JasonHilimire.com

I’ve not kept up on the blogging front, but I have been training! You might just call it stealth mode training I guess nowadays. As everytime someone goes on a bike ride apparently there’s suppose to be a blog post with pictures and powercharts/tweet/or facebook update. (I’m guilty on the twitter/facebook thing as it’s just so much easier and faster)

But you see I’ve just gone and put on my ninja mask, and disappeared.

Slowly silently, I’m training. Stalking and killing will be the name of the game. It’s not about being the biggest baddest wolf. I’m thinking it’s more about being swift, & nimble and using some well timed attacks this season, like a golden eagle. For Reference: This is how you bring em down

Been quite a bit of roller time this season. I decided I had to lift my 4 year indoor bike ride boycott. Especially since my Minerva Design Cycling teammates are counting on me to be ready in the early spring, and ready for the Spring Giro’s (7 weeks away!)

I even pulled out my xc ski’s this past weekend. Thank god I don’t do that in public anywhere. I flop around a bit, but get the job done. And man was I sore for a few days….

Temps are warming up after our deep freeze, So that means loads of time on the bike outdoors this weekend! (this ain’t the south or the west, so 25 degrees is warming up)

Weather didn’t looks so nice today for a bike road. Besides, every now and then you gotta switch things up and keep things fresh. With that in mind I headed up to the Eldora Nordic Center to put in a solid 4 hours on the xc skiis.

Trails were groomed, temps were perfect was looking to be a good day.

Hmm, forgot to grab a map, guess I’ll just wing it and head to the top of the mountain. Head up the snowshoe trails and bomb down, close as I can get to singletrack today!

Looked nicer than the groomed trails, little did I know it was about 2,000ft elevation gain straight up! Damn that was tough!

At least when I got to the cabin, the lookout wasn’t very far and I was blessed with fresh tracks on the way to the tippy top!

Look ma, I’m on top of the world (close about 10,500ft or so!)

Yup, started waaay down there by those slopes

All in all it was an awesome 4 hours of xc skiing and I only crashed a few times on the way back down . 4 solid hours on the skiis and the legs are quite sore as I sit here and type this out.

Tomorrow looks like a great day (mid 40’s), should be a perfect day to nix six hours on the bike!

My Article on Power Training comparison of Mt. Bikers vs. Road is posted up over on Bike Radar!!

Short and sweet, but loads of snow here in Upstate NY. Nothing to do but bust out the xc ski’s and have some fun. Yesterday was solo over at Glenwood with Lizzy.

It’s amazing how calm and serene it is out in the woods. Absolute peace. No headphones or technology. Just the crunch of the snow

I have no idea what this is, but it appeared randomly in the fall. And is that a ghost?

MPH

Today headed over to MPH with Mark, Suzanne and Lizzy (C-dog is on the injured reserve list). Put in a few more hours in the early am and had some fun.

Lizzy just loves the snow

Where they went, I followed.

Great Day!

Man, let’s see 35+ hours in my car, 34.9 of them having been spent dealing with snow or blowing snow of some sort and the last 5 hours of the trip spent in Buffalo, NY. The danger zone of all danger zones for winter weather. I made it, no trips in the ditch, but can’t speak for many of my fellow travellers. Majority of whom that had a southern state license plate, got to experience the awesomeness of a tow truck ride.

Driving was pretty boring. Seeing a car off the road next to each mile-marker sign, kept it interesting. I snapped a few pics from my iPhone on the way. Bet you didn’t know it could be a useful driving tool? You see, when the wind blows really hard, you get a “whiteout” and can’t see even the hood of your car.

When traveling at 50+ mph and suddenly going blind, it easily causes accidents when people hit the brakes, because they are scared and suddenly can’t see the road. Well the iphone is handy-dandy road finder! Not the gps part, but the camera part. I turned on the camera and it could ’see’ the road, weird, yes in a way. Let me explain, see the iphone could pick up detail that my eyes couldn’t see, the road would show up on the iphone, but not with my own eyes. Hence I just held it on top of the steering wheel and when things went pure white, magically could reference the iphone and make sure I was going in a straight line and not heading for a snow bank! It took some practice because driving a car using a 3.5 inch screen is a little tough!

See how you can see the road and the detail in the picture? Well, with me eyes it was just pure white!

Remnants of a 10 car pile-up. Maybe they should advertise the iphone’s winter driving capabilities?

Yup, they coulda used an iphone.

Next, maybe I’ll figure how to get it so the steering of the car is controlled via tilting the iphone and then it will be a breeze to get home in the snow, and fun too!

Time to go hit the trails on the xc skis

The past few days have been quite cold. There’s still a bit of snow on the ground and in my never-ending quest to stay completely off the trainer, I’ve strapped on the xc ski’s a few times and even hit the gym. This week is a rest week for me so it pretty much works out well that I haven’t needed to pack on the layers and figure out how to get a ride in!

Lizzy loves the snow, she loves to just run and barrel roll in it and even snow-plow with her nose. It’s always humorous. Right now, she’s passed out cold on the floor from today’s efforts.

The weather is looking to be much nicer these next few days, then dipping back cold (no problem for me as I’ll be on my way home to NY).

Hopefully tomorrow and Friday will see some time out on the road bike!

Currently playing in iTunes: Murderers by John Frusciante

Brrr… temps in the single digits. Hoping it warms up here in a day or two. Seeing as I’m stuck inside; here’s some good youtube.

I don’t want to be a pole vaulter!!

For Sarah who rode a 48 hour mt bike singlespeed race on a broken pelvis and didn’t know…

XC Ski’d yesterday for a bit with Lizzy and froze my face off.

Also, looks like my article on mtb power is going to be published, stay tuned for whereabouts and when.

Today was the first day to break out the xc skis. The few inches of snowfall and the cold temps are only here through today, so I had to utilize. I don’t think I was even on the xc skis at all last season. I know that the Lizzy girl was certainly happy to get out in the snow. Dog’s certainly love snow and she is no exception.

Temps looking to kick back into the 50’s this weekend, so I’ll be back out on the bike for some looong fun rides around the area. Anyone care to Join?

The flatirons were awesome to see this morning

Lizzy was having a blast running around in the snow as usual

Could I ski all the way to Nebraska?

Lizzy was so excited she was drooling on herself

Can’t beat the views!

Damn, missed out on first tracks!

For those that geek out like I do, I have an awesome iPhone customized interface! If you’re using wordpress and want a slick interface check out WPTouch This is what you’ll see below when you visit the site from the iPhone. It also makes it super easy to comment from the iPhone, email articles or for me to respond to your comments. I <3 my iPhone!

The little icons indicate the number of comments per post

Past few days have been a big block of training. Weather has been tolerable enough to get out there and get things done.

Thursday, I busted out the skiis and did some am xc skiing at the local golf course. It was a bit chilly, but tolerable and managed a quick hour prior to work.

Friday, temps were good enough to get out for an hour and a half and pound out some tempo on the road.

Yesterday, I pulled out the paragon and headed over to glenwood with Lizzy. I hit up the GBC before hand and picked up a new drivetrain for the roadie and some more winter clothing. Over at glenwood, the snow was a little bit deeper than I thought it was. Luckily, marky had gone out in the morning and laid down some tracks. There was also a few walkers who packed the trail in nice. After a few laps that felt like pedaling through quicksand, it was some good riding.

This morning I pulled out the roadie and challenged the coming rain. Weather was forecast to be quite a bit windy in the morning with some rains coming in the afternoon. I headed out the door and got some good time in. I suffered like a dog for 20k heading south into the brutal headwind. Pretty much felt like I was going nowhere for quite a while. To top it off the rain came in near the end of those last few k’s. Even with the warmer temps, I was forced to take a turn and head home. The roads were quite wet and I was starting to get cold from the strong winds. It did manage to be a good ride overall.

Note the few spots where my speed just jumps up from having a huge tailwind

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get out tomorrow in the am and put a few more hours in and top of this nice little block of training.

Winter is back with a nice little treat these next few days. Guess it’s time to bust out the ski’s possibly the next few days. I’m actually excited a bit about a little bit of a change of pace. I hope the rain holds off though……

Not that things are getting tough, but It’s winter, and I like to xc ski. Things are actually going good. Last night I even busted out the rollers for a little go. I’ve still got it; Yup I can ride no handed with 1 leg. That’s smooth baby, smooth… One thing that frustrated me though is the power-tap torque values were a bit off for the first 25 minutes of my ride. I’m freaking busting my ass doing 1 minute intervals at 250 watts. I thought maybe the trainer was just on a little bit harder, but 250 is tempo, no AE!! Once I re-calibrated the torque all was well, but now I gotta figure out how to adjust 25 minutes of power data to sensible numbers (anybody wanna help me ?)

I also did manage to get out for about 3 hours this past weekend and just do some light tempo. Unfortunately, I worked Saturday and Sunday and was forced to shorten the ride. It would’ve been nice to pull of 5-6 hours of tempo. Hopefully I can catch a break this weekend and put in a nice loooong day.

I’ve got a new mantra also; taken right from Team CSC at last year’s Tour. Go Here for what it is (NSFW).

Also, I re-enabled comments on my page, so feel free to drop me a note!

Snow is coming down outside just a little bit 5-9 inches or more expected, with the possibility of a Nor’easter this weekend!

I did manage to get out on the bike on monday for some night riding at glenwood. I rushed home and put the supercaliber back together and headed over to the trails with Mark and the dogs. Temps were hovering right around freezing, but it was warm during the day. This meant that the exposed parts of the trail were nothing more than mud and muck. I managed to get close to an hour in then we called it quits.

So it’s snowing out pretty good today. Looking like it’s going to be a good night for some xc skiing. Road conditions are probably going to be too poor to head anywhere, so most likely going to end up over at glenwood. Lay some tracks down and can most likely get it worked in for the bikes possibly over the weekend.

View outside my car at lunchtime today!

Currently playing in iTunes: Velvet Snow by Kings Of Leon