Peak Week 1 Day 1

184 pounds....

Oh my, I have been gaining, but I don't look like it. I guess that is a good thing. I have been eating more than usual and things that I shouldn't be. This week will be a lot of work to get myself back on track and eating normal.

Long time no see. The past week was pretty normal. Just poor eating habits sneaking back in though. Kopp's Custard is way to good, but way too bad for me.

I went on Thursday afternoon and got fitted on my mountain bike. Alan at Ben's Cycle has been a friend for a few years and has been working at getting better at fits. Serious training at Specialized and everything. I have been working him the past few months about me having to go somewhere else to get a really good fit. And this time he really surprised me. He worked on all aspects of the fit, from my feet, to knees, and everything else. Instead of using my custom inserts from my street shoes in my mountain bike shoes, we went with the Specialized inserts and some shims under the toes. My left cleat needed adjusting because my foot got tender from the spinning. Needless to say, Alan wanted to work that out so it wouldn't bother me later. So that was really cool and I'll talk more about how it rides after we talk about what we changed on the bike.

The bike, got a really good work over. Ergon grips, new seat post and seat, rebuild shock/fork, new front derailleur, new chain rings, new chain and new Shimano SPD pedals (last year's model and I can't find a link for them). Basically a ton of shit got changed on the bike to go along with the custom fit and revamped rider.

On Saturday morning we went and picked up garbage with REI at the River Cleanup on Menomonee River Parkway. That was a trip. The whole family went. Barb and the Girls. Needless to say, the girls just loved being able to run around and pick up yucky garbage. Many odd things were found by and in the river. It is unbelievable how much garbage there was and still is.

After that, Barb and the Girls went to a wedding of one of the teachers from Kinder Care.

I got my bike stuff together and headed out to John Muir for some riding. I listened to the movies on Specialized's website about shock setup and dialed it into the bike. I mixed up a 3 hour bottle of Perpetuem and cleaned up the Camelbak. I attempted to install an additional water bottle holder on my Epic, but there just wasn't enough room with the cages that I had. I will have to do more investigation on this. I should be able to carry two bottles on the bike. The first mile or so on the bike in the woods was awesome. Kinda unsure and not quite ready for it, but I did well. The trail has changed some because of cutting and stuff, but after getting settled in, I noticed that my pace is much faster than last year. I think the working out and losing weight is really going to pay off for me this year. I rode out to the connector to head to the Emma Carlin trails, but I forgot to check where the connector goes when you hit the road, so I was kind lost. Ended up riding down the road in the wrong direction. Should have gone forward instead of the left that I took. But anyway, I turned back and finished up the first loop in good shape and then did another. I'm not used to pulling a water bottle out and riding at the same time. It's going to take some getting used to. I didn't fall down and was only unable to do one climb all day. And the only reason that happened was because of the rocks and roots. I didn't make it to the correct gear fast enough and stalled. I rode fast and hard and easy and slow for over 2 hours. My left foot went numb at about the 1.5 hour mark and the right one followed about 10 minutes later. My ring finger and pinky on my right hand were numb also. But those things weren't bad enough for me to bail on riding. The fork and shock setup seemed to work pretty well. I wasn't bouncing all over the place and I seemed to have really good control. I ran my Michelin XCR X'trem tires with 30 pounds in the front and 35 pounds in the rear. I figured I could get away with that since I so much lighter than last year.

Afterwards the body was pretty stiff and the Recoverite felt good going down. Then it was off to Subway in East Troy for some dinner.

Alan and I spoke on Sunday, since I was fixing his laptop, about the numbness in my feet and hands and we both pretty much came to the conclusion that I need to ride more and see what happens. We have made some pretty drastic changes in the setup. Both the bike and the rider.