I tried to do my weekday bike laps yesterday at Club Manila East in Taytay, Rizal. At 3:00 p.m., I detached my roadbike's front wheel and pushed the whole thing into my car. After filling up my bottles with water and hydration salts, I sped off to CME planning to do around 30kms of bike at 30kms/h average speed, I wanted to finish the workout in one hour so I could be home before 5 p.m. in time for my daughters' arrival from school. On the way to CME, I noticed the strong winds outside, which was evident due to the swaying trees along Manggahan Floodway. No worries, I said to myself that if the winds were too strong, I could slow down to around 22-25 kph and still be at home before 5 p.m. And so I thought.
Upon reaching CME, the wind was blowing the tall grasses down, which would put the gustiness at around 40-45kph. Still, I was unfazed and decided to put my bike together and ride.
Upon reaching 20 kph, a strong headwind from the east blew me back, and the 20kph easy cadence ride became a very challenging routine. After I turned on my first corner, it became worse. The easterly headwind became easterly crosswinds. I felt my bike wobble due to sheer wind force. Still, I managed to control the wobbling and went on. After my first kilometer at 22kph average, a strong headwind lifted my rear wheel almost causing me to crash. I stopped, composed myself and rode again.
At the 2km turn, the crosswind was now to my right, and was even stronger. I tried to avoid it by spinning at lower gears but maintaining my speed at 22-25kph. After my U-turn, a gust of strong wind lifted me and my bike to around 2-3 inches to my right. That was it! I went to my car, disassembled my bike and headed home.
While driving home, all I could think of was what a waste of time it was. I could have just lifted some irons at home and not put myself at risk of crashing.
I then thought of UP. Since the oval was surrounded by buildings and trees, it wouldn't be as windy as CME, plus the length of the oval is the same at 2.2kms.
I woke up at 4:15 a.m., had two pandesals for a quick breakfast, took a quick shower, then headed off to UP.
It was still dark when I got there at 5:30 a.m. I assembled my bike, checked my rear blinker if it was still blinking, then started biking. There were few joggers and only a handful of bikers, it was a bliss!
I have an eye problem, which makes it difficult for me to judge the depth of an image. I wouldn't know accurately how far an object is from me, or how deep a rut is, and this posed a problem especially when I have no headlights on my bike and the sun is not yet up, so my first 2 laps were at an average of 25kph.
On my 3rd lap, the sun was almost up and I could see better. I increased my speed to around 27kph and on my 4th lap, increased to 30 kph. On my 5th lap, I increased to 35kph. I must have been doing it consistently as when I looked behind, there were 3 more cyclists behind me, forming a peloton. I maintained my pace for 1 more kilometer then slowed down to 25kph and let the other cyclists overtake me. I pulled out my water bottle and took three squirts of salted water from my bottle, then sped off again. I re-joined the peloton after 2 minutes and we were avaeraging 35kph.
On my 7th and final lap, I maxxed out at 38.6kph. I waived off the peloton and proceeded to my car to freshen up for work. It was a good ride.
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