Halters Cycles 31/31 Contest. July 2015 $100
- Thread starter jdog
- Start date
- Status
Pagliacci
Well-Known Member
So these 2 files are my last ride.
http://app.strava.com/activities/358400866
http://app.strava.com/activities/358425891
After I failed at the simplest of roadside repairs, I had to call home like 8 times to finally wake someone up. The wife rescued me and I got home, switched bikes, and went back out.
Tried to get a pic of the moon shining down on my bike and the creek, but my phone sucks for night shots.
Tooled around until my mood improved, and stopped at 7/11 for milk and ice cream.
So for the month I rode 4 bikes (shamefully, no mtb), in 2 countries, and logged just over 500 miles.
Huge thanks to J, and congrats and thanks to to the rest of the field.
http://app.strava.com/activities/358400866
http://app.strava.com/activities/358425891
After I failed at the simplest of roadside repairs, I had to call home like 8 times to finally wake someone up. The wife rescued me and I got home, switched bikes, and went back out.
Tried to get a pic of the moon shining down on my bike and the creek, but my phone sucks for night shots.
Tooled around until my mood improved, and stopped at 7/11 for milk and ice cream.
So for the month I rode 4 bikes (shamefully, no mtb), in 2 countries, and logged just over 500 miles.
Huge thanks to J, and congrats and thanks to to the rest of the field.
Thank you all for joining in this contest. I know that many of you got a little more out of it than expected. I am happy that you all, tried or finished this effort as I know how tough it is to sneak in a hour ride a few times a week, let alone on a daily basis.
Pop in today or or sat and we can have a look at your results on the shop computer.
For those who have not been in our new space the address is : 1325 route 206 skillman NJ 08858. 609-924-7433. M-f 11-7, sat 10-5 closed Sunday.
As promised the first 50 people that show 1 hour or more of riding time for every day In July will receive a $100 gift certificate.
In a week or so I will also announce the man and woman who completed the greatest # of riding hours in July. They will each receive a riding kit from Gore Bike Wear.
Thanks for playing along. For those who did not make it, we will run this again next year. For those who did, I would love a little summary for those of us watching at home. Let us know of the good bad and ugly.
J-dog
Pop in today or or sat and we can have a look at your results on the shop computer.
For those who have not been in our new space the address is : 1325 route 206 skillman NJ 08858. 609-924-7433. M-f 11-7, sat 10-5 closed Sunday.
As promised the first 50 people that show 1 hour or more of riding time for every day In July will receive a $100 gift certificate.
In a week or so I will also announce the man and woman who completed the greatest # of riding hours in July. They will each receive a riding kit from Gore Bike Wear.
Thanks for playing along. For those who did not make it, we will run this again next year. For those who did, I would love a little summary for those of us watching at home. Let us know of the good bad and ugly.
J-dog
J-7
Active Member
I made it! I rode at work, on vacation, at night, in the rain, with the wife and the kids.
37 rides, 40+, hours, 436 miles.
I'm always a little bit happier when I get on my bike, so thanks J, it was a fun July. Hopefully I can make to the shop on Monday and say thanks in person.
37 rides, 40+, hours, 436 miles.
I'm always a little bit happier when I get on my bike, so thanks J, it was a fun July. Hopefully I can make to the shop on Monday and say thanks in person.
J31-32: A ride down the canal Elysees
Had a good showing for today's ride to Halter's.
Thanks @Arwen's Mom for putting the ride together,
and thanks again @jdog for hosting the challenge.
Great to put some faces to the names
@tommyjay @rlb @JoeLee @de00304
And saw @MissJR and @satanpez at the shop
Had a good showing for today's ride to Halter's.
Thanks @Arwen's Mom for putting the ride together,
and thanks again @jdog for hosting the challenge.
Great to put some faces to the names
@tommyjay @rlb @JoeLee @de00304
And saw @MissJR and @satanpez at the shop
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rlb
Well-Known Member
Nice to meet everyone today. Fun ride, was great to see some families out there!
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Finally home!
Rides:
7/25
7/26
7/27
7/28
7/29
7/30
7/31-1 and 7/31-2
I survived my week on the Erie Canal Trail. And that's probably a pretty apt way to describe it - survival. The trail itself is pretty tame - a lot of crushed gravel with little elevation change - but two things made the whole experience a unique challenge. First and foremost, there was the weather. The temps in western New York were hovering around 90 with a really high dew point all week, but even that wasn't the hard part - that would be the sun. The sun was so brutally strong all the time. It really felt like there was a 20 degree difference between being in the shade and being in the sun. After I finished my ride on Monday, I couldn't bear to be outside for more than a minute. It just felt like there was nothing filtering the sun at all.
a typical section of the EC Trail … when it was a trail ...
The second thing about the ride was the many sections where the trail wasn't actually a trail at all. For example, there were 30 miles of road between Lyons and Weedsport that were all just Route 31.
There were way too many miles of this on the so-called Erie Canal "Trail".
The road sections weren't especially difficult -- they were just unnecessary. I knew there was some road out there from the research I'd done before the ride, but two sections in particular -- that Lyons-Weedsport run and the last 20 miles of the ride from Lockport to Niagara Falls -- were just way too long to be on a road. There was supposed to be a link up in Lyons to an alternate route down in Montezuma, but as much as I looked for it, I found no trailhead that led to it. All I could find was the green "Bike Route 5" signs on Route 31. And why they haven't been able to create a trail to connect the Niagara Riverway Trail to the Lockport canal trail is beyond me -- there was plenty of room for it along the way and the current connection is a high traffic roadway with signs that say "Please Share the Road".
At any rate, it wasn't all just sun and roads. There was some really cool scenery out there, too.
And another cool thing … on one particularly long, empty section of trail between Syracuse and Rome, someone goes out and puts coolers full of water and/or Gatorade for passers-by. Just a really cool thing to do -- there was literally no stores or even homes along the trail there for maybe 25 miles.
By Wednesday, I was toast. I was really glad to just have a day to relax more or less and only did 23 miles around the city. Then I drove my car out to Niagara Falls and caught a train back so that my buddy wouldn't have to do a round trip ride with me the following day. He doesn't ride as much and was worried about doing the 85 miles both days. So I told him I'd drive out so we could do the trip one way only. With the oppressive heat, I figured that was a better option. That turned out to be a good idea -- he did fine the next day but was pretty wrecked by the time we finished. Asking him to do another 85 miles the next morning would have been a lot. So instead, we hung out in Niagara Falls after the ride and I had the best Souther Tier Pumking Ale I've ever had (they dipped the glass in cinnamon -- I've never seen that before, but it's a brilliant idea!)
After dinner, my buddy was exhausted so he went to sleep and I walked over to get a look at the Falls.
The next morning, I went out for an early ride before check out time and took a few more mandatory Falls photos, including one with a mist rainbow …
And then we drove back to Rochester, hit up the Gennesee Brewery for lunch (yeah - they make Genny Cream Ale, but they also do a bunch of micro-brews for their brewpub. It was a pretty awesome place.)
And just like that, the trip was done. I drove home this morning and figured out the numbers for the week: 485 miles in just under 38 hours of ride time. And about 1,025 miles in 84 1/2 hours for the month, with about 850 of those miles on the single speed. I'm sure those numbers aren't going to win it, but I'm happy with them -- especially the 1K+ for the full month. Since I rarely ride on the road, that's my highest single total mileage for a single month since I started recording it on my Garmin.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone who finished or even tried this contest. It's a lot tougher to do than it sounds!
Rides:
7/25
7/26
7/27
7/28
7/29
7/30
7/31-1 and 7/31-2
I survived my week on the Erie Canal Trail. And that's probably a pretty apt way to describe it - survival. The trail itself is pretty tame - a lot of crushed gravel with little elevation change - but two things made the whole experience a unique challenge. First and foremost, there was the weather. The temps in western New York were hovering around 90 with a really high dew point all week, but even that wasn't the hard part - that would be the sun. The sun was so brutally strong all the time. It really felt like there was a 20 degree difference between being in the shade and being in the sun. After I finished my ride on Monday, I couldn't bear to be outside for more than a minute. It just felt like there was nothing filtering the sun at all.
a typical section of the EC Trail … when it was a trail ...
The second thing about the ride was the many sections where the trail wasn't actually a trail at all. For example, there were 30 miles of road between Lyons and Weedsport that were all just Route 31.
There were way too many miles of this on the so-called Erie Canal "Trail".
The road sections weren't especially difficult -- they were just unnecessary. I knew there was some road out there from the research I'd done before the ride, but two sections in particular -- that Lyons-Weedsport run and the last 20 miles of the ride from Lockport to Niagara Falls -- were just way too long to be on a road. There was supposed to be a link up in Lyons to an alternate route down in Montezuma, but as much as I looked for it, I found no trailhead that led to it. All I could find was the green "Bike Route 5" signs on Route 31. And why they haven't been able to create a trail to connect the Niagara Riverway Trail to the Lockport canal trail is beyond me -- there was plenty of room for it along the way and the current connection is a high traffic roadway with signs that say "Please Share the Road".
At any rate, it wasn't all just sun and roads. There was some really cool scenery out there, too.
And another cool thing … on one particularly long, empty section of trail between Syracuse and Rome, someone goes out and puts coolers full of water and/or Gatorade for passers-by. Just a really cool thing to do -- there was literally no stores or even homes along the trail there for maybe 25 miles.
By Wednesday, I was toast. I was really glad to just have a day to relax more or less and only did 23 miles around the city. Then I drove my car out to Niagara Falls and caught a train back so that my buddy wouldn't have to do a round trip ride with me the following day. He doesn't ride as much and was worried about doing the 85 miles both days. So I told him I'd drive out so we could do the trip one way only. With the oppressive heat, I figured that was a better option. That turned out to be a good idea -- he did fine the next day but was pretty wrecked by the time we finished. Asking him to do another 85 miles the next morning would have been a lot. So instead, we hung out in Niagara Falls after the ride and I had the best Souther Tier Pumking Ale I've ever had (they dipped the glass in cinnamon -- I've never seen that before, but it's a brilliant idea!)
After dinner, my buddy was exhausted so he went to sleep and I walked over to get a look at the Falls.
The next morning, I went out for an early ride before check out time and took a few more mandatory Falls photos, including one with a mist rainbow …
And then we drove back to Rochester, hit up the Gennesee Brewery for lunch (yeah - they make Genny Cream Ale, but they also do a bunch of micro-brews for their brewpub. It was a pretty awesome place.)
And just like that, the trip was done. I drove home this morning and figured out the numbers for the week: 485 miles in just under 38 hours of ride time. And about 1,025 miles in 84 1/2 hours for the month, with about 850 of those miles on the single speed. I'm sure those numbers aren't going to win it, but I'm happy with them -- especially the 1K+ for the full month. Since I rarely ride on the road, that's my highest single total mileage for a single month since I started recording it on my Garmin.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone who finished or even tried this contest. It's a lot tougher to do than it sounds!
Awesome trip to cap the month-Finally home!
Rides:
7/25
7/26
7/27
7/28
7/29
7/30
7/31-1 and 7/31-2
I survived my week on the Erie Canal Trail. And that's probably a pretty apt way to describe it - survival. The trail itself is pretty tame - a lot of crushed gravel with little elevation change - but two things made the whole experience a unique challenge. First and foremost, there was the weather. The temps in western New York were hovering around 90 with a really high dew point all week, but even that wasn't the hard part - that would be the sun. The sun was so brutally strong all the time. It really felt like there was a 20 degree difference between being in the shade and being in the sun. After I finished my ride on Monday, I couldn't bear to be outside for more than a minute. It just felt like there was nothing filtering the sun at all.
a typical section of the EC Trail … when it was a trail ...
The second thing about the ride was the many sections where the trail wasn't actually a trail at all. For example, there were 30 miles of road between Lyons and Weedsport that were all just Route 31.
There were way too many miles of this on the so-called Erie Canal "Trail".
The road sections weren't especially difficult -- they were just unnecessary. I knew there was some road out there from the research I'd done before the ride, but two sections in particular -- that Lyons-Weedsport run and the last 20 miles of the ride from Lockport to Niagara Falls -- were just way too long to be on a road. There was supposed to be a link up in Lyons to an alternate route down in Montezuma, but as much as I looked for it, I found no trailhead that led to it. All I could find was the green "Bike Route 5" signs on Route 31. And why they haven't been able to create a trail to connect the Niagara Riverway Trail to the Lockport canal trail is beyond me -- there was plenty of room for it along the way and the current connection is a high traffic roadway with signs that say "Please Share the Road".
At any rate, it wasn't all just sun and roads. There was some really cool scenery out there, too.
And another cool thing … on one particularly long, empty section of trail between Syracuse and Rome, someone goes out and puts coolers full of water and/or Gatorade for passers-by. Just a really cool thing to do -- there was literally no stores or even homes along the trail there for maybe 25 miles.
By Wednesday, I was toast. I was really glad to just have a day to relax more or less and only did 23 miles around the city. Then I drove my car out to Niagara Falls and caught a train back so that my buddy wouldn't have to do a round trip ride with me the following day. He doesn't ride as much and was worried about doing the 85 miles both days. So I told him I'd drive out so we could do the trip one way only. With the oppressive heat, I figured that was a better option. That turned out to be a good idea -- he did fine the next day but was pretty wrecked by the time we finished. Asking him to do another 85 miles the next morning would have been a lot. So instead, we hung out in Niagara Falls after the ride and I had the best Souther Tier Pumking Ale I've ever had (they dipped the glass in cinnamon -- I've never seen that before, but it's a brilliant idea!)
After dinner, my buddy was exhausted so he went to sleep and I walked over to get a look at the Falls.
The next morning, I went out for an early ride before check out time and took a few more mandatory Falls photos, including one with a mist rainbow …
And then we drove back to Rochester, hit up the Gennesee Brewery for lunch (yeah - they make Genny Cream Ale, but they also do a bunch of micro-brews for their brewpub. It was a pretty awesome place.)
And just like that, the trip was done. I drove home this morning and figured out the numbers for the week: 485 miles in just under 38 hours of ride time. And about 1,025 miles in 84 1/2 hours for the month, with about 850 of those miles on the single speed. I'm sure those numbers aren't going to win it, but I'm happy with them -- especially the 1K+ for the full month. Since I rarely ride on the road, that's my highest single total mileage for a single month since I started recording it on my Garmin.
Anyway, congratulations to everyone who finished or even tried this contest. It's a lot tougher to do than it sounds!
Well done!
JoeLee
Well-Known Member
Thanks much to Jdog and Halters for doing this. Nice to meet you, and my son loves his new little blue bike!View attachment 24463
Great meeting you and your little man Dan! Grats on the new ride.
My 4-year old Harrison was walking around Halters yesterday checking out bikes and wanted a new one. Mommy said he already had a bike and he replies."BUT I ONLY HAVE ONE BIKE"
That's my boy.
Arwen's Mom
Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains
I LOVE THIS!Thanks much to Jdog and Halters for doing this. Nice to meet you, and my son loves his new little blue bike!
Arwen's Mom
Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Wow, what a month! Certainly the most consecutive days of riding for me so far!
My totals are:
31 days
3 rain rides
47h40 minutes
552 miles
3 states (NY, VT, NJ)
1 lap race of Stewart 45
Finished off the streak with a win at the H2H #7 Taconic 909 in Cat 3 Women 19-39! The question is, will I ride my bike tomorrow?
My totals are:
31 days
3 rain rides
47h40 minutes
552 miles
3 states (NY, VT, NJ)
1 lap race of Stewart 45
Finished off the streak with a win at the H2H #7 Taconic 909 in Cat 3 Women 19-39! The question is, will I ride my bike tomorrow?
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Ian F
Well-Known Member
I was away over the weekend down in VA for an enduro race at Bryce Resorts (2nd place in the 40+ geezer category!) and I'm on vacation this week as I prep for heading up to Windham on Weds. So today I drove around and did some chores and stopped by Halter's. Jdog is still up north, but (unfortunately his name escapes me.. ) knew the deal and looked up my data. I was #16 to claim my prize.
So... my thoughts on all of this... well, it was definitely educational. I had no delusions about how hard it would be and it was every bit of it. Fortunately, my rain rides were only a few despite it being a fairly wet July, but they were generally slow and boring. I'd say that was my biggest take-away from doing this: riding purely for time can be incredibly frustrating... especially when you're on a schedule and don't have a lot of time to squeeze in a ride. I spent a lot of time looking at the timer on my cycling computer and waiting for that 30-31 minute mark so I could turn around and head back. It was much more fun when I wasn't pressed for time and could just go out and not really worry about it.
My savior was doing the pre-dawn rides during the last week. I have a feeling if I do this again next year, a good percentage of my rides will be those. It just made things so much easier when work dumped on me and riding after work was rough. Plus, the traffic at those hours was much, MUCH lighter. After I recover and start doing intervals again, I will likely put in a few rides like this. That I working out new road riding routes after work which I know I will use again.
Let's see... I did about 44 hrs and almost 550 miles in four states (PA, NJ, MD, NY) on four different bikes: mainly my road bike and my DH bike (training practice for Windham), with a couple of rides on the Carbine and Chinese CF hardtail. Counting June 29 & 30 plus Aug 1 & 2, it totaled 35 days straight of riding. I record for me by far.
Today I rested. In a way, it feels kinda weird. Tomorrow I don't plan to ride either, but I plan to take my road bike with me to Windham and will likely do a ride after checking in to my condo and getting settled, although I have my fingers crossed the lift will be running on Weds and I'll be able to walk the course. Or I may just hike it...
) knew the deal and looked up my data. I was #16 to claim my prize. So... my thoughts on all of this... well, it was definitely educational. I had no delusions about how hard it would be and it was every bit of it. Fortunately, my rain rides were only a few despite it being a fairly wet July, but they were generally slow and boring. I'd say that was my biggest take-away from doing this: riding purely for time can be incredibly frustrating... especially when you're on a schedule and don't have a lot of time to squeeze in a ride. I spent a lot of time looking at the timer on my cycling computer and waiting for that 30-31 minute mark so I could turn around and head back. It was much more fun when I wasn't pressed for time and could just go out and not really worry about it.
My savior was doing the pre-dawn rides during the last week. I have a feeling if I do this again next year, a good percentage of my rides will be those. It just made things so much easier when work dumped on me and riding after work was rough. Plus, the traffic at those hours was much, MUCH lighter. After I recover and start doing intervals again, I will likely put in a few rides like this. That I working out new road riding routes after work which I know I will use again.
Let's see... I did about 44 hrs and almost 550 miles in four states (PA, NJ, MD, NY) on four different bikes: mainly my road bike and my DH bike (training practice for Windham), with a couple of rides on the Carbine and Chinese CF hardtail. Counting June 29 & 30 plus Aug 1 & 2, it totaled 35 days straight of riding.
I record for me by far.Today I rested. In a way, it feels kinda weird. Tomorrow I don't plan to ride either, but I plan to take my road bike with me to Windham and will likely do a ride after checking in to my condo and getting settled, although I have my fingers crossed the lift will be running on Weds and I'll be able to walk the course. Or I may just hike it...
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JoeLee
Well-Known Member
Seconded. It was the part I disliked about it. But then again, I always felt better for having ridden.
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