of my progress thus far had been steadily increasing my average mph. How could it have fallen so dramatically after two full rest days?

I didn’t eat very well over the weekend. I had Chinese food and 4-5 beers on Friday night. On Saturday I overate at a BBQ for lunch and then had a hotdog and an ice cream sundae for dinner at the Giants game. I know that nutrition is important for cycling but I’d never been affected this much by it and besides while what I ate wasn’t healthy it was packed with calories. I also wondered if my legs actually needed more than 2 days rest. I had ridden 108 miles in the 3 days prior to resting and maybe my body just wasn’t ready for that kind of work load. I probably won’t ever know but it was clear that climbing Old La Honda would be a stretch so I decided to set a goal of climbing 1 mile up the road.

I checked my time and distance at the base of Old La Honda and set off. The hardest part for me of climbing sustained steeps is often accepting a slower speed rather than fighting the road. Knowing that I wasn’t riding well, I quickly shifted all the way down into my granny gear after just .3 miles. I felt okay at 1 mile so I decided to see if I could do 2. As I pushed ahead between mile 1 and 2 I really started to feel it but I was able to back off and let the road come to me. When I reached mile number 2 I knew that, while it was going to be difficult, I could make it to the top if I just kept peddling smoothly. After 30 minutes of climbing I found relief when I saw the famous mailbox cluster peeking around the corner and reached the stop sign at Skyline Blvd. for a total time of 30:10.

I was very happy to have climbed Old La Honda. Now that I know I can do it, I’m going to climb Old La Honda more regularly but I am perplexed at when Alpine caused me so much trouble. I certainly felt tired on my way back from Old La Honda but that was normal. However, adding more confusion to the day, I felt very strong climbing the back of Sand Hill. Despite getting stopped by traffic at the intersection of Whiskey Hill Rd. and Sand Hill Rd., I stood up and climbed from a standstill to over 15 mph on the short steep section before descending down to the Freeway.

This was my route:

I started up Alpine and made a right on Portola. Next I went up Old La Honda and made a right on Skyline Blvd. Then I came down Highway 84 through the town of Woodside and made a right on Whiskey Hill. Last I made a left on Sand Hill Road and then cruised back home through Palo Alto.

Here are my ride stats:

28.71 miles

13.4 average mph

44.8 max mph

2:08:01 ride time

131 average heart rate*

167 max heart rate

815 calories burned*

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*These numbers are clearly low because of my heart rate monitor’s intermittent measurement of zero beats per minute during the ride. I suspect that my average heart rate was closer to 150 and that I burned 900 – 950 calories.

Ride Description: Old La Honda Rd.

Old La Honda is the most famous climb in the San Francisco Bay Area… its the Alp d’Huez of recreational cycling in Northern California. Much like the famous Alp, Old La Honda is neither the steepest nor the longest climb in the area. However, Old La Honda has a certain mystique that is due beauty its beauty, winding amongst the redwoods, approachability, which is very hard but still possible for determined recreational cyclists, and its proximity to highly popular cycling roads. Its also worth noting that much of the ride is shaded by trees, which makes it a good choice when looking for a climb on a hot day.
Old La Honda starts off of Portola Rd. in Portola Valley where it climbs up to Skyline Blvd. and then down towards the coast for a couple of miles before reconnecting with Highway 84. However, the famous climb starts at the little stone bridge and ends at the stop sign on Skyline Blvd. The climb is approximately 3.3 to 3.4 miles and averages a grade of 7.3% while winding its way up 1290 feet in elevation gain. For comparison purposes the Alp d’ Huez is an 8.1% average grade over 8.6 miles.

Old La Honda is the kind of road that puts most recreational cyclists into their easiest “granny” gear and makes them wish they had the relief of still easier gears. Most will climb to Skyline Blvd. in 20-45 minutes. I’ve rarely heard of anyone taking longer than 45 minutes while still being able to make it up the hill. In my opinion 30 minutes is a respectable time and 25 minutes very good. The local climb record is reportedly 15:05 and anyone getting up faster than 20 minutes is at least approaching semi-pro caliber.

Took the Weekend Off

Well, after 9 consecutive days working my legs fairly hard, I decided to take the weekend off.  I considered going for a jog on both Saturday and Sunday but I opted for more rest instead.

8/4/06: Highway 92 to Stevens Creek (53 Miles)

Today I rode 53 miles and I am pretty wiped out. I think tomorrow is definitely going to be a rest day, although I may do 20-30 minutes of low intensity training to loosen up my legs if they are sore.

Today I went out to Highway 92 in San Mateo and then back to the Stevens Creek Reservoir in Cupertino. I rode Alameda de Las Pulgas to Woodside Road. Next I took Canada out to Highway 92 and doubled back to the town of Woodside, where I took Mountain Home Road over to Portola. I rode Portola to Alpine road than took Arastradero to Purissima. I made a right on Robleda and a left on Elena to Foothill College. After quickly cutting across campus I made a left on S. El Monte and then a right on Summerhill. I took Summerhill to Magdalena and the popped out on Foothill Expressway. I rode Foothill to the base of the Stevens Creek Reservoir and the doubled back on Foothill all the way back to Palo Alto.

I was feeling tired after about 16-17 miles and the wind on Canada road, which is normally strong, especially gusty. Yet, today was about putting in some base miles and not about speed so I just backed off and kept pedaling. I was slow and tired up all of the rolling hills but I wasn’t concerned because I was prepared to take the next day off to recover. One small frustration was that my heart rate monitor / cyclocomputer was definitely on the fritz. Numerous times through out the ride it measured my heart rate as zero for extended periods of time. Each time I double checked my chest strap but it always seemed to be correctly in place. Also at one point coming down Alpine Road, it flashed 58.8 mph for a second, which I’m certain was incorrect as it was otherwise reading about 30 mph. So of my stats below the max speed, average heart rate, and calories burned are all off by a significant degree. Typically I burn 400-450 calories per hour on the bike with a heart rate ranging between 130 – 150 and I suspect both of the recorded numbers are low by about 1/3. I am confident that the distance is accurate because I’ve ridden this route numerous times in previous years. Also, the average mph looks right based on the distance and ride time so I am confident it it as well.

Here are today’s ride stats:

52.81 miles

14.9 average mph

58.8 max mph

109 average heart rate

164 max heart rate

1109 calories burned

3h 32m 28s ride time

8/3/06 The Portola Loop (17.2 mph)

I rode the Portola Loop today. I’m just getting back into shape and this was the 8th consecutive day that I’ve done something physically active. Furthermore, yesterday I rode 37 miles including a climb up Edgewood, which is pretty steep for me right now, so my legs were feeling tired. Nonetheless, I set a recent personal best at 17.2 average mph today, but I felt that I could have ridden faster with a day off. I really pooped out climbing up the backside of Sand Hill. I stood up on the pedals and was riding at about 10-11mph which is a little slow for me. My average mph dropped on the climb from 16.6 to 16.1, which is quite a lot. Also, I got caught really badly by a red light on Sand Hill Road. I was going 32+mph at the time and had to slam on my breaks so hard that I almost went over the handle bars, which meant that I both lost a ton of momentum and was stuck in my heaviest gear when the light changed back to green. I think with a little more rest and a little more luck I could have pushed my average mph up a bit.

Here are my stats:

• 17.59 miles
• 17.2 average mph
• 42.0 max mph
• 146 average heart rate
• 1h 3min ride time

Heart Rate Zones & Caloric Burn Rates

One of the reasons why I am tyring to get back into shape is to drop some weight. I’ve been reading a book titled Precision Heart Rate Training, which suggests that when training at 50-60% of maximal heart rate the body is mostly burning fat to fuel the muscles. Yet, if I train in this relatively easy zone my heart rate monitor reports burning fewer calories. If I burn more calories while exercising doesn’t my body use fat to replace them during recovery? So if one of my ultimate goals is to lose weight and fat is it better to train easier and burn fat while working out or train harder and burn more calories?