1 July 2007

First substantial ride since my injury

South end of Skyline I got a late start, but still decided to go on a ride that wasn't a short ride like I had been doing. It was another warm, sunny day. Another great day to be outdoors. I wanted to see how long it would take to climb Hwy 9. Prior to my injury, it was taking around 2 hours from home, and about 65 minutes from Boulder Creek. This time, it took about 2 and half hours, and about 85 minutes from Boulder Creek. I think where I've lost the most are on the not-so-steep climbs.

Here are the situations that I've found I've been doing the worst:

• Starting from a stop: a minor effect on my times
• Climbing while seated: this is where I lose the most time
• Unweighting the saddle on rough roads: this causes me to take descents much more cautiously
• Unclipping my right foot: I used to put my right foot down at stops. Now I have to use my left foot, but adjusting to that wasn't difficult. However, I did unclip my right foot four times in the course of this ride, and it was painful each time, as my leg still didn't have the strength to twist my foot out of the pedal.

Note that I wasn't having much difficultly climbing while standing.

The upper part of Hwy 9 was accompanied by the sound of an almost constant barrage of distant gunshots, presumably from the Los Altos Rod and Gun Club. After getting to the top of Hwy 9, I unclipped my right foot for the first time, and stopped for a break, getting a coke at the hot dog stand. There were the usual crowds of motorcyclists, a few road cyclists, and a couple of mountain bikers. After finishing my coke, I continued south on Skyline.

At one point on the two-lane road, an oncoming white car moved into my lane to pass another car. I slowed to a crawl. The motorist ignored me and continued making the pass. The two cars were side by side as the passed me. I yelled "Don't do that" as they passed. The motorist probably didn't hear me. What a jerk.

The sound of gunfire reappeared and got louder as I passed the gun club entrance, then eventually faded in the distance.

Between Black and Bear Creek, there were a handful of cyclists headed the other way. I stopped at the end of Skyline, unclipping my right foot for the second time as a group of motorcyclists stopped briefly at the Bear Creek and Skyline intersection before heading north on Skyline. I took a picture and then continued down Bear Creek Road back to Boulder Creek.

At Boulder Creek, I stopped at the gas station, unclipping my right foot for the third time, and got a coke. After finishing the coke, I headed out on Hwy 236. It was 4:05 when I got to the bottom of Jamison Creek. There was still a skunk on the 1.33 sign. I gave it a wide berth, but still got a brief whiff. It was 4:38 when I got to the top, with the downloaded GPS track showing a time of 33:12. Last week, it took 38:15 with about 35 less miles on my legs, so that's a pretty good improvement. The time was not too far off of my pre-injury times on this climb, although still over 6 minutes slower than my best time, so I've been doing pretty well climbing while standing.

Finally, I took Empire Grade back home. There were many rough and bumpy descents, and, for the first time, I found my saddle uncomfortable. The final descent, beginning at the sign warning of 8-14% grades, was smooth, though. And, typically, there was a car a little ways behind me as I started that descent, and I left it behind on the twists of the descent. It caught up and passed me on the little climb after the bridge. By the west UCSC entrance, the road widened, and the trees thinned out, giving a view of the bay to the right. Soon, I was home and unclipped my right foot for the fourth time.

Today, I also found the SRAM rear shifter a bit annoying. About half of the time when I wanted to downshift, I'd press the lever until I was in the gear I wanted, then it would upshift when I released the lever. I think I tried holding the lever for a while, then releasing it quickly, and I don't think that helped. I think pulling the lever towards the bar while pressing it to the left might have helped, but it was hard to tell.

I also remembered that if the shift wasn't clean, I'd sometimes, without thinking, push the lever in a little to nudge the chain over a bit, and it would upshift, which was not what I wanted. The nudging of the shifters worked pretty well with Shimano shifters for cleaning up shifts. Today, though, the shifting was always pretty clean, having just been adjusted by the shop, so that didn't happen.