Enough Resting - I miss my wheels

Snow before Thanksgiving!  Less than six inches, but followed by twenty-four hours of cold hard wind that blew more tiny, icy snowflakes down from the trees and rooftops.  Last Friday afternoon, knowing bad weather was coming, I got out for a sunny 25-mile ride along the waterfront and Boulevard Park.  After two days of snow over the weekend, there is only packed snow and crusty ice left on the streets and sidewalks, the worst for bike-riding.  I've mostly been walking and riding the bus for the past couple of weeks, and now my lame foot and ankle are hurting.  I need to get back on my bike soon!

Bicycle Fuel

That first winter of the Maplewood Avenue hill-climb I discovered the best comfort food for winter bicycle commuters:  Ovaltine.  I mixed the chocolate powder half-and-half with powdered milk and carried it in to work daily.  After changing out of rain-gear to work clothes, I'd have a couple of scoops in my first cup of coffee, and then a second helping for my 10am coffee-break.

I'm not a nutritionist, I just go by the package label, which says the chocolate flavor mixed with milk contains 20% or more of the daily requirement of a long list of vitamins and minerals, including calcium (35%) and Vitamin D (25%).  The chocolate malt flavor doesn't have as many different vitamins and trace minerals, but does contain 40-60% of the daily value for calcium, iron, Vitamin D and a few others.

Be warned, though - one serving is about 170 calories.  This is no problem if you have a long commute or are riding a lot of miles training for an event.  Two servings a day, riding ten miles a day on my commute, caused me to gain about ten pounds over the winter.  Or maybe it was the frequent cookies, donuts and birthday cakes served at my new job.

Hill-climbing Hint #1 - Start Small

In January of 2008 I started work at a job near the Bellingham Airport.  To get there I turned off Northwest Avenue near the fire station, to Maplewood Avenue.  The street is level at the beginning, but rises to a modest hill-climb a bit more than a half-mile long (about .7 miles), to an intersection with Bakerview, near the freeway overpass and interchange.  The pavement is cracked and broken, and bike lanes and shoulders come and go on this two-lane residential street, but car traffic is light and usually not fast.  There are a couple of schools nearby, so there is bus traffic, and adult and child pedestrians in the morning.

Many mornings I would leave home five or ten minutes later than I should have, and the hill climb seemed to be the best place to make up time - I just stayed in high gear, stood up and pumped hard.  This put a lot of wear and strain on my legs and my drive-train, though, so I quickly learned to shift down and climb by spinning the pedals at a steady rate.  After a few months of attacking this same, small hill five days a week, I could climb it pretty quickly and steadily; I would get a bit flushed and sweaty in winter rain-gear, but not too out of breath.  When I tried more challenging hills in the spring I found they came easier, too.

I was still using clips on my pedals then.  I'd heard that you should pull up on the pedals.  Now I'd say it's better  to think of keeping the ball of your foot pressed firmly against the pedal, as far around as you can.  This works even if you don't have clips, and it's better than pulling up, which puts unusual strain on your feet and ankles.

One oddity about part of Maplewood Ave. is that on one side of the street, there is a wide paved shoulder with a raised cement parking-lot type divider down the middle.  Probably the half near the car lane is supposed to be a bike lane, and the outside half is supposed to be sidewalk, but there are no signs or markings and pedestrians walk on either side of the divider.  Monday is garbage day on Maplewood, and some residents like to park their big green garbage toters in the bike lane, and their cars on the sidewalk side, obstructing both sides and leaving cyclists with the choice of swerving out into car traffic, or riding across lawns.

English Major in the Woods

I should add that Agate Bay Road heads straight into the hills for a couple miles, then joins up to Jensen Road, which curves around and intersects with Y Road again, just before the top of the climb.  So I got to ride the downhill twice, but only did the climb once.

I should also have said "neither the bear NOR I was much disturbed."

Bears in the Woods

Wednesday I rode Northshore Drive to the Y Road hill climb, then on Mt. Baker Hwy. to the Nooksack River, and back the same way.  At the bottom of Y Road I stopped to rest, just across from where Agate Bay Road angles up the hill.  After sixteen or so years in Whatcom County, I'd never been on that road, and noting that my odometer was at 3199.6 miles, I decided to go exploring and watch my odo turn over.  At first the road goes over a few small, steepish rolling hills through woods with a few houses.  Near the top of a hill I looked off in to the trees and huckleberries on my right and saw either a very large black Newfoundland dog, or a small black bear. Assisted by the downhill, I coasted by fast enough that neither the bear or I was much disturbed.  When I glanced at my odo again, it said 3200 exactly.

I was riding about 4-6pm, so there were deer out feeding, too.  I saw several grazing in cleared fields or front yards at the top of the hill climb.

Y Road, by the way, is about a Category 2 or 3 hill climb, in Tour de France terms.  I've learned to appreciate low gears, but did not have to drop down to the smallest chainring.

Coming Down from the Hills

The November rains are trying to get an early start.  Usually by afternoon the sky is only partly cloudy, the temperature moderate but uncomfortably damp and humid.  I'm still running errands by bike, and going for flattish 20-30 mile rides for fun.  I've ridden more than 3100 miles since mid-February; I expect to ride 4000 miles this year.

I hate to admit it, but after returning from vacation I found my hilly eight mile commute was beginning to wear on me.  I rode that route five days a week for more than a year and half, and the year before I rode another route with an easier daily hill-climb.  I started doing hilly rides back in a warm spell in January, to test myself before the Chilly Hilly.  And then some hard hill-climbing on my vacation in July.  By mid-August I was getting twinges in both knees and straining my back on the hills on my commute.  I guess it's a good time for a rest.

Now that I'm not commuting any more, maybe in the next couple of weeks I'll revisit my old routes to work and review my hill-climbing lessons from the past two or three years.

Club Univega

This is a newly-created blog dedicated to bicycle commuting and recreational cycling in and around Bellingham, Washington.