Thursday, August 03, 2006

8/03/2006 Commuting by Bicycle

I got off to an early start this morning. I was about 20 minutes early getting out the door, so I was able to relax and take a little more time on the commute in. It worked out nicely because my legs were a bit tired after yesterday's double workout. I was still able to maintain a reasonable pace on the flats, but I was definitely not in top form. It was a great ride though. The only thing that keeps these commutes from being great is dragging my backpack on my back.

1st half of the commute:

Odo: 869.5 miles
Dist: 25.37 miles
Time: 1:38:31
Avg: 15.4 mph
Max: 34.6 mph

I can't believe it! Early on during my ride home I broke yet another spoke. It is just unreal that this keeps happening. I'm taking the bike back to the shop today to have it looked at. There must be something wrong with the rear wheel that this keeps happening. With the broken spoke I ended up dragging my back wheel home as it wobbled and rubbed the rear brakes the whole way. It really slowed me down and made the ride grueling. By the time I reached the final hill on Filager I was completely wiped out and had to walk part of it. I stopped about half way for a rest, but made the final push up the hill.

Total Stats for ride:
Odo: 894.6 miles
Dist: 50.53 miles
Time: 3:22:19
Avg: 14.9 mph
Max: 34.6 mph

1 comment:

Tuco said...

Hi Adam - looks like we're both doing fairly silly bike commutes! (Try http://tucorides.blogspot.com )
Breaking spokes sucks. One thing that does it is jumping off (or onto) curbs, that causes totally unnecessary stress on wheels.
The other problem might be that you have a radially spoked wheel (spokes go straight from hub to rim without crossing over other spokes). wheels like that generally aren't that strong.
anyway, good luck with the training!