Only offroad race I tried was the Gralloch and that was pretty nuts in terms of the number of people on the course, the size of the packs and the risks that people were taking! Definitely felt a lot less than safe at times, and saw an awful lot of bloodied knees and elbows and people picking themselves up after crashing.
Assume that smaller races are less intense?
Yes, I wouldn’t take the Gralloch as an example, especially this year, where it was both a UCI Worlds qualifier, and British champs.
But to be honest, gravel races might not be the safest anyway, I think they attract a lot of people with little racing experience, who then go all out on surfaces they don’t have much experience with. If you want a friendly atmosphere, and safe-from-other-riders racing, try a local cross or MTB race.
I’m hopping back into this thread having decided to stop riding outside for the rest of the year.
A woman was killed by a hit and run driver here in the DC area recently. I didn’t know her (and RIP to her and God bless her family,) but it’s triggered my PTSD in ways I wasn’t expecting.
To make a long story short, almost 20 years ago I was hit on a ride, blowing up my lower leg. Multiple surgeries later I was able to walk again. Then a year later my Dad crashed in a high speed group ride, ended up in ICU and was touch and go, but made it out OK. Took about a year before he recovered and he never did the fast group ride again. Then my Dad’s best friend was out on a ride and got blown off the road by a passing car and he landed in a ditch with a broken neck. Paralyzed from the neck down.
Those horrific events all stacked on top of each other really soured me on riding outside, but I soldered on and did about 80% of my training on the trainer and %20 outside, doing some centuries and a few CX races.
But the senselessness of the hit and run death has me shaken to the core. I feel instantly more relaxed telling myself I never have to ride outside again, if I don’t want to.
I say this a cyclist who loves riding his bike. And I thank God for the TR platform. It’s allowed me to train indoors for years and now it will make up probably close to %100 of my riding going forward.
Maybe I will bite the bullet and finally get Zwift this year as well.
Anyway, I’ve fallen out of love with riding outside which makes me both sad and relaxed at the same time, if that makes sense.
I’ll see you all on the trainer……and God Speed to all of you looking to get your mojo back
Yeah–this is one of the reasons I had a ton of trouble with my first comeback season. The guy who was one of the owners of the shop I race for was hit and freaking annihilated near Boulder this year. This comes on the heals of one tragedy after another–the maestro here where I live paralyzed from the waist down after being hit at the Alpine Fondo, the Dad of the guy who was best man wedding killed by a drunk driver while riding. There are other people I knew less well who have been killed.
Cycling makes me who I am. It completes me. I’m miserable without it. But….
My first year doing ultras was a series of six consecutive “hardest I’d ever done” races. After finishing #5 I was elated. Spent the next week grinning to myself, so happy about my accomplishment. After finishing race #6 (which remains the hardest race I’ve ever done from a mental standpoint), I wasn’t happy, I was just relieved. Recognizing that as the beginning of burn out, I ended my summer season early. I had my A+ bucket list race on the calendar for next spring and I didn’t want to jeopardize it. It was the correct decision.
After A+ race (which was awesome) I wasn’t really feeling cycling. I took a year off the bike and had a great time lifting weights. I really recommend having a dual sport focus if you’re not planning to go pro. Get tired of one, switch to the other. And hopefully there’s some crossover with training. Even when I was playing football back in the day as my primary sport, I gave rugby a go during a few off-seasons. Cardio++ and better tackling technique. Switching it up can keep you fresh both mentally and physically.
I am dabbling in a totally new sport right now and after my next A race I’ll probably hang up the bike for a bit and throw all my energy into not sucking at New Sport. There’s a type of person who can eat the same meal day after day but that is not me.
I’m very much the same. I trail run in the winter and hardly ride. What sport are you getting into? I started tennis again after almost 35 years of inactivity with it. In addition to cycling and some racing next year, I do hope to be injury free for tennis. It’s so freaking fun.
Yeah, it’s so horrific. It’s just happening over and over again. Cars seem to have won (for now). The thing is, along with my family and music, road cycling is in my top 3. Sometimes I think that if I get taken out doing it, the old adage will simply apply (he was doing what he loved).
Going back to the original post, I’ve always felt that TrainerRoad’s “Making You a Faster Cyclist” differed from my goals keeping cycling fun and staying in shape. Being faster was one way of having fun, but not the only way. Trying to catch live podcasts with Jonathan, Nate and Chad was fun, but I haven’t enjoyed them as much since Chad left and since they stopped being live. (I can understand life being better for Jonathan if the podcasts are pre-recorded, though.
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These days, much of my outside riding is on bicycle paths. I always have Garmin’s LiveTrack sending my progress home to my wife and Varia radar is always watching my back. There’s a time-trial series I compete in once a year to gauge how well I’m doing - still successful in my age group, but my age group’s population is declining. 
Tennis sounds great! My spouse is former tennis player. We are now doing pickleball. Took a lot of convincing on the spouse’s end, like asking a chess player to play checkers. Now we’re in it and having a lot of fun. That said, I have a hard time doing any sport recreationally. Like we come home from weekend pick-up game. Spouse is like “that was fun” and turns on the TV. Me? I’m on YouTube looking at this or that drill to improve whatever.
It’s been a whole process getting back to… lateral movement. And jumping. Loading the achilles. I’m working on some prehab to make sure my joints and ligaments and everything are prepared. Cycling is an extremely artificial movement and so I imagine there are some glaring weaknesses with so many degrees of freedom off the bike. Who knows if New Sport will end up sticking. But I know that I can use it as a motivator to iron out weaknesses, focus on some shoulder PT which I have been neglecting (don’t need it for cycling), work on agility, footwork, plyos, etc. All good stuff for lifelong fitness, and might have some marginal benefits to cycling if/when I switch my focus back.
Yea, my Dad (who made it out of ICU close to 20 years ago) still rides. At 80 he has a kick a@@ Pinarello e-road bike and does the retirees rides with his other slow friends. But he says the same thing - if I get taken out, at least it was doing what I loved.
I don’t exactly hold that same love for cycling. I also really like hitting the gym, hanging out with my son, playing music, and collecting records. And chances are pretty low that I’ll get run over doing any of those things.
I just started playing golf again after a couple of decades. It’s all my brain can think about right now. And I feel like I’ve finally cracked the code or something. I shot 80 with three birdies after not having played around in 25 years and having just worked on the range for the last couple of months.
Now I’m thinking - a few hours per week on the bike to stay aerobically fit, the gym, and golf. Ironically, maybe I’ll do more cycling now that winter is coming.
At 59, my fast cycling days are behind me but if I can shoot in the 70s regularly in golf, I’ll be near the top of the heap in local senior golf. It’s exciting.
Similar here. While I have played golf all along, this year in retirement we joined a club so have doubled the number of rounds played to somewhere in the 80ish range. Having hobbies that consume large amounts of time conflict with each other and this summer, cycling took a back seat and fitness suffered accordingly. I’ll work on that over the winter and try something more balanced next year.