Official Teaming Announcement

A few days back I mentioned that new links were being forged within the vanHuuhaa team... well here is the official teaming announcement including the ring.
Still no details worked out on the exact date of the wedding but we are aiming for between March 30 and may 21 2011 somewhere in California.
Warm regards

Ron and Lisa

The Sag Gag

So with some of the Cycle Folsom team diligently training for the Death Ride (a grueling 129mi 16000+ ft climbing event in the Mountains near Lake Tahoe), 4 of the Cycle Folsom Ride leaders secretly conspired to provide surprise SAG support and encouragement to the training riders... Lisa, Stan Kevin and Ron, after a few weeks of quiet preparation set out at 6:30 am from Folsom to Markleeville - via Placerville.

Ron's Jetta Sportwagon was loaded up with 4 bikes and was sporting the nice magnetic "Official Cycle Folsom SAG Vehicle" signs. Lisa had loaded up on every snack, fruit, energy bar, protiens, sandwich ingredients that any rider could possibly want together with 10 galons of water, a foldow table and lawn chairs.

At Picketts Junction we began by chalking the shoulder with Cycle Folsom Signs, Arrows and a few messages... Stan had created some nice inspirational signs including ones Like - "Go kick that mountain's ass!" and "You have Friends in High Places" - indicating the Food Oasis that we set up at the top of Ebbetts Pass.

Half way up Ebbetts Pass, Lisa decided to give it a go as well and managed a very impressive speed up the last 5.1 miles of the climbs.... followed by a fun descent back to Markleeville with Phil and Jeff.

All riders were surprised - and I believe very grateful for the bopunty set out at the top of the long climbs - Lisa had stocked us so well that we had plenty for any and all riders that showed up at the Top of Ebbetts so we got to meet a lot of others training for the Death Ride as well...

Lots more pictures of the Sag Gag at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/starcaster/9262010SagGag#

All in all a very fun fun day - And now we give a shout out to the team to crush the Death Ride in a couple of weeks!

We now Have The Official Sag Vehicle Signs so doont' be surprised to see us somewhere else :)

Have fun!

R

New Links being forged in Team vanHuu-Haa

Hi Friends:

I would like to make the ecstatic announcement that after some careful consideration, my sweetheart, Lisa decided to accept my proposal of marriage and hence the links in the team will become stronger than ever :)

We celebrated the moment with a bottle of white Chateau Valtice Neuburske from the Moravia region of the Czech republic - which we brought back after our Vienna to Prague adventure. The wine was shared in some lovely Waterford Crystal Lismore Essence glasses I got for the occasion.

A LARGE crystal 'diamond' was offered as a temporary stand-in till rings could be chosen. We have not thought much about wedding dates or honeymoon plans etc etc but I do expect there may be a bike ride involved :)

Thanks to all our friends that have given us both their love and friendship...
we send our love and joy in return...

more details to follow

Ron

Lactate Threshold Testing at AthletiCamps

Its been 8 or 9 months of fairly hard riding, with the Vuelta Puerto Rico, 3 Double Centuries, a handful of Centuries and some challenging rides with Cycle Folsom - and yet Lisa and I felt that we were not improving, not getting faster or stronger...So Lisa searched for a place to get some coaching and training advice and maybe take a step back and restart.

As a result of her search Lisa discovered that we in Sacramento are lucky to have AthletiCamps right in Folsom beside Folsom Bike
7610 Folsom-Auburn Rd. Ste. 130 Folsom, CA. 95630
Check them out at http://www.athleticamps.com/ AthleticCamps does Testing, Bike Fitting, Training Camps as well as is associated with Nutrition experts and more.

AthletiCamps has been around for 9 years but only opened the Folsom Office last Fall. Bruce Hendler - the owner and coach is a fountain of information and infectious enthusiasm and so far he has us pumped to work on this, lose some weight, lower our body fat % and hopefully see the results in stronger, faster performance and better recovery.

On Memorial Day Lisa went in for a Lactate Threshold Test and based on the results of the test Bruce designed a training regimen for her. After watching and listening to the analysis I decided to do get the package as well... which I did Sat June 5. The test is done on your own bike on a Computrainer and generally starts with a 20 min warm-up, followed but 3 min intervals of progressively higher power (resistance) at a maintained cadence of 95rpm, while Bruce samples a drop of blood from your earlobe to measure the Lactate (painless).
For me the tests were done at 100w, 130w, 160w, 190w, 210w, 240w, & 270w. Based on the heart rate measured and the lactate Bruce can determine your three training zones and your lactate threshold.

So the result is that we have found out that we have been training at too high a heart rate and that explains our lack of weight loss (since fat burns most effectively in the low and medium intensity zones) and also our training has not concentrated properly on base and endurance training (low intensity zone) and strength training using Slow Frequency Revolutions - basically hill climbing at about 45 revolutions while keeping the heart rate below 145 bpm.

Anyways... Tomorrow Lisa and I are off on a "rubber legs" ride - cycling in our lower zone at 95 rpm with no coasting and maintaining heart rate even on the down hills... should be an adventure
:)

Davis Double - DONE! - Triple Crown Winners

Sorry for the delay on this...been kind of busy

Well we lucked out with the weather! 57F as we set out on the 200 mi ride and a high of about 90F by the last climb at mile 136. Compare that to the 105F temperatures of last year and we were lucky!

We had the company at the start of Phil and Jeff from Cycle Folsom and we started off at about 5:30am - just as the horizon was starting to lighten. We were in a good sized paceline for about 15 miles but as the pace started to climb to 22-24mph Lisa and I decided that we would dole out our effort at a slightly slower pace. We saw Phil and Jeff at the first stop ( about 23mi) and left before they did... and never saw them again - since they must have passed up on one rest stop and went on ahead. We saw them the next day at the Tour of California Stage 1 and they indicated they completed the ride in 13 hours - Well Done!

We made good time averaging 18+ on the flats and Lisa was nice enough to wait for me at the top of the climbs :). After a stop at that base of the 7 mi climb to Cobb we headed up the biggest climb of the day- the grade was mostly in the 8-10% but a few sections of 14% grade and the rising heat made me drop off the pace and come in to the rest stop a mile from the top a handful of minutes behind Lisa. Lisa had an advantage over me though since she had her sumo wrestler thumb puppets to take her mind off the steepness, and heat :) ...Lisa was waiting with a coke for me :)

The next two climbs were not bad but the temperatures were climbing and Lisa struggled to take in food. As well as we started south after mile 145 we had a bit of a headwind but luckily it was flat of slightly downhill for most of the remaining 50 miles. Since we were out of the climbs and back in my element ( the flats:) I did a fair bit of the pulling as Lisa was beginning to feel the lack of fuel.

We took a few extra minutes at the 2nd and 3rd last stops and but rode by the final stop (only 7 miles from the end). We ended up in the dark by the time we finished but were pleasantly surprised at our on bike times - about 13hr for Lisa and 13:15 for me (due to the slower climbs) giving us an average over the 203 miles of about 15.6mph - an improvement over the Solvang Double and Camino Real...

Now I think we will give the double centuries a rest and do a few of the other things that we have been neglecting as we trained to do the 3 doubles :)

Regards

Ron and Lisa

Fund Raiser for Conner Ellison's RAAM ride

On Saturday May 8th A number of Cycle Folsom Riders rode a version of the French town Loop from Folsome to EDH to Shingle Springs and back via Deer valley Road. The ride was organized by By Conner and his Family and Friends for Team Donate Life and Conner's planned Race Across America Ride coming up this summer.

Conner is an amazing athlete already at 12 years old with a Liver disease and a mission to spread the word about organ donation and the motto for the ride was "Are you stronger than a 6th Grader !?"

For more information check out:
www.teamdonatelife.com/6thgrader/6th_grader.asp

I unfortunatley was not feeling very strong and had to really buckle down to finsh the ride. Lisa was fortunately riding strongly with Kevin but that left me watching them dissapear up the road and plodding on on my own for maybe 66% of the ride..

Anyways a great Cause and a fun Ride...

GO CONNER!!

Caption contest

Phil and I were supposed to lead the Biking 101 Beginner's Ride on Sunday but did not have any takers so we rode the Lake loop together with a few other friends :)

So far these are the suggested captions for the picture from the Cycle Folsom Crew...Steve W as usual snowed us under with suggestions till we gave up :)

Enjoy - feel free to add a caption in the comment section !

Caption Suggestions:

1. ON YOUR LEFT!!!
2. The LAST time Phil gets to set up the paceline...
3. BIKING 101 rider getting “pipped” at the line by two geese
4. Beak Quiet!!
5. Blowing by a couple of old Geesers.
6. Honkies on the right!
7. Pardon me, I think someone in your pace line is losing chunks of rubber off their tires; it’s all over the path back there.
8. South? No, this path heads east.
9. Pardon me: do you have any Grey Poupon…for my foie gras?
10. BIKING 101 rider getting “pipped” at the line by two geese
11. Yes, we do own the road, human!
12. Biking 101 imprinting – ducks out of water.
13. Goose Up!
14. "Hey Phil, is that Lance Armstrong riding on the other side of the bike trail? I told you we should have taken that route instead!"
15. Damn Canadians!
16. SINGLE FILE EVERYONE...GEEZE!
17. OK you beginners ... first thing is you are gonna need bikes!"

Ron