A Cycling Milestone, But not a Good One

I popped my cycling cherry today. Got hit by a car. Was fairly wicked but I escaped relatively unscathed. Was riding on Merrick Ave., which is a very busy road, and an older guy drilled me in the rear (that's what she said). He apparently never saw me because he kept going. But his mirror and all the guts of the socket that hold it into car ripped straight off and were lying on the road. I flipped over on my bike, landed on the side of my ass and my bike flew onto the sidewalk. Some guy was nice enough to track down the driver's car and get the license plate number. The cops went to his house and said the driver was just plain old. An ambulance came to check me out. I was fine except for some road rash and some pain where the guy hit me. Also, my ankle hurt a bit because I was clipped into the pedals and the bike kind of rolled over my ankle/leg. I kept my sense of humor through the whole thing though. The EMT took my bloodpressure and was shocked it was only 130/80. I told him I felt pretty lucky to be walking away from the accident was probably the reason I was so calm. Plus I said getting questioned by my mom about it was going to hurt more than getting hit by the car itself.

I'll probably be pretty sore tomorrow but at this juncture I'm planning on doing my weekly ride Saturday.

50% Retracement

What do you get when you mix the most oversold stock market conditions in history with bottomless stimulus and a bottoming economy? You get the mother of all 50% retracements that will likely lead the S&P to the 1,000 range (or even higher) and suck everyone back in for the next leg down. Believe me, I'm bearish longer term because I think demographics make our fate inevitable, but you have to listen to the market. The market is telling you it believes the worst is over. Now you may disagree, but it's going to pay to voice your opinion later rather than sooner. The market will tell you when it's topping and ready to head back down. Until then, BUY MORTIMER BUY!!!!

Options, Options Everywhere

It's a bit of a long story but I missed my SIG ride yesterday. It may have been a blessing in disguise though. Feeling guilty, I set out to log some miles around Rockville Centre. However, the thought of doing 8-10 five mile loops wasn't sitting well so I ventured out a bit to gain some distance. In the end, I found a way to lengthen my standard ride to 8.5 miles and can also add mileage with an optional 4.5 mile loop and/or 3.5 mile extension. The 3.5 mile extension goes through some less than desirable areas but it's a nice gradual 1.75 mile climb so it's the closest thing to a hill I can't get around here.

Finding the extra miles locally is a huge benefit. It wasn't sitting well that I needed to drive my car in order to get some training miles. Now I can just roll out of my front door at a moment's notice and ride. That's cycling at its best.

Rockin' Out the Base Miles

I did my first ride in Rockville Centre (RVC) yesterday and it wasn't half bad. In fact, I'd say it was surprising good. It was really just a spur of the moment type thing. I wanted to get in a few miles to warm up for today's ride since I was in Florida this week and didn't do any riding. However, I didn't want the intensity of my Old Westbury Training Route nor the 30 minute drive each way. The upshot is I found a nice 5 mile loop here in Rockville Centre that I can now use to work in some base miles on a more regular basis.

The route, pictured below, is surprisingly good and very flat. There are only three or four "head on a swivel" moments. The most dangerous part is riding on Sunrise Highway which is far from ideal but definitely doable. It's never soothing to have cars whizzing past you at 50 mph but there's a very wide shoulder and the biggest risk is most likely a flat from all the road debree on the shoulders (knock on wood).

The key to riding in this area (or any area for that matter) is a rear view mirror that attaches to your glasses. I started using one when we were touring in Italy. It looks pretty darn goofy but it's invaluable to have a view of the traffic behind you as you maneuver on highly trafficked roads. Actually, the biggest risk to riding in RVC is the ridicule I'm going to face when my childhood friends see my in my ride gear. I got a preview last week when I was talking on the phone in front of the deli after a ride. All of a sudden I heard a voice from behind me "are you f-ing kidding me with that outfit?". It was a buddy of mine in a car with his family in tow. He immediately called a few other friends to rip on me (that's what good friends do in Rockville Centre).

The Art of the (Illegal) Park

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was skittish about parking at NYIT. The main reason is they have security cars constantly looping through the parking lot. In fact, on Monday I had to endure at least 5 security loops. I made the mistake of spending a decent amount of time putting on all my equipment by the side of my car with my bike still up on the roof rack. It was like an advertisement that I was doing something wrong. I thought to myself "this is so obvious, they have to know I'm parking illegally". My only hope was the security guards were thinking "this is so obvious, there's no way he's parking illegally".

I decided today to get as much prep work done at home as possible in order to minimize time in the lot. I wore my cycling shoes (typically I drive with regular shoes and put on my cycling shoes there) and had all my equipment laid out on my backseat ready to roll. When I arrived, I immediately took down my bike and laid it up against the car while I got prepped. It only took a minute or two to get everything done. I only saw one security guard this time, a nice little victory. Hopefully I won't run into any issues parking here because it's the perfect starting point for my training loop.

Speaking of the training loop, this was the first day I it exclusively. I've ridden all of the terrain before but as parts of different rides. The loop was even better than I was expecting but also very difficult because there's almost no stopping. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. But there's a huge difference between a 25 mile ride with no stops and one that has multiple lights/stops because you get no natural recovery periods. I actually pushed it too hard today. Funny because I was all set to write a post this morning titled "Take'r Easy", which was going to explain how it's better to ride slower early in the season while you build a base of miles. Then I go out and blast it today. I averaged 17mph for 24 miles. That's pretty much midseason form for a GROUP ride. Doing that solo this early in the season is pretty stupid. I need to tone it down next time.

The List Goes On...

As I'm finishing The Catcher in the Rye, I began thinking about which book would be next. I ran across this high school reading list and will pick my next literary classic from here. Again, I'm open for suggestions. Did anyone just hear a tree fall?

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Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain
Bellow, Saul. Humboldt's Gift
Camus, Albert. The Stranger
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield; Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment
Eliot, George. Adam Bede
Ralph Ellison. Invisible Man
Faulkner, William. The Unvanquished; Intruder in the Dust
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary
Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant's Woman
Golding, William. . Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas. The Return of the Native
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
Hemmingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms; The Nick Adams Stories
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady
Joyce, James. Dubliners
Kafka, Franz. The Trial
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt; Arrowsmith
Malamud, Bernard. The Complete Stories: The Magic Barrel
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick
Orwell, George. 1984; Animal Farm
Paton, Alan. Cry the Beloved Country
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Stories: The Tell-Tale Heart; The Black Cat; The Pit and the Pendulum
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath
Stendhal. The Red and the Black
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
Thackeray, William. Vanity Fair
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Innocents Abroad
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five
Waugh, Evelyn. A Handful of Dust
Wright, Richard. Native Son

Nothing Beats a Nice Loop

In life, familiarity can breed contempt but in cycling I believe it breeds confidence and strength. A great training ride is a key element to a happy cycling existence. Luckily, I just found mine on Long Island. I've pieced together some sections from a few rides I've done to create a nice 12 mile loop. The good news is it's twice as long as my prior training loop (Central Park) and the better news is it's 1% as crowded. On the downside, I need to drive 20 minutes to get to it and I'm still a bit skittish about parking at NYIT (although I was successful yesterday).

This "Old Westbury Training Route" as I've named it, gives me some nice options as I can create 24 or 36 mile training rides depending on my mood and what my upcoming ride schedule is looking like. Generally speaking, your mid-week rides should optimally be about 1/3 the distance of your longer weekend rides. Thus, 24/36 mile rides are perfect training for my typical 60-80 mile Saturday rides. Additionally, I've found a few nice hills just off this route if I want to do some hill training.