sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
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email: sjh@svana.org

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Tue, 28 Jun 2005

Why the song? - 18:48
I have no real idea why I continually choose a specific song when talking about equipment failures on my bikes, I do not even know if I have ever heard this song, I know nothing more of it except for the title. Heck when actually thinking about the equipment failure I usually sing Queen's "Another one bites the dust" song in my head as I have heard that song, know some lyrics and actually like the song and the artist. All I can really think in relation to the strange title choice in email or blog post I guess is, Oops I did it again.

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Nowhere to hide - 13:43
Okay so this post is about running rather than cycling, however I feel I can stick it in this category as it is all with the goal toward riding better. Over the past year I have headed out for a run, about 40 minutes, maybe once a fortnight, or less some months when I got busy. Basically not much running at all, and it always hurt so I did not get keen enough to do more.

For years now Paul Mason and others have been pointing out to me that when they run a fair amount they pretty much find themselves unable to keep much weight on. The point being that running does indeed appear to be a fantastic sport/activity for weight loss. This can probably be easily seen when you look at people like Paul, Dave Baldwin (on the right), and other friends who run a lot.

In my case I have not lost any weight in the last three years, early 2002 I lost about 8-10 kilos when I started cycling more than once a week again (by more I mean 7 to 10 times most weeks now or around 20 hours on the bike most weeks). Sure I could focus on diet and do more targeted training and I may find myself losing weight, however I worry about messing with my diet too much due to my insulin dependant diabetes, and though I may do some more targeted training soon, however a large part of why I ride my bike so much is I love doing it, I worry that if I try doing targeted training more (and thus by myself more) I may not enjoy it as much, I can but try it out though.

The idea with running of course is to lose some weight and increase my pain threshold and ability to handle a hard workout more. So I decided to increase my running from the occasional run to doing three one hour runs every week. Starting last Monday I have been doing this alright, well alright if you count being very sore all last week. Dave said the run I did last Monday and Wednesday, and again yesterday is about 9KM. The route, from work, up between the Botanic Gardens and CSIRO, up to the saddle between Black and Little Black, down around the back of Black Mountain to the lake and back into ANU. Or the reverse of that. On Friday last week I did a flat run, the Commonwealth Ave, Kings Ave two bridges loop from work, this only took me 50 minutes. Anyway the black saddle and lake shore thing took me approx an hour both times last week and again yesterday. I am however happy to report it hurt a lot less yesterday.

After finishing the run yesterday and now today, due to the complete lack of pain in my legs, and due to the fact I was not much particularly faster yesterday than Monday week ago, I can see from this or next week on I have to make myself go faster. If it is not hurting it could be argued I need to make it hurt more, otherwise what is the point of running? I have to admit, running is not a comfortable sport, for me at least. There really is no where to hide, on a bike I can coast, even climbing I can take it fairly easy. On foot there is no coasting, you have to keep running, walking really is a heck of a lot slower. I hope soon I will get to the point that I can do a run at a lower heart rate and breathing level (of course at that point I will indeed push myself more if I want a work out) so I will at least have an option of cruising to some extent. I am sure my current running pace is an easy cruise for Dave.

There is however the rather (In my opinion) relevant quote from Michael Carden to think about here too. "If god had meant for us to run we would not have been given bicycles", how true.

Anyway, I am going try this running three times/hours a week for the next few months and see if it helps me lose 8 or so kilos. If I can lose that much weight I really will be able to ride up hills a lot faster, assuming of course I can keep my riding power at a similar level.

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O Cyclists, Where Art Thou? - 12:37
There were not particularly many cyclists out on the roads this morning. Tuesday through winter I do a shorter easier loop than the Cotter/Uriarra we do in Summer on Tuesday mornings. Over to Scrivner dam, up Red Hill, to the end of Mugga Way, across Kings Ave bridge through Russell Offices and up Mt Pleasant. Because this is a fairly easy ride I start a bit earlier than the others and do a climb of Black Mountain on my way over to Scrivner.

Most Tuesday's there will be maybe 4 or 5 of us from Scrivner onwards, I will see maybe 4 other people climbing Black Mountain at 6am or there about. The CCC have a group doing Red Hill repeats with many people joining in, usually we will see another 10 or 15 cyclists doing Red Hill repeats while we do one.

This morning, there was only one other person on the loop I did, there was nary another soul on Black Mountain anywhere, and no one on Red Hill either. Also, apparently the Southside bunch hour of power ride only had about 10 people rather than the normal 20 or 30 they get through winter. I begin to wonder where all the other cyclists were today? It was perfect weather for cycling, rather warm for this time of year, the roads were all dry, good visibility (no fog or similar). Maybe everyone became too attached to their doonas last week in all the rain (though there was only one morning I did not cycle last week due to weather so who knows)

Morgs has a good excuse (a Tuesday regular) as he is in Canadia and then onto Switzerland and France for six weeks of Mountain biking and watching the Tour and stuff (yes everyone else here in Canberra is jealous as heck of the trip), I do not know what Crash's excuse is yet, he seemed ready and raring to go for this morning in email yesterday, as did Allan.

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Oops I did it again - 11:18

Both seat stays (full size)

Left Stay (full size)

Right Stay (full size) 		Maybe I should learn the lyrics to the song from this title, after all I seem to need the term fairly often. As you may notice from the photos to the left, I have broken another road frame. This time the Apollo steel frame I have been using since breaking the Lemond.

Since a wet ride with the Bilbys on Saturday two and half weeks ago my road bike had a creaking noise, I thought it may have been water induced so took out the seatpost and bottom bracket and regreased them both well. No improvement, slowly the noise has been getting worse. Finally today I thought it has to be the frame, lo and behold I was right. With my track record I guess I should have looked at the frame first.

Fortunately I have the Lemond frame back so I will be able to swap the parts onto that frame again and get this one fixed. I will not have time to do the swap over tonight as I have a dinner to attend, I guess I will be riding the steel hard tail with slicks on with the Bilbys road ride tomorrow morning, it will be interesting to see how much harder it is to keep up with the fast group.

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