Sweet Home Alabama

Slushy road and huge snow drifts - can you tell which way the wind is blowing from?

It was an awesome trip to the midwest to visit Kristine’s family and enjoy a brief winter vacation, but now it’s back home to sweet home Alabama. Our long road back home started with a 9 hour drive from Shell Lake, WI to La Porte, IN. We went right by Madison, WI where cyclocross nationals is currently being held. It felt weird to be simply driving by such a major cycling event without stopping, but we had to get the kids back for school. There was no snow at all in Madison or anywhere in southern Wisconsin even though we had just left an 8 inch snowstorm in northern Wisconsin. There was also no snow in Illinois, but shortly after crossing the border into Indiana we ran into a pretty big lake effect snowstorm.

We finished the drive pretty slowly on snow covered roads, but made it safely to Kristine’s grandmother’s house in La Porte. It was 11PM and the kids had been sleeping for a while so Kristine went in with Analise first while I took a few pictures of the snow with Josiah still asleep in the car. It was very cold so I only took pictures for a minute and by then Josiah had woken up. So I helped him get his coat and boots on and told him to run to the front door while I got the suitcase we needed. A few seconds later I entered the house and Kristine asked where Josiah was? I thought she was joking at first and then thought he must have gone straight into the bedroom or bathroom. We looked briefly in the house and after not finding him ran back outside calling out for him. I ended up following his footprints in the snow to find him standing in front of the door of the house two doors down from Grandma Vivian’s. It gave us all a big scare for a minute because it was really cold and the wind was blowing 20+mph steady with higher gusts. I guess Josiah was still half asleep!

The next morning we had a 12 hour drive in front of us. I started about 2 hours early on my bike heading south hoping to make it 60 or 70 miles with a nice tailwind, but during the night the wind had changed direction so that is was a nasty side/headwind. I averaged 15mph on very flat roads to give you an idea of the nastiness of the wind. When I left La Porte, I had to negotiate about 1/2 mile of unplowed roads before making it to the state highway which was still slushy and wet, but at least had two clear tracks between the snow. I knew that this wouldn’t last long so I rode my road bike fishtailing through the snow for that first half-mile. Then it was just really wet with an air temp of 15 degF and a constant 15+mph sidewind. This was by far the coldest ride I did during our trip. Also, because of the slow speed I was traveling I didn’t get a chance to make it through the flatlands to the nice hills around the Wabash river basin. Instead, I took Kristine on a drive through those same roads that I would have been riding. There was some really fun hills and drop-offs in the car. The kids loved it!

Here are a couple Garmin screenshots that illustrate how flat the ride was that I did.

Side by side comparison of a flat ride through the farmlands south of La Porte and a small portion of my commute into work yesterday back here in Birmingham. Note the 15.5 degF temp on the left, 7.85 miles into the ride with only 81' of climbing. On the right, I already had 699' of climbing only 3.9 miles into the ride, which was almost the total amount of climbing in my 43 mile ride in Indiana (710').

Lake effect snowstorm in La Porte, IN

Josiah footprints heading the wrong way in the lake effect snowstorm.

Deep snow in the backyard

The front yard after snowblowing the sidewalk.

Snowplow dump truck – the lake effect snow and salt made for some really slushy roads

Deep snow in one of the forests just south of La Porte before hitting the really flat farmlands

Slushy road and huge snow drifts – can you tell which way the wind is blowing from?

Ice surrounding trees – there was one section where the ice spread out pretty wide and the wind had blown away most of the snow so that it looked like you could have a fun game of ice skating trying to avoid all the trees.

A bike path alongside the railroad tracks near North Judson, IN. This is about 20 miles south of La Porte, and note that there is no snow here at all.

No snow, but a pretty landscape wherever the land hasn’t been cleared for farming.

I made the mistake of filling up my bottles with cold gatorade when I left La Porte. They had both frozen into gatorade ice by the time I made it to North Judson about 20 miles into the ride. So at this gas station, I filled up my bottle with a coffee/hot chocolate mix. It started out hot, but 20 miles later it was like drinking an iced mocha.

Kristine snapped this picture of me when she caught up to me about 43 miles south of La Porte. She had given me a 2 hour head start, but I was moving pretty slow with the nasty sidewind.

Dirty bike covered in salt and mud.

It took some creative arranging to get everything into the back of the escape. For a minute, I thought I might be riding home to Alabama!

Here is a round barn that we passed on our rural drive south towards the interstate.

Cold and Icy Double Oak Mountain

Great ride today – very cold though! I climbed up Double Oak Mountain to see if there was more snow and ice up near the top because of the elevation difference. I was surprised to find trees sagging under the weight of a lot of ice. I think we dodged a bullet here in Birmingham with what could have been a terrible ice storm!

Double Oak loop icy ride

Cold temperature – look at the temperature dip because of the elevation and ice/snow cover on top of Double Oak Mountain

Garmin statistics – small problem with regards to daylight

Beautiful icy sunset from the top of Double Oak Mountain

The Double Oak roller coaster section with icy roads and bent over trees from the weight of the ice

400 mile week, Strava online competition, a fun look back at old milestones

401 miles this week with 37,373 feet of climbing!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to ride today with the winter storm warning, but the system wasn’t moving in until later in the day. So I rode 45 miles on the way to church with almost 6,000 feet of climbing. Then after church I did a shorter 30 mile ride to take me over the 400 mile mark for the week (measured from Monday to Sunday). Check out the rides below (and temps – almost felt like Wisconsin!)

Commute from home to Clearwater via Vestavia Dr, Hugh Daniel, Double Oak Way (Or download the huge version

Temperature graph for commute from home to Clearwater

Commute from Clearwater Community Church to home (Or download the huge version

Temperature graph for commute from church to home

401 miles is the most I have ridden in one week since my college days in the 90′s… back then, though, I did 400+ mile weeks once or twice a year and even hit 500 miles one week. I usually was way overtrained, though, and had pretty miserable racing results. To avoid that happening again, I’m following up this nice long week of riding with Monday and Tuesday completely off the bike (especially since we are under a winter storm and ice storm warning until Monday night).

I also entered a free online KOM competition for 2011 from Strava. Currently, I’m in second place!

2011 KOM Challenge on Strava. Barring injury, I’m hoping to win this.

And lastly, since 401 miles in one week is a new milestone (post-college), I found a few pictures I had taken of previous milestones in the past few years. 10,000 miles in one year for 2006 after training for and competing in Ironman Florida in November. 300 miles in one week in the middle of June of that year. The other stats for that week are also included. It was much easier back then – I had a bike computer that tracked time, speed, distance, and temperature. I would reset it once a week on Monday morning and accumulate a week’s worth of stats over the course of a week. Now it’s GPS systems and detailed individual ride analysis including power, heartrate, cadence, etc…

10,000 miles in one year – December 31, 2006

300 miles in one week – June 2006

300 miles in one week – total training time – June 2006

300 miles in one week – June 2006 – average speed for the week

300 miles in one week – June 2006 – maximum speed 53.1mph

Last ride of 2010

The weather forecast for today included a winter weather advisory with really cold temps. We went to visit some friends about 30 miles away near Hayward, WI. I took my bike along to try to ride back to Shell Lake if the roads were clear enough. I mapped out a route that took me near the highest point in the area – Meteor Hill. Even though I was on my mountain bike, I was flying home with a stiff wind coming from the northeast, mostly a tailwind. Wonderful ride, and I’ll let the video and pictures below tell the story.

Heading out from near Hayward, WI

Beaver lodge a few miles into the ride. I saw several more of them throughout the ride.

Interesting historical marker in the middle of the Indian Reservation that I rode through.

My Garmin tried to take me down this road. I don’t think so.

Frozen river.

Icy road near Meteor Hill

Beautiful winter scene looking from near the top of Meteor Hill back down into a valley to the east.

Another beaver lodge – this one had lots of beaver tracks in the snow.

A very frozen Shell Lake – with a pickup truck driving out to the ice fishing huts.

Near the very end of my ride, at the Shell Lake boat landing, frozen beard icicles, 18degrees F

Garmin Connect ride data – annotated

TopoCreator map and elevation profile for the ride
(Or download the huge version)

Epic ride finishing week atop three Strava leaderboards

The Samford student chapter of the ACM organized a ride today leaving from Chelsea High School and climbing up one of my favorite climbs – Double Oak Way. Three brave students and one crazy professor (me) met at 1:00 to complete the ride. We were waiting on one person before the start of the ride, so we found a 30+% gradient grassy downhill to have a little fun on before the start of the real ride. I’ve told the story of the ride in pictures below. At the bottom of the post, I explain about Strava and my position on the leaderboards after today’s rides.

It was definitely cold with the temperature below freezing for the entire ride. Note the min, max, and average temp for the four hour ride.

Samford computer science students John, Adam, and Greg brave the conditions AND the Double Oak Way climb up Double Oak Mountain

Me along with two of my students – John and Adam – on the top of Double Oak Mountain

	Adam descending grassy hill with a few snowflakes visible.
	Greg descending grassy hill – taken from slightly different angle more edge on – check out that slope!
	Me descending grassy hill – view from front
	Watch a video of John descending the hill after the ride

I finished the week atop three Strava leaderboards – best climber, best commuter, most rides – plus 3rd overall. I climbed over 34,000ft for the week, commuted 214 miles or even more if you count my commute today from church back to my house, plus 14 different rides this week totaling 348 miles