Pedalocity

I usually confine my chattering about my rides to the distance goal threads, but I wanted to make a thread to celebrate a few personal milestones I've achieved in the last couple of days.

I started riding on June 25 of this year, and for the first couple of weeks I was killing myself to do 5 km at ~18 km/h moving average. I thought it was going to take ages to be able to build up to any double digit distance.

July 12 - My first 10 km ride / 19.6 km/h moving average

July 14 - My first 15 km ride

July 21 - My first 20+ km ride / 17.2 km/h moving average

July 30 - My first 25+ km ride / 21.7 km/h moving average, last 20 km were at 22.5 km/h (14 mph), first time using the 50t chainring on all flats + descents, first time making a complete lap of my neighborhood staying in the 50t chainring the whole way (include ascents)

August 1 - My first 30 km ride / 21.9 km/h moving average

From feeling like I was dying after 5 km to belting out 30 km in 38 days as a ~300 lb clyde who hasn't worked out regularly in several years. Feels good man.

Oh, and if anyone's interested here's what my bike has evolved into over the same period:

PhotoJoe 

Congrats on the accomplishments. Can't wait to hear about your first metric century.....then imperial century!

Can you post up some pix of your handlebars? PhotoJoanne is wanting to make some changes to her flatbars.

Thanks.

Sooner_Cycle

Congrats, That's awesome!! As a fellow 300 lb Clyde, I know how great it feels to start crushing personal milestones!!

bbeasley

Great accomplishments!
Your bike looks aggressive, is there a road bike in your future?

Pedalocity

Thanks!

Sure, I'll post a pic and then explain what I've done:



That's my current set-up. My stem is inverted and slammed, I have a set of Giant Connect AL bar ends inside my Ergon GP2 grips (which have had as much cut off their insides as I could get away with while still having room for my hand). My inboard bar ends are set with very little rise, my brake levers and shifters are rotated down such that there is clearance for my hands to be on the bar ends without touching the brake levers, and I can reach the upshift trigger on both shifters with my pinky fingers without shifting my hands from the bar ends.

I then figured out a way to wrap the bar ends with bar tape such that all the surfaces my hands touch depending on my grip on them are padded. This took a little thinking since the brake lever prevents looping under the bar in one direction, so I had to think about it a bit.

As a result of cutting away so much of my Ergons, my inside bar ends are 17.5" appart, fairly close to shoulder width apart on me, and I use them basically how people use the hoods on a road bike, except that I can shift my grip so that palm-pad and heel-pads of my hands can be supported by the padded areas on the flat bar in addition to resting on the bar ends themselves.

The practical upshot of all of this is that it makes it much more comfortable on my hands to ride longer distances, while also encouraging a more leaned-over, pelvis rotated forward position on the bike which I find much more efficient for pedaling.

Basically, when I went to go buy a bike I had no idea what kind of riding position I would end up liking, so this whole series of improvisations has come as I have learned that I prefer a fairly aggressive riding position.

Street Pedaler

Congrats and nice looking ride!

PhotoJoe 

Thanks. Gives me food for thought. I think the ergons are definitely in her future.

Bill Kapaun

Great job! It's really surprising what one can do when they put their mind to it.
July 1, 2011 the most I'd ever ridden in a day was 15 miles. Got some shorter cranks for my bad knee and started to log some painless miles. I did 50 on July 31, 2011.
July 31, 2013- I've been rehabbing my broken leg (broke the tib & fib late Oct.) and decided to do what I could do on my 2 year anniversary. 70.3 miles and I was in less distress than 2 years before.
Thank God for bananas and my inhaler!

Pedalocity

Well, I've got a few more milestones to add to the list!

Today I did my first 45km ride, my first ride with more than 290m of climbing, my first 3+ hour ride, my first ride with 2.5 hours moving time! It was a blast! I managed my energy pretty effectively and didn't start feeling out of gas until I was only 1-2km from the end of the ride. I'm really happy with this today, but I also realize I'm not ready to do this distance every time I head out there just yet!