JasonHilimire.com

Things have really started to mesh well the last few weeks. Been getting some good ride time in on the bike & all the snow is starting to melt. The sun is even shining!

Few days last week I managed some early morning road rides along the lakefront. Something quite serene & peaceful about it. Everything is still & it’s nice to have the solitude. Unfortunately so early in the am causes some unawakened legs also, but just takes some getting used to.

This weekend was great. The sun was out & got to race my bike on Saturday & get in a good ride again on Sunday. More importantly spent loads of time with Lake! Bridget is in NYC for a few days so we’ve been hanging out. Went for a bike ride, played some snow soccer & played some indoor hockey (don’t tell Bridget!) & all the fun stuff that little dudes do. He’s way too much fun, gotta keep it coming in doses though!

Thus week should be another killer week. Fitness is rapidly climbing & another giro again this weekend. Might skip Sunday & go climbing the hills of Naples for a big ride. Gonna be gorgeous! Maybe I’ll even get some pics up on thus thing & blog more than once a month!

I’ve pretty much lost steam with this thing….. Twitter is seems to be replacing thing nicely and easily. I barely even read blogs anymore, if it doesn’t fit in 140 characters or contain a pretty picture I’m probably not paying attention. If I feel like it I’ll start posting regularly. If I don’t well find me on twitter.com/jasonhilimire

Here’s what’s happened:

Rode my mountain bike in the snow with the dogs, it was fun but the snow was actually deep in a few spits

I rode my road bike some, some on the roads some on the trainer… yah that’s about it

It’s official, for next season I’ll be splitting up my time between road and dirt. On the road side I’ll be linking up with Minerva Design Cycling (official announcement here).

I’m super excited to be racing with a great new up and coming Rochester based road team for 2010. I’ll also be helping the fellas out with training advice and how to use those newfangle powermeter whatzamagics to make em even faster for this season. GVCC and beyond, better be on the lookout for the Red Train this season!! Choo Choo baby!

A few years back I split my season up between dirt and oad racing and have missed many a friends and the camaraderie of road racing. While I’ll still be shredding up the trails at all the same races, look to find me out racing and training on the road this season and sharpening up that razor blade.

Here’s to a great season with my new teammates!!

This video is too funny not to post here: MC SpandX

Thanks for @SlowPoke2320 for posting it…

Since, the Shenandoah 100 is so astutely on my mind over these next few weeks, I decided to head south to Canandaigua Lake and get in some good old fashioned hard climbing.

Go Here for the Map My Ride Route

I wasn’t sure how the legs would respond as I had drilled myself Thursday night for the group ride, but I felt really great early on. I drilled it up Seneca Point so quick it felt like I was sprinting up the climb. Bopple hill though, that hill will never feel good, 24% climbing in a 39×25 at 45 rpm, just makes you feel like you are going to rip the bars off the bike. No matter how easy or hard you go up that climb, it leaves you whimpering at the top.

Heading up W. Gannett hill with having just finished Bopple is a sure-fire way to make the legs tired. I felt ok on the climb, but wasn’t fully recovered. I’m not sure what the DOT is thinking on Gannet, but they tried patching that road early this season and it’s now just crap, super bumpy and lots of gravel everywhere. Used to be a super fun 55+ mph descent if you wanted, now you might kill yourself with all the chewed up pavement.

After I rolled backwards on my route a bit, I hit up Griesa Hill and flew up the climb. Getting a lil bit of rest really helped the legs out and I floated up the thing and made my way into Naples for some food. After a quick refuel, was time to tackle the Parish Hill climb. Parish is a dirt road and was quite chewed up. Usually do this climb on the mt. bikes as it gives us good access to Hi-Tor, but I wanted a good long climb and have some fun on the dirt. I was starting to fade a bit as the days and previous weeks fatigue were now starting to rear their teeth. The climbing legs slowly started to fade and I settled into a nice high tempo/sweet spot pace for the climb. After a quick check of directions, was able to make my way down Sliter Rd, and back up Whalen Rd. Another dirt rd climb, that starts out very steep but fades away as your get higher. Things started to come back around (or was it the red bull?) and as I made my way to the top and down into Middlesex, I was feeling good again.

Some coca-cola and a snickers almond bar, and I buried myself at Sweet Spot for the next 30 minutes on my way back to the car. All in all I was pretty dang happy with the ride and the power output. A solid 277 TSS for the ride.

I followed up with a short but sweet ride on Sunday. I spent most of the day with Lake who was practicing riding his bike all day long up and down the sidewalk. Even after 2 tumbles, plenty of tears he was back at it every time. Hell, he was up early this am and back out on the sidewalk. He tells me his coach tells him he has to practice. I wonder who’s training him, cause I don’t have a plan worked up for him

Farmall Series Starts this Tuesday! I’m out of town this week, but will be back for sure for #2 & #3

This weekend was my first weekend to get back into the swing of things after taking a nice lil mid-season break. Felt good to be back on the bike, real good. I chose the road bike as the Superfly is still getting a little TLc, and it’s done nothing but rain here (as it has all summer).

I had originally decided to head down rt. 90 on the east side of Cayuga Lake, that turned into bad idea real fast. Seems the garbage pickers were out in full force. Rt 90 holds a massive garage sale all the way down the route and there was literally a few thousand people on the road. I managed to find the first cross road and dive out onto some side roads I’ve never been on and get to some exploring.

It was nice to put in a few easy hours, and enjoy the sunshine.

Today was followed up with a bit shorter of a ride, but back to some fun tempo work. A few bits of some solid work had me back into the swing and feeling good. Looking forward to this months upcoming workload!

Here’s the pictures from this past weekends 155 mile Summer Soulstice ride. Another incredible journey down, this time shared with a great number of friends. An Epic day for sure.

21 of us took off at dawn, in the fog and drizzly skies and made our way through the Southern tier and into Northern PA. Crazy weather patterns, fog, rain, sunshine, downpours and epic views greeted us all along the way. We even got to do a little dirt-road drifting on our road bikes as always, it’s not a Hollow ride unless we are ripping up the dirt roads. 45 mph descents on seasonal roads on road bikes, yup that’s fun. Captain Conte yelling at us cause we rode 2.5 miles past the turn cause we were ripping up the descent, priceless.

7 flats total on the ride, 2 by myself! I felt great by the end of the ride and the prep for the 24 hour solo is coming along great. Perhaps it was the massive calorie intake I had during the ride; oatmeal creme pies, pizza slices, snickers bars, red bulls, pringles, orange cupcakes. How can you go wrong with all that tasty food

I’m pretty sure that it’s never going to stop raining here in upstate NY. Seems that my shoes are never going to try out. Today was no exception. The rain was predicted as usual, but it was surprisingly dry and not raining. It didn’t stay that way through my coffee. By the time I was kitted up it was raining steadily.

On tap was a few hours of steady tempo. All I could do was put my head down and roll on in the rain. 4 hours later I was back home, drenched and looking like a drowned rat. Glad though that I had gotten a solid ride in.

On the bright side, this used to be the Hardcore 24 weekend and it’s an exact repeat of last years soggy weekend. Hopefully we’ll get good weather in july!

Below is what sat over me all day during my ride. Tomorrow will be the soul-stice ride. Looking to get wet again!

Another big day in the book on Sunday. 112 miles with Mark and Suzanne.
Headed south down the west side of Seneca Lake, once we hit Watkins Glen turned east over to Ithaca and came North up 89.

Had an awesome day, sunshine and great friends. Couldn’t really ask for more. Days like this are the reason I ride a bike in the first place. There’s no reason to do all the intervals, racing, suffering, etc if you can’t spend a day just riding your bike with your friends.

Legs felt surprisingly good all weekend. Form is on the up and up. I’m also loving the new road bike, I think Sunday it finally was fully dialed in.

I think I like Red bull’s and oatmeal creme pies as my favorite endurance foods. If you’ve ridden with me on a long ride, then you know my cravings for Little Debbie snack food products, they are so delicious!

The title refers to a term in the software business, where after a bit of programming, bug fixes and tweaks, said software has the potential to be the final version unless major bugs are found.

Feels to me like the last few weeks have been spent working the bugs out of my system (hopefully). Because today, I felt like gold. Finally, feels like I’ve shaken whatever bad luck I’ve had and got me some good legs.

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My planned route was cut short by a smidge as I decided to hang around the house this morning and have breakfast with Lake and Bridget rather than rushing out the door to fit the ride in. Gave me a chance to spend some extra time with them before I’d be gone the next 6+ hours.

I started from the Geneva Bicycle Center and made my way south into Penn Yan, rolling along the ridge line enjoying some nice lake side views and having some great sensations in the legs. I made good time and made the turn west towards Naples and the southern end of Canadaigua Lake.

Decided to climb up Underwood Hill, only ever been up it on a mountain bike and I can remember grinding up a paved road in my granny gear. Today, though the 39×25 was tolerable even on the ultra-steep grade up the hill. It did seem like the hill went on forever. I was rewarded with a nice descent down South Hill road, and surprised to find that in the super steep part, it was actually paved!!

After that I rolled into Naples and decided to climb up and over Griesa Hill. It’s a really cool climb. great views of the valley, and some crazy cool old barns that date back a long time. Kinda euro-esque I’d say. Someday I’ll roll up the hill and just get some good pics of the barns!

After a quick refuel and water top off it was time to head up Gannet Hill. 10k of climbing at about 5% avg grade. I was nicely rewarded with a few tri-geeks to gobble up on the climb. They had about a 1k start on me and I quickly dispatched them en route to the top (they’ll never climb to the top cause, a: they can’t climb and b: the descent off is far too steep for their bikes with the aero position).

After that it was time to roll along the Canadaigua Lake front and enjoy the multi-million dollar homes. Some crazy sick houses along the route, can’t imagine what some of them spend just on groundskeeping!!

All in all ended the day nicely: 93.7 miles 5.7 hours, 366 TSS, 4,027 kilojoules.

Tomorrow, will break the century barrier as I’ll be heading around another one of the Finger Lakes with Mark and Suzanne Hartman. Maybe the legs will be ready and I can send the “gold master” to production just in time for the Lumberjack 100!