Bicycling in Bloomington

 I will get to the subject of the post below.

I did not ride Thursday through Saturday. Thursday, I was away all day; Friday, I ran a few miles; Saturday, I had some things to do and wanted to watch the time trials in the Tour. Sunday, I rode about 45 miles. A typical ride, a version of the orchard ride – Smith Road, 45, Bethel, Boltinghouse, Old 37 to Hindustan; Chambers, across 37, Dittemore, Bottom, Kinser into town, Rogers to Clear Creek south of town, Fairfax, Schacht, Harrell, Stipp, Moore’s Creek, Rhorer, and Sare. I wanted to ride about 3 hours and be back to see the end of the Tour.

It was a relatively nice morning. The second part of the ride felt cooler than the first. Traffic was very light as usual. I tried to keep my HR in the 130 – 145 range to get some training effect. I focused on relaxed shoulders, feet and knees in the proper position, and keeping a steady pace. However, I regularly lost focus and just enjoyed riding.

The ride was a mixture of training and recreation. It wasn’t torture. I thought about the differences because of some symbols painted on the road for an organized ride. The symbols are similar to Dan Henry’s except they are H’s with the direction coming from the top of right side of the H or from the bar in the H. The symbols are orange. I assume it’s an organized ride but I don’t know what it is. I asked some staff at my LBS about it last year, and they didn’t know.

The ride seems to have all the bad hills in it. For example, it goes up Boltinghouse which is very steep. The ride would not be a lot of fun, except for those who consider torturing themselves as fun. For me, I can make myself train by choosing challenging routes, pushing hard, and doing sprints. But, most rides are mostly recreational – fun to be out on the bike. Choosing a ride that is mostly steep hills wouldn’t be fun and it wouldn’t be training. It would be torture.

But some rides are closer to torture than I might admit. This morning, I rode Old 446 with 10 60 second (more or less) sprints. Each sprint, I went as hard as could so that by the end, I was struggling to keep pace. Most ended with my HR in the low 150s. The last few sprints were very hard. Maybe I do torture myself at times.