Chez Cyclesnack North

My future forever home, aka Chez Cyclesnack North, is a bit smaller than my southern location, but its one advantage is a big basement. Getting bikes in and out of the basement can be challenging at times, especially with those bikes with really wide handle bars.

Zwifting in Chicago

 

My first day in Chicago I decided to ride Zwift in my Aunt's basement.  I brought my old phone in which I have an HDMI adapter for and I can run Zwift off it and onto my Aunt's 72 inch TV. I had to go out and buy a power strip and an extension cord because there are no outlets near the floor in her basement.

Cold and Snowy week in Chicago

A big change in the weather arrived which first started with snow

30 Days of Biking - Day 29

Rode over 700 miles this month!

Celebrated with a cold one.

30 Days of Biking - Day 27

Zwifting some more

Still no legs from Saturday's ride.

Didn't want to ride but did it anyway for the challenge

30 Days of Biking - Day 26

200 Miles for the week!

Went shopping today and scored some toilet paper! Bought some beer, too, $20 for 30 pack!  That's $1.50 for a can of beer.  Can't beet that. 

When I looked at my miles for the week I saw that I had 174 miles so I picked the flattest route on Zwift Watopia and road that while listening to a book on tape.

30 Days of Biking - Day 23

And it's Zwift, again!

I did hit my weekly Zwift cycling goal of 75 miles tonight.

30 Days of Biking - Day 22

Zwift again

Work and bad weather still keeping me inside.

This was a great ride with Team RWB (Red White and Blue)

30 Days of Biking - Day 21

Zwifting again

Bad weather is keeping me inside.

30 Days of Biking - Day 16

USMES Thursday Night Social (C)

Between the weather being cold this week, my mountain bike in the shop, and the project that I am working on it been a week of Zwift. I was supposed to do a Zwift Meetup Ride with the Newtown Lunartics but when I woke up this morning, looked outside, saw it snowing and pulled a Michelle and went back to bed. To get my ride in today I opted for the United States Military Endurance Sports group ride.  The range on the ride is 2 to 2.5 watts/kg but they are always at the high end and I can only maintain that kind of power for the first 5 to 10 miles.  I end up getting dropped but for me its great opportunity to push myself and really work hard.

30 Days of Biking - Day 15

Zwift Double Header

16 mile warm up on Zwift's London Greatest Flat course and finished by Book on Tape.

Then, a Team RWB Meet up on Zwift's Greater London 8 course.  We had 6 riders tonight.

30 Days of Biking - Day 14

May I have ten thousand marbles please?

Virtual Ride after Work tonight.

Drinking water while under water.

30 Days of Biking - Day 13

Zwift Richmond

Too wet outside to ride and I was working late so I just got on the bike and rode for an hour.

30 Days of Biking - Day 10

I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before and we had a half day of work.

I got on the bike and rode for a bit and I even rode kind of asleep for one lap.

30 Days of Biking - Day 9

I got done with work so late that I just jumped on the bike for 30 minutes just to get a spin in.

30 Days of Biking - Day 6

Had to ride Zwift if I was going to get in a ride today.

I did, however, put in a 13 hour work day and by 9:30 PM it was time to stop and get on the bike for a little bit. My goal, however, for 30 Days of Biking is ride mostly outside. I know I won't be able to do every day this month but it's something to shoot for.

30 Days of Biking - Day 3

My first virtual ride for the 30 Days of Biking Challenge. 

I wasn't feeling terribly motivated to ride any significant virtual distance so I opted for a Crit so I could try the new Crit City Race Course. I am not a particularly fast rider so I rarely race but this evening I pushed it. I think the D class Wattage range was 100 to 250 Watts, so the first place finisher was definitely a sandbagger. At least I didn't come in last.

The Virtual Cyclist

Shortly after New Years I came down with an upper respiratory infection that kept me off the bike for a week and the really cold weather following meant no more hot dates with Fat Amy. So, that meant back to the pain cave which I usually cannot tolerate but due to an unfortunate accident that befell me in the latter part of the prior year prompted me to get hooked on Zwift.

Then Mr Murphy showed up again while I was Telemark skiing at Mohawk Mountain on Martin Luther King Jr's holiday and I broke my right ankle! I felt like Joe Btfsplk from the Li'l Abner, the character with the dark cloud over him all the time. Right at the height of ski season, too.

Two weeks later the doctor gave me the all clear to start riding indoors on the trainer again and I have been going all out!  Riding Zwift, I went over 10K miles on Synapse and this month I am going to break 500 miles and I might even be able to take Fat Amy out again by the end of the month!

Zwifting: PC vs iPhone

I had been using my laptop to run Zwift and it worked great. I got an Ant+ adapter and it picked up all my sensors. I was also able to use the Zwift Mobile Link app, too.  However, since I was sharing the laptop with my son it became difficult to ride when he was using the machine, and he was starting to use a lot more frequently.  That meant that I needed another solution. 

I was picking up my Synapse at Brookfield Bicycle Center after getting it overhauled, I think I had a 3K miles on the cassette and chain, and it was shifting like crap, and as I was talking to Shawn about Zwift he showed me this dongle called an Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter.  It has two ports, one for power and another for HDMI, which meant I could connect my iPhone directly to my TV and run Zwift that way.  

Zwifting made better thanks to the Bicycle Center in Brookfield!

The Bicycle Center was having a Zwift and CycleOps smart trainer demo the week before Thanksgiving.  

As part of the test ride, they were holding a little contest to see who could sprint the fastest. I had arrived straight from work and wasn't really thinking that I would give a try but it looked so easy so I gave it a go.  

I got on the CycleOps Magnus trainer wearing my work pants, an undershirt, and my right pant leg stuffed into my sock. Fortunately, I was wearing sneakers due to my broken ankle and that being the only type of shoe that I could wear with my brace.