Tag Archive: Cycling


Inching Closer

Filed under: Uncategorized by iride4shiloh — 1 Comment
August 7, 2012

I’m in the home stretch of closing in on my goal.  This past weekend was another training ride.  Neither Saturday or Sunday went as planned mileage wise.  But Saturday was better than Sunday.

It was 86 degrees when we started @ 730 a.m.  I tagged along with the Lone Star Cyclists, but the ride leaders were a group of guys I occasionally ride with.  In a word, the ride profile was tough.  It was a cyclists trifecta for hell…lots of climbing; heat; high winds.

On top of that,  we got lost.  It’s no fun trying to find your way back, when everything is working against you.  The only thing we didn’t encounter on Saturday was rain, and we ran into it on Sunday, a thunderstorm of all things.

Someone once told me “you don’t learn about yourself during adversity, you validate who you are”.  I thought about that a lot this past weekend because there were times I wanted to stop riding, pack it up and go home.  70 miles in 100 degree weather is not dun, and I’m certain 100 miles in 100+ degrees is worst.

After spending the week on the west coast, I may have bitten off more than I needed,  but I needed to chew on that miserable wood.  I kept riding, and I rode on Sunday and today.  My legs are cursing me out, my lungs are hungover, and my mind is a little foggy.  But I’m inching closer to the end, which ultimately is the beginning.

The plan is to ride tomorrow but right now my focus is a clean meal, followed by some quality sleep, and with any luck, a good recovery.

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Cowcreek Madness

Filed under: iRide News by iride4shiloh — Leave a comment
June 26, 2012

Saturday  was another bad day for me on the bike.  The day blasted off without a hitch and I have to say, it was a great start.  I rolled out the bed at 4 a.m. with no problem what so ever, however my rumblings in the kitchen woke up the baby who wanted to hang out.  So it was me and baby girl at 4:30 in the morning eating breakfast and watching Bubble Guppies.  I got out of the house on time and began my pre-ride icing routine.

It was sooo cold in the truck I started shivering…I’m thinking “imma ride the rubber off my bike today”.  Made it to the event and because I’d pre-registered, I sat back and chilled, literally.  For about 30 minutes I sat with ice on my back, neck, and torso ate some snacks and relaxed.  I rolled up to the start line with about 10 minutes to go.  I’m enjoying the moment thinking I’ve gotta use today as a max training ride because I’ve been so sick and haven’t been able to ride, I’m behind schedule.  I was feeling good, so good I was chatting it up with folks around me , which I never do before I ride an event.  Big shout out to Cindy, the triathlete who was using the event as training for an upcoming race.  We rolled the first 10 miles or so, then I got busy.

My HHH goal calls for me to average 20 mph for 100 miles factoring in two stops.  The warm-up has to be 30 minutes and I have to be anaerobic at the 25 minute mark.  The break-down is basically 10 miles every 30 minutes (warm-up not withstanding because I’m rolling 15-17 mph for 20 min or so).  Everything was going as planned.  The wind was behaving; it was about 82 degrees at 8 a.m.  The plan was to do 55 miles and be eating by 10:30.  Everything was going as planned with my 1st stop coming at the 20 mile mark.  I came across a couple of the fellas I rode with a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning training ride and we rolled together for a while.   That was good and bad.  It was nice to have some company, but I lost a little of my intensity because they were rolling a little bit off of my pace.

We arrived at the 1st aide station and low and behold…NO WATER!  How can you not have water at an outdoor event and then offer folks watered down Gatorade.  No worries, I’m good with my bottle until the next stop, or I thought.  The pitch of the climbs started to get steeper, and the heat started to pick-up.  I kid you not, within 45 minutes the temperature hit 92 and soon after 95 with a heat index of 102.  I started worrying about blowing up and decided I needed to slow the pace a little.  My two buds rode ahead and then disaster struck for me.  I think it was at mile 40 or 42 but my back started tightening up from the climbing, then my left leg started hurting, it wasn’t cramps, but a dull ache.  Next thing I know I have a blistering headache.  I stop at an aide station for some ice and pickle juice…NO PICKLE JUICE! Wow, I re-up my bottles and roll only to start seeing spots.  I turned around and headed back to the aide station to try and figure out what was up with me.

I didn’t look good and didn’t feel good and eventually had to SAG in.  I made it back to my truck loaded up and thought everything was good, but almost blew through an intersection because of blurred vision.  I don’t quite remember how I made it to the first aide trailer, but next thing I know I’m hooked up to an IV.  The last thing I wanted to do was tell Viv that I was getting an IV since she was worried about me and my health for the past couple of weeks.  Well, I made it back to the hacienda and didn’t catch too much flak, but I did promise to go back to the Dr. this week.  We’ll see what happens.

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Suffering…

Filed under: Reflexion by iride4shiloh — Leave a comment
June 7, 2012

Suffering.  We tend to think about what defines it, what causes one to suffer.  Yes, one could be addicted to searing lungs and numbing pain or the fascination of having tormented one’s mind or the insane game of testing one’s ability to survive extreme conditions.  My interest in suffering is not how I suffer, or what causes me to suffer, but instead it’s the small gleams of wisdom derived from suffering.  Over the past couple of years, I’ve constantly been hearing the phrase “the fundamentals are good”, and although it’s become a laughable and overused phrase, it does have some real meaning. 

Everyone will experience some degree of suffering because suffering is a fundamental order to moving forward (code word for getting old).  Suffering is not pleasant, but it’s a worthy act and without it, I know I’d become stagnant, indifferent, I’d almost venture to say….frozen.  In my mind, peace can only come through understanding who you are and what you want.  You don’t get to that point by not discovering.  I’d imagine the opposite of suffering is being comfortable and the opposite of going forward would be backwards, and if you don’t refuse the status quo, then you accept it.  This is why cycling is such an amazing act of living.  You must go forward, you must deal with the seat, you can’t escape the elements (okay, you can, but you get the point). 

 After being in the NICU for a couple of months, I began to take notice of how the place operated like an orchestra, and eventually concluded that the place was a grand opera.  The machines beep in a rhythm, people move with a sense of character, there’s drama, comedy, and the occasional flub.  There is no one who is without a role.  Sounds like being out on a group ride…and although suffering in the NICU is quite different from suffering on a bike, the opportunity is the same.  It’s the opportunity to learn something about yourself.  I think one disconnect non-cyclist have about cyclist is that we randomly select some stretch of road to become a nuisance to cars and trucks. 

 The reality is that every cyclist is out there searching…searching for clarity, looking for humility, praying for calmness.  Becoming fit is a byproduct of searching, but the bottom line is that we are choosing to suffer.  The NICU was a strange, weird place, not too dissimilar from the lifestyle of an avid, rabid, cyclist.  We suffer, we search, we discover, we learn.  Sounds too simple to be effective, but for me, simple is a good, great thing.

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Close Call

Filed under: iRide News by iride4shiloh — 1 Comment
June 6, 2012

One of my harebrain goals this year is to go from a bicycle rider to a cyclist.  Sounds odd, but it took me a while to kind of figure out the difference between the two.  Now, what’s less extreme, but significantly more difficult is the difference between being a recreational cyclist and competitive cyclist, but I’ll leave that madness for another day.  It’s through this transformation that I discovered that riding with a group is a very safe way to get back to your loved ones.  It’s hard to find the right group, but when it comes to getting home in one piece, there’s safety in numbers.

 This fact was hammered home this past weekend.  I joined the fellas and headed out to ride 50 miles of hills last Saturday.  The weather was great…the start time sucked, but the gentle breeze, clear skies, and quietness in the air was magical.  Well, we started out and after cussing all the way up the first hill, we settled into a nice little pace.  2 of the guys I’d never ridden with before and wondered early on if they were from the egotistical cycling DNA or the righteous cool cycling DNA.  You see, cyclists are a breed all to their own, there are the hipsters, the trendsetters, the classic rider, superficial, egotistical masher, and of course my bike cost more than yours group.  Again, another topic that needs it’s own headline.  I’m happy to report that they were very cool, easy to chat with, but also interested in riding hard.

 So, we did the 1st half of the ride with no problem.  Stopped at a gas station to refuel and then hit the road again.  Less than 2 miles after the stop, 1 of the regular riders has a flat, which normally is not a big thing.  But you’d rather have a front flat instead of rear and of course this was a rear tire.  6 grown men, a collection of at least $10,000.00 in bicycles and gear, and it takes 30 minutes to change the tire, somewhere, Hank Hill was laughing at us. 

Now we are rolling coming back and we run into some local, locals on bikes…they were giving us the 1..2.. about ways to get back faster, which roads loop versus the ones that are a dead-end, etc, etc.  Ok, this is the meat of the post so it’s time to pay attention.  We stop at a T intersection…we have the stop sign and traffic flows free left to right.  Our 6 riders, plus the 2 local, locals and we have a nice size group, a group that can easily be seen one would think. 

 Now picture this.  A large blue monster truck at least 20 ft high, laying rubber down on the road.  He’s making a right turn, exactly where we are stopped.  I’m on the outside with one rider to my right, 2 riders behind me with everyone else ahead of me.  The 2 local, locals see the monster truck is turning and they make a right hand turn waving good by; 1 of our guys then pedals to make a left turn assuming the MFMT will slow down….but NOOOOO! The idiot in the truck doesn’t and comes within inches of taking off my left leg.  No, I’m not embellishing here.  I literally had to lean 6″ to the right to get out of the way…I couldn’t move my bike because of the bikes next to me and ANY rational goat sniffer would recognize they needed to slow down.  I’m not one to get startled or panic and the fellas gave me a little grief about my leaning right move, but they all recognized that the dear hunter failed to drive with caution.  Me personally, I really think dude was trying to get as close to me as he could to send some dumb, stupid message that cyclist aren’t welcomed on the back roads of Maypearl Texas.  I’m happy I was riding in a group, otherwise, there might’ve been a hit and run!

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Trying to keep it together

Filed under: Reflexion by iride4shiloh — Leave a comment
May 4, 2012

Another day….another day!  Trying to get back into the rhythm of riding has taken more than a few days.  I really thought I was ready for March for Babies, but as it turns out, I wasn’t.  I decided to take some time off from riding my bike, thinking that it would give me an opportunity to chi-lax, cool the engines, etc, etc….  Truth of the matter, I was hoping a day would turn into a week, a week a month and BOOM! winter is here and all of my grand ideas would go by the wayside, eaten by a small village of termites. 

I had some very good excuses…my bike sucks, can’t get enough calories, I got too many calories, I’m tired, I haven’t eaten, I just ate…yes, awful…but, everything was meant to simply stay off the bike.  My attitude was really blown for a few days.  Some of my insanity comes from doubt.  The training rides have been going slow, and quite honestly, I’m tired of being dropped.  A buddy has suggested my bike is too heavy, someone else said it’s probably because I’m too heavy, and another opinion chimed in that the engine (me) needs a tune-up (code for higher level of fitness).  The real reason is probably squeezed somewhere in between.  But true to being on a stay-cation, I didn’t think about any of these things while sitting on my backside sipping lemonade and chi-laxing.  I tried not to think, again, hoping that everything would drift away.

I was like this for a week.  No training, eating crap, and lounging.  Even before my self-imposed break, I was struggling to move everything forward.  What’s everything…training, fund-raising, and writing.  In my world of thinking…I need to be on my bike 4 days a week, I’ve been mustering 2-3 days; I need to get flyers on cars or in hands every weekend, I made it out 2 weekends in April, I need to write daily, I’m penning something every 3 days or so.  I didn’t think about any of this while on my mini-sabbatical.  I try to stay away from patting myself on the head and saying ”it’ll be alright”, but I did begin to think “what’s the point, I’ll never get more people to care”.  How do you convince 1 person to tell another, and another…. 

I know I was ready to give up and stop trying.  Accept failure and ride my bike when I had time, eat clean, but not too clean, relax and spend more time with the family.  I was ready to take this step until I watched this E60 special on ESPN that featured Seun Adebiyi, a young man who wanted to represent his country in the Olympics.  After failing to make it in his primary sport, he decided to try his hand at Skeleton.  He was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer before he could compete.  Dude went through a lot, so much that he thought he would die.  The story ended without tears, which is good, but the thing that resonated with me was his take on why he was trying to make it to the Olympics.  A big part of it was pride for country, but the other part…significant part, was that it was important to him.  He went through several surgeries and chemo just to have the opportunity.  That night, I pulled out my bike, set it up on the trainer and got back to work. 

I made a promise to Shiloh and I’m certain he’s not concerned with meeting a fund-raising goal, time-limit goal, or any other goal.  I’m hoping that he would expect his father to keep his promise and simply ride for him.  Everyday ends in failure or success, but you can’t have one without the other.  The only think you can control is your effort.  Negative  or positive, it’s the effort that produces the result.  I have this saying….”you have to move your B.S. to the side to get to where you’re going”.  Timely quote to remember.

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Training Ride a21

Filed under: iRide News by iride4shiloh — 1 Comment
April 19, 2012

Another Tuesday, another ratchet training ride and the obligatory drop.  I gotta say it was not bad, I didn’t expect the wind and if you can see the flags in the pic, you can see why I tried to ignore it.    Why does the ride always start off with a headwind, yeah, the tailwind coming back is nice, but it really does not make up for the beating when going out.  I hear ya’, this is boring…but I don’t think training for anything is like having a ringside seat at a Tyson fight.  Yes, there’s a reason I bring up Tyson…more to come.

It was a nice size group, but not as large as last week.  I believe most of the guys were racing, but the guys who showed up, should-be somewhere racing.  Everything was cool until “Art”, decided to cut through the wind and pump up the pace.  The legs felt good, but the mind was wavering, thinking about the wind.  When they hit 30, I decided to cool the engines and wait for a better day to redline.

There was a lot of traffic and a guy new to the route asked me why we would have a training ride on such a busy road.  This was the first time I’ve encountered a lot of traffic, that may be the reason the pace jumped up so high, but the traffic made for some dangerous moments.  I’ve been asked a couple of times about this street…Texas Plume.

It’s the giant killer and mouse kicker.  But I had to do some bike gymnastics to simply make it to the stop sign.  As I was traveling toward the climb, there was a truck behind me.  This is not uncommon in North Texas, but he was a little too close for comfort.  Construction is being done on the lead up street and one side is blocked off, but there’s a traffic shift (think two trains changing tracks) with no traffic going on to the construction lanes.  So, this guy attempts to buzz me as we approach the lane switch…I guess he was hell-bent on getting in front of the bike rider.  Noticing this, I decide to go straight, which would take me on to the part of the road being constructed.  They are basically finished so it was safe to roll on it.  But as I went through the barricades, my front tire rolled into a crack on the road and the bike was about to go down.  The good thing is that I didn’t panic, the better thing is that reacted well by shifting my weight and bringing the bike right side up.  Close call and afterward all I could think of was “down goes Tyson, down goes Tyson!!!!” and I did not want to be that guy.

I had to take a pic from the top of Texas Plume, because 1) it’s a great view; but more importantly, it really represents a nice milestone for me.    It’s a little shaky, but the fellas were rolling past me kind of looking like, dude is seriously sight-seeing….doesn’t he know “we’s training”.   So I started my roll to the WALL.   It was uneventful except for the traffic…it was hell-a-traffic on the road.  I made decent time getting back to JPL and the rest is history.  It was a nice roll, but I’ve gotta hit the early parts of the route harder and figure out how I can get there earlier to warm-up before the roll out.

I think Shiloh was tired also, at least I think he told me that.  Or maybe I simply needed to see his name to know, hey…keep pushing, because my little man put up a hell of fight and he is my hero.  I don’t know what I was thinking when this last pic was taken, I kinda remember talking to someone about not wanting bonk and wishing my legs would move to get in the truck.  Another hard ride, another day closer to being closer.

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Pledge Report 3

Filed under: iRide Miles, Uncategorized by iride4shiloh — 2 Comments
April 11, 2012

It’s truly a humbling experience to receive the number of miles people pledge.  I know the effort it takes to jump on your bike and roll down the road.  To have those miles pledged toward our goal to raise awareness to the Infant Mortality Rate is not taken lightly.  For this past week we had a total of 480.78 miles in pledges.  Some of the miles came via walking, road, mountain, and carriage.  It’s an amazing number…thanks to everyone who contributed.

Mr. & Mrs. Jim Binion - 248 miles

Darryl - 22 miles 

Sheila Wilson – 83 miles

Maggie – 20 miles

David Bender – 47.28 miles

Momma V – 10 miles

Baby Sis (Rockie) – .5 miles

Me & Shiloh – 50 miles

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Grub and Gab

Filed under: FOOD by iride4shiloh — Leave a comment
April 10, 2012

Grabbed some great grub at Dallas Bicycle Cafe while chatting it up with some great guys from the Mirage Cycling Team!  If you get out to White Rock Lake you know about this spot, if you don’t….what are you waiting for??

 g

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Training Ride 31

Filed under: iRide News, Uncategorized by iride4shiloh — 1 Comment
March 29, 2012

I’m 2 days late posting info from my 1st official training ride (it’s taken that long to recover).  This past Tuesday I had a chance to roll out with some REALLY STRONG riders…big shout out to James “nzone” Jones for the invite.

The laughther and overall lightness if the group lasted about 1/2 a mile when a CAT 1 dude decided to spike the tempo.  He was followed by some CAT 3′s and soon the entire group.  I was dropped, but James hung at the back with me and showed me the route.

We rolled from Joe Pool Lake toward Texas Plum and then the WALL.  The beast in Tyler can’t touch the hemline of the wall.  I suffered tremendously on all of the climbing and cramps took me off the bike 1/2 way up the wall.

James stayed with me the entire ride giving up his training ride to help me and Shiloh.  We finally head back to JPL and a couple miles out we catch up with a guy from the group.  They ask if I’m good…I say yeah, then BOOM! they’re off in the wind.  I make it back and take inventory of myself before driving home…thighs full & burning, snot & blood on jersey, cramps, and disillusional gazing.

It’s dark, I’m tired, but I’m thinking I can’t wait to come back.  1st official training ride…1 step away from failure, 1 step closer to success!  

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Unofficial 1st Ride Report

Filed under: iRide News by iride4shiloh — Leave a comment
March 26, 2012

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I made my way to the great lil city of Bullard Tx on yesterday to take part in this years version of Beauty and tje Beast.  It was an incredible day to ride.  An hour before rolling out the temperature was a smooth 62, there was no wind and the number of participants didn’t seem to overwhelm the organizers.

I rolled out with two great veteran riders (Jay & Mike) and we had our own thing going for the entire 53 miles.  If you ride you know theres some light talk, deep talk, quiet miles, and some cuss’n and spit’n.  The constant rollers didresched get under my skin but the “fellas” kept the ride rolling by talking up the beast.

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This was the type of ride you wish you could experience every Saturday.  Did I say the weather was incredible.  We didn’t come upon any crashes and we were far enough in the front to enjoy the police escort given to the “racers”.  We got finished and chilled.

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B&B was a good tune-up for the upcoming months of heavy riding.  Oh, the beast was a “12 word” challenge and it’s NOT funny having a sign on the climb before it saying “this ain’t it’, thanks for the East Texas humor…lol.  I would’ve taken a picture but I was too busy sucking wind. A brief recap: I hit the base of the beast rolling about 26 mph.  A quarter of the wa up I’m trying to hold onto gears, but I’m dropping my mph, 19,16,12. 1/2 way up I’m at 8 mph w/legs screaming, back aching when doubt begins to set in.  Now, I’m at 6 mph, and close to the top…I try to stand up and the body says S.Y.A.D. 

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I’m cooked and ready to unclip when I see this guy about my size walking with one shoe in his hand and head hung low.  I did not want to be that guy.  Right about then here comes Mike fly’n up the beast out of the saddle. It’s too early in the year for doubt…So I kick it into overdrive and crest the beast with dignity in hand.

I didn’t have fun, but it was a hell’uv a good time!!!

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