Sermon Audio from January 9, 2009

By the way, I stopped riding ...

The bike riding was short lived. Life has a way of getting in the way. The month of July was busy and ended with youth camp. While I was at camp, My wife broke her ankle at her sister's house. Obviously, the long recovery means no bike riding for me for at least eight to ten weeks. By the school will have started and who knows what the schedule will be like then! It was a good few weeks. I plan to pick it back up in some form as soon as I can.

Surgery to repair the ankle was this afternoon.  It took around an hour, but the recovery time afterwards was three times that!  She is in a lot of pain, and has a long recovery time ahead of her.

The Daily Commute - 6/12

I made it to work in 32 minutes!



I changed the route slightly to avoid that big hill from Green Oaks to Sublett. In the process it shaved off about 0.4 miles. In addition, as you can tell from reviewing my spreadsheets, my average speed was up by about 2mph! Think that this is due mainly to better configuration of my bike. I raised the seat some more last night. I think I almost have it in the right position.

The increased speed alone would have saved me about 5 minutes, leaving about 2-3 minutes saved from adjusting the route (not to mention the saved effort). We will see how the ride home goes tonight.

The Ride Home -
Well, the wind is still a killer, however, it only took me 40mins to get home. When I did, the kids were in their pool in the back yard, so I jumped in with them! I am not riding tomorrow because we have a meal at my parents house in the evening.

Miscellaneous -
I registered for school tonight. I will be taking six hours in a ten week course. I should be able to finish by the end of next summer!

The Daily Commute - 6/10

I did not ride to work on Monday because Erica has a Bible study in the evening in Fort Worth. I needed to be home and ready to watch the kids before 5:30.
The ride in was pretty good. I woke up late again, but was able to get to work on time due to a 39 minute ride in.

I also made it home in 39 minutes! That is currently my fastest time on the return trip. I did change the route to avoid going up the hill from Green Oaks to Sublett on New York. The last two trips home I had to walk that hill anyway due to fatigue and heat. The new route was no problem.

Sorry to disappoint you with the lack of spreadsheet today, I forgot to mark the times.

The Daily Commute - Day 4

Man, I have got to work on this getting up on time thing! I woke up at 6:30am instead of 6:00am. I guess I need a remedial class on how to use an alarm.
I still had plenty of time to shower, eat and be on the road by 6:59am. I got to the office at 7:38am for a total trip time of 39 minutes. This boosted my average speed by 0.2 mph when each leg speed is averaged and by 0.5 mph off of total time and distance. The biggest difference in time was lights and intersections. I did not wait as long today.
Another guy in the office that rides suggested that I check my seat height. Based on his information, I need to raise my seat by about 1-2 inches. This should make my pedaling more efficient, and be easier on the knee joints. I will have to remember to do that when I get home tonight.
I really tried to concentrate on keeping my cadence up and think that I am averaging at least 60 rpm now.
It is really windy again today, so the trip home look like it will be a workout.
I may not ride tomorrow, there is a chance for rain, and we are going to Erica's dad's house for dinner. We will see. Most likely I will ride in and have Erica pick me up to go to her Dad's house at 5:00pm.

Here is the obligatory spreadsheet



The Return Ride:
Once again, the wind was brutal! I actually got stopped by the wind at one point. I was going up hill on New York, a big gust came, and I almost came to a stop. The total ride time was 46 minutes. 46 minutes of unforgiving wind! I did learn that I need to adjust my seat (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html#height). It might need to go up as much as two inches! I will have to also raise my handle bars. I tried to sit further back on the seat and it was easier to pedal.
I will make the adjustments and hopefully have an quicker ride in the morning.

The Daily Commute - Day Three

I don't know how long I will do daily updates, I figure that soon the rides will pretty much be all the same. This morning was another Boxflex workout before the ride. I again, slept a little late, but was still up to workout by 6:10am. The first week on the Bowflex schedule is pretty light in addition to knowing the procedures better, so I was in the shower by 6:25am.
After breakfast, I loaded the van with clothes for Thursday and Friday (forgetting that I should have also loaded clothes for Monday-Wednesday of next week), was out the door and on the road by 7:00am.
The ride this morning was very pleasant. Again, using the information I learned I was able to be more effecient. Had the lights worked in my favor, I could have shaved 8-10% off of my ride time just from that information alone. Here is a breakdown of the timing of the ride:

View Larger Map
And a spreadsheet:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk9J16pVVjxAesy4ObuGpXg&output=html

Erica will be picking me up today, since we have church this evening. So, there will not be a ride home!

The Daily Commute - Day Two

Oh no!!! I over slept! I was using my cell phone as an alarm and obviously do not understand the snooze function very well. I woke up at 6:46am ( I was supposed to get up at 6:00am). I figured that if it was a 40 minute ride, I could leave as late as 7:15am and still not be late; I would just have to change clothes fast.
I jumped into the shower and got ready as quick as possible and was on the rode by 7:03am! Remaining consistant the trip took about 42 minutes, although I was sure that I had increased my average speed.
During the day, my good friend Adam directed me to http://www.sheldonbrown.com/. This site is chalked full of information for cyclist. Specifically, I looked at the information on how to utilize the gears. Here are the gear ratios for my bike (the second chart is mph at each gear):

















This information was very helpful in understanding which gears to use when. I figured that for these first two days, I had an average between 40-50 rpm. A quote from his site:

"Inexperienced cyclists tend to ride in higher gears than they should,
pedaling at a slower cadence. Most experienced cyclists pedal at cadences in the
range of 70-90 RPM. This puts less strain on the joints, particularly the knees.
Racing cyclists often use even higher cadences for bursts of
accelleration."

The Return Ride:
The ride home was brutal! I check the weather, just before I left for home and the Arlington Municipal Airport was reporting winds of 15 mph w/gusts up to 25 mph from...you guessed it, the South! That being said, using the information about gear ratios I learned today, the ride was better than it would have been. I did have a mechanical problem with the gear shifter for the chainrings and wound up stuck in low gear. I was able to fix that once I got home, however. I still made the trip in about 42 minutes. I do have to confess that I walked my bike up the hill from Green Oaks to Sublett. The hill and headwind were a killer at the tail end of a blustery ride. And, I think that I made it up the hill faster walking than I would have on the bike!
Once I was home it was off to the shower and then to AMH to visit a good friend's baby boy who was born today.