Tales of a Novice Cyclist

I joined RL and Robb on their evening ride to the lake and back tonight.  All of us on our Orbeas.  =) Robb’s bike is rocketship red and superfast! damn.  eh, o well.  It was fun drafting off him tonight.  There was a pretty good headwind and looking at the sky, I knew that it was windy at the coast.  Double Damn…  But I didn’t want to repeat what I did yesterday - 30 min of trying to barely stay upwind so I blew off the kitesurfing and biked instead.  Well, I’m looking at the ikitesurf graph and it’s 12-20 at Leo and it’s 7pm. Triple Damn.  Windier than yesterday.  Eh,.. o well, maybe I will get it later this week.  At least I got to ride my bike tonight.  I should have ridden harder… :-\

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Another perfect 75 degree SoCal day today. And another busy day at work. I was daydreaming about being outside for the 8.5 hours I was kept inside the office. Grrrr….  Finally, I got my freedom at 4:20pm. I zipped home, checked the wind which said 17 mph at Leo Carrillo (ACK!), scrambled to grab my kite, bar, lines, board, wetsuit, trash bag for wet stuff and rushed out to my p-mobile to plow through the canyons to get to Malibu for a sesh as quickly as possible.   (I would have gone for a quick bike ride up to Rock Store and down Decker if it wasn’t blowing - being cooped up all day… ugh).  By the time I arrived at Malibu though, um… it WAS NOT 17.  Not even…  It was more like 12? WTF….!  But I waited for a few minutes, watching the guys go back and forth, not quite being able to stay upwind.  After about 30 minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore! I just rigged my 10m (I knew I couldn’t stay upwind with this wind), pulled on my wetsuit and out I went.  As expected, I didn’t have quite enough power to stay upwind.  I needed just maybe 2-3mph more? I was able to cut upwind going out, but lost ground coming back in.  Yes, yes, I need a floatier board. Hm! :(  Mother Nature, please o PLEASE, just a little more wind!  Anyways, I decided to throw in the towel after 30 minutes.  It was nice to get wet though.

Why is it that by the time I get to the beach, it’s always backing off? I guess that’s the price that I have to pay for having a 9-5 M-F job….  I think I want to quit my job so that I can bike, fly, and kitesurf everyday. :-\

I will come up with a plan…soon… very soon…

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110 miles of riding this weekend. That probably brings me up to 150+ miles this week. I started off my ride today with the intension of doing a “recovery ride”. Heh, the daydreaming kept me cycling for 4+ hours. Hidden Valley, Potrero, Rock Store, Mulholland. Good thing I brought extra energy with me just in case - 3 gu’s, 1 hammer gel, 1 sport bean pack, 1 shot block pack, 1 PB&honey sandy, 1 orange, and some extra electrolyte tablets. Plus, I took some pills called Musclenergy by CytoSport that’s supposed to prevent cramping. Well, it worked, I guess. I kept going and going and going, daydreaming and pedaling away. I met a nice French fellow who kept me company for part of my ride. He invited me for lunch - not sure if he was just being nice or wanted something else. :-\ In any case, I wanted to get back to go kitesurfing, so declined, bid farewell, and rode home as quickly as possible.

When I got to C Street, the wind was still light. But I could see the fuel line setting up in the horizon, so I patiently waited, reading my USHPA magazine. Read a nice article on flying in Switzerland - sounded fun. Maybe that will be my summer trip… Or, it could be the Rat Race, or Burning Man, or just a few weekend trips scattered throughout the summer. I need to save at least 2 weeks for Valle at the end of the year… Grrr….. Not enough vacation days! I may have to quit my job and find something that will give me more freedom to travel. Asia, Europe, South America, Australia… sigh…

Anyways, the wind filled in about an hour later as expected, I rigged my Synergy, and rode out. Light wind, but enough to still kite. I hadn’t kitesurfed in so long, I had forgotten how much fun it is. The wind wasn’t screaming so I didn’t have to hang on for dear life like the howling days. Today was mellow, cruising back and forth. The peacefulness and the beauty of the sport is truly amazing (kinda like paragliding, I guess). Granted, there are some a-holes in the sport who do ruin the experience for some people, but eh. Every sport has a thorn.  Here’s what it could look like when it’s calm and peaceful at one of my favorite places for kitesurfing.  This ain’t C-Street for sure…

At least, I got 2 sports in today. The only thing missing was paragliding and girlfriend. My goal this summer weekends will be to fit in cycling early in the morning, then paragliding with light winds, then kitesurfing with heavier afternoon winds, all in one day. Good plan, right?

I Heart Kitesurfing! But then again, I also Heart Cycling…. and Paragliding too when the conditions are good and I can get up high… 

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Today was my first long ride in about 3 weeks with the BBKings. Paragliding kept me busy for the last few weekends, and boy o boy… I’ve gotten OUT OF SHAPE! 3 weeks away from riding with the BBKings and my endurance and stamina definitely took a toll. I felt myself starting to bonk at about mile 50. Grrr…. NOT GOOD…

Triple D (Deanster, Dino, Dean) and I took off from Calabassas this morning to Old Topanga toward Mulholland, to Hidden Valley and back. As usual, I was the only girl. :-\ I guess it’s nice? But it would be nice to have another woman to ride with. Anyhoos, I still don’t know any of the turns to Old Topanga as I just followed D’s ass in front of me, trying to draft as much as possible. Somehow I split off from the group and rode on my own for about 10 miles toward Hidden Valley, daydreaming away… I did almost get hit by a Maserati in Hidden Valley - another typical old guy on a cell phone. If the lane to my left wasn’t empty, I would have been toast. :-\

I rode about 5 hours today. Bum is sore (maybe the new shorts… or maybe the 3 weekends away from doing long rides,… :-\), legs were burning up the hills (not cramping though), and I’m completely famished.

O, and you wanted pictures, here are some pictures! Pictures of what I daydreamed about today… Some of my favorite things, places, and people…

New Bike: Orbea Diva - speed machine, speed rocket, my current love.

Shanghai - fond memories…

Pig on a boat at Floating Market on Mekong Delta… that was a fun day…

Hangzhou - another time, another place…

Big Sur - Mur

Big Sur - parawaiting

Training Hill in Santa Barbara

Snow, SLC

View from the air

Kitesurfing in Baja

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Bintan

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So, I think I’m in love… after all this time? In love with my bike, that is…. I took her to Malibu Lake up Rock Store, down the awesome descent on Decker at 30+ mph. 16-20 mph on flat, 5-8 mph up Rock Store. She was SO STEADY going through the curves on Decker….it was unbelievable! She was having fun. My old bike would be rattling down Decker and I would be on my max brakes from the steepness. But today was a different story. I felt comfortable cornering the curves at faster speeds. I was so amazed. I popped out at the bottom of 23 at 31 mph. Yipppeeeeee~~~! Top speed today was 36.3 mph.  Smokin’ fast! Speed demon she is! She just wants to be ridden! Kinda like a Porsche…

I met the Thursday night ride group out at Hidden Valley and rode back with them for the evening picnic. My only complaint on today’s ride was the gnats… AGAIN. Yes, they kept flying into my face, or was it that I kept hitting them with my face… In any case, I lost count after 25 gnat hits… :-\ And I probably ate a couple… again.

I can’t wait to ride her again. I’ll ride her hard again after work tomorrow or Saturday. I can’t wait! Le-le-le-le-le-looooooove the new ride… that’s for sure…

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I met a very nice woman, Deanna, at Joel’s shop yesterday.  She was training for a marathon. I think I would keel over and croak if I ran a marathon. I’ll leave that to Deanna. RL was there at the same time, so I was joking around with her that I would do the ocean swim portion, she could do the running portion, and RL can do the biking portion. Perfect, right? Yea, right. I will see how that pans out. I’ll probably be left to do the entire thing.

I’ve been thinking about triathlons for the last few weeks. Should I try to do one? Will I make it? Will my knees be able to take the running portion? Maybe I should just stick to cycling? Riding centuries? Maybe start out doing triathlon relays? But then again, I don’t have that many friends to do this with me.. :-\ I don’t want my shoulders to turn into a man’s shoulder again like they did when I was swimming a lot either. Sigh… But I still want to try to do a triathlon. Maybe I will shoot for the Malibu Tri or the LA Tri this year or next year - depending on when the event is.

My past few weekends have been focused on paragliding, so I haven’t been able to bike as much as I’d like to.  I miss it… A lot. :-\  I miss the cardio workout and riding with my usual bike group.  I will get back into it this month.  Maybe this will give me more motivation to start training for a triathlon.  Or maybe I’ll start with a duathlon first.  Or maybe I’ll just keep cycling as much as I can and as fast as I can, and skip the triathlons and the duathlons.

We’ll see….

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