Working on my RAGBRAI base

188 pounds....

The weight is there and as soon as I start eating better, it will come back off. Or at least I think it will. It might be possible that I have finally started adding muscle and that weight won't come off. hhhmmm....

I have ridden more road bike in the past couple of weeks than I have in quite some time. It has been over 11 hours on the bike/tandem and over 170 miles. At this rate, the new Brooks B17 saddle should be broken in on the tandem before RAGBRAI.

I have some rides recorded from my PowerTap, some not. But in general, I'm doing at least 2 hour rides with the longest being 4 hours and hopefully this weekend I will add another hour to that. The one thing that I did learn from riding RAGBRAI in 2005, it is not the mileage, but the time on the saddle that will pay off. Those 5+ hour days on the bike take their toll.

I have turned into one of those bike riders that wears an iPod. I know, I should be shot or something. But in my case, since I'm so deaf to begin with, there isn't a big change in how I ride. Without my hearing aids in, I can't hear all to well, so having some music in my head, isn't much different. I still hug the white line on the right and have a tendency to look over my shoulder a bunch. It is sweet to have tunes though when you are grinding out miles against the wind. I wish I had bought one sooner. I only use it when I'm solo at this point. I didn't want to upset or be rude to Dave when we rode yesterday, so I left it at home.

I guess the next thing to get might be a mirror that attaches to my helmet so I don't have to worry about looking back. I'm not sure how well that would go over when I'm out on the mountain bike trails. hhhmm......