Being a clever person (so I tell myself) I call the bike that gets the most mileage the "SUB" for sport-utility bicycle. This was before the name was co-opted by certain bike manufacturers. It's a Kona Jake the Snake cyclocross bike. Violent orange, aluminum, rigid steel fork. It's a few years old, but still great for all-purpose cycling. It has 700x35 tires, so it can go off road to a degree. A rear rack, so I can carry lots of stuff. It's not light. But it does have drop bars, so is suitable for 70-mile outings, and I can hide from the wind in the drops if need be. All in all, it's a great bike for everything except keeping up with excited roadies on $4,000 race bikes.
We went on a nice trip down the Katy Trail. My usual route begins in Creve Coeur Park, then heads down to the Weldon Spring boat ramp, then back. About 35-40 miles, with a new detour up the new Busch connector trail from the Katy to the Missouri Research Park. Simply because there's a hill there, and the Katy Trail has no hills. It has meandering, oblivious pedestrians in abundance, but no hills.
All was well, except for the seemingly minor, but mind-bogglingly irritating lack of computer. The battery died about 5 minutes in. It would have been nice to know how fast (or slow) I was going. So I hammered it, and now I'm exhausted. I wonder if removing the computer could be a good training tool. Or maybe having it on, but covering it with tape or something while riding. That way, your speed is a mystery but you can check the average at the end. Perhaps I will start a new training paradigm. Watts? Bah. Heartrate? Phooey. Just go as fast as you can until your legs cramp or you go anaerobic. It would be interesting to see a study comparing physiologic adaptation in athletes using modern, fully-instrumented training methods, and athletes just doing what their body tells them to. I doubt Eddy Merckx had computers, watt meters, or even heart rate monitors...
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