Jeans and cleats

Oh yes!

And a nice ride from yesterday, without jeans ;)

Whitening my ride

I've wanted to write about the small upgrades of my trail bike last year but I was too lazy. Last year I changed the seat of my mountain bike with a white second hand Selle Italia seat. The original seat got to my city bike so that bike got a little bit sportier and more comfortable (it had a big bulky city seat).

Also last year I changed my bottle cage because the aluminium one was making my bottle dirty so I got a white plastic bottle cage and change the yellow bottle with a white bottle :)

Last year I started to have bigger problems with my pedals, one of them was broken for a few years, but after falling too many time because I could get my shoes unclipped I decided that I should get new pedals. Given the options of silver, black and white I chose some nice white pedals. 

Last week I changed the pedals (I want to change the cleats also, but I need a lot of tome for that) so this Sunday I went for a ride with the new white pedals. 

The trail was nice and dry, the ground was a bit to hard but it was a nice Spring ride.

And a picture white my whitened bike:

And a close up with the new pedals from Rosebikes:

I wonder what is the next bit that is going to be whitened... Too bad they don't make white Nobby Nics with reinforced side walls...

It's Spring again!

Hooray, it's spring again!

Sunday I went for the first road ride with my road bike this year. It's so weird to go out on the road again after a long winter... These were my thought:

• this bike in so unstable (the same feeling every spring)
• help, I can't feel the bike
• this is too fast
• it't too cold
• it's too hot
• this bike is too big
• the bike is not comfortable
• the seat is bad
• my back is killing me
• my legs are on fire
• I need more training
• this is too hard
• need to pay more attention, I almost felt down
• I'm too tired, I want to go home

There were a lot of similar thought going threw my mind but overall it was a nice ride. Every Spring is hard to go out on the road again but I am looking forward to the next ride :)

Riding the bike to play some football

As I said some time ago I like to play football and I play football every week with my coworkers.

This was the first winter when we played indoors. The "problem" is that we don't play in the city and for me there is a 20 minutes bike ride before and after the one hour game. I use my city bike to go to play football and it is a heavy bike which needs a new transmission so that makes the ride even harder. I like to run a lot when I play football, that combined with the bike rides make a very good workout :)

Winter rides

After waiting for a few moths for the snow it is finally here. Last Sunday I could enjoy the first real snow this season :)

At the end of last year I went for a nice road ride and for a short ride in the forest were there was a little snow and a lot of mud and were I took these pictures:

Hopefully this winter has some more snow and we can have some more snowy rides.

Night Ride

If you are looking for a way to spice up your rides (with more adrenaline) or you just don't have time to ride when there is natural light outside try to go for a ride in the dark.

There is a very nice trail around the city with a killer down hill at the end which is about 20 km long. It was perfect for a night ride. We had a bad start, a lot of problems with the light and branches but after that it was a nice ride. The speed seemed higher on the climbs, sometimes it was hard to let the brakes loose on the down hills. Check out the track here.

It was interesting that it was a lot warmer in the forest and it was very cold when we got out in the fields. It was a nice ride with a few small crashes and a flat tire. I hope I can go for another night ride soon.

Pictures from the Bicycle March

I've participated in the Bicycle March two weeks ago. It was almost like a Critical Mass...
It was smaller and more civilized than a CM but I think it was a good start.

(More about this in Romanian here)

Riding in the city

For a few weeks my city bike was broken so I used my mountain bike which has a cycle computer.

 The stats for the first week:
 - distance: 119.55 km
 - average speed: 15.5 km/h
 - maximum speed: 44.2 km/h
 - time: 7:41:33

The second week I had ridden 80 kilometers (including a short ride) and the third week I had about 65 km. I was amazed how many kilometers I ride with the bike in the city, the average is around 50-60 kilometers a week, that means about 2500 km a year :)

First Spring ride

The weather is so warm these days that you can say that Spring is already here. The ground is almost dry so we went for a short ride a few days ago.

Strava didn't record all the ride because it was looking for the gps signal but it only missed about 10 minutes. It was a very nice, it was cool that after a long winter I could descend with full speed, I didn't have to worry about slipping :)

Stats:
 - Moving time 00:48:16
 - Elapsed Time 00:52:00
 - Max Speed 51.3km/h
 - Avg Speed 15.1km/h
 - Distance 12.1 km

Winter rides

I had three rides this year in the snow, but I was to lazy to upload the pictures.

The first ride was a bit muddy, but it was fun:

The second ride was partly in the forest and partly on the road which was wet so i had to put all my clothes in the washing machine.

The last ride was this Saturday and I recorded it on Strava, and I will probably track my next rides to.

Stats:
 - distance: 12, 3 km
 - time: 1:39:04
 - average speed: 7,4 km/h
 - max speed: 27,3 km/h

First forest ride in 2012

This Monday I went for a ride in the forest. It was raining a bit lately but I thought that it would be pretty dry in the fores and I missed the forest very much. 

The weather was kind of ok when I left my flat. when I was climbing up in the forest it was getting very hot. The ground was a bit wet and the sun was shining so the humidity was very high. The humid air combined with the pedaling resulted in me feeling very hot. Also I had some chili sauce for lunch so my stomach was hurting to.  (Note to self: never eat spicy foods before a ride.)

After the first climb the ride started to get fun. In some places the wind was blowing so it was cooler and in some places the trail got muddy so my bike was sliding. The forest is very beautiful, spring is finally here :)

I took some picture and uploaded them here. And now I'm off to the Critical Mass.

Stats:

 - time: 1:23:43

- distance: 20.33 km

 - average speed: 1,45 km/h

 - maximum speed: 45,7 km/h

First road bike road ride

Last Sunday I went out with my road bike for the first time this year. It was very warm, spring is just around the corner :) 

 It was a fun 40 kilometer ride with five other bikers. The wind was strong in some places but that didn't ruin the fun. After 20 kilometers I turned back and rode a time trial to home. 

Last year I bought a CST tire to ruin on the trainer and I have that on the bike. I don't know how good is the tire because I didn't ride on the edge, I'm still getting used to the insane speed of the road bike :)

new CST tire

Spring is almost here

Stats:

 - time: 1:34:23

 - distance: 40,93 km

 - average speed: 26 km/h

 - maximum speed 56 km/h

First road ride in 2012

The first road ride this year was a very cool ride. The weather was warm, the hills were covered by snow and the  road was dry. The only thing I didn't like was the nasty wind. It was nice to get back in the saddle after a short absence :) 

I climbed a small hill near the road to take a few pictures:

The map of the ride is here, we went to a village named Laureni and back.

Stats:
 - distance: 32,11 km
 - average speed: 20,4 km/h
 - maximum speed: 45 km/h
 - time: 1:34:01

Winter pics

the team

the bike

with my bike

intruder

white bike

a lot of snow

frozen XT

white XT

First real winter ride

Before Christmas I went out for the first real snow ride this winter. The forest was very beautiful and the ride was very cool. The snow was just perfect, not too frozen but not to wet eater. The bike was slipping a bit but I didn't fall. I was feeling the lack of outdoor training and although I had two sock and an overshoe my big toes got frozen.

We had a little photo shoot also and here are the best pictures:

And my favorite picture:

More pictures here.

On this ride I tested my Christmas present that I got from myself, a pair of hand warmers which were great so only my toes were cold.

Stats:

 - distance: 15,33 km

 - average speed: 12,7 km/h

 - maximum speed: 38,2 km/h

 - time: 1:11:59