WR and i took a great fixedGear ride on saturday, and it completely destroyed my legs.

i’ve recently changed my drivetrain, and that’s resulted in a number of functional differences on my bike. for one thing, i have to maintain a higher cadence on descents and flats if i wanna maintain any sort of a comparable speed to what i had with the old gear ratio. the upside, though, is that i can climb a little easier.

but over the course of a long day like this, that higher cadence really starts to get to you. my ride in to WR’s house, coupled with our strawberryParadise loop, terminated in front of his grill with about 40 miles down (the 30-ish we shared, and the 10-ish it took me to get to him). i’d been stretching and hydrating and snacking, but i think it wasn’t enough, or maybe i hadn’t prepared with the right dinner the night before, or maybe not enough sleep or something, because my left groin started to seize as i sat cross-legged eating my delicious burger and taunting wee z with complete sentences. no worries, i figured, and stretched some more, knocking it out.

but i still had another 10-ish miles to go on the day (my day was a total of just about 50 miles), and that’s where shit started to go pear-shaped. once i got across the bridge to the city side, my right calf was starting to seize. i pulled over at a lookout point and stretched it out. then the whole rest of the way, i felt the threat of more cramps coming along, which i was able to power through all the way to the intersection of van ness and chestnut, which is 7 blocks from my house. and at the red light there, everything cramped. both groin muscles, my left hammy, and my right calf. i had to drop my bike right there on the corner and start stretching. further, i walked the final 7 blocks home.

on the one hand, i’m glad to have put 50 under me on the day, and after re-hydrating at home and stretch stretch stretching the whole rest of the day and the following morning, i was ok. to that end, i was actually recovered the following day, which is a PHENOMENAL sign. but even then, when i was over at my old man’s place for dinner, i got a left hamstring cramp right in the middle of desert and had to leap up from the table and stretch it out.

what it’s shown me is that i need to hydrate even more than i think is necessary (which is wierd cause i’m pretty religious about that), and i need to prepare with the right dinner the night before. i think i stretched enough, but who knows, maybe i should do more of that too.

i mounted a double waterBottle cage on the Tumbler so i can have more water available, which i know will help. and i recovered amazingly quickly, so i feel good about that.

but man, my legs would not SHUT UP!

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