Ramblings #3

I’m back posting after 4 months!

I had a couple of months down due to a knee problem…just FYI…you just can’t play soccer (or futsal in my case) like you did before gaining 24 extra kgs.
I’m on a diet, I like it, and I’m already 4 down…20 more to go…at least 15 😛

I’ve been trying to get in shape (If I ever had one! hehe) since August, my last couple of weekends rides had been like this:

August, 13: 18.72 km
August, 20: 19.62 km
August, 27: 59.58 km
September, 04: 67.74 Km
September, 11: 35.37 Km (race with La Pugsdozer)

Some kms of commuting too, but I have to be honest, my 14.2 km (round trip) commuting ride is getting boring and boring every day, I keep trying to find ways to love it, but I end up just not doing it 😦 I´m thinking on adding a long ride in the middle of the week, just need to push it in.

Part of last week I spent it in Tulsa, OK on a business trip, I was able to ride a bit on my last day, not the amount I wanted though, there was a construction affecting the trail…here some pics on the Riverside Trail:

and me on the Tulsa Townies: 😛

On Sunday I’m going for another 67 kms like I did on September, 04, something like this.

If you have a cellphone with gps it doesn’t hurt to record your ride with it, specially when you don’t have a gps unit! 🙂

I´m planning an October-November of outings, a couple of overnight trips and since the office owe me a day, perhaps a 3 days mini tour on a weekend.

Stay tuned, I hope to give you posts involving a lot of this:

So far I’ve logged a bit over 2000 Kms in 2011 (here in miles), I’ll try to get as close to 3000 kms as possible in the next 3 months.

PS. I’m just not going to talk about what happen to my 2011 Project 😦

Ramblings #2

• I finished my first book last week, “Azteca” by Gary Jennings, it isn’t a new one but it was a great reading, a bit long for my first book in years, but definitely a good time invested. Next book, which i’m planning to start today, “Touch” by Colleen McCullough.
• I’ve been feeling a bit tired on weekends due to my non stop commuting year, I have a streak of 6 weeks! I think in two years of commuting my longest streak was 2 weeks, and I doubt it. Anyways, my weekend rides have not been constant this year, in fact, other than my racing rides I haven’t rode my bike on any other weekend. I hope my body start to get used to my long commuting streak soon.
• I decided to ride only the longest racing rides this year…the Marathon ones. Actually today was the first short XC race of the year, I probably end up doing one this year but now the long one are my priority.
• This racing thing is bringing ideas about a new xc bike…I need to stop thinking about it…I just can’t afford it this year.

see ya!

Ramblings #1

well, I ddin’t know what to write about so, I started to write to see if  something specific came up and end up with a bunch of thoughts… I see this could happen again.

• This friday I made my first Two (2) weeks in a row of commuting, yeap, to work and back. First time in two years of commuting!. It was a tough second week due to the low temps and rain, both at the same time of course!
• Yesterday, when the day was one of the best weather-wise, after I was changed to my gear to come home, a coworker ask me if I was going to ride, adding something in the lines of “it is crazy cold!”…my answer was: “I did it the whole week”…there wasn’t too much to say after that.  🙂
• Today, I had some fresh made Chicken Tamales…nice!  After that, I did a light maintenance to La Trurly, my commuter. After the rainy week she was a bit muddy, so, she got her brakes pads cleaned, and her chain cleaned and lubed…oh and the rear derailleur adjusted too…that was really needed.
• I also did a complete maintenance job to la Pugsdozer, she really needed, and if we add the fact that she is going to be racing tomorrow! It was a must! She even got a new decal! 😉

• The race is an endurance one (30 km) so, I left the rear Larry on reverse for a bit more traction. I think I’ll put it forward for XC races.
• The race is going to be muddy due to rain this week, in fact, the forecast says some rain is expected tomorrow. I don’t have a rear fender! I see a dark back in my future 😦 . Sometimes some sellers show up at the races right?  I may get a new rear fender. Will take some clothes to race anyways.

see ya!

Warm helmets…

…does such a thing exist? Well, I’m about to know it firsthand.

I’ve been wanting a new Helmet for a while now. My Two (2) years old Trek Vapor Helmet is all wore out, the little liner felt off like a month ago and well, it being old, is kind of depressing too. 🙂

Looking around in the web I found about Bern Helmets, I liked the look, and pretty much every user love his Bern, so las Wednesday I found a killer deal on the Bern Brentwood at huckNroll (I think they still have some), at almost half of the MSRP, including shipping!

Was a no brainer, right?, but wait… mine was going to be actually, free!… How is that? Well, if you didn’t know, I’m building a roadie and early in Dec I ordered a set of tires from an online dealer, they didn’t have them at the moment and we agreed to put them backordered, on Wednesday I wrote to know the ETA of the tires and they answer as unknown…the returned money was enough for almost two helmets! 😉

So, money wasn’t the issue, now, color and size was another story, measuring my head turned out I’m a XL on their charts, now, if you see the color options on their web site, the color selection was a no brainer too: It had to be the Matte Black Bomber with the yellow stripe.

Do you see me riding my pugs with it? Yeahhh, me too.

Well not everything was going to be perfect, when I was buying that one wasn’t on my size!, so, the next option was White, for its “visible to drivers” advantage of course.

Well, white wasn’t available either, Matte Black and Cyan Blue were. Not liking the Cyan…

The first thing that came to my mind when buying was: Will the Black Helmet boil my brain?* I did some research and found out diverse opinions on the subject, and I could find a real final consensus, so I went for it. Matte Black Bern Brentwood is on its way. Let’s see the performance on the next MTY’s 40s °C (100s °F) summer.

*Funny thing is, this wouldn’t cross my mind if the bomber would have been available that day.

Project 2011

A short new year’s note from martinsillo:

Happy New Year!

Looking back to my 2010 achievements, I realized that there weren’t too many rides or bike related things I could recall as good or memorable in my cycling sort of life.

The short Tour to Teran, a pair of rides to Rompepicos Dam, one in the Santa Catarina River after hurricane Alex’s rains and the short ride to Garcia’s desert are the ones that I can quickly identify as significant in my 2010. Too few actually.

So I want to achieve serious goals for this 2011… and here they are, explained without any specific order:

1. A perfect year as a Bike Commuter.

Well, this is the main one for 2011, actually. This year I want a flawless commuting year, day that I have to go to work, day that I’m going to be riding it. My commute is only 10.5 miles round trip, so 52.5 miles a week is not that much. It is actually very doable. This will be more a mental challenge than a physical I think, organizing everything to do it will be a tough task. One day at a time will be my way to work this out. Actual fear right know: rainy days.

2. Build my roadie and ride a Century.

The mere fact of putting together a new bike the way I want it will be a financial challenge for me actually, but once I do it, it has to include a riding goal, so this year I have to ride 100 miles on my new roadie!

3. Complete one of the two MTB racing circuits on La Pugsdozer.

In N.L., Promosport organizes two types of racing circuits each year, Cross Country MTB and Marathon MTB. The calendar this year contains seven (7) races for the first, and nine (9) for the second. I’ll ride the first races in each category and will decide on which to focus my energy and time.

4. A Mini Tour.

This year I want to do another Mini-Tour, overnighter or long weekend, I have to think about it, where and when too, but the first experience was very good, and I must repeat an experience like this.

5. Take La Pugsdozer to the beach.

This is not going to be very difficult, only takes a little planning and is going to be too much fun. There is a beach 3 to 4 hours car ride from MTY, but involves crossing the USA-MEX border.

These 5 goals for the year will kept me busy during 2011; I think they are complete in each of their categories, a perfect urban cyclist, my first century roadie ride and complete a full racing circuit of MTB competition. I won’t seek any particular goal in the MTB racing circuit; I’ll race in the beginner’s category and hopefully will see some improvements during the year.

Then I have a triplet of goals that are completely unrelated to cycling, well, one of them is, these are:

6. Read a book monthly.

Yes, 12 books per year at least. Why?… well, I must confess that at least 6 years have passed since I read my last real book. Several times I have tried but in all cases I have not managed to pass from the first chapter. In January I’ll try Gary Jennings´s Azteca, I have heard good things about it, and I hope to be a good start for this goal.

7. Drink 64 oz of water each day.

I was gifted a Nalgene 32 oz Bottle in December and I’m going to use it!. Two servings a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I barely drink water now and that is going to change this year!

8. Blog more often.

My posts here are not being very regular and that is not okay, so, I promise at least two posts per week here. I also promised two posts per week in my Spanish blog pedaleandoando.wordpress.com, so I’m actually posting 4 times a week. I will try to not double post (translated posts from one blog to the other) but it may be difficult to not do it when giving ride reports.

I think this is more than enough for 2011. Popular weight-loss goal should be added to the list, but I believe that the achievement of this will come with the fulfillment of the above goals.

2011 will be fun!

Pronto…

Soon!

😉