Bike 101, baby learning steps, long way to go

Went for about 1 hour 45 minutes bike ride today. Slow and easy and Prashant was there to teach me on how to ride more efficiently.

1. On the racer bike keep your elbows relaxed and slight bent. I was riding with the elbows tight and straight. Every bump in the road use to send a shock through my shoulder. Over a long distance this can hurt.

2. Your hand should be on top of the bar for tri riding on a racer bike. Thats a more relaxed position. While racing, get to the bottom bar of your bike and in that position your more aero dynamic. This is possible for short durations and trying to over take a rider. By moving your hands to the bottom handle, you automatically lower yourself by 6 inches.

3. Left hand brakes and gears are for the front of the bike. The scott bike has Shimano gears and two front gears. One is the easy gear for climbing and the second is the hard one. What i didn't realize is that within each gears there are subtle shifts which move the bike from the lowest position in 1st gear for tough climbs to probably two other positions in the first gear. During my normal riding on flat surfaces, i should be riding on probably gear 1 in the second or third position. Not to ride on the 2nd gear as that is for racing and going downhill. In the second gear, the chain moves to the upper front ring. Clearly visible to the naked eye and you can feel the power. Probably at 30 km/h speed you need this gear.

3. Position of the thighs and knees while riding. Need to have them close to the bar and straight. I was riding incorrectly with my thighs opening up during the ride. I was riding v shaped, which is wrong.

4. Moved by riding seat up by half an inch. More aero dynamic. Also i have to buy the quick release for seat adjustment.

5. Hitting speed breakers. Don't slow down. Just raise your butt off the seat and stop pedaling when you just about hit the speed breaker. The following benefits happen. Your speed does not drop radically and your butt is safe. Makes a big difference over 50k rides.

6. Right gear for back wheel works with two finger push for a easier gear and single push for a harder gear. As i ride, i should be adjusting basically the back gears on flat surfaces and leave the front gear in a semi easy position as explained above. The Scott bike has 9 back gears with number 9 being the easiest (one close to the wheel) and then each gear becomes harder with the toughest gear being one which is the gear furtherest from the wheel.

7. Helmet has 2 straps for either side of the face. Always ensure that one strap should be behind the each ear for the correct fit. The bottom of the strap should have one or two finger gap to prevent the strap from being very tight.

8. Gear changing should happen before the change in gradient happens. This way if a climb happens, you have already moved to an easier gear and your cadence continues to remain the same with almost the same effort.

9. While climbing, move to the lowest gear within the 1st gear as the climb gets very steep.

10. Buy the cadence meter, Shimano shoes and the clip on pedals.

11. Remove the heavy lock chain while doing 50k plus. Don't add weight. Also keep cell phone in zip lock.

100 k Bike, its real tough.

27th june, 2010

Time: 4:30 am, Mumbai

My aim was to try and bike 100k and hope no rain would come. So far, i have biked only 42k in slightly over 2 hours. This is a real jump to even attempt 100k and im probably the worst biker there is.

My bike experience started in Jan 2010 when i bought a scott racer bike with the intention of doing an ironman some day. Every week, i normally bike 20k and have fun. Really thats a no go.

At 4:30 am i started biking with my Garmin strapped to my bike and 3 gels in the back seat. I estimated that the bike would take about a little over 4 hours. I must be a little mad to attempt 100k as there is no real base to do this and also my experience with bike gears is very low. Im basically a runner trying to do a tria.

The first 2 hours were okay. I went out at 24 km/h for the first hour, then 22 km/h for the second. Then my butt started hurting and slowly the pain started moving towards the quads. Fatigue was setting in fast. Beyond 3.5 hours, i was just biking on will power. It was also boring going up and down Marine Drive and Worli Sea Face in Mumbai. What set out to be a 4 hour plus bike ride landed up to be 5 hours and 9 minutes at a pace of 19.6 km/h. Not good enough. That too i was on the bike almost all the time!!! Maybe 2 to 3 minutes off it for food and when by body hurt real bad.

I have to learn how to increase my pace on the bike, stave off fatigue and hydrate better. Did not carry enough food for the ride. The primary reason is that i thought biking was easy and i would be easily be able to handle this.

Lesson learnt:

Biking is very tough and like any sport, a lot of research i have to do on how to get my speed up.

Use a gel seat cover. I can yet feel the contours of my bike seat on my butt.

How on earth can anyone bike 180k and then run 42k? Going by my first 100k bike ride, it would take me between 9 and 10 hours to do the 180k. If that is the case, then i will not make the ironman cut off of 17 hours.

Time:	05:09:27
Distance:	100.00 km
Elevation Gain:	205 m
Calories:	3,560 C

Timing

Time:	05:09:27
Moving Time:	05:05:51
Elapsed Time:	05:09:27

Avg Speed:	19.4 km/h
Avg Moving Speed:	19.6 km/h
Max Speed:	39.6 km/h

Speed

Pace

Elevation

Elevation Gain:	205 m
Elevation Loss:	213 m
Min Elevation:	-3 m
Max Elevation:	45 m

1 km Swim Trial

Swam this morning 40 laps (1km) as fast as i could. Took me 24 minutes 15 seconds. This is a bench mark to start improving your timing with more effective modes of training. Lets see how this goes.

Swimming 3.9 k, the ironman distance

Tuesday, 22nd June 2010 :

I have been swimming a mile every week which is 64 laps in a pool. On 20th April 2010 i swam 2km quite easily and did 80 laps in 61 minutes. On 18th June 2010, swam 2.5 km which is 100 laps. Did that in 69 minutes.

My next jump was to swim 3.9 km, which is the ironman distance. To do this, there is a cut off off 2 hours 20 minutes. Was i cable of making this cut off and did i have the endurance. 22 days after comrades, i attempted the swim at Willingdon club at 6 am. Not sure how my body would respond as my legs were shot out due to Comrades run on 31st May 2010. Swam easy and followed the basic nutrition of having my pre race meal at 4am and a banana just before the swim. Swam easy and every 5th lap, i went hard. The other 4 laps were easy pace. That creates a variation and helps me stay focused. The key to swimming is also use an underwater mp3 player which i swear by. Called Finnis, its awesome.

I am probably an average or below average swimmer with no formal training. I swam the 3.9k in 1 hour 49 minutes. This is 31 minutes faster than the cut off for ironman. Not bad, at least i got this part solved.

Now i need to research how to swim more efficiently and that will help bring my time down.