Steve's Wanderings ...

Cycling

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Tour de Tahoe

The Tour de Tahoe (72 miles or 116 km circumventing Lake Tahoe) took place last Sunday, September 9 2008.  I drove up the day before and met my friends Amy and Stuart for dinner at the Horizons hotel, site of the start/finish and also where the three of us were staying.  This hotel is one of several on the Nevada/California border (on the Nevada side) and site of a casino (for which the three of us had little interest).

We set off at 6:45 in chilly temperatures - around 7-8 degrees C - cold enough that my fingers were becoming numb and I was having a bit of trouble operating the shifters and brakes.  As soon as the sun rose, however, it quickly warmed up to more comfortable conditions.  Despite the altitude, I had little trouble with the course, and found it actually easier than the 100K ride I did at the end of August.  The scenery around the lake was beautiful and I felt pretty good throughout the ride.  Finish time (elapsed) was about 6 hours.

Riding around a scenic mountain lake brought back some fond memories of time spent in Mongolia ...

Garmin data can be viewed at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/777676

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Tour de Tahoe next Sunday

This Sunday I will ride in the Tour de Tahoe, a 72-mile (116 km) ride around Lake Tahoe, a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California and Nevada.  At one time there were six of us planning to go; as of now only three (and I’m not entirely sure about the other two ...).  Regardless I will go ...

I had a couple of spills on a short training ride last night - the usual problem with clipless pedals (which are like ski bindings): problems getting out of them quickly when having to suddenly stop.  Fortunately only scraped knees and a bit of soreness ...

I plan to wear my new Garmin so I can post a map of the ride next week.

View Larger Map

Monday, September 01, 2008

Garmin Forerunner 405

I just purchased the Garmin Forerunner 405 (with the optional Heart Rate Monitor (HRM)). I have enjoyed using the Garmin Forerunner 305 (the previous generation device); I was wearing it to generate the course map in my prior MS2S Course entry below.  However, after seeing Belle’s latest entry on her site regarding her use of the 405 in her weekend training run, I saw that it had capabilities which my 305 does not..

First and foremost, the addition of Garmin Connect, which allows users to share data collected from various workouts. Since Belle is my “virtual training partner” this had instant appeal for me. I had tried in vain to set up a much simpler logging facility on the old version of my site, and this seems to be a MUCH improved method of logging workouts!

Secondly there is the ability to upload data to my PC using a wireless connection - I had always managed at one point or another to inadvertently disconnect the USB cable - usually by kicking it!

So why am I entering this in the Cycling category? Because my first use of it won’t be in a run. Instead I will wear it in this weekend’s Tour de Tahoe, a 72-mile (116km) ride around Lake Tahoe. I don’t know if I will wear the HRM that comes with the Garmin or with my bike speedometer, but I like to watch my heart rate on long-distance events to keep myself on more or less an even keel ...

I will post whatever data I collect in a follow-up entry sometime next week, hopefully including a few photos.

Belle has posted a nice example of how to use Garmin Connect to log a workout; this is from her recent 26.77km training run - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/701181

Tour de Tahoe site - http://www.bikethewest.com/tourdetahoe.html