first climbing SS ride
 

This is my repost from the NorCal forums. I thought some of you SS/Fixed riders might enjoy it.
My gearing is 55/22 for 66ish GI, for anyone interested. The Old La Honda climb averages 7% for 3.3 miles. It's a benchmark climb for the San Francisco peninsula. Everyone down here seems to know their time.

=--------------------=

We're having floors installed this week, so I took a half-day to go home and pack. So I packed up, left work at 12 and headed to Old La Honda!


So I took my single speed commuter over to OLH to see if I could climb it. I finished BoO last weekend, but I had been feeling kind of burned out. The ride to the start was fun, definitely a change of pace. I had to watch myself, even up Sandhill. I was worried about my HR, but without a computer, clock or HRM, I just pedaled as easy as I could.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/So...0/IMG_0283.jpg

That's my pretty SS at the bridge. Ramon had told me his SS ride up OLH had been hard, so really didn't know if I'd finish.

The climb was hard. It wasn't brutal. My gearing is 55/22 (carbon drive) for 66 gear inches. I did use my Iphone in my commuter bag to time my ride. It wasn't exact, but I came in just under 30 minutes. I could have pushed harder with my legs, but the weak link in my engine was my lower back and my hands. Man, did my hands hurt from trying to rip the brake hoods off the bar.

I could have pushed harder, but without the HRM I kept trying to be controlled. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the good part about OLH is that it is a pretty consistent grade. The other shoe never came, and when I saw the 2-mile mark painted I knew I was good to finish. That last bit before the final turn was rough, both steep and the poor road condition.

Finish:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/So...0/IMG_0285.jpg

I was feeling good at the top, so I turned left, climbed the final six or seven hundred feet to then descent page mill.

Scary: It's hard to see on the iphone pic, but the bead on my stock Bontrager RaceLite tire completely separated. It sounded like a gunshot, and coming to a stop between gates 3 and 4 on a flat front tire, half off the rim, was an adventure. I was lucky to keep it upright and that there wasn't a car to prevent me from going straight to the left side of the road.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/So...0/IMG_0286.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/So...0/IMG_0287.jpg

This was also where I learned that I need 80mm valve tubes for these rims. I had 48mm with me, and I could just get enough CO2 into the tube to see that the tire wasn't going to hold. So, no tire, soft tube = long wait for a friend to give me a ride home.

Hopefully this is my bit of tire/rim/tube drama that seems to be hitting everyone lately. An hour wait wasn't bad, considering the blowout on -10%. Could definitely have been worse.

We need to have more SS rides. Despite the tire issue, I LOVE the ride. It's such a change of pace. Mellow, non-pedaling downhills, challenging climbing, easy spinning on the flats. It's not the fastest overall pace, but there's something great in the simplicity of it. The road doesn't care that you have only 1 gear.

Do you have a heart condition?

No. Just usually do long road rides. 70-200 miles with climbing (8-10,12k) so a HRM is my guide to how much effort I'm actually exerting on a climb.

that really sucks you did all that work to get to the top and didnt even get to bomb down that road... This route sounds a lot like Cheyenne Canyon here in the springs. It averages out at about a 9% grade and is 3.1 miles long. I rode the canyon with 65 gear inches in 29 minutes on my fixed gear. There was a time trial up the canyon last month hosted by carmichael training systems, that was officially timed. they gave use these chips to put between the front dropout and the axle nut, that timed us as soon as we rolled over a pad at the start and stopped the time when we crossed the pad at the top. Tom Danielson of Garmin Slipstream hols the record of 13:34. Lance Armstrong rode the course a number of years back and his time was 14 minutes and some. I did change my rear cog for this ride from a 19 to a 22... so the GI would be 56. I timed in at 24:06. 24 minutes was my goal before the race by im not happy with the time now knowing that I told myself I was going to prepare for this race but didnt... theres always next year. It was cool though Chris Carmichael even races as well as a couple other coaches at CTS. Tom Danielson even came out and raced. His time was 2 seconds away from his initial record.
I think though the ride down was almost as bad as climbing up it on a fixed gear with that low of a gear, I do have a brake but I try not to use it so I can learn to spin very fast for long periods of time.

I just realized I completely hijacked your thread...

Do you have more/better pics of your drivetrain/bike? What kind of bike. Carbon drive looks interesting... first roadie I have seen pics of.

Get a pump, CO2 alone sucks

Learn to read your body. You shouldn't need a HR monitor.

Thanks. I could have bummed a pump (tons of cyclists in this area), but the tire wasn't going to hold regardless. I normally carry both a mini-pump and CO2, and have shared both. I'm due some karmic favors eventually.

I've heard that both ways. The difference between like 173 and 180 is, to me, imperceptible; but one I can hold, the other I have to recover from.

True. That type of failure is a real supprise to me, I've used a few 23c and 28c versions of that tire with no bead issues. Bummer.

Do you have any more closeups of the bike? Is it a Trek?

It's a Trek District. I changed out the bars to drops, otherwise it's stock. I'm more into geared road biking, so I am emulating that preferred fit.

The seatpost and saddle will go next. I'm really not a fan of this saddle...

on the trek website the district has machined rims but yours look like they are not, whats the deal?

they are machined, i think you are referring to this photo
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_6DQj7sK5vY8/So...0/IMG_0286.JPG
But the tire split and is covering the machined part, look at the top left, you can see the machined part.

Not true, I thought I could "read my body" up until just last week when I was diagnosed with a heart condition! I would never have known as I never felt a thing. :twitchy: so now I need a HR monitor for every ride as (during particularly hard rides) I could just drop dead without warning! :twitchy: isn't that just about a *****!

Front tire blowout on a 10% downhill grade? Sounds like overheating to me.

It wasn't. The rim wasn't even warm. This was at the top 3rd, maybe 2 miles into the descent. I thought heat too first, but it wasn't.

I think just the extra weight forward and cornering added stress to whatever defect was already there.

You can control your heart rate. A key is your pace of breathing which you can control. You can readily drop your heart rate by breathing slower. Kinda odd, it ought be more dependent on the load, but it isn't.

bunk tires. glad you didn't wad yourself up on the downhill.

nice ride report. there are lots of nice riding out in those mountains. i just got into road biking but haven't ventured up there yet. i don't think i can ride up there on my fixie (currently at 75 GI).

Sorry to hear that man. Definately a good idea for you then.

But for the normal rider, I still say learn to read your body. You can feel when there is getting to be too much lactic in your legs, and you can feel when you are breathing to hard and your chest feels like it's beating too fast.

I just think that reading your body is a very good skill to have in endurance sports.

But to each their own.

Quick noob question, when you guys are really climbing up hills for a while, are you always seated or standing.

Im on about 65gi and when I have to climb my hill I can't decide what is easier, staying in the saddle or standing, and I don't know what the correct way is.

I am definitely lucky to live where I do for road biking. I've been riding for about a year now, and through friends I met in the norcal forum I've worked up to and have finished 2 doubles. I live about 20 minutes from 5 different great 1500-2500ft climbs.

I was seated for the majority of the climb, but sitting as upright as I could to get leverage. Anything above 7-8% meant standing up was necessary just to turn the cranks, and on some of the longer 5-6% sections I would stand to "rest".

It's not as easy as climbing with gears, and there are some hills around here where I wouldn't be able to get up them without my 34/28 bail-out, but it was definitely satisfying to make it up to the various vista points on a SS.

your pads were rubbing your sidewall. mystery solved.