Sunday, March 16, 2008

The epic scale (patent pending)

Solid weekend on several fronts. Afternoon of visiting and errands on Friday, then out for a "few" drinks with some good people. A few nutritionally challenged decisions (as will happen after th bar) and then a good day at work. Roller races in the evening, as good a time as always. Hopefully some more pictures soon after someone else gets on that. I brought no camera. Good to see so many friendly faces out and meet a few more. Cheers to John, Chris and the rest of the Wheelers for putting on a good show. Even though I must say, I was treated quite unfairly in a certain 500m race "incident". Moral of the story, never trust a wily old racer who spent some quality time hardening up on the roads of Belgium. Needless to say, after John "suggested" a 50m head start and I agreed with said racer "make a show for the folks" and only race the last 250m... I was plensantly surprised when I both started much slower and 50m behind from the first pedal stroke. Oh, the good times. This is why I train. So that I may learn from these rookie mistakes and hopefully some day soon put some choice individuals in the hurt box. But enough on that, Sunday consisted on a nice 4 hour ride in the sun with some excellent Belgian-eske wind sections with Andrew. Good show. It was during this ride, we decided that there should be some kind of "epic scale" to grade your tough rides (today being probably a 1 of 10). So far, here is what I have... feel free to post comments to improve it.

Time/distance: Can be ranked either on being wayyyy further than you have even riden, or simply by heading out for a planned double century. Hint, if you are out for less than 100km (exception if you climb the entire 100km) it is probably not really epic. Unless you longest previous ride was the 4km to work. out of 2 points. Bonus point if you plan on 100km, but get home after 200km instead. (see also #3).
Intensity: If you go out and hammer yourself into a cross-eyed stupour, you are probably off to a good start. Not the most important, but can likely lead to a bonk or at very least prayers of ending soon. Out of 1. Either hard or not.
Lost/exploration quotient: Back to the, plan a 100km day, but ride for 200km accidentally. Out of 2 points. If you go out with no known loop planned and just fly along by what road looks good (follow the sun) you get a point. If you bring a map, subtract 1 point. If you have a GPS for any reason other than wanting to look back later to confirm how lost you were, subtract 2 points. Remember, you are never lost... only perhaps temporarily misplaced.
Incident occurrence: dog sprints, drunk hillbilly attempting to run you off the road... The kind of thing you later tell you friends about proudly, ideally with no need to even exaggerate. Bear fights will get you bonus points. Or chasing down a transport. Out of 2 points.
Adverse weather: What is a true epic without some period of wicked nuts weather. Crazy head with for 100km.... torrential rain.... frozen to the core... freak snowstorm... Give yourself a point. Riding in the sun is nice, riding in the rain makes you hard.
Bonus points:
-bonk (or ridiculous salt stains in the case of Viper).
-untimely mechanical. ideally having to MacGuyver something. Stuffing your tyre with hay because you only brought one spare tube.... epic.
-if for any reason you have to get off your bike and hike for a period, you get an extra point. Unless you are simply a wuss and start crying about "this climb is sooo hard." Harden the &^#$ up Timmy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Friggen fantastic ride on Saturday. Fast fast fast and rally cycling at its best as there was a light coating of snow.

Yesterday was a slog of a mess. The back dirt roads were a mess and what mess got on me froze. Then I hoped on the 366 (up by Eldelweiss) for a bit. Climb climb. By the second hill my der'l started giving me great grief then it got stuck in the damn spokes! Argg! Tried to SS it out of there back to Wakefield. Not much luck. Frozen solid. Walked and walked...
Next weekend will be mostly road from around mooneys bay through to Wakefield to the 366 and the 307. The 366 was pretty dry and so was the 105.
I'll still be using a cyclocross with 700x32 Conti tires for now.

Come on Spring! Come on rain. Wash all this damn salt away so we can get it on!

Anonymous said...

I rate my ride according to factors:
(scale 1-10)
intensity factor
pain factor
dog chasing factor
swearing factor
Just a pain in the ass factor
sunshine factor
sht face grin factor

enjoy.

Louis-Philippe Leclerc said...

www.velociclofoto.com
lot of pics