PV Field Workout: Going up and coming down + Dosa

We had another clinic this Saturday – for climbing and descending. I’ll briefly summarize what we went over:

Climbing

• Keep cadence above 70rpm minimum
• Alternate between sitting and standing
• While seated: hands on tops, use hamstrings, open chest for better breathing
• While standing: rpm above 70rpm, hands on hoods, do not stick out butt, head and shoulders up high-not hunched over, arms should be mostly straight, bike can “dance” a bit, on the down stroke, keep feet flat instead of toe pointed downward

Cornering

• Look ahead, eye on apex and exit.
• Hands on drops, tucked very low for more weight on front wheel and control of front wheel.
• Exaggerate knee leaning.

We rode over to Canada College for our clinic and the backside has a surprisingly nice and short climb and descent. We started with 4 climbs from the bottom, near Canada rd. to the parking lot at the top. The first climb, we climbed mostly seated and stood up once when we were told. On the second climb, we stood up twice when instructed to do so. On the third climb, we went together as a group and this hurt me the most trying to keep up with Dexter and Peter. Finally, for the last climb we went up at our own individual pace. We focused mostly on technique and posture. Some of the advice is obvious, but you hear the advice differently when you have someone shouting at you when you are doing something wrong. Anyone who got caught standing and pedaling with toes pointed downward was deemed a ballerina.

We planned on practicing the descents on the Southern most side of Canada College, but because the inside of that turn had loose gravel, we practiced on the same road as the climb. We went over technique, but my main problem was my cornering speed. I have known that my cornering speed is slow and because I am not very fearless, so I will have to slowly work up my confidence and comfort to increase my speed through corners. We ran through the corner about 16 or so times.

After the clinic, we rode as a group back to HWY92 and from there, I did a solo aerobic ride to SF to meet up with Nyanko for lunch. My route was tracked by Mr. Garmin. Since we were in the area, we headed over the Mission to grab lunch. For some reason, I thought Ike’s Sandwiches were in the Mission, but they obviously weren’t (ok ok, it isn’t that far from the Mission, but we had a really good meter free parking spot on Valencia!) so we ate at Dosa instead. We have walked past Dosa more than a few times, both on Fillmore and also on Valencia, so today we decided to give it a try.

We assumed their dosa and uttapam would be different from the traditional type (not that we really know anything about traditional Indian food), so we ordered a chaat, dosa, and uttapam.

Dahi Batata Puri Small hollow crispy breads filled with Strauss organic yogurt, potatoes & mint & tamarind chutneys

Honestly, I had no idea what this would be like, but key words that made me order this were small, crispy, potatoes, and puri. Yes Puri, which apparently is not pronounced “pu ri” like Japanese, but “purr ee”, like an American trying to read furigana. That was how the waitress pronounced it, but she could be wrong! When they arrived, we were told the best way to eat them was with your bare hands because, as I soon found out, they sort of crumble and implode into themselves. They were very hollowed little pastries that were filled with all sorts of yogurt, potatoe, and chutney flavor. I liked the idea and the pastry, but I thought there was a bit too much filling, and a bit too many flavors. More potato could have helped too.

Paper Masala A thin, pliable and crispy variation, served with spiced Indian potatoes, onions and cashew nuts

I really liked their dosa. As advertised, it was very thin and crispy and came in one long rolled sheet. The potato filling was on the side and tasted fairly standard, but the dosa tasted great with the coconut chutney and sambar.

Sunny Side or Over Easy Uttapam Tomato, onion & chile uttapam topped with two organic eggs, sunny side up or over easy

The uttapam that we have had in the past was more like a stuffed thicker dosa, but this one had a texture similar to an chinese potato pancake. Although in general it was good, the spiciness was not mixed out well and some pieces were much spicier than others, so much so that it overwhelmed some flavors. It did however go nice with the egg.

Conclusion: Dosa is very flavorful, but it is a bit on the spicy and pricey side.
Post ride satisfaction:  6/10

PV Field Workout: Sprint till you’re sick

On Saturday(two Saturdays ago), Clark held a short sprint clinic with the Performance Team. I woke up later than I intended to, so I drove to 92 x Canada to be on time. Since the WRX was getting fixed, I drove the corolla and somehow tetris’d the bike into the backseat. I had originally planned to ride there, but there were plenty of miles to come that day… After a quick chat, we headed South on Canada. Since a few of us drove there, we did a nice long warm up – a proper long warm up is very important for sprint drills.

After our warm up, we stopped just a few meters north of the Edgewood x Canada intersection. This is where we started rolling. The course was simple. From the start, we headed northbound cruising at around 20mph. Once we got to the bicycle Sunday sign, we started our (uphill) 250m sprints. How do you know when you’ve reached 250m? On the shoulder, the ground was marked at 100m, 150m, 200m, 250m, and 300m in small white text. When you hit the 250m, shift to your small ring and keep pedaling.

The goal was to aim to sprint to 250m, but minimally sprint to the 200m. A few things I remember us discussing were:

• When standing for your jump, your hands should be near the end of the drops so that your pinky sticks out to get maximum leverage.
• Use your jump to accelerate and when you spin out, sit down and increase rpms to continue accelerating.
• Try to stay aero when you sit down, obviously.
• Find the right gear for the course. It may take a few tries for you to find the right gear. Too low and you will spin out, but too high and you won’t have enough power to push it.
• Never sprint on your hoods. If you Clark catches you sprinting on your hoods or tops, you owe him $100, seriously! (and not in girl scout cookies)

We planned on doing sets of 4 sprint efforts with 4 minutes of rest in between each. At the end of the set, we rested for 10 minutes and did a second set. Clark had some comments about our sprints. For Martin and me, we had “zero jump”- Ouch. For others, the jump was too wild (front wheel moving around too much). My average top speed for the 6 out of 8 runs was 29.2 mph and my fastest sprint to 30.9mph occurred on the sprint immediately after the 10 minute break. By the 6th run, I was not far from wanting to throw up. On the last run, we did a group sprint with Clark leading us out… except he sort of just took off and dragged us along. Overall, it was a potentially vomit inducing drill, but I felt like I was holding back a bit since I had to ride to Novato after.  To properly do the drill however,  you shouldn’t be holding back so maybe a bit being of sick is inevitable.

Route is of course uploaded.

SF2G Bayway plus Gmap for bikes

Missing out on rides all week long, I did a FFFF SF2G bayway to work on Friday. We rode a standard Bayway route and skipped the BTN. At 7:40, I joined the first two riders:  Gavin and one other. At the water stop we waited for the rest of the group. There were 27 riders! I joined the first group of 5 that left. Eventually, it shrunk down to just me and Gavin, who offered me breakfast courtesy of Google.

By the time we got there (9:40), there was not a lot of food left.  There were mostly donuts, bagels, and fruits left. I went for the bagel, toasted!, instead of the donuts.  While eating and chatting, we asked to participate in a video to promote google maps for bikes.

We rode around in a few circles, got filmed, then almost got run over by the “conference bike”.

Route on Garmin …and yes. My HR stayed in Z2/z3.

SF2G: Bridge to Leaders

Yesterday was a great day to ride to work. SF2G had four different rides via three different paths: Bayway, Skyline way, and Half Moon Bay way. I decided to go with the 6:15AM Skyline group, well aware of the pace of the xtons and Gaimans of the 6:30AM Skyline group.

Since they were leaving at 6:15, I estimated they would arrive at Millbrae around 7:30. In the morning, I was also tracking Eric via Google latitude. Around 7:10, I saw that he going up the hill on Skyline near Daly City. They were still a while off, so I took my time while monitoring their progress. At 7:25, his location suddenly jumped to South San Francisco. Um, maybe I should get going now! I climbed hillcrest at a hurried pace and intersected with Derrick and Space at the top. Did I barely catch on? I saw a group of about ten mostly familiar faces gathered at the entrance to the Sawyer Camp Trail: xton, Mike Gaiman, Jonathan, Eric, Derrick, Space, Scott, and others. Moments later, another group with Ted, Judd, Mark, and others arrived. We had a nicely sized group… the 6:15 and 6:30 groups must have combined.

Ted, and others stopped at the top of the hill for water, and a few of us headed down the trail first. I followed Jonathan with two others and we cruised to the other side of the trail. It seemed that some of the guys turned around and took the quicker, freeway option because they were already waiting at the exit of the trail for a regroup.

After another short break, we rolled out again. We went up two hills and when we came down the second decent to Canada, the speed of the lead group picked up and the lead group was off. I probably should have been clued in to the acceleration when Scott flew past me on the descent. As we started Canada, Derrick passed me and gave a valiant solo effort to bridge to the lead group. He got really close! Jonathan passed me and I grabbed his wheel. We eventually caught Derrick and we worked together to catch the lead group. By the time we got to Edgewood, Derrick had dropped a chain and the lead group was out of sight. By Woodside, we had caught two riders and Mark had caught on to us. The “leaders” were adding a full Portola Loop to their ride, but we decided to take the path of least resistance down Whisky, Sand Hill, Foothill Expressway, and El Monte. I got to work at about 9:30.

Garmin has my route.

Joined Team Peninsula Velo / Pomodoro + Time Trialing

This season, I have been looking for a local cycling team to join that would develop my fitness and racing. I inquired with Peninsula Velo, Roaring Mouse, and Third Pillar. Weighing my options, I decided to go with Pen Velo. Additionally, I joined their Performance Team to get in on some coaching and skill clinics.

This Saturday, I met some members of the team for a time trial clinic. We started off practicing starts with both feet clipped in (with a person holding your bike). The first try, I started in too high of a gear and found it hard to accelerate. The next round, we rode a 5 mile ITT on Canada Road from 92 to Pulgas Water Temple and back. After being thoroughly wasted, from the wind and the hill, we then split up into groups and rode a 4 man TTT along the same route. The pace was fast, but not uncomfortable. For the first half of the course, we did 30 second pulls. and after the turn around point, we pulled harder 20 second pulls. When we got within 25% to the finish, we did very hard 10 second pulls. Since we were simulating a 4 man TTT, where the third rider’s time is counted, I dropped off before the finish after taking my final pull.

So after we did two TT’s, where we yelled at told to go essentially 100%, we did a 30 mile ride along the normal PV route. We had a mellow double paceline going until we got to Alpine, where our group dropped to six and the speed went up considerably. Coach Clark, made sure I was ok staying with them and I did… barely. I nearly got dropped going up Aratradero Rd, but I was able to hang on all the way back to HWY92… and even contribute to the paceline.

Overall, it was a good first meeting with the team. I thought the clinic was good, and the coach was knowledgeable, and the other PV members were friendly. I got in a nice long ride too, but maybe it was a bit too much mileage the day before a race.

Here is the route via Garmin

SF2G style II, with a bit of testosterone

Yesterday, I missed the SF2G group by just a few minutes (I was there 65mins after they started), so today I got there earlier (50mins after their start). I ended up waiting about 20 minutes for them to show. I’m still getting used to the meet up time, but it seems to vary based on the day and the group. Yesterday was very foggy and today seemed worse.

San Francisco Airport

Today was fast and I was barely hanging on for some segments. I was only able to catch up thanks to stop lights. On straights, it felt like we were doing 22-23mph. I don’t think I ever saw the speedometer drop under 19mph in the pack. Xton was at the front pretty much the entire ride. This pretty much summarizes the ride:

It was fun, but I’m pretty beat. On the way to work, we saw the plane crash in EPA, which apparently took out some power. We were hoping power would be out so we wouldn’t have to go to work…

Route via Garmin

2D2W?

Yesterday I did my first SF2G ride. The ride was good, but having woken up at 6:30, I was starting to feel very sleepy by 2:00PM. I wanted to ride to work again, but I wasn’t sure if I could get up. Considering how sleepy I was by the time I got home, sleeping early, and thus waking up early would not be too much of a problem.

So I got up at 6:30 again to do the SF2G Bayway ride. I met a few more people: Eric with his power cranks; Mills? Nils?, who is from NY; Judd, who does not have rear fenders; Lebaron-like the car, who works in Redwood City and rides Cat 5 Men’s 45+, and the only other guy with downtube shifters, who was in a motorcycling accident, who works at Google, who has a pinkish saddle back and white Assos armwarmers, whose name I forgot.

We took the normal Bayway route minus going on the bridge to nowhere. I rode the rain bike, but there were only a few small showers along the way. The EPA section was new to me because I usually turn right on Willow, and left on Middlefield to go completely around EPA. It wasn’t too bad, but I’m not sure I would do that section alone. Because the pace was social, almost recovery speed, it took about 2.5 hours to get from Millbrae to Ames, including about 15 minutes of getting confused by Steven’s Creek trail (as you can see on the map). I’m two rides into making this a habit and I hope I don’t spoil my sleeping schedule this weekend so I can continue the habit next week when the weather is even better.

Map via Garmin

I’m done with winter. (or, No longer a SF2G virgin)

After seeing all sorts of Epic rides to work that people have done, I finally made a signifigant (yes, significant) effort to wakeup early and meet up with a SF2G group.  The SF2g ride was riding the Skyline Way and meeting up at 6:30 at Peets in SF. I could meet them at Skyline x Hillcrest, but I did not know how long it would take them to ride the 18 miles to get there. Erring on the early side, I arrived at 7:35. About 7 of them arrived at 8:00.

The route was very familiar to me since I ride the reverse to get home very often. Overall, the pace was mellow, but at times: blasting through Sawyer Camp trail and Canada, the pace was high. The weather started off cold, but was nice after a decent warmup. I got into work around 10:00, the same time as I usually do when I take the train, and I don’t feel tired. Now, if only I can continue sleeping early and getting up early to ride to work! People who I met today: Jennifer, Yuko, Ted, Michael, Space.

Four left when we got to Page Mill: Space, Michael, Jennifer, and me.

And here is the route Garmin’D

http://www.sf2g.com/skyline.html