Just finished my first ride on the F-40 in over two weeks. Looks like the leg is healed and good to go!

Overcast day with a slightly gusting wind. I have not ridden the F-40 for over two weeks so I spent a lot of time riding the brakes to keep the speed under 30 mph. Still, it was a fast ride for me.

I’ve spent the last couple of days working on the F-40 in preparation for the ‘24 Hours in the Canyon’ race. Put a water bottle on to hold my homemade sports drink. Sports drink works like a champ! A couple of swigs every hour and you’re good.

Mounted two rear facing DiNotte red flashing lights. One on to begin with - when it runs out of battery turn the other one on.

Finally fixed my tire flatting issues. I’m going to keep the marathon supremes on just so that I don’t have to fuss with flats for a while.

The other day I busted my Camelbak unbottle so I dragged out a really older version of the unbottle. I like it better than the newer versions.

What a beautiful ride today at the Tour de Vineyard in Florence Texas!

This ride had the best ratio of recumbents per 100 cyclists of any ride I’ve been to in central Texas. Of course, the majority of the bents were from my house.

Robyn on the green Catrike Expedition, Liz on the red Catrike Expedition and myself on the Bacchetta TiAero where three of the five bents there. Brian Buckmaster on his ICE Vortex trike and the same guy from last year on his Velokraft VK2 from New Mexico rounded out the five bents at the ride.

The turnout was a lot less than last year with maybe 100 riders total.

The day was gorgeous! Started out in the mid-60s and gradually rose to the mid-70s during the ride. Very few clouds to begin with and then slightly cloudy at the end to take the edge off the direct sun.

Here are Robyn, Liz and Brian at the beginning of the ride. For some reason they put the starting mileage signs up backwards. Robyn and Liz doing the 15 mile route very quickly moved to the back of the line before the ride started. Nothing like getting run over at the start of the race by the super fast high mileage riders.

Here is a picture of the start. Several of the people remember me from the prior years - evidently all recumbents look alike and even though my bike was different this year they ‘remembered’ me from last year and the year before.

A lot of questions about recumbents. People are really interested in the comfort aspect.

The wild flowers were out in force. This particular field stood out due to the vast size and amount of bluebonnets!

Robyn and I wore our Team Vite jerseys we picked up in Florida earlier this year.

The first part of the ride was fast, fast, fast. The first 6 miles I was directly behind the pace police car with my TiAero, the Velokraft VK2 and two other upright bikes. We pretty much left everyone in our dust.

About the 6 mile mark not only was I getting a little winded I was also worried about how I was blowing my pre-ride strategy of taking it easy on my bum right leg - which is still healing from the ride two weeks ago.

Well the leg felt great! But I still backed off the pace some and then stuck to the pre-ride plan of doing the easy 30 mile route.

I ended up with 30.6 miles at 15.9 mph. That TiAero is a really smooth, comfortable ride. A lot of people talking big expectations at the beginning of the ride (me included) - but I finished first on the 30 mile route - mainly because all the really fast riders did the 55 mile route.

After the ride we sat out on the veranda sipping wine, having a light lunch, and just enjoying the day! This is why I really like this ride! After Brian finished the 55 mile route he joined us gabbing for a little while.

Another ride on the Catrike Expedition today. Pushed it to medium level. The right leg is finally ok. Tomorrow it is back to the two wheelers!

18.2 miles at 14.8 mph (with the high drag flag waving).

Great day to ride. Leg was still a little stiff and sore so I took the Catrike Expedition today.

Georgetown lake water level looks back to pretty much normal.

View from the top of the Dam.

The Blue Hole park. Now to lunch with Robyn and another ‘Recovery Drink’.

Six weeks until the ‘24 Hours in the Canyon’ race.

This blog contains things I need to accomplish before the race.

Currently this blog entry is not organized very well - over time I will turn it into a comprehensive list of things I’ve had to do to prepare for the 24 hour race.

Training

I need to gradually build up my on bike time so that I can ride 8+ hours without any problems.

Practice riding at night with new lights.

Get Nike shoes from closet and practice wearing for walk up hill.

Train with new sports mix.

Practice the granny gear on a really steep hill - maybe to go Eagles Nest hill.

Night Lighting

What a difficult subject. My last experience at 24 Hours in the Canyon showed how inexperienced I was with night lighting. Just like any other aspect of bicycling you need to try different things out before the race to find what works and what does not.

The problem is getting a big enough light to ride at 35 mph to see far enough ahead while still having enough battery life to have the light on for 8 hours.

Equipment

Transition to iPhone for bicycle computer.

Reflective vest for bike w/ mesh pockets for food. (or side pockets)

Adjust shoes for toe-in. (done)

Fix the mounting of the heads-up display and windshield. (done)

Bike Changes

Reflective tape for front fairing. Reflective cloth for rear spandex fairing.

Oil chain. (done)

Mount tail lights (need bracket).

Adjust the rear brake to have less pull in.

Build tailbox from coroplast and anchor with tie-wraps and seal with ducktape.

Mount water bottles on F-40 for sports drink mix.

Change to Kojaks with Stan’s No-Flats

Checklists

Ordering

• Another 400R tail light from DiNotte (done)
• Lupine Headlight and Helmet lights.
• Sports Mix (done)
• 3M Yellow Reflective Tape (done)
• Speedplay zero grease gun (done)

Checklist for pre-travel preparations.

– placeholder

Create list of things to carry on bike for first 100 mile loop.

• sun screen
• light weight Nike running shoes
• iPhone
• two large Ankr batteries

Checklist for on-bike Hydration and Nutrition

• GU Roctane Gels (6)
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Homemade sports drink mix (enough for 8 hours)
• Cliff bars (6)
• 50 oz Camelbak

Checklist for the on-bike toolkit.

• Air pump
• CO2 cartridge (2) w/dispenser
• Enough tools to tighten faring
• 2 front tubes
• 2 rear tubes
• 1 boot
• tire irons (2)
• patch kit

Ride Clothes - During the day it is very hot.

• Nike running shorts
• Nike running shirt
• Bike socks (4 pairs)

Ride Clothes - At night it is cold

• long sleeve yellow hi-vis shirt
• normal running shorts
• biking cap for under my helmet

Due to my severe leg cramps I’m going to try making my own nutrition sports mix.

Got this receipe off the internet:

Hey hobkirk, maybe I can help give you a place to start from...

I did five double centuries last year and am mid way through an SR (200K, 300K, 400K and 600K) this year on my own maltodextrin mix. I've never had any stomach problems or bonks while using this mix. The ingredients and proportions are similar to Perprtuem. I chose this mix based on my experiences with Hammer Nutrition products. I liked the products but with the hours I was putting in on the bike I couldn't handle the cost any more. Fuller details on the science behind the mix can be found here.

I order 50 pound bags of malto from here for just $50. 
I order bulk 150 Serving Endurolyte powder from Hammer Nutrition.
And I use Soy Protein 95 from my local GNC shop.

My recipe for a four hour bottle:

2.5 cups of maltodextrin (1200 calories)
3/4 scoop GNC soy protein (I found chocolate to work well in all temps) (100 calories)
4 scoops of Endurolyte powder (or empty four capsules if that's all you have)

The powder fills up a regular water bottle 3/4 of the way but the first bit of water you add dissolves it all. The first time you do it you'll swear that there is too much powder to dissolve.

I've experimented with various sources for the soy. GNC soy was the only soy powder that I found that fully and easily dissolved. For rides shorter than four hours I have left out the soy. It is bland but still palatable. Personally I don't take any fuel for rides 2 hours or less, and a full malto mix for longer rides just because it tastes a bit better with the chocolate soy.

I start with a full bottle and then I put powder for 4 hours each into more baggies depending on the length of my ride. The thin sandwich zip locks baggies work great. Just bite the corner off the bag and you have a built in funnel. Put your pile of full baggies in a gallon size heavy duty zip loc bag because you don't want that powder leaking all over everything. I can comfortably carry two four hour baggies in one jersey pocket. For longer rides I have a Caradice bag I'll mount I put them in that.

That gives me about 325 calories per hour. You'll need to experiment with what works for you. I suggest starting with 2 cups of malto instead of 2.5 and seeing how that works. That would yield 265 calories per hour. I recently added the extra 1/2 cup and that seems to be better for me. (5'10, 180 lb, 49 years old, 200K in the middle of the pack type of rider)

I drink 1/4 of a bottle of the mix every hour on the hour along with 1/3 to 1/2 bottle of water. Without the water the osmolality of the malto is too high for the stomach to efficiently absorb it. You'll get that lead-weight-in-the tummy feel then. Since my Rando bike has three bottle cages (1 for malto and 2 for water) I can usually go three to four hours between stops.

On some of my Death Valley rides I experimented with adding a pinch of sea salt but now I just carry Endurolyte capsules and pop a few of those every few hours. I'm still tweaking that.

I've never much experimented with mixing this concoction with other "real" foods on a ride. I don't ride for gastronomical reasons. Taking fueling off the table as a concern on really long rides is more important to me than variety. YMMV.

Ordered all the stuff today. Should be trying it out this weekend.

I’ll probably be drinking more water than suggested though.

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/browseproducts/Maltodextrin-50-LB.html

http://www.hammernutrition.com/products/endurolytes.elt.html?navcat=fuels-energy-drinks

http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3696745

Update April 17th, 2014

Well I finally got all the stuff in to make the sports drink.

Tell you what - 50 pounds of maltodextrin is a big bag o’stuff.

If you put all the ingredients into a 24 oz bicycle water bottle there is hardly any room left for water.

I filled the bottle with very hot tap water but much of the maltodextrin would not dissolve and it was just a clumpy mess.

I emptied the bottle into a pot had had to almost bring the mixture to a boil, while constantly stirring, before the everything finally dissolved.

Pored the mixture back into the water bottle and put into the fridge for overnight cooling.

Tasted a little - seems pretty good.

The cramping at the Liberty Hill Spokes ’n Spurs ride was worse than I thought.

Leg bruise finally came to the surface on Sunday from Saturday’s cramp fest two miles from the end of the Liberty Hill Spokes ’n Spurs bicycle ride. Darn, no wonder it hurt like mad.

I’ve been laid up for a week now recovering. Easy stretching, gentle massage and a couple of slow easy rides on the trike. One 10 minute ride on the TiAero last Thursday to make sure I did not pull any muscle.

Another easy trike ride on Saturday.

Now it is time to start training in earnest for some big rides coming up in the next few weeks.

Can you spot the lonely recumbent at the start of the Libery Hill Spokes ’n Spurs? The only other recumbent at the ride (Robyn’s trike) is behind the camera.

The Libery Hill Spokes ’n Spurs ride had about 600 riders. Only two recumbents.

Here in the picture I’m talking to a couple on a Co-Motion tandem. They had S & S couplers on the tandem so that it can be taken apart for traveling on airlines. They have been all over the world traveling and riding their tandem. France, Italy, etc. I asked them if they where going to be at the GASP ride beginning of May and they said they were going to be in Little Rock AR for a big tandem rally - somewhere close to 100 tandems.

They said last week they were at the Salado ride (Salado Smoke’n Spokes) and there was a guy, totally wrapped up in a recumbent, to where the only thing you could see was his head sticking out the top. They said he was fast and that they paced him for about 25 miles and then he just took off like the turbo kicked in and they never saw him again.

I said - hey, that was me! I remember riding with you guys for a long ways until we turned into a pretty good headwind and then everyone else slowed down pretty significantly.

Fourteen miles for Robyn on the Expedition and 43.5 miles for me on the Bacchetta Ti-Aero. Here we are at the 8:30am start looking pretty chipper. The post ride picture for me is probably not very consumable.

The ride was gorgeous! The wild flowers were blooming all over. It was a little overcast for most of the morning but never rained. The route wound through the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

A lot more climbing than I thought there would be - and definitely a lot more climbing than I’m currently used to.

Bacchetta TiAero

This was only my second ride (ever) on the Bacchetta TiAero. It is a really nice, solid, bike. Light weight and mechanically simple (compared to my other recumbents) I’ll probably use this as my travel bike.

The front of the TiAero has a Schlumpf high-speed-drive on the front. I don’t even use the front derailleur. (I guess one day I should try the front derailleur to make sure it actually works?)

With the Schlumpf high-speed-drive you just tap the center pin with your heal on one side and now you have a whole new higher gear range. Tap the other side with your heel and you are back to the lower range gears.

Ride Strategy

Well I’m definitely having some issues. Because the bike is new to me, I started at the very back of the first pack. It took me about 10 minutes of riding to become accustomed to the feel of the bike and then I was able to ‘put the hammer down’. Unfortunately, because of all the climbing I burned out pretty quickly. I caught the tandem by the second second rest stop, but by the third rest stop (mile marker 22) I was already pretty burned out. I decided to change from the 62.6 mile route to the 44 mile route and after stretching some at the 22 mile rest stop I immediately started heading back on the 44 mile route.

It was tough heading back. Headwind most of the way and my legs semi-cramping for a long ways. I easy peddled as much as possible and walked a couple of step hills. Finally, two miles from the finish my right leg totally cramped up. I did manage to get unclipped just before it happened but could not get off the bike. I must have sat there on the bike with my right leg sticking straight out for about ten minutes before I could message the leg enough to loosen it such that I could get off the bike without falling over. I walked off the cramp in around 300 yards and then got back on the bike and easy peddled the last two miles of the ride.

Bike Fit

I think the cramping issues are caused by being overweight (again) and bike fit. I’m going to have to work on both.

Next Week

I’m probably going to do the Prude Ranch ride on the F-40 in west Texas with Carl Murdock. Should be a blast - A 36 miles one way ride downhill about 2,000 feet. Carl says on the F-40 we should be averaging 30+ mph the whole way.

A fit guy on a time trial bike with a rear disc wheel put the hurt on me today.

Twenty miles into the ride I’m coming back to the Williams / Ronald Reagan Blvd intersection when I see him round the corner coming from Georgetown and turning to head south on Ronald Reagan. He must have seen me because he immediately takes off peddling like mad and the bike rocking back and forth from him powering quickly up to speed.

I was going to turn back to Georgetown to finish my ride, but instead I take the bait and continue straight on RR to try and catch him.

Well it was not happening today. The wind was 18 gusting to 23 directly crosswind to the road. Everytime I got over 25 the wind would blow me all over the place with the gusting and large construction trucks passing. I kept riding the brakes to stay under 22 to 23 mph and the timetrial guy just slowly walks away from me. Bummer, after about 2 miles of almost keeping up with him I give up and head back to Georgetown.

34.7 miles @ 17.4 mph and lots of wind practice with the F-40.

No way I could have ridden in this wind without the coroplast mod I did last week.

Every since I’ve had the F-40 strong gusty side winds have been challenging. Additionally, no matter how steep the hill I could not get the top speed over 40 mph.

Some feedback from existing F-40 owners on the web suggested that dealing with gusty side winds could be done by poking your elbow out into the windward side. I adopted that behavior and talk about it here: http://danhansenjr.com/2013/09/17/f-40-sticking-your-elbow-into-the-wind.html.

Well, it turns out the problem was actually different and I now don’t have to perform the elbow out maneuver any more.

When riding at the HOT Rally (Heart of Texas) in Austin this year I got to spend some time with Carl Murdock on the warrior ride who took the following picture of me riding the F-40.

Notice where the red arrow points to the wind pushing the bottom spandex inwards. I was also having a problem with getting the top speed of the F-40 over 40 mph. Carl said that for a fast F-40 the spandex needs to be as smooth as possible down the sides to keep the airflow uninterrupted as much as possible.

In the picture above the spandex is bowed in by the wind and in effect is capturing the wind like a parachute and really slowing me down.

Carl in the past had talked to Tyger Johnson who indicated that installing coroplast sheeting along the bottom area would smooth the airflow. I looked inside Carl’s F-40 to see how he had done it and Friday I bought some coroplast and installed it on my F-40.

In the below pictures you can see on the right how I have installed the coroplast on the bottom section of the F-40. (I positioned the F-40 just right in the sun light so that the sheet could be seen through the spandex).

Before	After

I pulled down the spandex in the next two pictures so that you can see how the coroplast was installed. Basically, I just cut a 12 inch by 48 inch piece of the coroplast along the grain so that bending it would bow it and not fold it. I fastened it with some zip ties.

Rear Left	Top

Yesterday I did the Salado Smoke ‘N Spokes (Salado Texas) charity ride in winds 15 mph gusting to 21 mph. Read about it here http://danhansenjr.com/2014/03/29/f-40-salado-smoken-spokes-100k.html.

The gusty winds were no factor. Several times I was riding 30+ mph when hit with a pretty good side gust and the effect was very minimal.

Additionally, on this ride I was also able to break 40 mph for the first time.

Looks like I need to spend more time cleaning up the airflow.