Broken Wheel Ride

Originally planned as an 86-mile loop from our house, this ride was abruptly ended at the 54-mile mark due to a broken wheel.

Quick Stats Ride Distance: 54 miles   Elevation Gain: 3,567 feet   Average Moving Speed: 13.90 mph

Riding In The Rain

It is official. I have abandoned good ship Marathon in favor of rainy ship Bicycling. I don't know how you triathletes do it. I lost just a little ground in marathon training, due to riding my bike on those nice days back in February, and I was hooked on cycling again. Or maybe I was looking for any excuse to stop running. It never really has been my thing. The big problem with all this, though, is that running on an indoor treadmill was my cardio upkeep exercise during all the cruddy weather. If not running, it is either significant cardio fitness degradation, or I need to ride in the rain... Hence, the fenders.

First 17 Rides
Stat Total Ride Distance: Average Ride Distance: Total Elevation Gain: Average Elevation Gain: Average Moving Speed:	First 6 Rides 237 miles   39.46 miles   13,587 feet   2,265 feet   15.21 mph	Next 11 Rides 472 miles   42.91 miles   23,357 feet   2,123 feet   15.52 mph	All 17 Rides 709 miles   41.72 miles   36,944 feet   2,173 feet   15.41 mph

The Tandem Experiment

Okay, so we've seriously considered riding a tandem. Before actually riding one there were a few things we figured would be nice on a tandem.

1. We liked the idea of going at the same pace. We actually already ride very similar paces on separate bikes, but of course on one bike the pace is... exactly equal.
2. We also figured that already having a similar overall pace we wouldn't have too much trouble acclimating to the world of riding a tandem.
3. And finally, we hoped that perfect drafting on a tandem would significantly boost our overall speed since we don't draft at all (for various reasons) when riding together on separate bikes.

Those were our pre-conceived ideas. What happened when those ideas were hit by the reality of actually riding a tandem together?

Musical Seats

Turns out the new Rideout Technologies bike seat referenced in my last post is both ugly and uncomfortable. Who'd a thunk it?

New Bike Seat

I figured out a way to give myself a little extra reason to get on my bike trainer this month.

I bought this bike seat and it just arrived by FedEx.

"We offer a full thirty day comfort guarantee. If for any reason you are not satisfied, please return it to us for a full refund."

There is something about the standard road bike seat design that just seems wrong. It is like they design them to look good and completely forget that they need to actually be comfortable. Well this new one certainly doesn't look good at all so it ought to be extremely comfortable, right?

I know you are sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to find out how my seat likes this new seat.

Not to worry, after some test rides I will report back here in full detail.