01 June 2009

bluebird rides outside, is bathed.

rides outside:
at a wedding, saturday night, and I got a text that a friend of mine who does adventure races [ARs = triathlon's weird cousin] bought a road bike. a beautiful road bike: [a road bike I would steal if I wasn't 5 feet tall.]



[so jealous]


he was anxious to ride her and I was anxious to ride outside [no more three hour trainer rides. The Wire or not, that was a long time to sit inside]. I put down the wine, started drinking water, and went to bed [relatively] early.

we met at a park in howard co. at 8:45 [I got lost. I know you all are shocked] and got on the road around 9 .. after taking these goofy pictures:


[me and bluebird.]






[it's hard to take pictures of tall people.]

the weather was absolutely beautiful - mid 70s and sunny. [I woke up to rain and was happy to see that it cleared up so beautifully]. the ride was beautiful too -- rolling, I'd say, with some flat stretches and some fast decents (got up to 40 mph on one!) and a few uphills. it's weird to me that there is so much farmland in an area I think of as totally suburban. we passed quite a few farms and saw horses and cows. moooooo.

oh, and I found some houses I know J would absolutely love, but gov't attorney or not, sweetie, I think 2+ million is out of our price range (for now ;)).

I took two bottles of Infinit and two bottles of water. I need to practice drinking more of the Infinit and getting down a full bottle per hour. Not such a big deal for shorter rides, but I need to get my stomach used to the calories for RI/ Diamondman and esp. IMCOZ.



the ride: 35.20 miles in 2h 11m 51s // 16.02 Mi/hr.


then J and I had a graduation party, and I needed a potty break for a 35 min drive [too much water.] -- riding with me is like riding with a toddler -- and then I inhaled as much food as I could get my grubby little hands on.


gets bathed:


apparently there are things that everyone knows about cycling that I do not know.

one is pumping your tires before each ride.

another is cleaning your bike.


I ended up taking a day off [long story] and figured I should clean Bluebird since I haven't cleaned her, um, ever, and AR friend said that I should take better care of it.


[getting ready to clean her]

[scrubbing the chain with degreaser]


[elbow grease]


[smiley]


[clean Bluebird!]



[need to clean these before court tomorrow]

14 comments:

  1. Nice ride!!! It's awesome to enjoy those outside rides after time inside on the trainer. Didn't know you were a gnome like me :)

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  2. Sweet ride!

    I know how to clean the chain, but I've never done much to the rest of the bike. It's disgusting now! So did you use degreaser everywhere?

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  3. Outside rides and a clean bike! Excellent! A tip on the Infinit--concentrate it. Depending upon the size of the bottle, I can put 2-3.5 hours worth of scoops. Then, I don't have to carry as much of it, and I don't have to drink as much volume of it--puts too much in my stomach if I do. I usually take 2-3 good sips every 20 minutes when I ride, and then wash it down with some water. I carry less weight on the bike, and I can consume more water.

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  4. Sweet ride!

    There's nothing like a clean bike, especially when you're heading to a race. Now that you know how to do it, you got to clean her before every races ;)

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  5. Great ride!! I'm glad Bluebird got to fly free for a change!

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  6. Great ride. Howard County is a great place to ride. And for God's sake--Clean the Bird!!!

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  7. No excuses Trishie. If you kept up with my blog, you would have read the post about Arnie not pumping his tires up for a month. That is back when I kept up with him (I try to give him important info like keeping air in his tires sparingly).

    So you need to read all the important sh*t I put in my blog in between the levity!!

    I see you are continuing with the Infinit. I hope it is working for you. The toughest thing is spacing it out so you get the most benefit. I am actually thinking of putting my watch on recurring alarm mode every 60 minutes or so and have a pre determined amount of Infinit to drink. The other option is to do it every 20 miles or so.

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  8. I always forget to pump my tires!

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  9. how much do you charge for your cleaning services? hehe

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  10. Happy to see the bike getting cleaned. Funny how road grit ends up on the drivetrain . . . when you actually take a road bike on the ROAD!

    You're going to appreciate the smoother shifting tomorrow on the hills.

    Oh, and I have my pump in my car at all times, so let's not forget tomorrow.

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  11. The road bike is very pretty! Sounds like you guys had a nice ride. Glad you are starting to figure out fueling. I think that is one of the hardest things.

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  12. Sweet ride there Trish! can your clean my bike for me please ;-)

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  13. Bluebird looks soooo happy!!!!

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  14. HAHAHA you look so happy on bluebird....also, bike envious.... I laughed at all the cleaning pictures...Its the same, you get a new toy and baby it for the first few weeks then it gets ridden hard and all is forgotten

    And I hear you about putting down the wine! Friday nights are our couple nights and my friend and his wife drink wine while my fiance and I do the beer route...its hard to put them down when its going down easy haha

    Great ride BTW1

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