training

There are differences between a mountain bike and a touring bike. Even though I've been riding my mountain bike in this city for five years, riding the same streets on the touring bike take slight adjustments. My shoulders move differently as I turn because of the new shape of handlebars, the weight in the panniers shifts the center of gravity and more upper body strength is needed to maneuver slight road obstacles.

My trip to Paramus had just the rear bags on, so I needed to start practicing with the front. Last Thursday, I loaded up 9 bottles of gatorade in one, the other had my 5 lb tent, some food and some other dead weight. One of my rear panniers had my 12lb bike chain in it, so I threw that on the bike too. Altogether, it was about 60lb of added weight on the bike. I took her for 3 laps of prospect park. There were a couple different groups of cyclists training together. One caught up to me on the incline and one of the guys rode next to me and said 'I know that bike. Bicycle Habitat, right?' Yeah, I replied. 'Nice bike' then he sped up again. On the second lap, I passed another training looking group, which then caught me on the hill again. Just after the hill flattens out by Grand Army Plaza I caught back up with them and passed them before the 3rd St playground. The leader looked at me and yelled back to his pack 'Come on guys, we have to go faster'.

Today was my second major weight test. In addition to the front panniers I still had loaded from a few days ago and my chain in one of the back ones, I loaded the other back pannier with a case of gatorade (what? I went to costco recently). So effectively the bike was 80lbs today. It was noticeably heavier and more sluggish starting up. I did five laps of the park and it took 1hr 18 minutes, but that includes a slow lap while i was trying to clip both feet in and another for having to stop to not answer a phone call. But that's around a 15 mph average, and to start with, I'm ok with that, though I'd like to be a little faster.

The other difference today over a couple days ago, is that today was rainy and cold and not happy outside. It's good to practice being miserable, so it's not such a shock in the mountains. I now know I need shoe covers. My feet are still cold from being so wet earlier.

More this week. Hopefully I'll get in a fully loaded ride to somewhere decently far once the weather breaks later this week.