Last year I had great luck increasing ftp, but as the ftp went up my ability to do work at 85-93% seemed to diminish. Still trying to figure why that happened
First ride back after the neck/back issue and a cold on top of that - 2x20 of Carillion. It hurt exactly as much as I thought it would, even after chugging enough caffeine to be able to almost smell colors.
Took the downtime to finally get my Topstone converted to tubeless and install the Vittoria tire inserts. Put together the new paralette bars and will try to ease back into some sort of strength training this week - fitness pipe thingy is due tomorrow. Hope to get the bike outside on real ground as soon as the apocalyptic snow melts.
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Just think 1 hour on the trainer is worth 1.33 hours outside.
What tires you go with?
How was the install, I have those inserts also
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Going to just run the stock tires: WTB Riddler TCS Light, 700 x 37c
The install was easy enough - watched a quick video online, read through the instructions. Struggled with getting the actual tire back on but not at fault of the inserts - they are a really tight fit but still essentially brand new. Not going to be setting any flat-fix records out there if I have to throw in a tube, thatās for sure. Hoping with the inserts, it doesnāt come to that.
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80 days out
I spoke to my mechanic and he said I should put the tires I plan on using on the bike as soon as possible to make sure they seat well and donāt leak. I wasnāt going to put them on till a month prior.
Hmmmā¦seems a little early to me, especially with all the gravel miles you plan on riding between now and race day. I think 30-45 days out is PLENTY of time to see if there are any issues with them.
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My thinking in choosing the century plan for my specialty is that even though the climbs are short and punch Iām not going to be riding them like a real race, more just managing the effort on the climbs to avoid going into the red at all.
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Fair logicā¦also depends on how long you wanna stay in the main groupā¦if you are willing to let them go early, then that makes a lot of sense. If you wanna stay with them for a bit, then haivng a little punch will help.
Will also depend on your gearingā¦make sure you have at least a 1:1 if you wanna just keep steady, even power on the climbs.
That is what I was thinking also. I have a few gravel tires left to wear out prior to getting to the ones for race day. Still have some GK sk to burn through, GK SS SK that are new and some donleys to use up. I still need to make a selection for a wet weather gravel tire if it rains also. Was thinking of using Donley xāplor MSO
Staying with the lead group seems like a double edge sword. One side you can get some miles covered quickly. Other side is you dig too deep of a hole. Im hoping to be able to stay with the lead group. Need to keep working on my fitness
Yupā¦that is the quandry and it is afine line between the two, especially if you come form a road race background. It is pretty easy to surf wheels for quite a while w/o realizing you are burning matches.
I sat up after ~90 min in 2019ā¦we hit a pretty technical section and I knew I was burning matches I didnāt want toā¦consciously thought āOK, time to let them goā. IN hindsight, I have no idea if I hung on too longā¦yeah, I DNFād but my body was likely in no shape to race that long / far after how sick I had been the weekend before. My gut is that had I been fully healthy, it was the right time to sit upā¦but being sick I should have sat up much earlier.
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I am attacking my long rides two different ways.
- Riding first hour full gas and then working on setting an acceptable race pace and see where that leads me. I did that on one of my 4 hour rides last week.
- Staying at an easier avg power and then when i hit 2000kcal start increasing the pace.
Difference is these are 4 hour rides, not 12 hour rides.
My rest week went great, until I decided to go dirt bike riding. All the squats and everything wore my legs out. Legs were a tad sore going into ramp test and my knees are not happy with me but managed a 4% bump on my ftp. I will need to cancel my 5 week 1100 mile dirt bike trip to make sure I stay healthy for the build up.
I start week 5 of the general build, this looks like a lot of work in vo2. Saturday I have 100 mile gravel ride planned. 10 weeks to go and its time to start logging the longer rides and start losing a few lbs.
Also leaning towards running a skin suit.
My $.02 - prioritize storage and comfort before aero for Unbound (or any long gravel race).
Iām a huge SS fan, but never considered it for DK when I did it.
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Hotel booked in Ottawa. 1 hour drive morning of
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Spanish needle +2 with a 16w ftp bump wrecked me. Took an easy 2hr 60% day to attack intervals tomorrow
Does a great day of training make you feel like death?
Started todays ride on my Ridley. After 16min, my power meter dropped out. Awesome start
Finished my 20 mile lap in 70min, which was 5 min too fast. That pace was really fast, around 1000 kcal. I stop by my car and swap out a battery, power meter still wont connect. So I pull out the back up Gravel bike the Aspero. Pump up the tires, and garmin connects to the power meter and get back to action hammering out miles. Roll back to the parking lot after 20 miles, and was too fast again, right at 70min again. Now im worried I have blown my self out. Start my 3rd lap and it was right where I wanted to be 75min. My two buddies leave and I hammer out another 2 laps.
Ride was 100miles, 4500 kcal with some time missing, and 10000ā of climbing in 6hr10min moving time and total time of 6hr30min.
I get home and connect the ridley to the axs app and power meter works, connect the garmin and it has power, so I have no idea why it dropped out.
Things I learned today. Ridley feels faster then the aspero. Just feels smoother, I also moved the shifters in at an angle and I can sit in the aero position for a very long time.
2nd thing I learned, if I burn 3kcal the first three hours, the rest of UNBOUND will be at 220w and struggle to put power out above ftp. 40 miles solo with that much climbing and a head wind was not that bad, I wanted to leave when my buddies did, but I cant quit the race and leaving my training short of miles will feel like im not giving 100%
In the future I am going to limit time above ftp and see if I can hold back more.
my approach is that more than 2-3 seconds over FTP is a bad idea. you pay for it later on rides like this.
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Might give that a try. I spent 75min at threshold Or above. And thatās with 55min missing
I need to solve this pacing issue.
the way I pace my Ultraās are like this.
strickly Z2 unless Iām out of gears, under no circumstance do I go over threshold for more than my 2-3 seconds. tuck on descents over 30 mph.
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