Max Riffner

The Parlor

My weblog work journal.  »Archives  »Links

Max Versus Old Age and Big Hills

Sunday morning, I got up early to meet the few friends at the day job who wanted to ride in the Corporate Cycling Challenge. I rode with my friends Beth and Dan, who by the way are triatheletes. My training the week previous to the event consisted of one 15 mile ride and lots of beer and pizza.

It was really over before it started.

The Chief and a few of her RAGBRAI teammates joined me. We rode downtown to the starting line and I met up with the OTC contingent near the front. This was pretty much the last I’d see of Beth and Dan (Dan especially, being that he was a former racing cyclist).

It was a beautiful morning with a slight chill in the air I’d expect in September. We started at 8AM on 8th and Farnam in downtown Omaha and rode along the Missouri all the way through town. We turned at the Mormon Bridge in North Omaha and made our way to Highway 75 out of town to Fort Calhoun. This is where the pain really started. Highway 75 is nothing but really long, large hills. The course up until now had been flat. I had been by myself for a long time now, The Chief and her friends behind me somewhere and Beth and Dan way ahead of me. I had gone slow through town to conserve my energy and thank goodness I did. The first hill killed most everyone I was around, many getting off to walk up. I can honestly say I pedalled every mile, and it was a cool feeling to be passing people as I pushed up. I’d pay for it later.

I reached the turnaround point and met up with The Chief and her crew. We fueled up, checked in, and got back on the road. The course changed on this stretch; we had to take another highway back. This new highway greeted us with the shortest and steepest hill yet that made me want to die and cry for Mommy all at once. Having Nikki and the rest of the gang there helped – I don’t think I could have done it without some friends. These guys were riding 70 plus miles everyday on RAGBRAI just a couple of weeks ago, so they were battle-hardened. I was nothing compared to the shape they were in.

Speaking of, the entire ride was amateur hour. Almost everyone on the road had no clue about rider etiquette, such as announcing you are passing, or “car up” and “car back.” There was one guy that was riding a mountain bike with nobbies and cut-off shorts that kept trying to pass me after I would pass him, like we were racing. Being that I was A. riding on slicks and B. riding a comfortable touring bike, this was really no contest. Not to mention that I was in actually road shoes and not a beat up pair of tennis shoes. I don’t know what this asshole’s problem was or why he felt he needed to “beat me.” His feet have got to be killing him today. Everyone else I knew had similar situations, including Beth getting yelled at by some guy about her announcing she was passing him on the left. Sorry for the courtesy, jackass.

We finally rolled back into town and had to go through a road I have now dubbed “The Dick Killer.” I rolled in and was greeted by Beth and Dan, who had been waiting for me for an hour and 42 minutes (ouch!).

However, whichever way you slice it, I rode a total 42 miles yesterday with little to no training. As I am quickly approaching middle age, this is probably the very last time I’ll be able to do something like this again with no lasting side effects. I was only able to do this with guts. If I listened to common sense, I wouldn’t have even tried. My new bike is amazing – I am currently in no pain whatsoever. The Jamis Aurora lived up to its reviews. My only complaint is that shifting can be something of a pain, but I think I can get that fixed.

Dehydrated to the point of pain, Beth and the rest of us went to Old Chicago for beer and sweet, sweet food (I had one beer and about 7 waters). Afterwards we rode back to the car (the pain!) and once home, I passed out for a few hours.

I can’t wait to try it again next year with some smart training under my belt!

In Dire Need of Stress Relief

It wasn’t that I worked all weekend on a massive site redesign for the day job, and it wasn’t the recent announcement about Golden Boy. No, it was definitely when my new-ish employee accidentally overwrote all of my work for said massive site redesign that I started to freak out (not on this poor guy – it wasn’t his fault at all). I felt like crying my eyes out (we’re talking about 20 hours worth of work crammed into one weekend).

Thankfully, I was able to retrieve a version from Safari’s cache, and everything was euphoric in the world. However, going from down to extreme down to elation plays hell on me. I need to unwind a bit…

Enter the newly purchased bike trainer.

Last year, I wanted to boost my cardio with cycling, but spending precious moments of my time loading the bike up, changing, gearing up, and driving to the trail was a drag. If I had nothing else going on in the evenings, sure, this wouldn’t be a problem, but working like I do every moment counts. And then the actual riding would be problematic as well – I could never set a steady cadence for any actual benefit. I’m sure getting out there and doing it was fine and all, but focused exertion is better than avoiding pedestrians, winding curves, winds, etc. I could never get into a groove.

Excercising on a trainer for a week has been amazing. All the things that would bug me about cycling outdoors has been eliminated. I can set a steady cadence of pedal strokes, and a cycling buddy at work has given me some great excercises to use that last about 40 minutes. When I get off the bike, I feel like I used to when I was running, minus the pain. Plus I’ve already lost two pounds (which is amazing because with as much work as I’m doing right now I’ve been eating like crap).

My new plan this spring is to go on one long ride during the weekends (2+ hours) and spin inside on the trainer. My weekend ride will be leisurely and not turn into heart rate obsession run.

Now, I have yoga tonight, but I think a quick run on the bike will help. The last thing I want to do with this much work on my plate is to succumb to stress and its accompanying pitfalls (depression, sickness).

A Restfully Busy Weekend

Quincy and I had the house to ourselves most of the weekend, as the Chief headed out of town to visit friends. With the snow coming in fits and spurts but never amounting to much, we puttered around the house with our tasks. Quincy did a good job eating, staring out the window, and barking occasionally at mail trucks and dogs he doesn’t like. I worked my tail off, but I’ve never felt more rested. Maybe it is from getting things in order, or maybe it didn’t feel like work.

One major task this weekend was to finally clean up the basement, which had boxes in the middle of the room which hadn’t stirred since we moved in over a year ago. I put up new shelves, and cut up a large amount of empty boxes to get recycled. It was the perfect amount of room for my new toy!

Bicycling Magazine gave this little guy a great review as a value-priced magnetic trainer. It wouldn’t be the first choice if your are a serious competitor (which is one of the reasons I don’t really like Bicycling Magazine sometimes, it seems too focused on competition), but for me, it’s wonderful. I had a great workout on the trainer already (although I was breathing like Fatty McGee). I got it from Perfomance Bike, which has loads of great equipment at damn good prices.

I also watched two movies, read three newspapers and four magazines while managing to get a mess of website work done and write my first press release. It makes me wonder how much more productive I would be if I spread out my workday like this; taking long breaks instead of cramming everything into 8 hours.

UPDATE: It is stories like this one about imperfect cyclists that I love in Bicycling Magazine, and their Biketown series is great too, lest you think I have a complete hate-on for the magazine.

You can also browse through the Parlor archives.