New training needed?

First, the renewed brakes from my city bike are great, no freezing, and the new dynamo head is working on any kind of situation.

Today I'm gonna try to speak with my cycling coach to see how my training is going. I wanna take part on a road race and gotta prepare for that.

The training plan for 2 month, that I barelly finished in a whole semester (I've been too much time out of town last semester) was simple.

- Monday and Thursday - Gym
- Tuesday and Friday - 1 hr of spinning bike of 1 hr on the street (10 min warming up, 40 min 65%-80% heart freq, 10 min cooling down).
- Wednesday and Saturday - mountain training - 1.5 hr on the mountain or on the spinning bike (20-30 min warming up, 5x5 min up mountain, with heavy gears, 40-50 rpm, 75%-85% heart freq, 3 min rest between each climb, 20-30 min cooling down)

Let's see if we'll change something!

Breaks

Bike maintenance yesterday ... you know what? Cantilever breaks sux big time!! Long life to V-Breaks!!!!

It took me 3 hours to change the cables, adjust pads and other stuff ... really a pain!!

Let's see how it works tomorrow!

Today no climbing. Recovering the injuried fingers and studying for tomorrow's German test!

There's still a lot of snow at the door :-)

Maintenance day

A sunny day that according to the Weather Channel started with -10 oC and at lunch time it was 0 oC ...

I was suppose to go skiing with some friends, but decided to stay in town to recover from my cold, I'm still coughing a lot. Also had a bunch of things to do.

Before that, on thursday, as always, we went climbing at the Sportzentrum. Don't know if I'm going tomorrow, my finger are really aching. At the end I'll probably go. Also still have a lot to do.

I wanted to go on the street to test the new toy, but there's still too much snow from wednesday, so I gotta wait a while.

Since I was not skiing I went to check some stuff on the street. Couldn't find a simple sneaker number 47/48 EU (about 13/13.5 US and 44/45 BR). Supermarket and then home. '

Put some order in the house, arrange the closet and I'll start maintenance on the city bike.

At the bike store they found a simple solution to my dynamo which doesn't work when it's wet.

Now I'll start working on the breaks. They freeze :-)) It was already like this last winter, I took to long to fix them. Also gonna change some stuff on the break system in order to make them easier to tune.

Besides all that I still have to study for the German test on monday!

Sunny sunday!

A sunny sunday in Goettingen. That means a huge temperature drop! Saturday it was raining and it was +5 oC. Sunday morning it was -5 oC, but clear sky. It means 10 oC in 12 hours ... it's a lot of changing!

I wanted to bike a bit, but found safer to stay home, where it's warm, and totally heal from the bad cold I've got.

In the afternoon we had some climbing, it was nice, but still very tired from the cold.

Next thursday we have more!

Today haven't got to gym, but I hope tomorrow I'll be able to!

Light Climbing

Yesterday (Thursday) was climbing night, as we want to do every week.

I took it very light because it was my second day and I'm recovering from a strong cold I've got.

It was fun and nice! I liked it! :-)

Sunny sunday at Goettingen

Yesterday was a sunny day! Nice! (but cold, about -3 or -4)

Got the bike and tried a short ride. It got even shorter! I got a terrible cold and it gets really difficult to cycle when you cannot breath! So, less than 10 km and I was back home again!

In the afternoon we arrange to climb, but the Sportzenntrum would be closed for "bug killing" ... so no climbing :-)

Anyway! A beautiful day!

Ski!

Today was a ski day!! It was great! Last time I did this was almost 20 years ago!

We went to the Harz mountain, about 70 km from Goettingen and spent the whole day there sking with a very nice weather! I'm still taking out of my close the snow I gathered falling down too many times hehehehehehe

It was great!!

In-door climbing season opened!

Small note, just to tell that tonight I started the climbing season.

Went with some friends to the in-door climbing wall at the Sportzentrum to the first climbing of the year. With my new climbing shoes I got for Xmas (used for the first time today) I can join them :-))

I had a lot of fun, my fingers and arms don't agree heheheheheh

History Part I

Today I did 1 hour of in-door cycling. It sucks, but since it's winter and I wanna get to the summer still in shape and not to "recover" it when it gets warmer, so ... in-door cycling with German audio lessons in order not to get bored!

2005 was a very hard year, huge lost still being digested., but I increased my physical shape (at least).

Sports is something that can be fun and I had some opportunities to see that, so I decided to write about it and how I got addicted to bikes.

When I was 8 years old I started to swim. 3 years after I joined the school team swimming 400 m at the state championship. After going to live in Spain I joined the school basketball team, not really impressive results, but it was fun. Never stopped swimming.

All that time, bikes were present, as in the life of any kid! A bike is your car, is your toy and a reason to get to your friends. Bike at the neighbourhood! I had a Bianchi road bike 1973 (see the picture for a similar bike, but not mine)! 10 speeds Shimano gears. Really a nice bike! Same model that won many editions of the Tour de France and the Giro di Italia!! Just got to know that now, by that time it was "my bike" and that's all. No competitions, only races in the street with the friends and I was not allowed to change the gears since it was the only race bike in the races hehehehehe

Unfortunatelly the time and the salt from the sea (I was leaving in the beach by that time) consumed by old bike. Wish I still had it! Would keep as a museum part!

That's part of the history, I'll continue later on!

2006 starts!

2006 starts and this blog also.

The idea here is to post the sports/fun activities or whatever else I feel like posting :-)

2005 was a very hard year, the hardest ever. In any case I managed to cycle. There was actually not much more to do besides working, cycling and hanging around with some friends.

Got to know the places around here by bike, did a small bike trip (275 km - see pictures here) and finished the year with a night bikers ride, typical from brazilian cities (thanks Christian and Cabelo).

At the end I cycled about 1000 km with the mountain bike and 1200 to 1500 with the city bike (estimate because it doesn't have a computer on it). On 2004 I cycled 2000 km with the MTB, but I had no other bike. It's not much but it's still some, specially considering that there was no mountain biking last winter (too cold).

To solve that problem I got some winter cycling clothes to this winter, since my "brazilian winter pants" are only good for autumn and spring.

Today a shy sun appeared and I found it as a great opportunity to start the winter cycling season (it was about -2 or -3 oC). Just a small ride to the Bismark Turm (as every morning on the warmer seasons). No tracks, just road (tracks alone in the winter may be really dangerous). Of course the sun went away while I was getting dressed, but I decided to go anyway, as long as it's not raining of snowing :-)

The winter clothes were good enough, even going down where the wind really freezes you!! They will pay off!

Got there in about the same time as usual, but it's incredible how tired you can get cycling on the winter! Up the hill the usual dusty road was a snowy road ... I tried to start it "it's just snow!" and of course it was not snow, it was ice! A great ice layer hehehehehe no traction at all on the tires and almost a face on the floor!!

At the end it was a bit less that 40 minutes to cycle 10 km (mean of 15.6 km/h). Not bad to restart after 6 weeks totally stopped (observation trip and trip to Brazil) and take the rust out of the legs!

Let's see when then weather will allow another run!!

This week I'll try to start the in-door climbing season with my new climbing shoes!