The first ride of the year

Well, as I said, I won't always be cycling in Niagara. Case in point - my first ride of the year was near Little Britain, ON (north of Port Perry, onLake Scugog).

Now, I have to say, I consider myself in moderately good shape. I train in Kendo twice a week and I'm not terribly overweight. Sure, I could stand to lose 20 lbs. Okay - maybe 30 - but who's counting?

Anyway, I figured that for my first ride of the year, I'd try to stick to around 25 km in total.

That didn't happen, but there's a good reason for it: I'm bad with maps.

We were visiting my in-laws this weekend. They live on Washburn Island (which is a Peninsula) onLake Scugog. When you leave the main road North out of Whitby, there's a small restaurant called Mike's Diner (I think) at the corner. My goal was to go from Washburn Island to Mike's and back.

I figured it was around 12 km there so the return trip would net me around 24 km. The terrain is "rolling", with some pretty darn good hills to go up and down, so I figured it would be a nice workout.

My first notion that things weren't going to go as planned was when I finally got off Washburn Island and realized that I'd already gone 3 km. By the time I hit the road to Mike's, I'd already gone 8 km and it certainly wasn't another 4 km to get to Mike's. At this point, my notion about sticking to 25 km went out the window.

The biggest challenge for me was not pushing the big gears early on in the ride. I like riding in the big ring, but knowing me, I would have blown out all my strength early on and then been suffering on the ride back. Since I knew I was going to be going more than 25 km, I disciplined myself against low cadence riding and stayed in the small ring most of the time - except on downhills.

It's always fun when you crawl up a hill around 15 km / hr and then zip down the other side at 40+ just coasting.

Anyway, lots of pedalling later, I reached Mike's and checked the computer. 18.5 km one-way. However, I hadn't really pushed it, so I figured my legs would have enough to get me home.

For most of the ride, I was fine. Then at around km 29, I was accosted by two very large black dogs. Very nicely kept dogs, but running loose and interested in me. The sprint to get past them was short, but energetic and my legs felt the first really good lactic-acid burn of the year.

I managed to pedal back to the in-laws in fairly good shape, pushing myself to clear the last uphill section going at least 25 km/hr.

Overall, I went 36.96 km in 1:29:06, for an average speed of 24.8 km/hr. My maximum speed was 52.9 km/hr, and that was coasting down a long, moderately steep hill, tucked into a ball. Sometimes gravity is my friend.

The stuff I remember reading about training for distance is that in general, you will be able to ride 3 times the length of your average training ride. My average training ride will need to be around 67 km at some point. I was happy to make it 37 km today.

Larry and Charles - be warned - I'm preparing for Toronto to Tara so I hope you are too!

I'd hate to have to ride it alone . . .

More tales from the roads of Niagara in future entries. I'll probably take pictures too once I figure out how to do that safely from the saddle.

Cycle Niagara Blog

Welcome!

Mark Kawabe here. I'm blogging about cycling in Niagara. Well, sort of.

You see, I live here, so it's natural to talk about cycling in this area. However, I go out of area sometimes too, so I'll probably talk about non-Niagara cycling experiences as well.

A bit about me.

Age: 37
Gender: Name's Mark - you figure it out.
Weight: 210-ish
Cycling Experience: Lots - just none recently.

I used to cycle a lot. Used to be president of The Niagara Freewheelers Bicycle Touring Club.

I like to ride longer distances, although I haven't gotten anywhere near my bike for going on three years for anything more than a trip around the neighbourhood or to soccer practice with my kids.

That's changing this year, because a friend of mine turned 40 and I suggested we do some stupid bike trip that I did when we were both younger.

The trip: Toronto to Tara, ON (near Owen Sound). Approximately 200 km. We're planning the trip to happen sometime in August, or perhaps September when we're not too busy.

So, suddenly there's a NEED to do some cycling to get ready for this ride. It's not like you can just sit down and knock out 200 km in a day with no training. At least, not for me.

Since I'm going to be doing a lot more riding, I thought I'd blog about my training and some of the cool places I get to ride to / around / in living in Niagara.

Your comments are welcome. Enjoy!