A Tri before a Ride.

It has been a wonderful week of riding the back roads of Ohio with over 2500 other riders. Before the ride started last Sunday I did an Olympic distance triathlon out in Findlay, Ohio. My goal was to complete the race in 2:25:00 and I am happy to say I complete it in 2:21:23. I almost wished I didn't check the race results because of my seemingly poor swim results. I question if some people completed the required 2 laps of the 1500 meter swim. The guy who placed 40th did 1500 meters in 11:21? I doubt it. The overall race results seemed foggy too because the overall winner Martin Mason, who I enjoyed meeting after the race, was shocked to hear he got the overall win, even though, I passed him in the run with over 1 mile to the finish. Other than the 2 hour wait for the awards ceremony, for a dog tag for my 2nd place age group finish, I enjoyed a fast race on beautiful country roads.

GOBA (Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure) was an adventure. To summarize in one sentence of my experience of camping and biking for the week would be: Meeting so many people from all over the country with a common interest in sharing the joy of riding the country roads of Ohio and having a freedom from our normal day to day life was a blessing experienced by us all.

During the week we had 2 lay over days where we have optional riding routes or we could relax and enjoy the hosting town by sight seeing. Our first lay over day we spent at a water park. The second lay over day my family did another water park but I used a loaner bike from one of the bike vendors to get in a 42 mile ride in. The ride was a beautiful country hill buster and I pushed a hard effort while trying to hold off a guy that was drafting off me for a few miles. After about 10 miles I left him in the dust.

And on the last day after 25 miles into the ride we hit a dirt rutted access road and my son & I did a spill while trying to avoid a deep rut. I banged my right knee and right wrist. My son got the wind knocked out of him and banged his right pinkie. Roadside emergency crew was there to help us within minutes. We brushed off the dirt and told them we were planing on eating at Bob Evan's and that at the next rest stop we'll check in with them. At the rest stop they cleaned our wounds and bandaged us. We rode another 25 miles to the finish.

Total riding miles 260, plus the 42 miles I did on my own.

These are just some of the pictures taken.

GOBA here we come.

It's been a few months now that my wife, son and I have been focusing on getting ready for GOBA by riding our bikes as much as possible. We leave for GOBAville this Saturday afternoon. But before we set out on our adventure I'll do an Olympic triathlon in Findlay, Ohio Saturday morning. I think I'm more over whelmed with the thought of getting all things packed for the triathlon and GOBA today than our build up of biking for the trip or my training for the race.

My wife was able to get in the required training of riding 350 miles to help ensure success in completing the week long event of riding over 200 miles. We also conquered the 1/2 mile 7% grade of Warner road hill. She's been putting off riding up that hill in fear of the pain and agony of defeat but she survived and now has more confidence she'll be able to enjoy GOBA. I also wanted to ride up the hill on the tandem with my son and we experienced it was easier than we feared. We're all physically and mentally ready for the challenge and look forward to a week long adventure of biking and camping.

Tandem Practice Ride

GOBA is a week long camping and biking adventure in the Ohio area. And my family and I signed up to ride it this year on June 14th, with a group of 11 other riders. I rode GOBA back in 2004 with about 12 other friends and I had a great time. I had hoped to one day do GOBA again and to ride it with my wife and son. But, in order to do the average 50 mile daily ride I had to find a way for them to survive without too much discomfort. First, we had to do something about getting a decent bike for my wife. She would not be able to ride her mountain bike for the trip so we began to shop around for a road bike. We found one at our local bike shop where she was fitted nicely onto a women's specific Cannondale bike. She has taken the bike out for a couple spins around the neighborhood and park and appreciates the comfort factor being so much better compared to the men's mountain bike that she rode with.

The next challenge for me was to borrow a tandem bike from a friend and begin practice riding it with my 10 year son. I had to buy extender cranks for him to reach the pedals. I adjusted the seat all the way down and positioned the handle bars so that he felt comfortable on the bike.

We have been riding the tandem for about 2 weeks now and we are loving it every time we go out. Our longest ride was 2 hours this past Saturday (before Sunday's Cleveland 10K race). We are working on building up to 4 hours of riding up and down hills. We hope to accomplish that by the first weekend in June. This should give us all the confidence we need in order to survive a week long of biking.