On The Road After A Long Time

It's been some time since I rode the road bike. The principal reason for this is I need to go out with the bike early in the morning and finish it all before Calcutta wakes up. And that wsa not happening. Another major reason is since it is a road bike with a very thin tyre, it is very hard on the ass when I am on even a little bad road. And Calcutta roads are reasonably bad. Southern Avenue is passable but most other roads make you really rattle on the bike. 

So I have been riding the 'Ole Hero quite a bit of late. Just the other day on Guru Nanak's birthday I did a 17 km afternoon ride. But I kept on postponing the Red Roadie ride for quite some time. Meanwhile, due to the Hero's fat tyre my speed wasn't anything great. So that was another reason to bring out the Red Roadie.

Early this morning I went out with the Red Roadie for a short spin - complete with the HRM strapped to the chest and the Forerunner on the wrist. I have decided to go out for a half an hour ride every morning. This is to renew my fight against diabetes. On Monday I discovered my HbA1c had gone up to 7 from the earlier 6.1. So today was the first day of my new daily exercise regime. 

Front shifter of the Shimano Sora

Once on the road I realised I have totally forgotten how to shift the gears !!! That's typically me :-) The bike has two derailleurs (Shimano Sora SS). One in the front and another in the back. It has two shifters. With one on your right hand you change the rear derailleur, with the other on the left hand you change the front derailleur. For these two again there is one lever for the upshift and another for the downshift. 

As you can see this is too much for a small, old brain like mine to remember. And as is my wont I quickly forget everything after a few days. I have a mindset problem. For smaller things in life, I always tell myself: "never mind. I will work it out as I go". I did work out the shifter on the back but the front remained a mystery to me this morning. 

I got the confusion cleared just now from this video. But I know I will forget it all after a few weeks. That's why I am writing it all down. Each brake lever works as a shifter. The right lever is for the rear and left for the front. If you push the small lever on your right hand the gear will move to the smaller cog (technically called a higher gear). So if you are picking up speed push the smaller lever on the right hand side. If you are getting slower or moving up a bridge, push the larger lever to the left. The gear goes back from 9th to 8th and so on.

For the front derailleur, it is the opposite. You push the small lever and the chain moves from the larger cog on the right to the smaller cog on the left. This helps you to go up an incline. You can use that for riding against the wind also.

One thing to remember. It takes a lot more than a gentle push of the finger on the larger lever to push the front derailleur up from the smaller cog to the larger cog.

Here is my effort on Strava for all it's worth. As I say, my speed is way slower than the elite marathoners'. My first goal is to come out of this ignominy !! But if the roads were a little better and didn't slow me down I could have done that today itself.

And here is the view as seen by Garmin. The Garmin maps are just a little more reliable. Incidentally I never knew Garmin activities can be shared like this :-) On analysis of all this data I realised that in terms of effort put in, as evident from the heart beats per minute, this ride was nothing compared to even a short 1km run. I guess from the next ride onwards my focus will be on pushing the beats per minute up. Upto 170 is okay for me. But when you are cycling it is difficult to look at the watch on your wrist. Now I know why people in the west spend a lot of money on those attachments for tying the watch up on the handle bar.

One odd thing happened after the ride. This morning I had that typical burning sensation down the throat that you get after an acidity attack. After the 8 km half an hour ride when I came back I suddenly started feeling very sick. I puked out some watery something and then lied down on bed for a long time. Took a Pan 40 and skipped office to take rest.