One thing’s certain: I’m probably not doing this again. It’s too boring. I’m pretty sure there’s less than 50 of us for the 40-mile race.

Popularity: 1% [?]

• There are no official recorded times.  The race officially started at 8:30am (I think) but the “traffic” never moved (there are so many participants!) until around 8:45.  There are a couple of bottlenecks, notably the ones before Central Park and the one just before the Verrazano bridge, which accounts for about an hour of lost time.  My friend and I were at the finish line by 1:35PM…and my Garmin failed on me…so I would say we finished in about 4 hours including rest times.
• I’m not taking my Surly again.  I love this bike but it’s so damn heavy.  By the time I was climbing Verrazano it felt like I was pulling about 3 tons of metal.
• Using a Sigg bottle for rehydration was stupid.  I had to stop to take a drink.
• While waiting at Central Park bottleneck, I overheard somebody saying something about pressure points to alleviate constipation.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I signed up for a few high-profile races this year:

• Bike New York
• Spring Lake 5-Mile
• Atlantic City Marathon
• Philadelphia Marathon

I’m a bit nervous about the AC and Philly Marathons…those would be my FIRST and SECOND Marathons, respectively, and just a month apart.  If I survive both, I’m going for NYC Marathon next year…and maybe the holy grail of marathons after that: Boston Marathon!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Max speed 31mph. WOOT!

Popularity: 1% [?]

On my last biking entry, I complained about wrist pains and thought about adjusting my bike (saddle height, etc.).  I changed my mind thinking that I’m probably just getting used to the road bike frame geometry.  I tried the advice from (the late) Sheldon Brown and tried to maintain proper posture while on a bike.  It seems to be working…there is much less pain today.  

…or it could be placebo.  Whatever.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’m fairly certain i need further adjustments on the bike. My wrists kind of hurt a little and i found myself having the need to slide forward on the saddle. Maybe my posture is off.

Popularity: 2% [?]

if you’re like me, you probably detest using Firefox by now (which has slowly turned into its ugly predecessor, Netscape). I could not stop using it because the Garmin communicator plugin is having problems with Safari 4 (used for uploading GPS data to trimbleoutdoors.com).

That is until today: I found this forum thread on the workaround. Now I can finally ditch Firefox on my Mac.

Speaking of GPS…DeVelMan pointed out yesterday about the GPS iPhone application, MotionX. In theory, this could be potentially a replacement for my trusty Garmin Edge 205. However, upon reading this one review by a presumed seasoned biker, it was deal-killer for me. DevelMan tested the trial version and pitted it against his 205 and found that there was a significant lag. At $2.99, it’s probably decent…but come to think of it, i don’t think i have the guts to have the iPhone exposed and mounted on the bike while riding, considering my “skills” on keeping my bike in balance, especially on trails.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I just finished a (short) ride with my new bike: a Surly Cross-Check.  I probably did something right by choosing the bike because I beat my record for my “basic” 5 mile ride (usually with the Trek hybrid) by 2 minutes!

As for the bike, I went with the stock complete bike in 46cm gravy brown frame through Halter’s Cycles, only replacing the saddle with my Brooks B17, and using a plain pedals (i.e., not “clipless”).  I did a thorough bike fitting with my LBS, I am 5’6″ (barely 30 in. inseam) and looking at the forums, I see people mostly going for 50cm…which made me wonder a bit if I got a size too small…but looking at the bike, my stem is standard, the seat is just in the middle of the rail…so I learned that bike fitting is *really* important when buying a bike.

I should really post some pics of the bike…maybe later today.

Popularity: 3% [?]

My new bike arrives tomorrow!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Since I’ve managed to keep this hobby long enough to have fifteen entries about it here, I’ve decided to move my cycling adventures to a different blog. I’ll be moving the entries from this blog to the new one.

(Does that mean this blog willl never get updated? )

Popularity: 60% [?]