| Observed At: 10:00 PM MDT | |
 Mostly Cloudy |
Temperature: 9.9°C Wind: SW 8 km/h Sunrise: 5:40 Sunset: 21:29 |
A group of LabRats spent the may long weekend in Windermere for a high mileage weekend. Saturday’s ride took them over Sinclair pass to Kootenay crossing and back.
Afterward, David said the ride was “Good” and John said “Let’s go to the sushi restaurnant and see if we can eat them out of fish”. Mark stayed awake for the ride, but fell asleep at the dinner table.
Long Ride in Kootenay
On holiday Monday, David and John got a lift out to Lake Louise intending for a ride home on an “Epic” tailwind. Our training partner the wind was late getting to the MeetUp though, and was actually still travelling rushing toward Banff when they headed out. They met going opposite directions on Highway 1A, so they still enjoyed an Epic day in the mountains. Afterward, David described the ride as “Good” and John said “Let’s see if we can eat all the fish at Coto”.
Congratulations to the boys for blazing a new trail. See The Ride Here On Google Maps
Where a show like Interbike is geared for retailers, Taipei is a show where component manufacturers show off their talents.
Small wheeled bikes are pretty common here - but I haven't seen any this fancy on the street. The show had a lot of fancy bikes, concep bikes and knockoff bikes.
Somehow January turned quickly to the end of March, and there hasn’t been any new posts here. For interest, here are some pictures from the 2010 Taipei bike show 18-20 March.
In swim drills this week, some folks will see 6KR added to the drill progression. The six kick roll is a swim drill progressing from side glide. It should not be confused with a Kick Roll, a Rick Roll, a Kick Flip or a Crane Kick. Find your side balance point and get six good kicks in before switching sides with a single pull. Fins are okay for this if side glide is still challenging. If you have the hang of side glide though, it’s best to do this barefoot.
I’m often trolling for useful video on swim drills and discussions that let you see good swim technique. In this short review of technique, Ironman champion Dave Scott provides a clear description of a few good habits for efficient swimming, especially the importance of keeping your elbow above your wrist. My favorite visualization is the “fingers in the mail slot” analogy.
You can see this elbow over wrist clearly in this second clip, of Olympian Kara Lynn Joyce. The side view underwater footage at about 30 seconds is best.
Pedaling with one leg figured into most people’s rides this week. Here is an excellent demonstration of Single Leg Drill on rollers. This drill is useful for letting you see the relative strength of each leg and helps you develop your pedaling technique.
There are a few important points here:
Want to see something cool? Turn down your speakers and then check out this clip of a bike ride with map position and ride data super imposed as a dash cluster.
The clip was made using Dashware software to synchronize helmet cam footage with data recorded from wireless power, speed, and heart rate sensors during a ride. Most of you already have the sensors, you just need to borrow Anderson’s camera the next time we get out for a Tuesday night ride.
It’s base season again, and so it’s time to get back to basics on stroke, starting with balance. As a refresher for some, here are some technique videos of some of the balance drills we do.
The first is “Head first front balance”. The instructor here makes the excellent comment about hips dropping as you raise your head to breathe front. Press on your chest as you lift your head to try to keep you hips up as much as possible
I’m happy to report I got my ride in today, in Boulder City Nevada. Among the hundreds that showed up for today’s ride to Lake Mead were 2 other Cochrane cyclists making it an authentic Tuesday ride!
Ken referred to this as the Hangover Ride, but I don’t think he was very hungover because he was in a good mood and only drank 2 coffees on the drive out. When we got out to the expo he set up a bike for Richelle and me. Then he kicked my ass.
Tuesday was a beautiful warm night and we rode to Waiparous to enjoy the fall colors. Just after John turned around to rest his race weary legs, we got to the end of the pavement in good time, and someone wondered “what’s on the other side of this gravel?” Crossing a few hundred meters of shale was like opening up a secret level without the swimming.
View from the backroad extension to Tuesday's ride