Tuesday, September 25, 2012

5 Weeks To Go

One of our loyal readers has commented that we have not been putting up the weekly mileage counts anymore.  This was because they seemed interesting at first, but then... not so much.  The comparison though, might be a little interesting.

Our first full week back after the new year:

(T-41 weeks and counting until New Zealand)
Matt Caroline
Swim
Hours
1
1
Sessions
1
1
Distance (m)
1000
1500
Bike
Hours
3
1
Distance (km)
65
15
Elevation (m)
548
0
Run
Hours
1
1
Sessions
2
2
Distance (km)
1
7
Cross Training
Hours
Distance (km)
23
24
Elevation (m)
1200
1300
Descent (m)
Total Hours
5
3


Last week:

(T-5 weeks and counting until New Zealand)
Matt Caroline
Swim
Hours
3
3
Sessions
3
3
Distance (m)
5200
5600
Bike
Hours
6.5
4.5
Distance (km)
164
110
Elevation (m)
2240
1500
Run
Hours
3
1
Sessions
3
1
Distance (km)
13.5
4
Cross Training
Hours
0
0
Distance (km)
0
0
Elevation (m)
0
0
Descent (m)
0
0
Total Hours
12.5
8


Wow.  This is how people get hooked on triathlons.  Every year you look back and think about how much more you could have done.

Things seem to be coming together really well right now. We are both as fast as we were hoping to be on our bikes, and keep getting a little bit faster every time.  My knees have not stopped me in any of my workouts for the past month, which is fantastic - yesterday I ran more cumulative distance than I have in two and a half years.  And we may have just made a change to both of our swimming styles which could shave big chunks of time off...we will test later this week.  All that is left to do is not get injured.

Speaking of not getting injured, here is last week's Sunday ride track:


And here it is with notes:


untitled


I was out front of the crash, but Caroline narrowly avoided a pileup by riding up into an orchard.  5 people went down.  No serious injuries, but we definitely do not need another one of those right now, so we decided that as of that moment, we would not be doing any more group rides this season.  Then half an hour later, I rode by a man waving a walking stick at me.  That was strange, but stranger was having to stop 50 metres later to let a black bear mosey across the road.

Two and a half more weeks in Kelowna.  One week in Auckland.  Then we are done.  Let's hope the bears hold off.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Bowron Lakes

After the Apple Triathlon, I took a week off.  There were a few options for the trip - riding my bike up the Icefields Parkway, a mountaineering trip in the Purcells with Tom, mountain biking all the must-do trails in the Interior... but when I actually thought about all of those, none of them were actually a week "off", considering the training load we have been under.  Spending a week canoeing the Bowron lakes circuit, on the other hand, sounded like exactly the opposite of  triathlons.  I could even get a tan.


2012.08.22 - Bowron (36)

Or maybe not so much of a tan.  Day One started out as on and off drizzle all day.  Day Two it rained harder, and got can't-hold-this-enormous-canoe-straight-stormy to boot by lunchtime.  

But then it started to clear.  And it was all worth it.

2012.08.22 - Bowron (29)

Other definite highlights of the trip:  being able to pack whatever I wanted for food and not worry about weight, being able to use wheels on the portages, and one of my better encounters with a moose cow and calf.

2012.08.22 - Bowron (25)


2012.08.22 - Bowron (65)


2012.08.22 - Bowron (63)

In the end, it was 105 km of paddling, 11 km of portages (with wheels, mind you) in 15 minutes shy of 4 days (3 full days and two half days).  If it had been warmer and I hadn't been alone, I think a week would be very comfortable. 

There was also a short section of Class 1 river, which reminded me just how much fun river trips are.  Scheming for next year has already started.

2012.08.22 - Bowron (22)

Monday, September 17, 2012

CRASH! (again)

 Have you heard of Strava?  It is the Facebook for bike riding, essentially.  A lot of people ride with a GPS enabled computer (or at least carry a smartphone), which means you after your ride you can upload your history to Strava.  You can then see how you did compared to other people on the same sections ("segments") of the ride.  This allows you to compete even when you are alone.  And if you pay an entry fee, they will let you filter the results down by age, weight, skill level, whether the sun was out, what you had for breakfast, etc - so everyone can be a winner.

In any case, Strava is just catching on in the Okanagan.  Caroline is also quite quick on her bike, and the combination has resulted in about 150 QOM results (Queen of Mountain, or the fastest girl on a segment). Unfortunately, a slightly faster girl recently took away a few of Caroline's QOM's.  This could not be allowed  to stand, so on this weeks Sunday Ride, we tried to get them back.  The game plan was for me to pace Caroline up the sections of steady incline. This we also expected to get the group as a whole moving faster as they chased me down, which would create a nice big draft to help Caroline along.

This is not cheating, by the way.  Everyone does it.

The game plan was NOT for Caroline to rub wheels with me, which would likely send her off the side of the road and into a manicured rock garden.  This would be a bad plan because her front wheel would likely dig in, and if that happened, she would probably go over the bars and take most of the impact with her shoulder on a big rock.

Evidently, we need to review game plans in more detail.

 (it is unfortunate we are not in America.  I hear that people down there are currently suing Strava for essentially "making them go too fast" when they are pursuing KOM's, which has resulted in injuries when they then fall off of their bikes. It seems logical to blame Strava to me, too)

It took a few minutes of recovery, but she is fine.  She ended up riding another 20km before heading home, so it can't be that bad.

The upside to riding with a computer to chase QOM's is being able to watch your heart rate as you crash your bike:

heartrate

One guess as to where the crash happened.  Kind of scary, huh?

Normally, my first priority would have been to take a picture of the accident scene.  Unfortunately, the whole group stopped to make sure she was OK, which made me feel that taking out a phone would have been a little crass.  The best we can do is a picture of the most affected arm on the day after:

(if that isn't a beautifully composed picture, I don't know what is)

All in all, it turned out to be a fairly eventful and busy weekend.  Meanwhile, people on the internet were also having busy weekends (and creating interesting juxtapositions at the same time):


7997063899_b058a1b2e2_b

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Commuting by Bicycle in Vancouver: By The Numbers

DSC_0682


We have too many bikes.

I think everyone who has ever come into our apartments or house has said something to this effect. I confess that the thought has also crossed my mind from time to time, like when I had to move two bikes out of the bathtub before I could turn the water on.

As a defense against these errant sacrilegious thoughts, I started a spreadsheet to record all of the mileage that we have put on each bike, as well as how much we paid for them.  Using a rough average speed for each bike, I came up with a $/hour amount - the idea being that most entertainment is about $10 / hour (a movie will cost about $20 and entertains you for 2 hours, bowling is about $10 per hour, hanging out in a bar is probably at least $10 per hour over the course of the night, etc).  So, if we rode each bike enough that it cost less than $10 per hour of riding, they were justified.

But I digress.  This data also can be applied to come up with a cost of commuting by bicycle.  I spent close to 2 years living in downtown Vancouver, commuting by bike most days to Burnaby.  I believe this is long enough to be a dependable average, so here are the numbers:

Bike: Redline 925

Total Mileage: 4,628 km

Purchase Price: $650
Maintenance: new rear tire, new tube, chain lube, new bike computer, brake pad sets x2
Maintenance Cost: ~$100
Accessories: Panniers (bought on Craigslist)
Accessories cost: sold on Craigslist for same as purchase price
Bike Re-sold for: $200
Total Cost: $550

$/km: 0.12

The commute is 9km each way, and took between 25-30 mins by bike.  Total "cost" for the day would therefore be ~$2.16.

Public transit meant walking to the skytrain, and then travelling through 2 zones.  The average time by skytrain was 35 minutes. This would cost $3.75 x 2 = $7.50, or with a monthly pass (assuming 21 working days a month), would be $5.23.

So a quick summary (per day of work):

Public Transit:
$5.23
1 hour 10 minutes commute time
Time to read the paper / sharing the train with hobos

Bicycle:
$2.16
50 minutes commute time
Daily exercise / sometimes you get wet


Don't even get me started on cars.