I’m impressed you rode at all. I might have just stared at the lake all afternoon. Well done!
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I took a half day’s leave. 
Still went to a 4pm meeting though!
I haven’t done Lake Zurich, but I did Lake Geneva/Léman a few years ago with some friends. IIRC it was about 110 miles for a full lap. Fastest and flattest century I’ve ever done, and it was a grand day out in glorious sunshine. Well jelly of my friend who lives in Switzerland.
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It is flat and windy, with many open fields and nothing to stop the wind. That ride on Monday was mostly into a headwind and crosswind at NNW 11mph / 18kph gusting to 17mph / 27kph. Those conditions and sweet spot power I find it easier to hold target power, versus last night when it was windier and more gusts.
For example last night I had 2 hours of mid zone2 to lower zone3. It was much windier at 18mph / 29kph gusting to 26mph / 42kph. See the pic with poppies? It was really gusty in that area, almost direct headwind. Here is a 20 minute portion of the ride into that gusty headwind. Target power is highlighted (something like 65-80% FTP)
Average speed of 11.6mph / 18.7kph it was really slow, like climbing, so I named the perfectly flat ride “Climbing Franklin” 
and if it had done the full 8 unprotected mile stretch of Franklin Road it would have been called Climbing Mt Franklin 
Entire ride:
The over FTP stuff was due to bridges, traffic, and some frustration dealing with such gusty wind.
Our weather is heavily influenced by the San Francisco Bay, and it is usually windy due to the mountains separating the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley, the cold ocean air, and warm temperatures in the valley, Here is what wikipedia has to say “The ‘breeze’, which comes in from the Bay area, brings cooler temperatures and higher humidity. At times the delta breeze is gusty with wind speed to up to 30 mph in the valley and up to 45 mph in the delta region which is always breezy.”
Most of my rides go into the delta region, so I guess you could say flat, windy, and unprotected (open fields) are ideal conditions 
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I haven’t been on a neighborhood ride in a bit, after over hauling the road bike I found it was time to ride it again last evening. It was beautiful outside but very windy so I opted for a shorter than intended loop, still good. Fresh pavement on my road made it nice and smooth. One of my favorite views not far from my place:
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Your description of open fields and wind sounds quite familiar. In Norfolk we’re probably closer to the Netherlands than to Wales or Scotland!
Here was today’s Z2. I was pretty focussed on keeping it in Z2, but still only ended up with 56.5% in Z2 (25% in Z1 and 12% in Tempo, although it was probably all high Z1 and low Tempo). By pedalling lightly even when braking, I managed to get coasting down to 1%, which is the lowest I’ve ever seen. I’ll class this as an improvement, but lots of room still for improvement!
I took a photo of the bike when I stopped for a pee, as I believe this is mandatory 
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Today I did Nunburnholme outside, and I have a question regarding power distribution. So ideally, this workout has a person spending roughly 30 minutes at VO2 max power.
I spent about 15 minutes at VO2
7 minutes at Anaerobic
and 8 minutes at Threshold.
Am I changing the point of the workout? Does this make the workout less than ideal? Or am I just overthinking it, and this will give me the same or almost the same adaptations as doing it perfectly at VO2?
Thanks in advance!
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Just saw your post and made me a little homesick😀, though my old school hangout was bit to the east on Malaren, and Vaxholm.
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Planned a century ride today, in a polarised manner.
Out nice and early, got 8.5 miles in and hit a pothole. Tyre burst, tube popped.
No problem I had 3 spare tubes and a pump with me. I couldn’t get any of the tubes up and finally realised that the pump was broken.
I had been carrying it around with me for about 3 years and never used it. Not really sure what is wrong with it. Probably a perished rubber seal.
Taxi home. On the trainer later on.
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Matthes +1 on a steady ~6% climb minutes from home in Zurich, Switzerland. First outdoors ride in 4 months and first ever outdoors TR workout! The weather has been glorious for the last week or so here, though it’s a bittersweet reminder of how quickly the climate is warming. 
On the whole it was less bad than I expected, probably partly because my FTP is still set too low (I’m still a ramp test coward) and partly because the vo2max focus for the last 6 weeks or so have made this stuff more tolerable.
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Unlucky. I stopped carrying p’ture repair kits as when I came to use them the rubber solution had always hardened or its tube had broken and it dried out that way. Fortunately every time I noticed was on a repair job in the garage. Touch wood the only pump I have had fail similarly was a few weeks old lezyne one, made of plastic, and it failed in the middle of a sportive so I wasn’t stranded.
I carry spare tube and park patches on ride these days and a tried and tested metal pump. A couple of years ago I switched to tubeless too but still carry that gubins on solo/ long rides.
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My failed pump was a Leyzne as well. I prefer them with a little hose attachment so you know you can get a good connection.
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I actually replaced mine with a metal version of the Leyzne, a tiny bit bigger/heavier and a 100% more reliable, curca 4years later it’s still going strong, just don’t forget to tighten your valve cores 
Point Mugu State Park. The trails were glorious and climbs steep. Got a little sweet spot and lots of z2 in my ride.
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Payed a trip to Downtown Baghdad tonight with the DCC club run. Or maybe it was the moon, one chap had terminal damage done to his wheel and another lost his Garmin 
The only positive it was a nice night to be hanging around. The first guy eventually had to call for a lift and after we restarted the other blokes Garmin went flying. Folk were certain they knew where it was and doubled back but after a bit of soft pedalling we realised the weren’t coming back and pressed on to make the most of the remaining light.
A person positive is that I’ve not held 350w outside for a minute since 2019 and there was a few post op records too
Edit: He managed to find his Garmin in the daylight today 
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Still in Mallorca, had a bit of an Odyssee today. The weather and wind was quite good, so I decided to take my bike to Sa Calobra again for a full send attempt. I went most of the way by car, because I am lazy and because I didn’t want to have 50k and 1500m climbing in the legs already coming there.
So I drove all the way there, very beautiful but slow roads. When I arrived at the OJ Shack (parking at the Top of Coll dels Reis), I realized I didn’t pack my cycling shoes. 2 tedious hours and a lot of angry shouting later, I arrived again at the OJ shack.
Rode down the beautiful decent of Sa Calobra, and gave it my all. The power was actually much lower than what I wanted (16W below target power, and 20 watts below what I what I was hoping). With this rental bike being equipped with a single sided power meter, that might have skewed the results a little. However, it was all I had and ultimately just 7 seconds of my target time.
So this is 877th of 90,000 all time and 22nd of 872 this year, so I am quite happy!
And here goes a little explanation why Sa Calobra is so famous.
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After 4 months of MTB drought, I did my first MTB ride of the year - and also first ride on my new (or at least new frame) bike.
The Kokopelli trails in Fruita, Colorado.
I noticed that 4 months of not mountain biking left me unprepared for the beating of rocky Colorado desert trails. Just got to get out and ride more I guess! 
I’ve seen a bunch of YouTube clips of people riding this. It’s crazy.
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It was a bizarre day temperature wise starting 3 deg C but with zero wind and 
it had risen to 13deg at the end of the ride. I went out with a slower group to save my legs for tomorrow but changed my mind and went for a wee bimble.
A couple of wee bursts but other than that it was pretty relaxed.
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Last big ride before Iowa Wind and Rock. Totally blew up.
HR was high from the get go.
Full breaths were ‘weird’
legs felt good enough
RPE didn’t match with the elevated HR
around 50 miles in I noticed I wasn’t feeling as fresh as I felt I should.
mile 70ish my feet were killing me(hasn’t been an Issue for well over a year)
mile 80 I was in full bonk. headache. no power. 150w and 80 rpms was HARD.
limped home the last 15 miles, Gut had shut down and was sloshy.
ran a nutrition plan that I’ve done numerous times before that have caused no issues(90g/hr)
gonna take tomorrow off instead of my planned 70 mile ride, and roll into my final recovery and taper before my A Event!
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