Bikes and Coffee

Renewing the MTB

2009-06-28T23:59:00.004+02:00

Oh my god! It's been two years!!! (though the post will be dated retroactively, for completeness sake, today is July 17th, 2011).

That day (June 28th, 2009) I finished to "re-do" my mountain bike. I actually started to write a post about it back then that I never finished (shame on me :-) ), but sure I'm gonna use most of it here hehehehehe.

This bike has a long story. I bought it in January 2004, right after I came back to cycling, basically it is mostly its fault :-)

I had bought a simpler bike before, just to see "how it would be" and after 2 months I changed it to this one.

The frame was the only 20" frame I could find in town, for an affordable price. A Caloi Elite 27, made in Brazil. It was on this friend's store and he had also a simple long course front suspension and a full group and parts to it, all in an affordable price.

Great! I had a reasonable bike and managed to evolve quite quickly with it.

Soon I've got a better front suspension. A Pro Shock 100mm. Simple, with elastomers, made in the city (only suspension's factory in the country, that I know).

Changed the front derailleur for a STX RC, perfect gear, never fails.

At the end of 2004 I brought the bike to Germany and it has served very well since then, but there was no further big maintenance.

So! After a long time I decided to renew my MTB. More the 3000 km and the same transmission and almost 2000 km from the last revision (since the total cleaning before packing it for the big flight)!

Chain was waaaay gone, the middle crank (32T) was gone and the cassette I was not sure, but at the end it was really gone, though I tried to save it.

Thought about changing the whole transmission, upgrading it to a 9-speeds, but that would imply a full crank set change and also a back wheel, that would make me change the front one also ... the price of doing that would be more than we paid for Fernanda's new 9-speeds bike (ok, no Mavic wheels, but they do the trick). So, just changing what needs to be changed.

Also new tires, for MTB not semi-MTB tires, since the use now is MTB and no longer MTB/road/city.

It took me a couple of months to do the whole thing, changing parts, disassembling the whole bike and reassembling it. A professional does it in an afternoon :-))

First wheels, the back one had 2 or 3 cracked nipples, that required a professional to do the job and also I don't really like to true wheels, it takes too much time to leave them the way I like. So a professional was a great time-result-price relation.

Anti-flat band, new tubes and new tires.

Hubs needed servicing. I hate finding the right point for cone bearings hehehehehehe but I managed. Careful cleaning, nothing lost. The tracks are a bit worn but they will survive until the rim gets too old and I need a new wheel set anyway.

Freehub serviced, as much as possible, Shimano freehubs are not meant for servicing. It's clean and working, but now bearings cleaning and greasing.

Chain gone, crank set out, derailleurs and breaks out. Didn't touch levers and shifters (too much work to find the right position afterwards). Drive train was left alone, I was not feeling any problem there. Also the bottom bracket was left alone.

Washed the frame, cleaned all the parts (derailleurs and breaks), lubricated, placed back with new break shoes . Derailleur pulleys also needed replacement, got a pair with sealed bearings, and middle crank replaced also. Crank set back, chain ... pedals needed servicing also.

Yep, not trivial, also not really meant for servicing. I like my Wellgo WAM-M919 pedals, so I tried to save them. Not easy to have a cone bearing with a locking nut where you can place wrenches to lock them ... after some trials, some that locked my pedal and left the other side loose, I guess I managed using a small plier and a clamp and a bit of glue.

Pedals back, new cables for everyone, tuning, all accessories back and ready.

First ride showed cassette really needed replacement, some gears where jumping, and pedals were as I said before (that was before the glue, I guess I tried it a couple of times before the desperate measure). More servicing and back to the road with new cassette. 15 km ride, left pedal still locking, and gears and breaks need fine tuning due to cable stretching.

After the trial I also got the courage and tools to open and revise the suspension. Nothing major, just grease and chance some elastomers and it was fine. It was never an amazing suspension, but it was always good enough and reliable.

After the bike was revised and tuned we went on vacations, a nice trip to cycle with my family in south France and north Spain.

The trip was great and revising the bike was a lot of fun!!

I miss the basement of my old apartment!!!

Garmin Training Center and EDGE 705

2009-06-21T13:53:00.005+02:00

GPS is pretty cool for cycling. It tells you the grades of your usual climbs, all the information about your ride (speed, cadence, where have you been) and allows you to collect this information in a organized fashion and compare rides.

Garmin EDGE 705 has a barometer inside, so it should get altitude information from it and from satellites (minimum of 3) and check that. I don't know what happens, but every time I go out for a ride I leave home in a "different altitude". So its the only instrument which you go for a round trip and come back to the same place, but some floors higher or lower than you left hehehehehehe You can see that in the figure below :-)) Usually the altitude of arrival is the same, so I assume it's the right one :-)))

Hint for Garmin users.

Garmin Training center, is up to now a nice tool to use. The info is that it doesn't work properly in other languages than English (at least not in portuguese - I tried).

It gives no information about cadence, so you have to install the version in english, what is not trivial since the installer finds out your computer's language and do it automatically.

I wrote Garmin about it and they gave me the information below, which I couldn't find in their website before (they promised me they would put it there now, but I didn't check).

Follows their e-mail:

This is a known issue with non-English language versions of Training
Center. This is currently being worked on by our software engineers, and
I apologise for any inconvenience caused, but in the mean time you can
run the software in English to solve this problem. To do this, please
follow the instructions below:

Please locate the following file:

C:\Garmin\TrainingCenterPTB.dll (you can find this via My Computer)

Click on this file and press Delete on the keyboard. When you next run
Training Center it should run in English and may work correctly. As I
mentioned, we are looking for a more permanent solution to this and will
let you know as soon as we have one.

More than one year after :-)

2009-06-21T12:19:00.007+02:00

I'm back here, not abandoned, but left resting this blog. Now I'll try to be here more often!

The last year was not exactly a good year in terms of training and sports in general. It was a very complicated year. As I said on the last post, last year, a baby at home and working 600 km away from home is not exactly an easy task.

Matheus, my son, is a great kid, the kind of kid that makes you feel how lucky you are! Since every he sleeps the whole night, except for some phases where he starts to wake up in the middle of the night or doesn't want to sleep, even though he can barely stand and so on ... none of those phases lasted longer than a couple of weeks.

Working in Munich and living in Göttingen was very complicated, despite having an easy kid at home and a good boss that didn't care if I only show up one each two weeks.

About sports, well, I didn't race the Tour d'Energie, as I told before and also didn't race the "innerstadt race" (a urban 800m circuit race, criterium like). Training was a difficult thing also due to this time sharing family/work. The week I was in Munich, Fernanda had to stay alone with Matheus and I tried to rest and be as efficient as possible at work and in the following week, I tried to take as much care of Matheus as possible, so that Fernanda could rest and work, so that training got as a secondary thing. Other sports like running, climbing and skating got 100% left behind.

To try to cycle as much as possible I took my race bike to Munich and bought a new one to leave in Göttingen. So not having a bike wasn't an excuse anywhere!

This time I tried to be more "professional" on the bike. So no triple dish, a double compact 50/34 dish with a 11-27 in the back to compensate not having a 30 in the front. No need to compensate the missing 52 in the front since I'm not "that fast" :-))) Light aluminum frame (carbon is still too expensive and too much for my poor legs), Shimano Ultegra 10-speed, to be more up to date and to have better results, not that the previous 105 were bad.

A Trek 1.9 with Bontrager wheels. Cool bike!

(see the photo!)

The Munich region is flat ... flat flat flat ... you can see the Alps, but you need a train to get there (or a car) and the only altitude changes around is passing above or below the "Autobahns" (german motorways), so speed would be the focus there, and in Göttingen trying to do a bit more non-flat training ... Germany is a flat country.

Within working late and taking Matheus to the babysitter and the LOUSY summer of 2008 and some injuries, mostly caused by the lack of sport and a kid getting heavier everyday you can imagine how efficient training was ...

One thing I tried a couple of times was taking Matheus to the babysitter and go straight to the road, or come from the road already to pick him up, as you can see below ...

I did what I could :-)

Then it gets colder and you still don't have time or the oportunity to train indoor ... since it's impossible to do it with Matheus awake, actually it's dangerous since he wants to touch everything!

Also I had some contract problems (basically the funding agency decided not to renew it, since ESO, the institute that was hosting me is suppose to have a lot of money, so they don't have to pay another post-doc there and then they put lame scientific excuses to justify it ... ) so we decided to try a permanent position in Brazil, good chance, positions in the same university (yeah, living in the same city!!!), months of preparation for the examination (yes, we have examinations for professor positions in Brazil - written, didactics ...), that represent no training AT ALL. Well, the exams didn't go so well, I'm happy a good and dear friend's got the position.

This year I didn't race the Tour d'Energie, again, no training (same reason as last year) and we came back from Brazil two days before it ... I took some nice pictures of the arrival, I'll make a post about it soon ...

Then I decided to start my season, doing basis in MAY!! Now I'm still trying it, but my back injury is back ... and I'm still fighting with the bike sit. Got a San Marco SKN Pro Titanium, with leather cover ... too hard ... too professional for me :-) Then I've got a Selle Italia Flite Gel Flow ... a bit better, still getting used to it :-)

I'm back to gym also!!

We went to Italy to see (among other things) the arrival of the 13th stage of the Giro d'Italia! It was VERY COOL!!!! I'll post about it with pictures later on ...

To make life funnier and freakier I've got myself a bike GPS! A Garmin Edge 705! It's very funny!!!

But the year was not a total waste on sports! Since the end of 2007 I'm writing a column in a brazilian cycling website, from the VO2Max Magazine. The column is in portuguese, and it can be found at the "Prologo" website.

This year the column also started to appear on the printed magazine, pretty cool! :-))

I'll try to translate/adapt some of the material and post it here sometimes!

Also we started a podcast about cycling (also in portuguese) the "Radio Corsa". Also pretty cool and funny!! In this podcast we basically talk about anything and everything we think is nice on cycling ... it's starting, but it will go on!

Also renewed my MTB!! That's also for another post!

Finally!

2008-04-28T10:31:00.002+02:00

Finally weather and my time conspired and I was able, yesterday, to ride on the road for the first time this year.

Due to personal reasons, like a new born at home and new job 600 km away from home, training is being a difficult thing, lately. Even in the rolling trainer is being difficult. Anyway, I hope I can get back on track now.

Yesterday also was the Tour d'Energy, that I didn't race this year, since I was not training for it (should have started in January, not yesterday hehehehe). A friend asked me "why don't you go, just for the fun" (as if I was competing for the first place last year hehehehe) and the reply was "2 category 3 climbs are not funny if you're not in a minimum physical shape, they are suffering" :-)

Today is sunny also, let's see if I can go out at the end of the day.

Year summary post?? hehehehehe

2007-12-03T15:16:00.000+01:00

Long time without posting here ... almost the whole year!!! :-)))

A lot has happened in those months!!! I'll try to update it now!!

About sports: Just making a "previously in Bikes'n'Coffee"

The winter was quite mild and I managed to be quite regular in the in-door training, despite the constant colds. Didn't managed to ski (no snow at all) and the climbing was quite left to the side (too many options and a new "way of life").

End of April I took part at the III Tour d'Energy, got a much better result than last year, finished in 3:02:24, more that 20 minutes faster than last year and with a much better race itself. Technically better, managed to get more wheels and to lead more people on my wheels, actually at the last 10 km a group gathered and we rode in a group on a very nice way! Also didn't suffered so much on the climbs (there are two class 3 mountains), was going much better than the people around me, but gotta learn how to downhill faster. It was interesting the ride along two other guys. Before the first mountain we were riding together, when the climb started I left them behind, going down they passed me. Then we met again before the second climb, same thing, left them behind going up, they left me behind going down ...

The weather was great. Last year I was wearing winter clothes, this year I was with shorts and T-Shirt. It was really summer on spring. Of course the weather changed and we really feel like summer happened that month and then it all felt like fall was already upon us in May.

The result of the race was great and I had a lot of fun. Considering also that I twisted my ankle 4 days before the race, but it was OK by the weekend.

After that got another cold took me out of training and the lousy weather was keeping me home, to that the summer was quite bad for out-door sports. I'm very reluctant to get a road bike on a rainy day and don't like to mountain bike alone. Both are quite dangerous situations to be alone in case of accident and the lack of a cycling partner is a major issue ...

Going on with the road cycling, until September the trainings happened in the possible time, when weather and "life" allowed. The major point of the year, that also prevented part of the training part is that I'm gonna be father at the end of January, so that the pregnancy requires more attention and care, even though I'd blame it all on the weather. In September things got a bit more complicated when we moved to a new flat, traveled to Brazil for a month and in the rest of the time I couldn't find a good weather day that I didn't had something else to do related to Matheus arrival or to the new flat :-)))

Also the city criterium, that I took part last year, happened exactly the day I was moving to the new flat, so that moving in the morning and racing in the afternoon wouldn't be a very good combination hehehehehe

Also the city criterium, that I took part last year, happened exactly the day I was moving to the new flat, so that moving in the morning and racing in the afternoon wouldn't be a very good combination hehehehehe

Managed last weekend to go for about one our on the road in a sunny but cold morning. I'd be disappointed with my performance if I was not "used" to the decrease you get after 3 months stopped heheheheNow is time to get convinced that is too cold for the road, put the old back time and do in-door training.

Still on road cycling, in the trip back to Brazil I was visiting a friend that works on a cycling magazine and was invited to do an on-line column (at www.prologo.com.br) every 15 days on my impressions on cycling. The first issue, a review of cycling in 2007, written in 3 parts, was on-line the November, 15th. The second part should be about to show up. That will be a cool thing to do!

"Impressões sobre Ciclismo"

Mounting bike was even worst that road this year :-)) Got the bike a couple of times to train and one very nice day I went with 3 friends to a ride in the mountains. That was cool. More MTB can happen this year yet, if I can convince any of those friends to ride before it snows.Barely no in-line skating due to the constant wet floor and to my constant lack of time!!

About climbing. I enjoyed doing bouldering, we had a pretty nice group that was meeting twice a week, at night, in the winter, then on summer it got a bit more loose. Than last year they closed our free bouldering place and opened a paid vertical climbing + bouldering. Of course the vertical called all our attention. Equipment, curses and fun last fall and part of the winter. But then, of course, the individual aptitudes to the sport showed up and the "levels spread".

On the bouldering that has no influence, but on vertical it means changing routes across the hall and since you need a second person to do your security, and the hall is usually full, routes moving can mean a lot of boring waiting. If you have a pair that wants to climb the same route, great because you get this route and alternate the two as much as you can. If to every climb you have to go back and forth in the hall, that's very boring.

Considering that I'm quite big and my "main sport" is cycling, so that most of my training time was being dedicated to that, everyone can imagine what happened, I stayed behind. That makes even more difficult to come back. Not that my friends refuse to climb with me, they are more than glad of doing it, but as I said it get boring for everyone :-)) Eventually I'll find someone to restart with, lets see.

Finally about skiing. Even though I couldn't use the equipment I've got last year due to the lack of snow. This year will be even more complicated. Before Matheus is borne, difficult because I better be around, aware that he can come any time. After he's borne Fernanda will need a lot of assistance, and I'll be there for both of them :-))

So that's the year summary for a pretty sport poor year, but that started very strong!!!

2007 already started!

2007-03-22T21:50:00.000+01:00

A bit out of time to comment the begining of the year, a out of the normal year!

There was no snow during the winter!! Yep, that means there was no skiing also :-((( I really wanted to ski this year ...

That also means that the outdoor training started early ... yep, that's also true! Last year I got the bike on the road about mid march, this year ... about mid february and already warmer than last year!

Indoor training was a bit better this year, it was at home with my roller-trainer. Than I've got two strong colds to mess it all up, OF COURSE! :-)))

The last one, I'm still recovering from that ... 2 weeks knocked out ... 2 weeks without any kind of sports! I'll try to come back tomorrow, in a light fashion.

Tomorrow's come back will have to be indoor, since today it started to snow!! YEP! SNOW!! When the spring arrive and you start getting in the summer (warmer weather) mood and is already over the "I couldn't ski this year crisis" the snow arrives!!!! :-)))

Let's see how it get's to the weekend. If there's snow in the mountains around here ... LET'S SKI!!!! :-))))

I'll be racing April the 29th, at our traditional 80km race. So, training is focused on that! After that, I'll get back to climbing and skating too (just got climbing once this year!).

So, let's 2007 start!!!!!!

Cycling in 2006

2006-12-29T21:07:00.000+01:00

Cycling in 2006!

This was an important year for road cycling, didn't follow much the MTB, it also marked a different year in my personal cycling, more pointed towards road than MTB. Not that I changed my preferences, I like them both, but I got a road bike this year so it tasted more like "new toy" kind of stuff :-)

Back to the professionals!

First year without Lance, even though he was only racing the tour and the preparatory races to it, it was weird not seeing him there.

The "Operacion Puerto" shacked the whole scenario of road with a doping scandal and preventively suspending one day before the beginning of the tour: Jan Ulrich on his "promised year", the first without Lance Armstrong, Ivan Basso, who after winning the Giro in a very brave fashion, was one of the favorites and the whole Team Astana (previously Liberty Seguros - Wurth).

After this whole mess, Landys wins the tour and is accused of doping in his phoenix style rebirth at the 17th stage, after the terrible stage where he lost time enough to all the specialists to say his tour was over. Now he's defending himself also based on some mistakes the tour organizers and the UCI made during his prosecution.

The black mark on all this is that only the riders are being punished, actually "pre-punished", since the investigation still didn't prove anything against anyone.

The riders supposably involved in the "Operacion Puerto" are all suspended, even though most of them were already cleared by their own federations. That is the case of Basso, who signed with Discovery Channel and the other ProTour teams are trying to prevent him from racing, even threatening to exclude the DSC from the ProTour.

On the other hand, Manolo Saiz, who's in the very heart of the whole scandal got back his ProTour license and is puttinga new team there. So, riders get pre-punished, directors keep their privileges and do whatever they wanna do, making clear who runs the whole thing.

In my personal opinion, while the directors and physicians don't get punished, only riders, the doping problems will always be an issue. Not that the riders are not guilty, but not the only ones.

Bright side of the year.

Victory of Basso in the tour, the amazing duel between Vinokurov and Valverde in the Vuelta and the great year of Paolo Bettini.

Never been a fan of Bettini, but this year I became. Always had a bad impression of his behaviour, too conceded for my taste, but all I saw this year was "good behaviour", with the fans,with the press, with the other riders. He's got the sprinter jersey (maglia ciclamino - my favorite) in the Giro, got the World championship in a impressive victory against Erik Zabel, and had a good performance in all the other races. According to him, he already won all he wanted in cycling! I got impressed with his victory in the first stage of the Giro 2005, with avery well calculated attack taking Petacchi and the Fassa Bortolo train totally out of action!!

Of course Valverde, who won the ProTour white shirt as first inthe ProTour Ranking and finished third in the World championship.

For further comments I'd remark the terrible year of Petacchi with the fall in the Giro that broke his knee cap and after with the stupid angry punch that broke his finger in the Vuelta. I really hope he recovers mentally to the next year, he's still my favorite sprinter! I had the pleasure of being in the finish line when he won the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt (Tour of Lower Saxony, the region I live in Germany), actually he won 5 out of 5 stages!

Another good performances were the one from Carlos Sastre, who helped Basso to win the Giro, and had good performances at the Tour and Vuelta. 2007 he's the CSC captain! And Pereiro, the second place in the tour (winner if Landys get banned), even though some friends think it was a careless move of the peloton! Least but not last, Zabel in his almost retiring year, he's gonna stay one more year to be world champion :-)

So! That's my biased view of the whole thing, the view of someone that's just starting to appreciate that sport, hoping that 2007 will be a cleaner and more organized year to the sport! Also hoping for the best regarding our brasilian riders, at leastfor Pagliarini and Fisher!

About october!

2006-11-02T21:33:00.000+01:00

hehehehe posting once a month was not the idea here ... I know!

October had some interesting things, besides the cold weather!

First, got a training "roll". Basically this stuff you put on the back wheel and turn your bike into a steady one :-) It's what I call "play the hamster". The good thing is that this way I know I'll train with no excuses and I can watch SciFi series while cycling!

Could not ride my road bike because of the weather, but I managed to ride the MTB with a brazilian friend that lives in Kassel (a nearby city) and with some friends we did a ride to the mountains, getting the train until the mountains, riding a bit there and train back home! It was very funny and relaxing!

In the picture we have me, Lucas (Brazil), Isabelle (Italy), Eirik (Norway) and Antti (Estonia).

Also managed to skate!! Yep!!! While it was still possible. One day I went to work with it ... got there really sore heuheuehueh and came back by bus :-)

Than a lot of work prevented me from doing anything for two weeks and now the weather is even worst. We had the first snow tonight (and today also), not enough to stay on the floor, but scary enough to be sure the winter has arrived ... so, counting the days to SPRING!!!

The news is the new climbing hall at the university. We've been there on the opening day on sunday, nice place, a bit expencive, but interesting. We've been there yesterday also, but did only bouldering (technical climbing to the side), since I don't have equipment to vertical climbing, which is the strong point of the place. Next week I'll try a friend's equipment! :-)

Enough for today! This weekend I'll try to write a text on cycling in 2006, my impressions ... let's see if I manage.

Skating!!!

2006-09-25T23:53:00.000+02:00

This summer I re-started an old sport, forgot to mention before, SKATING! :-))

After 15-20 years without skating (by that time they were not IN-LINE) getting back is very difficult. I'm really re-learning how to use them, specially because in-line are really different from the old style ones!

Had some classes with some friends that know how to ride them and with my brother that recorded some "video-classes" for me.

The whole week I wanted to use my skates for a while and couldn't, this saturday I decided to go out for lunch with some friends with it! Loose the fear of going around the town with it (skates have no real breaks). After lunch I went in a cyclopath beside one of the roads here until the next village (about 5-7 km to get there), one hour ride going and coming back. It was nice! A couple of blisters on my feet and pain in some muscles I didn't know I had! hehehehehe

Sunday a bike ride to enjoy the last sunny day of the year! I was feeling a bit tired, but still managed to increase my average speed from 25.6 to 26.0 km/h in the same path! Nice! :-)

This week was suppose to be a "rest" one with Gym and light rides, but the telescope proposals and the bad weather are probably going to use all my time!

Flat terrain! (not the tire)

2006-09-22T00:30:00.000+02:00

No Gym today or yesterday ... I know ... sad

Today a bit of flat terrain, no climbs, even the small ones!

Windy, but sunny day. I was riding with a short sleeves, it's still possible! :-)

About 30 km at 28.5 of average (better average up to now).

Tomorrow Gym and maybe climbing or skating :-)

Flat tire ...

2006-09-19T23:36:00.000+02:00

After leaving work very early and waiting in vain for the guy that would fix my flat's bell ring I got the bike and went for some training to "stress out". Result, a pretty hard training ending with a flat tire ... fortunatelly I'm gonna sleep now! Tomorrow GYM.

Race and Gym!

2006-09-18T20:05:00.000+02:00

Yesterday (sunday) was the "Göttinger Altstadtrennen", a criterium race inside the old town. Basically a squared circuit of 800 meters with 2 real corners. My race was the opened one, with 38 laps, but the pace was very strong and I got eliminated at the fifth lap (you're eliminated when the leader catches you in a lap). Anyway it was fun! Some good friends went there to seem me (soon pictures of that) and after we went for lunch and stayed enjoying the nice weather until the evening!

Today I came back to the gym after a couple of weeks. Kind of tired, kind of sore ... hehehehehe

Loooooooooooong time :-)

2006-09-14T18:43:00.000+02:00

So! Long time without updates ... yep! Time was short (it still is) and I decided to do more sports and write less about it hehehehehe

A short update on the things around here!

May: last post was mid may, so let's talk about the second half of it. No sports at all! Rain rain rain rain all the time! We did a small trip to France, to a very nice mountain region so that we could climb outdoors ... hummm rain rain rain and we spent the four days we had there indoors ... drinking! hehehehehe

Also there was the Giro d'Italia, in which Ivan Basso really kicked some asses and I had a very strong cold and the non raining time, I was in bed recovering ...

June: WORLD CUP!!! Brazil played terribly and used the stupid philosophy of doing just enough to win ... against France it was not enough, the lazy fat players were not in the mood for playing, so we lost (that was in July, anyway!)

Durring the World Cup we had some party with the local Brazilian population, it was really funny!

The first part of the month had a lot of cycling, since it was much warmer. The second part of it had less cycling, but still enough. There was also a lot of climbing!!

July: It was a great month! Really good, we had sun basically every day!

I was needing more human contact and since I ride alone, I did more "social" sports as climbing and playing beach volley! Very funny month! Full of sports!

August: NOTHING! It rained EVERYDAY. I also have to move to my new flat, so I spent a lot time arranging things to move and then at the new flat!

Setember: back to cycling. Trying to prepare to a criterium race the 17th here in Goettingen, so more regular cycling! And also a new friend to MTB!!

This month also brings a bit o disapointing (only a bit). Two days ago I tried for the first time to ride in the university week training. I knew they were strongr than me, and that it would be hard to follow them. Well, it was harder than I thought, and the idea I get is that I should train harder, push more to the limit! I'll try! The average of the half training I did with the "uni people" was around 30 km/h, usually I ride with a 26.5-26.8 average ... it was hard.

Yesterday and today I'm trying to increase the speed alone. Both times 27.8 km/h ...

Also need to learn how to ride in a peloton, at 1cm of someone else's wheel ... I'll keep trying. I hpe they let me ride with them next week!

So! A summary of the last months. Now it gets easier to update!!

One more sunny week ...

2006-05-14T20:38:00.000+02:00

We had one more sunny week, what's great for evening rides. Two mountain trainings, one using heavier gears, on a "power training" style! Also climbing, now at the outside wall, also funnier, but with some problems like mosquitos when the sun sets :-))

Weekend with bad weather, so we just went for a short (~40 km) ride on totally flat terrain. That's the good part of not going totally alone. Today I would never leave my place (cold, kind of rainy and I got a cold), but since you already told you'd go, you gotta go. At the end we had a great time, and we're really doing the "Bike'n'coffee" stuff. After riding, we stop somewhere and have coffee hehehehehehe

Back after some rest!

2006-05-08T14:27:00.000+02:00

After the race I took a week of rest! And a second week of light cycling because this is to have fun, not to stress with :-)

Last week the weather was great so that cycling was fun, also rejoined the climbing group, now climbing the outside wall at the end of the day, since it's not cold anymore! Also the cycling can be done at the end of the day, since the sun is setting almost at 9PM!! hehehehehe

On the weekend more road cycling. saturday morning 50 light kms, funny ride, and with cycling partner!! Good to have someone to ride with, makes the whole thing funnier (which is the point of riding). I had a great time! Is great to ride with more people!!! And sunday a light ride with the MTB in the usual mountain, it was also fun, and a great weather! After that, the friends that were playing soccer at the Sportzentrum got to my place for a small barbecue!! So, it was a great weekend!

I did it!!!

2006-04-23T19:06:00.000+02:00

I did it!!!

I've got to the end of the race!!!

Got there in one piece!!

Got there without technical or physical problems!!

And got there before the minimum time!!!

The day started rainy! As expected since this is Göttingen!! Racing in the rain is not the best, specially for road bikes ... before I left to the start point the rain stopped, but the floor was wet basically the whole race, what makes you take a lot of care when going down.

1438 participants, it's hard to imagine that number of people together hehehehehehe

The "professional" people went in the front and the "normal" people in the back. There were no pelotons in that part of the race, just an eventual wind shilding. The climbs were harder than last week even though they were the same :-)

After the second climb I decided to go as fast as possible, there was no good reason to save energy anymore. Got to the finish line (83.7 km) in 3:33 minutes and at my limit!! Couldn't go a km further! hehehehehehe

I got impressed with two things in this race. The first one was the number of people in city bikes, just having fun, and they can be fast (Germans start cycling before they start waking, therefore they have very strong legs for cycling). The second one was the support of the people. In every small town, in every climb there were people to clap, incentivize, to really put you up, even though the first ones had passed there more than an hour before!! Very nice!

I had a great time!!!

After I arrived there were some friends waiting, pictures and a lot fun, we had the arrival of the last stage of the Tour of Lower Saxony and I could see Alessandro Petacchi cross the line in first, just in front of me!!! He's a machine!!! :-)

Finally there!

2006-04-22T23:56:00.000+02:00

So! After a week of rest training (only 30 to 45 minutes with low rate) the day of the race arrived!

Tomorrow is the race I've been preparing myself for the last 10 weeks. The Tour d'Energie. A 80 km road race that comes before the last stage of the Tour of Lower Saxony.

Today I've got the material (T-Shirt, transponder for chrono, number ...) and everything is ready!

Let's see how it goes tomorrow!

My tricot with the number!

All the way!

2006-04-17T22:29:00.000+02:00

Finally managed the whole way of the race!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeee :-)))

This week I spent part of it in Berlin with some friends and when I came back the rainy days were the more commons ... so not too much biking and no climbing also! :-(

Than came easter hehehehehe

Friday afternoon a light 2 hours ride to loose the legs.

Saturday the race path!! Got the two class 3 mountains! The first one, after around 40 km, it 5.5 km long, and I managed to go up at about 12-14 km/h. Of course there were smaller or shorter climbs before. The second climb is shorter but harder and also happens after 65 km, so you're really tired when you get there! I managed to go up at 8-9 km/h ...

At the end it was 76 km in around 3:25 hs, an average of 22.3 km/h. I got home totally destroyed! :-)

Yesterday and today, really rainy and didn't feel like getting all wet!

Things are getting ready for the race.

The average allows me to get to the end, specially because with almos 1400 participants you can always find some group with your pace to make a peloton against the wind. When you're training you're mostly alone and there's no shield, you have to do all the effort.

Gotta find a friend with car to follow with water and some food, so that I don't have to carry it all the way.

It will be fun! I'm sure of that! After the race there's the arrival of the Tour of Lower Saxony, with, most probably, Alessandro Petacchi in the final sprint!

This week is just resting, so, light rides around with no climbs :-)

Almost all!

2006-04-08T23:18:00.000+02:00

This week was a bit "bumpy". Not too much training. During the week I got a specialist to review my positioning on the race bike. And now I'm trying to get used to that.

Also shown got some clear signs of a thing called "over training". Over training is the point where your body starts to tell you that you're exaggerating on the training :-) The typical sign is when you start finding excuses not to train, or when you wake up in the morning wishing it's raining so that you're not able to train ... that kind of thing. I'm dealing with it.

No climbing, for no special reason.

Today I did most of the way of the race of the end of the month. Just skipped the second category 3 climb, because I was already too tired and with some pain in the right knee. I did 70, of the 80 km of the race with an average of 21.3 in 3:15 hours. That's just above the minimum average ... that way I would be allowed to get to the end. Since I'm not competing for positions, but to be able to finish the race, that's fine. :-)) It's harder than I thought!

Back and racing!

2006-04-04T21:00:00.000+02:00

Back from the Canary islands, after taking another good look at the way back from the observatory to the town and be dreaming on doing that by bike some day!

On thursday, as always, climbing. And the nice thing was that there was a bigger group of people than usual! It was funny :-)

Some small time cycling with the road bike, but the rain mostly prevented longer times.

A friend from the institute invited me to a short race on a city close to here, on sunday. The race was 36 km and we had no rain, against the forecast :-)

It was the hobby category ... 42 people ... I lost contact with the peloton in the first km, they really have a strong rhythm. So I spent the 36 km facing the wind, which turns the thing a bit harder :-) 7 gave up and I was the 34th, basically second to last hehehehehe, at least I finished it, isn't it??

Some modifications on the bike posture and trying to get an appointment to a full posture review before the bigger race!

This week is intensity! Tomorrow! :-)

At 2400 meters!

2006-03-28T02:52:00.000+02:00

Last week was really a crazy one. Lot's of things to do.

I had to go to the Canary islands (I'm actually here) and had to prepare all the material to the trip and also finish some things from work before travelling.

About sports ... let's go chronologically! They put the pedal back on the spinning bike, changed the pedal of the other bike to a SPD and also put a third bike with SPD. That's good! It was getting a bit crowded sometimes, specially because of the race.

Last week was a recovery week, which was used as such :-)

Normal climbing on thursday! We may have found another place to climb in the town. Thorsten and Josu were in charge of checking this other place, just to vary a bit.

On the weekend I managed to train for the race on the road! It was nice, 51 km, but I got my knee a bit achy. Contacted my specialist in biomechanics and did some changes on the bike setup. Now, coming back I'll check it.

Before travelling, I managed to train on monday and tuesday! Tuesday on the street! That was nice. So half a week of endurance!

Now I at 2400 meters observing! YEP!! Astronomers do it at night :-)) hehehehehe

The way here is a road uphill of 36 km, going from sea level. So, 6.6%, on average! I'll try to bring the bike when I come here next time!! When I was leaving to the telescope there was someone arriving with a MTB at the guest house ... I got really envy!! heuheueheuheuehe

Getting back I'll finish the endurance week and hope that the spring rains give me a break!

Not so good week!

2006-03-12T23:34:00.000+01:00

This week was not really a good week in all the aspects, not a terrible one, but a week full of "bad days".

Climbing on monday and thursday! That was good! Josu, our "climbing master", is teaching me new techniques and improving is always nice! On thursday I remembered to take the camera with me, so, a picture of me on the wall!

Last week, after saturday, my knee was really aching and I had to take a little care with it.

The week training was intensity, it was good, but on friday I got a little up set with the gym which changed the only spinning bike with clipless pedals (which I need for some exercises and which give a more realistic feeling to the bike) for another without those pedals. What up sets me is not the bike changing, but the fact that no one there knew anything about it and no one there actually care about. Is like "the bike with clipless pedals is not there anymore" and the replies sounded like "whatever!!".

We had some rain during the week, so most of the snow was gone!! Saturday is the day of the long training (expected a 3 hours ride this week). Besides the weather forecast, friday I was still hoping that saturday would have a good weather (specially because of the spinning bike without good pedals) but in the morning everything was white ... :-/

Only option was indoor training in the bad bike ... set a goal of 2.5 hours, but got deadly bored in 2 hours. Minimum goal for a saturday (it should be 2 to 4 hours of cycling) but still inside the range.

Today was quite of a sunny and extremely cold day with a lot of snow on the floor. Therefore it was a "inside" day. Formula 1 race on TV and the last stage of the Paris-Nice, the first classic road race of the year. Nice day! :-))

First training!

2006-03-05T17:09:00.000+01:00

One more week of training! This week was endurence. It was good!

No climbing on thursday, for work reasons, and on sunday (today) the sports center of the university is closing at 3 pm, because it's winter vacation.

Yesterday I woke up, a bit late, and it was really sunny, so "why not" a outdoor training (without rain that time). Got the race bike and went to the road, for the first time with it!! It was great!! It really responds very well!!

So! First training of the "season" and first training with the race bike!

It also gave me an idea of how much training I'll have to do to finish this race!!

Snow and Sun ...

2006-02-27T20:25:00.000+01:00

That week was the third week of training for the race. I'm getting more tired than usual. Maybe it is a bit too strong ... let's see that week. This was the recovering week, so, I should not be so bad this week, which is endurance.

Thursday, as usual, climbing! It's getting funnier every time!

Saturday we went skiing, probably for the last time this winter. It was nice. I'm getting some techniques explained by Klaus (who practice this for the last 35 years, since he's 3 years old). It was fun at the end. And it was a different and better place than last time.

Since there was not "long and slow" on saturday, I had to do it on sunday, even though I had to help Thorsten moving flats. This last week we had snow on monday and nothing else (snow or rain) since then! Friday was sunny and saturday also. That means dry streets and roads! Good thing to an outdoor training, instead of indoor, and, why not, with the race bike!!

Saturday night I was too tired for going out, or for thinking, so I decided to sleep early and leave early in the morning. Started to prepare everything for next morning. Both bikes ('cos in case it was not sunny I'd go with the MTB). Equipment. Everything. Ended up changing an unused tube that came with problem and got a hole when I inflated it (gotta complain at the store). A tube should be good to get 130 PSI (9 BAR) of pressure.

Those unexpected tire problems made me sleep later than I wanted to ... but no problems. Still on time to wake up early, sleeping 9 hours, and do my outdoor training.

Sunday, 9 AM, got off the bed and ... and ... and ... IT WAS SNOWING!!!!! Isn't that great???????????

Had to go and do an indoor training, which is boring, specially if you had the illusion that it would be outdoor ... anyway! It's ok.

New week starts, today I couldn't train because I had an early appointment at the institute. But I just shifted the training schedule and there will be no resting on wednesday ... let's see how it goes!

Cycling in the rain ...

2006-02-20T22:08:00.000+01:00

Last thursday was climbing day! It was great! I was teach real climbing technics. Got more tired than the usual, but it was good.

Sunday climbing was replaced for work!! :-)))

The week training was good and kind of hard (intensity week). Saturday was "long and slow". The weather was not too bad and instead of going to the gym (what is boring) and decided to get the MTB and go to the road on the way of the race.

In the middle of the training it started raining. So basically all the equipment got totally wet and I spent the whole day cleaning and drying the bike hehehehehe and had to work on sunday!

Of course sunday was a sunny day :-)))

On the other hand today it started snowing again ...

Got the new training :-)

2006-02-12T19:05:00.000+01:00

Long while without posting. Last weeks where very busy :-)

So, talked to the coach and got the new training, more specific for the race that I'll take part in april. 80 km on the road with two mountains, right at the end of the winter ...

Now the training is:

Mon-thu - Gym with a new series of exercises, working more with hips and legs than arms, with warm up rowing and cooling biking for 10 min each.

Tue-fri - Bike (indoor of outdoor).
First week, endurance, 1:10 with heart frequency on 70-80%.
Second week, intensity, 10 min warm up, 5 shots of 3 min with heart freq. on 80-85% and cycling rate 70 rpm, 7 min rest, and 10 min cooling.
Third week, regeneration, 1:00 cycling with 65-70%.
Forth week, back to endurance, and so on, but increasing the times and duration of the shots.

Sat - Bike "long and slow" (in or outdoor).
2 - 4 hours biking with heart freq. 65-70%.

Nice training, already finished the first week, but totally indoor, since it's not possible to do it with 10 cm of snow at the door! At least not for me.

Last sunday (not today :-)) ) we went skiing! It was nice, again hehehe fell a couple of times, but it was much better than the first time.

Thursday came back to climbing, it was nice :-)) Today I was suppose to but we postponed for tomorrow.

Mainly that, so far.

New training needed?

2006-01-31T18:40:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-29T20:09:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-28T19:30:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-01-24T00:19:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-20T11:10:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-16T18:44:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-01-14T21:02:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-01-13T00:01:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-10T18:31:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-01-08T15:02:00.000+01:00

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!