benphyr
Guru-me-not
Andean Health and Development – Benphyr Knou - Ride Report
Andean Health and Development https://www.andeanhealth.org is an organization that provides health care and trains doctors and health staff for those who need it most in rural Ecuador, a country with little public health resources. Fr Hesburgh and Dr Gaus from the Wisconsin saw the need and responded – but I’ll leave that for you to read. This year I have had the privilege to join those riding bikes in support of their efforts.
For those who like simple spreadsheets see next post.
Without further ado, here is the long version: my ride report. This year covid resulted in a diaspora of effort – instead of riders congregating for one event in one place the ride has been carried out by riders all over the world wherever they are. So for me in my locale of Hamilton, Ontario with a goal of riding as many km as I can over the course of the week this is what happened.
This year one of the Cruzbike ambassadors organized an individual time trial (TT) where you set up your own ride of approximately 20km that has the same beginning and end point either in real life or on Zwift online racing. I wanted to join up previous years but never did for whatever reason however this year I got started and then my friend K joined me and we would encourage each other and ride it every weekend. He used to amateur race and has a physical job so he is a little stronger than I am and is a great person to learn from.
Last Saturday was the second last “race” of this Cruzbike TT season. It was a bit cool at 11 oC meaning I had to wear tights (15 oC is my approximate cutoff for shorts) with a slight non-optimal ENE wind. My notes say that I “could not stay focused nor keep my heart rate up” and I felt like I was pushing with my hips rather than quads. All this was reflected in my time that was two full minutes off my personal best only a couple weeks earlier. So no personal best but a significant total of 43.25 km for the day – certainly a good start to a week of kms.
Then Sunday, I realized I had been riding a lot the previous week, probably not the best way to taper for an event like this but that’s life not always predictable what will work or not work. Sunday evening came around and I hadn’t ridden at all so I got on the trainer in the basement and tried to get into it. I quit just before 30 minutes had elapsed - quite unusual. Couldn’t even make myself push through to the next checkpoint or km marker for half an hour. Wow. I decided to call it a rest day.
Monday to Friday – vacation with the kids at school and wife working out of the home Tuesday to Friday this was my opportunity to crank it up and turn the wheels making a weekly record for me and riding for Andean Health. Well working on the rust on the car took some time, and I never got started on Monday and started feeling like I was not living up to my goals for the week. Start over on Tuesday.
Tuesday started much like Monday, plans to get up early and leave when the children go to school and get a quick round of the TT loop and then see where to next. But that didn’t happen. Somewhere around lunch time I decided I better just get out there and ride even if it was to the nearest corner and back so I went outside. The fresh air and the pile of cardboard in the garage called my name and I hacked together a tail box to put around my bike bag behind my seat on my Cruzbike. (See the pictures – definitely not a work of art)
Cardboard Aided Design is fun. If you haven’t tried it you should some time. For more discussion on Cardboard Aided Design or tail box see: https://forum.cruzbike.com/threads/cardboard-aided-design-tailbox.13621/ In the back of my mind I thought I should be riding as many kms as I can and better aerodynamics will help that greatly. Then, what better way to test than on a loop that I have done almost 20 times already. So after getting a rudimentary tail box completed I spent some extra time tweaking it so it wouldn’t rub on the wheel and so that I could mount my rear light directly on the tail box where traffic would see it better. And off to the races: well rested, good sleep, the temperature was 21 oC and a SW wind from 10-18km/h, almost ideal conditions and a tail box to help into the wind – what could go wrong. Nothing: personal best of almost 50 seconds! That seems to be a significant difference in the best way. Some of it must be related to the tail box, no?
Then Wednesday, for the third morning in a row I tried to get out at school time. This time I made it – but, it was cool and I wore jacket and rain pants to the start line. Well, before I got there I was getting warm so I stopped to take off the cool weather gear, but then realized I had not thought through how to carry extra gear – I had taped the box closed without any access. So I rolled up my gear and headed home a little disappointed but with time left in my day for another attempt to see if the Tuesday tail box time was a fluke, ideal conditions, or related to the aerodynamics of the tail box. And headed out again later in the morning with 22 oC and W 16km/h wind gusting to 27. A few minor differences: truck kicking up dust, slowing for traffic, added spare tube, tools, tape, knife, legs used yesterday and this morning, assisted by good wind, tire pressure up from 40-50psi (1.75” tires), and the tailbox. And got another personal best by 3 seconds! It’s looking good for the tail box.
I’ve been wanting to visit Friend 1 for a while but he is quite a distance and I didn’t have the vehicle, but I did have the day off… so why not try for a long distance ride and see if I could crack the mythical century marker. (I have done 100km before on Ride for Refuge and a couple other rides but never significantly more.) 100 miles has been a stretch goal for a couple years and is now more realistic with the extra riding this year due to covid! So I contacted him to see if he was available tomorrow.
Sure enough he was, so I got his address, printed off some directions, and left a note for the family to say where I was just in case. And that was Thursday morning. So I set out on a long arduous journey filled with fall colours – wow they were the highlight - fast descents, slow climbs, smooth rolling brand new pavement just old enough to not smell bad but new enough to not have any mud from whenever the last rainfall was! And lots of waves. After all the pedaling was done it turned out to be 3:26:18 to go 80.5km on the way out, visiting for an hour or so and then 3:24:16 to go 88.3km on the way home. Pictures worth 1000 words or it didn’t happen? Glad you asked. I saw the best fall colours on display at this one place I passed so I stopped to take a picture. As I coasted to a stop and was thinking how I was going to prop up the phone to take a decent picture I noticed a young man planting lilies around a new power pole so I asked him to take my picture for me. He said “Sure, both my parents are photographers so this better turn out good.” as though his reputation depended on it.
I think it turned out all right. Here are some things to note in no particular order:
-Amazing fall colours of these ?red maple? trees,
-cardboard tail box (Carboard Aided Design),
-DaBrim on my helmet, (from Hamilton Trike and Bent)
-Rivendell Bicycle Works water bottle on the frame
-another bottle in cage zip tied to the handle bar riser,
-Andean Health jersey,
-Bend It Cycling MagnaShield visored helmet,
-Bend It Cycling socks,
-Casttelli arm coolers,
-Reverse Gear "I Brake for Uprights” shorts
-written instructions peeking out from shorts by my right knee
-Mavic Crossmax shoes
-huge grin on my face
-that I chose the Cruzbike Conversion Kit over the Cruzbike QX100. I saved this one for last because I want to expound upon my Conversion Kit. Even though my QX100 is a full bike with all but handlebars stock from Cruzbike I often prefer this earlier Conversion Kit. See my discussion here: https://forum.cruzbike.com/threads/comparison-q45-qx100-conversion-kit-s40.13622/
There was lots to see with perfect conditions in which to ride.
Oh, and it was Thursday and I usually do the WTRL Team Time Trial on Zwift (online bike riding/racing on the trainer) so I had signed up last week for it and there were only three people (the minimum) on my team so I couldn’t back out. By the time I got there the team was up to full strength but I was already there so I told them I would hold on as long as I could. That turned out to be about 3 ½ minutes before I was dropped. I finished the ride (55min) just in case they needed a final finisher. Zwift says that was 55min for 27.3 km (not counting warm up). But I don’t trust my trainer so I’m going to round the warm up into the equation and call it even.
That makes for 7 hrs and 47 min of riding. 169.98 km 1520m elevation gain in the real world and some more in Zwift.
I am still amazed at how only tired but not sore at all I was from this ride that is 5 times longer than my normal longest ride of the week.
And then there was Friday. Friend 3 was on vacation also and I had asked him if he wanted to go for a ride during the week as I anticipated riding lots and the weather was supposed to be good. He called up and wanted to ride Friday. He hadn’t ridden in three months and would be on a slow mountain bike so I thought this would be perfect. I needed at most a recovery ride. We took it easy and did a rail trail ride. We went further than I ever have on that trail, got to another town and stopped and enjoyed some great pizza overlooking a wooded park next to a small lake. While my friend was using the washroom a hawk flew up and landed in the next tree over. Then to my astonishment it flew over the pavilion and swooped at a squirrel on a tree trunk that was half way between me and the washroom. I heard its talons scrape on the trunk and saw its flare but the squirrel was able to scurry around and down the trunk getting away while the hawk flew off to find another prey. After our lunch and the hawk’s near lunch we headed back home which was more downhill than up but ending in 200’ of climbing. We capped the ride with some brown water and I headed out to pick up the kids from school. Friday was around 90km in 5 hours moving time and lots of breaks. What a couple days!
Saturday I took a rest day.
Sunday I did the same Cruzbike TT with Friend 1 with the tailbox. However, it was not close to any records at 2:31 slower than the new record, a little over 1:30 slower than the previous record. The wind was in a similar direction but strong at 33km/h gusting to 44km/h and a little more crosswind to our direction. On our way back from the TT we had a little sprint and Friend 1 sprinted past me to 60km/h (slight downhill and tailwind)!
What an awesome week! Thank you Andean Health and Development and Team Kalamari for inspiring work and for organizing.
Andean Health and Development https://www.andeanhealth.org is an organization that provides health care and trains doctors and health staff for those who need it most in rural Ecuador, a country with little public health resources. Fr Hesburgh and Dr Gaus from the Wisconsin saw the need and responded – but I’ll leave that for you to read. This year I have had the privilege to join those riding bikes in support of their efforts.
For those who like simple spreadsheets see next post.
Without further ado, here is the long version: my ride report. This year covid resulted in a diaspora of effort – instead of riders congregating for one event in one place the ride has been carried out by riders all over the world wherever they are. So for me in my locale of Hamilton, Ontario with a goal of riding as many km as I can over the course of the week this is what happened.
This year one of the Cruzbike ambassadors organized an individual time trial (TT) where you set up your own ride of approximately 20km that has the same beginning and end point either in real life or on Zwift online racing. I wanted to join up previous years but never did for whatever reason however this year I got started and then my friend K joined me and we would encourage each other and ride it every weekend. He used to amateur race and has a physical job so he is a little stronger than I am and is a great person to learn from.
Last Saturday was the second last “race” of this Cruzbike TT season. It was a bit cool at 11 oC meaning I had to wear tights (15 oC is my approximate cutoff for shorts) with a slight non-optimal ENE wind. My notes say that I “could not stay focused nor keep my heart rate up” and I felt like I was pushing with my hips rather than quads. All this was reflected in my time that was two full minutes off my personal best only a couple weeks earlier. So no personal best but a significant total of 43.25 km for the day – certainly a good start to a week of kms.
Then Sunday, I realized I had been riding a lot the previous week, probably not the best way to taper for an event like this but that’s life not always predictable what will work or not work. Sunday evening came around and I hadn’t ridden at all so I got on the trainer in the basement and tried to get into it. I quit just before 30 minutes had elapsed - quite unusual. Couldn’t even make myself push through to the next checkpoint or km marker for half an hour. Wow. I decided to call it a rest day.
Monday to Friday – vacation with the kids at school and wife working out of the home Tuesday to Friday this was my opportunity to crank it up and turn the wheels making a weekly record for me and riding for Andean Health. Well working on the rust on the car took some time, and I never got started on Monday and started feeling like I was not living up to my goals for the week. Start over on Tuesday.
Tuesday started much like Monday, plans to get up early and leave when the children go to school and get a quick round of the TT loop and then see where to next. But that didn’t happen. Somewhere around lunch time I decided I better just get out there and ride even if it was to the nearest corner and back so I went outside. The fresh air and the pile of cardboard in the garage called my name and I hacked together a tail box to put around my bike bag behind my seat on my Cruzbike. (See the pictures – definitely not a work of art)
Cardboard Aided Design is fun. If you haven’t tried it you should some time. For more discussion on Cardboard Aided Design or tail box see: https://forum.cruzbike.com/threads/cardboard-aided-design-tailbox.13621/ In the back of my mind I thought I should be riding as many kms as I can and better aerodynamics will help that greatly. Then, what better way to test than on a loop that I have done almost 20 times already. So after getting a rudimentary tail box completed I spent some extra time tweaking it so it wouldn’t rub on the wheel and so that I could mount my rear light directly on the tail box where traffic would see it better. And off to the races: well rested, good sleep, the temperature was 21 oC and a SW wind from 10-18km/h, almost ideal conditions and a tail box to help into the wind – what could go wrong. Nothing: personal best of almost 50 seconds! That seems to be a significant difference in the best way. Some of it must be related to the tail box, no?
Then Wednesday, for the third morning in a row I tried to get out at school time. This time I made it – but, it was cool and I wore jacket and rain pants to the start line. Well, before I got there I was getting warm so I stopped to take off the cool weather gear, but then realized I had not thought through how to carry extra gear – I had taped the box closed without any access. So I rolled up my gear and headed home a little disappointed but with time left in my day for another attempt to see if the Tuesday tail box time was a fluke, ideal conditions, or related to the aerodynamics of the tail box. And headed out again later in the morning with 22 oC and W 16km/h wind gusting to 27. A few minor differences: truck kicking up dust, slowing for traffic, added spare tube, tools, tape, knife, legs used yesterday and this morning, assisted by good wind, tire pressure up from 40-50psi (1.75” tires), and the tailbox. And got another personal best by 3 seconds! It’s looking good for the tail box.
I’ve been wanting to visit Friend 1 for a while but he is quite a distance and I didn’t have the vehicle, but I did have the day off… so why not try for a long distance ride and see if I could crack the mythical century marker. (I have done 100km before on Ride for Refuge and a couple other rides but never significantly more.) 100 miles has been a stretch goal for a couple years and is now more realistic with the extra riding this year due to covid! So I contacted him to see if he was available tomorrow.
Sure enough he was, so I got his address, printed off some directions, and left a note for the family to say where I was just in case. And that was Thursday morning. So I set out on a long arduous journey filled with fall colours – wow they were the highlight - fast descents, slow climbs, smooth rolling brand new pavement just old enough to not smell bad but new enough to not have any mud from whenever the last rainfall was! And lots of waves. After all the pedaling was done it turned out to be 3:26:18 to go 80.5km on the way out, visiting for an hour or so and then 3:24:16 to go 88.3km on the way home. Pictures worth 1000 words or it didn’t happen? Glad you asked. I saw the best fall colours on display at this one place I passed so I stopped to take a picture. As I coasted to a stop and was thinking how I was going to prop up the phone to take a decent picture I noticed a young man planting lilies around a new power pole so I asked him to take my picture for me. He said “Sure, both my parents are photographers so this better turn out good.” as though his reputation depended on it.
I think it turned out all right. Here are some things to note in no particular order:
-Amazing fall colours of these ?red maple? trees,
-cardboard tail box (Carboard Aided Design),
-DaBrim on my helmet, (from Hamilton Trike and Bent)
-Rivendell Bicycle Works water bottle on the frame
-another bottle in cage zip tied to the handle bar riser,
-Andean Health jersey,
-Bend It Cycling MagnaShield visored helmet,
-Bend It Cycling socks,
-Casttelli arm coolers,
-Reverse Gear "I Brake for Uprights” shorts
-written instructions peeking out from shorts by my right knee
-Mavic Crossmax shoes
-huge grin on my face
-that I chose the Cruzbike Conversion Kit over the Cruzbike QX100. I saved this one for last because I want to expound upon my Conversion Kit. Even though my QX100 is a full bike with all but handlebars stock from Cruzbike I often prefer this earlier Conversion Kit. See my discussion here: https://forum.cruzbike.com/threads/comparison-q45-qx100-conversion-kit-s40.13622/
There was lots to see with perfect conditions in which to ride.
Oh, and it was Thursday and I usually do the WTRL Team Time Trial on Zwift (online bike riding/racing on the trainer) so I had signed up last week for it and there were only three people (the minimum) on my team so I couldn’t back out. By the time I got there the team was up to full strength but I was already there so I told them I would hold on as long as I could. That turned out to be about 3 ½ minutes before I was dropped. I finished the ride (55min) just in case they needed a final finisher. Zwift says that was 55min for 27.3 km (not counting warm up). But I don’t trust my trainer so I’m going to round the warm up into the equation and call it even.
That makes for 7 hrs and 47 min of riding. 169.98 km 1520m elevation gain in the real world and some more in Zwift.
I am still amazed at how only tired but not sore at all I was from this ride that is 5 times longer than my normal longest ride of the week.
And then there was Friday. Friend 3 was on vacation also and I had asked him if he wanted to go for a ride during the week as I anticipated riding lots and the weather was supposed to be good. He called up and wanted to ride Friday. He hadn’t ridden in three months and would be on a slow mountain bike so I thought this would be perfect. I needed at most a recovery ride. We took it easy and did a rail trail ride. We went further than I ever have on that trail, got to another town and stopped and enjoyed some great pizza overlooking a wooded park next to a small lake. While my friend was using the washroom a hawk flew up and landed in the next tree over. Then to my astonishment it flew over the pavilion and swooped at a squirrel on a tree trunk that was half way between me and the washroom. I heard its talons scrape on the trunk and saw its flare but the squirrel was able to scurry around and down the trunk getting away while the hawk flew off to find another prey. After our lunch and the hawk’s near lunch we headed back home which was more downhill than up but ending in 200’ of climbing. We capped the ride with some brown water and I headed out to pick up the kids from school. Friday was around 90km in 5 hours moving time and lots of breaks. What a couple days!
Saturday I took a rest day.
Sunday I did the same Cruzbike TT with Friend 1 with the tailbox. However, it was not close to any records at 2:31 slower than the new record, a little over 1:30 slower than the previous record. The wind was in a similar direction but strong at 33km/h gusting to 44km/h and a little more crosswind to our direction. On our way back from the TT we had a little sprint and Friend 1 sprinted past me to 60km/h (slight downhill and tailwind)!
What an awesome week! Thank you Andean Health and Development and Team Kalamari for inspiring work and for organizing.
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