Ooppsss

It pays to keep up with your bike maintenance and I found out one of the issues that I have had on some recent rides my not have just been my legs (or lack of legs). I noticed that my front brake was rubbing on the wheel. Yes that can slow you down with out you noticing if you are not paying attention. The brake was not rubbing so much that I could notice it unless I was really paying attention.

I was able to clean my bike this weekend and fix the brake issue by simply centering the brake. While I was cleaning the bike I wanted to try and fix another issue that I had been having with shifting. A couple of weeks ago I broke a spoke on my rear wheel. I took it to a local shop and had it fixed the same day and did not think any thing about it. The only issue was that after I had the spoke fixed was some shifting issues. Now I need to get a new cassette so I assumed it was just wear in some gears I use more. When I really looked at my cassette once I had removed the wheel I quickly noticed the issue.

The order of cogs on my cassette should be 11-12-13-14-15-16-..... However, the order that the cogs was 11-12-13-15-14-16-17....

No wonder I was have issues with shifting. Hopefully I have fixed the issues and will the riding will be much stronger. The moral of the story keep your bike properly maintained.

Why can't we all get along

Today I had a experience that shocked me. One of my friends posted something on facebook that I just could not believe. The exact quote was "you know what really grind my gears? People on bicycles holding up busy roads. Or people on bicycles on winding country roads"

Now as a cyclist I feel very strongly about cyclist right to the road and safety on the road. My friend is not a cyclist and I bet just does not understand what it is like to be out on the road on a bike. The comment resulted in a debate that went on most of the day about whether bikes belong on the road or not. 

I spent the day thinking about how to show him that not only do bikes belong on the road but that people should stop taunting us thinking that it is funny. My main concern is that if I can not convince a friend of this, how can we possibly change all of the drivers out there that we don't know. I know that I don't have the answer but maybe the place to start is to get more folks on bikes. I know that once I got on a bike I realized a lot more about driving and how to safely pass bikes when I am in my car.


So talk to your friends and get them out on a bike. Even if it is just for 1 ride. You never know....they may decide that they really like riding.

Frustration

This past weekend I had two rides that were very frustrating. I am used to getting dropped on my Saturday ride since that ride usually has a ton of racers much better than I am. However, this last Saturday there were several races in the DFW area and so most of the racers were not on the ride. Yet I still got dropped. To add insult to getting dropped as I was chasing back I ran into this guy:

I have no idea what kind of snake it was. I did not really want to get that close. It looked a little like a copper head from what I saw. I was happy that I had good brakes and was able to come skidding to a stop before running over it.  The delay in stopping for it to finish crossing the road made me miss regrouping with the rest of the pack and I road the rest of the ride by myself. It was especially fun given the 25mph head wind with 30-35 mph gusts.

Sunday was even a little worse since I was getting dropped by a group of strong riders but no Cat 1 or 2 racers. Very frustrating.

What is most frustrating is that I know why I am not strong on the bike and how to fix it. Fixing it has been difficult thought. I need to ride a lot more. I have gained some strength in the last month and I am very hopeful that I will get a lot stronger in the next month. I am scheduling my dissertation defense now and will hopefully be done with that soon!!!!

So time for more intervals and lots of time on the bike.

Dissertating

Ok so dissertating is probably not a real word but it is a reasonable single word description of what I have been doing. I finished collecting my data during finals week and after finishing posting final grades I have been working on my dissertation full steam! I had my data analysis finished last week until I had a great idea that I thought I could test using some SEM analysis. After spending five days working on cleaning data and trying to find a good fitting model in SEM it was time to give up on the SEM and call my data analysis complete.

So with my results section complete and a first draft of my discussion section finished as well I am feeling pretty good about finishing things up. I am hoping that by the end of the day tomorrow I will have a good draft to send to out. Hopefully I am getting very close to being finished.

Until I the manuscript is done I will press on with dissertating.....and a ride or run when I need to clear my head and regain some focus so I can write.

What a difference a year makes

So a little over a year ago my son was born. I can not believe that it has been a full year. A year ago it my wife and I were still in awe that we were parents and now (on most days) everything seems pretty routine.

A year ago:

Now:

Yeah he has grown a bit and I could not be more proud of my little guy.

Crazy times

I wrote this last week but it has been a little crazy lately...

I am writing this from the DFW airport as I wait to catch a flight to a university in the south for a campus interview. I am not disclosing where I am heading right now b/c I will post this later and don't want everyone to know where I am interviewing. By the time you read this I will likely be back home.

The reason I am writing this now is to share a little bit about the interview process for faculty positions. From everything I know about the "real" world (i.e. business) the faculty search/interview process is very different. After sending a ton of information in with my application (teaching statements/research statements/teaching evaluations/letters of recommendation/VITA(academic resume)/ cover letter/transcripts), search committees typically want to do a phone interview. If they like you on the phone interview then they will bring you in for a campus interview. Rather than the campus interview lasting a couple of hours, it can last several days. So right now I am heading down for an afternoon with a lunch, tour, and dinner. Tomorrow I have a breakfast with faculty members, meeting with some faculty members, meetings with deans and a vice president, a teaching demonstration, and a research demonstration and then back on the plane to come home. And then back to campus the next day to teach and check on my data collection.

Yeah it is a long day and a half but hopefully it will end with a positive outcome. If you are lucky in the application process you end up with several of these campus visits so you are "jet setting" across the country. Which means that you have to have people to cover classes and things of that nature.

So I want to say thank you to everyone who has covered my classes and campus responsibilities while I have been out of town.

Hopefully this will all end with a good announcement and I will be able to tell everyone where Nici, Connor, and I will be moving in August

Junk miles are good (sometimes)

Every training book that I have ever read and any coach that I have ever talked to has always warned against junk miles. Now junk mile are what many of us end up riding a lot of. These are miles that are too hard to be considered endurance or recovery miles but too easy to provide the effort we need to really get stronger. So we end up hurting ourselves but not quite enough for a really benefit. (I am sure you can find better descriptions of junk miles but that one works for me). Now many of us ride these miles despite the fact that we know better but it is fun to ride with friends that may push us to ride these types of miles so that we can keep up with them.

But I was out on my bike over the winter and fall and realized that I was riding a ton of junk miles. When I got home and looked at my computer my heart rate was too high for base but not high enough to really help me increase my VO2 max or other high end thresholds. The odd thing was that I felt great. I started to wonder why I was feeling so good while I knew that the training that I was doing was not the type that would make me stronger for this season. It finally hit me on one warmer fall ride. I was having fun with my friends. Sometimes we can get so locked into a training plan and making sure that we are going hard enough or slow enough to work on a specific area that we forget why we ride. I don't ride for glory or for wins (lets face it I am simply not fast enough) but I ride b/c I love the feeling of being on my bike. And that is why I miss it so much when I am not able to ride. I don't miss the intervals or crawling into a headwind. I miss riding with friends.

Junk miles may be bad for a training plan that can be absolutely amazing for the soul. So, if you have not had a FUN ride lately go call some friends and get in some junk miles for the soul.

I promise you won't regret it.