I’m a big fan of Strava. It’s social media for athletes (mostly cyclists, runners, and swimmers) where you post your activities and give each other kudos, like “liking” on Facebook. People also set up Strava cycling segments where you can try for the fastest time to earn a KOM (King of the Mountain) or QOM (Queen of the Mountain). It’s pretty cool to get a QOM, and I admit to getting a little irked when someone steals one of my QOM’s. What I really like about, Strava, however, are the cycling distance challenges. Incidentally, the name “Strava” comes from the Swedish word meaning “to strive.”
Strava offers a distance challenge each month. The goal is 1,250 km, about 777 miles. You get electronic badges for completing 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the challenge. I really don’t care about the intermediate badges other than to make sure I’m on track throughout the month. I’m after that finisher’s badge! And I’m pretty relentless in pursuing it.
Actually, I usually do the distance challenges only from March through September. During the remaining fall and winter months, there’s not enough daylight after work to get enough road mileage, and dirt road riding – fun as it is – is too slow to accumulate the miles. Why sign up for a distance challenge if I know I can’t do 100%? Besides, it’s good to take the pressure off myself for a few months out of the year.
But right now is distance challenge time! About 10 days ago, I started analyzing how I might get my 1,250 km during the remaining days of August. I even made a spreadsheet. This is serious stuff.
Weekends are the obvious time to rack up my main mileage. However, I had a small hiccup last weekend because of the Spot on TT, my last race of the season. With only about 11 miles in the race, I would have to make up some mileage elsewhere. The race was on Sunday. Saturday would normally be a long-ride day, but I didn’t want to wear myself out the day before a race. I decided that I could manage about a 50-mile ride on Saturday at a mellow pace. I still needed to pick up some more miles, though.
I had two Tuesday Worlds left in the month. I could ride my bicycle to and from Tuesday Worlds from my office. That would add about 11 extra miles each time on top of the 37 miles at Worlds. According to my spreadsheet plan, I would need to ride about 18 miles today, August 31, to complete the Strava distance challenge. No problem. My usual after-work road ride is about 20-23 miles.
Uh oh – a few days ago our Georgia Neuro team director called a meeting for 5:30 today. Whew! Still no problem because I could simply ride at lunchtime. My regular lunchtime route is 21 miles. Everything was going according to plan…until yesterday.
Yesterday after work, I unloaded my bicycle from my car to ride to Tuesday Worlds. I started pedaling through the parking lot and discovered that my Di2 electronic shifters weren’t working. I didn’t see any loose connections. Argh! I have had a number of Di2 problems. I’ve been pretty patient up until now, but this time I had had it. Although I decided to proceed to Tuesday Worlds and do the best I could with my one gear, I fumed the whole way to the start. Robert didn’t see any obvious problem, either. I took off a few minutes before the group. With only one gear – and not a very good one at that – I knew that I would be much slower than usual and would have to cut my ride short to finish before dark.
A couple of miles down the road, I caught up to Chad Madan. He usually rides from his workshop, which is located very close to the Tuesday Worlds route, and joins the group a few miles in. Chad could tell that I was having bike issues. Trying not to be too whiny, I briefly explained that my Di2 shifters weren’t working, and I had only one gear. To my surprise, he diagnosed the problem right away! He asked if I had laid my bicycle on its side. Yes, I had carried it to work in the back of my car. He said that if you lay your bike on the break/shifter, it can discharge the battery in a relatively short time. Of course! What a simple explanation! I had a strong suspicion that that was exactly what had happened. If I were able to go home and recharge my battery without incident, I would be certain that this was the problem. In the future, I will simply be much more aware of how I carry my bicycle in the car.
(Side note: My first Di2 issues were due to a lemon battery, which Shimano replaced for me. That was a tail-end-of-the-bell-curve experience regarding electronic shifting. Since then, I’ve had a couple of incidents like the one I just described, and I think they have always been after laying my bicycle on its side in my car. Now that I understand the probable underlying cause, my confidence in Di2 is restored.)
I still had only one gear for last night’s ride, but Chad’s advice buoyed my spirits significantly. I even laughed as Jake pushed my back and gave me a bewildered look as the Tuesday Worlds peloton zipped by. As I rode along mostly by myself for the rest of the evening, I thought about how I still could get my Strava miles. Between yesterday and today I needed 67 miles. Hmm…on Wednesday I could ride a little before work and then ride at lunchtime. Or maybe I could ride from my office on the north side of Macon to our team meeting downtown. No, I would ride my bicycle to work, a 36-mile trip, and have Robert pick me up for the team meeting. Sure, I would have to get up extra early, and I would have to ride in the dark (with lights, of course) for the first part of my commute, but it was totally doable.
So, I needed to ride at least 31 single-speed miles last night. Like a moving GPS unit, I recalculated my course. I did about half of the usual Tuesday Worlds route and then headed back to my office. My modified route turned out to be exactly 31 miles. I was cutting this close…
Although my Marin Stelvio, i.e., my Di2 bike, seemed to be charging fine last night, this morning I rode my Trek Domane to work. The Domane is an endurance bike with a rack where I can carry stuff for commuting. Both the bike and rack are new, and I still need to get a trunk bag that fits on the rack. In the meantime, this morning I stuck my work clothes, lunch, etc. in a bag and searched for bungee cords to attach it to the rack. I could only find one bungee cord. Robert helped me finish securing the bag to the rack with duct tape.
I felt like the cycling version of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath, heading off to try to earn a living. As I headed down Highway 11, I was grateful I had a job to go to.
My commute was quite pleasant. I got to see the sunrise, and I enjoyed the serenade of crickets and birds. And I got my 1,250 km! Exactly 1,250 km – told you I was cutting it close.
So where does the Bloody Mary come in? I take my lunch to work every day, and I always drink V-8 with it. Spicy only – I’ll gladly drink regular V-8 on a randonneuring event, but I prefer spicy with my work lunches. I take a 46-oz. bottle to work and leave it in the refrigerator, which is enough supply for five or six days. I try to take a fresh bottle when I’m down to one or two servings. However, last Friday I finished a bottle without already having brought a new one. I forgot my new bottle on both Monday and Tuesday of this week. Now with my last-minute bicycle commute this morning, I would be missing my V-8 on Wednesday, too, because I sure didn’t want to carry a big bottle in my bike bag. I was having serious V-8 withdrawal. As I was sorting all of this out on last night’s single-speed ride (so many important things to think about while I’m on my bike), I came up with an excellent alternative: a Bloody Mary for my Tuesday evening adult beverage. We had Bloody Mary mix at home, but we were out of vodka. So, after Tuesday Worlds I swung by the package store near my office. In the end, I got my tomato juice-like fix as well as my 1,250 km for the month. Life is good.
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