ZOOOoooom

[joflasher]

Yesterday I biked 30 miles. Today my knees are Not Amused(tm). Still, I did it in a little under 2.5 hours and was only really dragging for the last mile. Figures, all the hills would be on the last stretch home.

I got from the house to Alewife in 51 minutes without really pushing, although I did hit a bunch of traffic in around Lexington. I can't help but think the ride would go quicker if I had a road bike instead of my mountain bike. Mountain bike == fat, sticky tires and a good solid (read, heavy) frame. Oh well, the point was distance, not speed.

The main reason for the ride was to see if I could bike to work. That involves coming from Billerica into MIT campus, for those of you who know the area. I figured if I could get from the house to the Bedford head of the MinuteMan Trail, down to Alewife and back in a few hours, then I could definitely do home ->MinuteMan -> Cambridge in the morning and still have the energy to make it home again that night.

I believe its doable without massive conditioning training on my part. Now I just need to figure out how to go from the MinuteMan to the Charles River trail without DYING in the Dueling Doughnuts of DOOM! (also known as the Fresh Pond Rotaries) . I know there's a way, I just need to find it on my map.

That's the next weekend ride.

Comments

[alabastard.livejournal.com]

I used to deal with the daily commuting to work by bike ... I would just do down the road a bit and cross before the rotaries, then follow 16...

[vandebeast.livejournal.com]

Mountain bike == fat, sticky tires and a good solid (read, heavy) frame. Oh well, the point was distance, not speed.

I imagine you would have more energy left, if you went at the same speed, on a road bike than on a mountain bike. Seems like the skinny tires would have less rolling friction.

[dgr.livejournal.com]

Wow, sounds like quite a haul. I'm impressed that you're thinking of commuting at that distance, but it sounds like a laudable goal. After about 20 miles, my ass gets really sore and I start fidgeting, which makes it even harder on my legs.

I bought a gary fischer zebrano when I got to Seattle, and the hybrid is quite nice for tooling around. It doesn't have the weight or tire width of a mountain bike (so you can't do true offroading with it), but it it much more curb and pothole resistant than a road bike. They also make more upright-sitting bikes for commuting, but I just couldn't get past how dorky they looked.

Josh B has a recumbent bike which is pretty sweet for long distances, too, but with the low profile, I'd be afraid to ride it on the street.

[flasher.livejournal.com]

Nah, the actual commute would be 18 miles one way. That's not all that bad ... I figure I can do that in about an hour if I push it a little. My car commute is normally between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours, depending on traffic. I figure the bike commute would be less variable and a hell of a lot less stressful. I just wanted to see if I COULD do it both ways without a break in between. The combination of our stationary bike and all the running my vball couch had us doing has really paid off, endurance wise.

When I bought my new mountain bike, I laid out the extra money for a seat upgrade. Definitely worth it. The seat on the last mountain bike used to make me really unhappy after about 20 minutes. Road bikes kind of scare me. They look like they'd bend a tire with the slightest little jump...