Added Close to 10 miles at Amp

Krueger and I headed out after work Tuesday evening to get some laps in at the Lafayette Amphitheater.  The air temperature was close to 70F (21 C) and the winds were steady at 12 mph (19 kpm).  We arrived about 3:45 and put in 3 laps in an hour and 20 mins.

It was just last August when I picked up mountain biking as an exercise.  On my first trip to The Amp, I couldn't even complete ONE lap without stopping to catch my breath.  This trip I put in three laps, didn't stop on the first lap at all and I kept my heart rate average to 145 bpm over the entire 10 miles.  Oh I'm still not good by any stretch, but I can see improvement!


While we rode, we took some time to reflect on what I have learned since August:

  • Have good equipment, especially a good bike
  • Look up ahead on the trail, not down.  You are sure to hit a tree if you are looking at it.
  • Wear padded shorts, your butt will Thank You
  • Lean forward going uphill and lean back going downhill
  • Shift gears often and stay in the highest gear possible, especially uphill
    • A higher gear makes it harder to pedal, being tougher on your legs, but is easier on your lungs since you do not require as many revolutions to travel the same distance
  • Having a beer after a long ride probably is not the best form of hydration but it sure tastes mighty good and is quite refreshing


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil.  All of that bakes in the son
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down into a channel in the housing."  Bam. 
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The two little "
Read more