Team Mang's other more important activities

One of the fishing boats sponsored by the team

This team is not just about cycling and training for big cycling events.  At its core, it's always been just a group of friends who love doing things together and have fun doing it.  Somebody once quipped , "if you take this group of people and you take cycling away, what would be left - would you still be friends?"  Mangs and Alings at heart believe so. We support each other in our efforts towards making this place we call earth a better place to live in.  One of the ways the team has been able to do that recently is by helping families in the typhoon ravaged areas of the Philippines.

Mang Raf joined Amor and Jojie in
the Philippines to distribute goods
and award the fishing boats

A couple of team members, Mang Amor and Mang Jojie, were involved with a non-profit that was bringing supplies and rebuilding boats for fishermen in Bantayan Island (some of you may be familiar with the place as a tourist area, but the folks who actually live there are dependent on fishing as their sole livelihood - a livelihood which was taken away when typhoon Yolanda flattened everything including their fishing boats). 

Jun, posing with Amor and Jojie
beside the LAFBL-sponsored
fishing boat

After some team members made individual donations, they brought up the opportunity to the team and the members voted overwhelmingly to work with other cycling groups and non-profits to forego the benefits of sponsor funds (reduced prices on jerseys) and funnel that benefit towards the awarding of fishing boats and goods to survivors of the typhoon.  The team worked with the following groups: Life After Forty Bicycling League (LAFBL), Filipino American Physicians  Associatio of Washington (FAPWA), Northwest Mission of Hope and a few individuals from St. Stephens church, Expedia and Seattle City Light to bring the much needed assistance to these families through the non-profit organization Back To Sea.

Back to Sea is the non-profit we worked with

We may have only been able to fund 2 boats for two families but we hope that in some small way, this ragtag group of guys and gals who happened to be cycling together is able to meet some need around the world simply because we hang out together.  We are always thankful that we enjoy the benefits of an active lifestyle here in the USA but we do take every opportunity to try to meet the bigger needs of others.   

Way to go, team!

And so it begins...Chilly Hilly

The official start of the road cycling community's season, or at least as scheduled by the biggest local cycling club, Cascade, is the Chilly Hilly winter ride.  Every year, thousands of cyclists preparing for a productive season start their adventure off with this rain-or-shine, hilly 33 mile ride on Bainbridge Island on the last weekend of February.  Team Mang is no exception.

Mangs and Alings with others at the ferry prior to the ride

 Warmed up from a wet and cold ride the day before, several Mangs and Alings rode with other teams and with thousands of others enjoying the crisp but dry morning.  The rain held off for a while and all riders completed the event without incident. As with any ride, guys took turns trying to best each other up hills and on sprints just so they have stories to tell afterwards - all in good clean fun. All in all, another fun time with friends looking forward to an awesome 2014!

Training quandries...looking back and moving forward

2011's Chinook Pass Ride just
before Team Mang was born

When we were a much smaller group, we sort of had the same cycling goals and we were around the same fitness level and we all did the same events. After more than two years, we've grown and some things have changed and we have to face new challenges.

The ride that gave birth to the barkada - Tiger Mountain

In terms of fitness, some of us have grown a lot and naturally want to maintain a level of riding that's consistent year round (pace, elevation and length). Others have different priorities and view cycling as an enjoyable fitness activity but don't have any desire or need to go 20 mph for extended periods of time.  And then there are those who are just busy with life and cycling takes a back seat most of the year, except when training for a special event. In spite of these differences, we all still love our bikes and we all still love hanging around each other and we all ride on Saturdays. And one goal most of us still have in common is the Seattle To Portland Ride in July.

That means there are 2 realities we cannot avoid:

• We cannot always ride at the same pace all the time. The fast/strong ones will get frustrated and the slow ones will get left behind. This is the reason we have timangan-paced rides, averaging 18 - 21 mph on the flats (which is where we all want to be at when we're peaking). And we also have the easy-lang-mama (ELM) rides, which are geared toward those building up to timangan pace.
• We cannot and must not force anyone to ride at a pace they're not comfortable with or that's too slow for them. We're all in this for the fun but it's no fun when you're being forced to go too fast and you feel like you're holding the group back; or you're being forced to take long breaks waiting for the slow ones when you're itching to go, go, go.

This shows the approximate fitness level we're shooting
for among the 3 groups

But...we still have to train at least for the STP. So at some point, we have to ride at an acceptable pace for 200 miles if we want to finish in Portland by 8 PM in mid-July.

The way I see it, there are approximately 3 sub-groups right now in Team Mang (see the chart):

• those who have been riding throughout winter and are strong right now - these are riding at the Timang pace.
• those who are aiming to be able to do 100 miles by April (that includes me), who only started riding in February - let's call them ELM-1 - and are building up to be able to keep up with the Timang group.  A few more rides and we should be able to.
• those who have not even started riding yet and are expecting to train for the STP starting in late February (that's a typical training schedule, kicked off by the Chilly Hilly ride - it was my normal schedule last year when we didn't have to train for the Sea Otter Classic). This is the ELM-2 group.
• Actually, you can add a fourth group - those who don't want to train even by March but think they can make it to Portland by starting their training in April.  We'll call that the ride support :). 

Last year's May Day Metric brought many of us out
on our first major ride of the year

This brings us to why I am writing this entry. You see, we've already got Timang ride-arrangers. These are the guys who plan rides every week and you see their emails. We also have a few who are regular ELM-1's...including me (and those who attempt to keep up with Timang and get left behind - which is perfectly fine).

What we need right now is for someone to take the lead in training with the ELM-2's to make sure we have rides and routes suitable for a late February startup and building up for peaking in June/July. Obviously all 3 groups cannot ride together all the time. If everything goes well, by late April, ELM-1's should be riding at Timang pace and ELM-2's would have caught up by June/July.

2013 STP Ride, at the Longview stop 

We do not have any hard and fast laws in Team Mang - we only try our best to be considerate to each other and keep it fun and push us all towards our training goals. But it ain't fun when you're suffering and the best way to beat suffering is to get fit for the goals you're trying to reach. Every now and then, we can all purposely ride together at a decent pace just to keep it real.

So anyone training for the STP and you haven't started riding yet?  Maybe it's time for you to take the lead.