Category: Training

  • Strava KOM shootout

    Scroll to minute 7:30 and watch the Altaloma descent, South Cove KOM climb (at 7:45), Panorama (at 8:06), Renfro Descent (at 8:32), and a second descent down Altaloma (at 8:42). It all started with my teammate Nichole and her husband Paul posting the following comments on my Facebook page – Nichole got right to work…

  • The topography of a hilly commute

    If you have ever wondered what it is like to ride on one of my commutes through Birmingham, I’ve included a map and video from my commute yesterday. I discovered that Google Earth Pro (the trial version) lets you record a 3D flyover movie of an imported GPS route. Enjoy my 1 hour 45 minute…

  • Thankful for mostly traffic free roads

    An annual tradition for me for the past three years (including this year) has been to incorporate some of the more busy roads around Birmingham into a Thanksgiving morning ride since there is relatively little traffic out on the roads on this holiday. This year I hit all four US highways that run through Birmingham…

  • Mount Cheaha Revisited 4.25x

    Awesome ride today doing hill repeats out on Mount Cheaha. I managed to climb it 4.25 times (yes I turned around about a quarter of the way up to restart the climb from state highway 49 when I was not happy with how the climb was going … just a number of random things interrupting…

  • Anatomy of a rainy crash

    Branch segment that took me down on my commute into work. Well, I almost made it through the rest of the year without crashing after my spill at the end of the Sandy Springs crit in May. Today, though, I hit the branch that is shown in the picture above. I never saw it because…

  • Gatlinburg Climbing

    I had a computer conference all day Friday, but I was determined to make the most of my time up here in the mountains of Gatlinburg. Friday morning I was up by 5:15 and out the door by 5:30 exploring the super steep climbs in and around Gatlinburg. I went down one road that was…

  • End of the season maps

    Lots of fun maps from the season. All of these maps cover routes between November 1, 2010 and October 30, 2011. Quick summary- Flying: 3,900 mi. Driving: 17,300 mi. Biking: 17,600 mi. Total: 38,800 mi. Zoomed in view of the Birmingham routes – Hoover, Vestavia, Homewood Biking near Birmingham Biking in Alabama from Birmingham north…

  • End of the Season Statistics and THANKS

    First, a huge thank you to everyone in the cycling community and to all who have been following my racing this year. I’ll expand this thank you at the end of the post, but I wanted to thank everyone up front first. These statistics all run from November 1, 2010 until October 30, 2011 –…

  • Tour de Cullman

    What a great way to the end season – with the unique group ride / race / kom / party that is the Tour de Cullman. Carson Glasscock does a great job of organizing this every year and put on another great one this year even after the tornadoes in April knocked over every tree…

  • Pumphouse KOM power analysis

    Wow, what a week this has been for the Strava KOM shoot-out. I thought for sure I had Pumphouse signed, sealed, and delivered – but no – Paul “TreeTrunk” Tower came along today and set down a blistering time of 2’22” with an average speed of 20.4mph on the 0.8 mile climb. Still, here is…