Nothing like heading out for some hill reps and finding out the mountain’s on fire. That’s probably my best excuse yet 
Went for a swim this morning and the smoke messed up my lungs pretty bad, so looks like I’ll be on the trainer/treadmill for a while because it’s gotten a fair bit worse since then.
Met a mate and headed up to Heckington, the home of the world’s only 8 blade windmill apparently.
That’s awesome. Love it!
That is so cool!!! I once got to drive an antique tractor that steered by braking. No steering wheel. Just big levers to the brakes. So cool. I love tractors. The windmill picture is so cool, too! What an awesome ride!
Up to Spalding for me for the last inter club TT. I messed up having not had a break in the last week. I thought that was tonight but lol, I had my days wrong for this. I rode fairly sustainably as a result into a strong wind. I messed up there though I think I should have went harder a the wind assistance on way back would have seen me home even if I collapsed.
Lol, I hope some pictures appear tomorrow as I cut my cool down short to take circa 200 pics of others, I do get a bit snap happy at times
I’ll not post all 200 but a small selection.
A short cruise on the gravel bike in the woods of only 16mi (and 636’ of ascent, basically flat :). The temp was about 51F / 11C but just before I rolled out, the no-rain condition that invited me out ended so I grabbed my rain jacket. I should have also grabbed my gloves because it was chilly and wet… in the middle of July. “Great Danger” rain warnings and “Great Danger” water levels starting this afternoon, each a step up from when I went out and where it’s been for a days. (“Great Danger” is the highest of three levels for rainfall warnings, but the flood warning goes one step more with “Very Great Danger.”) The local river appears to be about 5’ above normal; I’m not sure about Lake Zurich.
I’m getting tired of cleaning mud off the bike. It’s summer, I should be cleaning off dust. Then again, today was so wet the rain washed off any mud, so there’s that. And the forests are green.
Found some horse parking:
And got onto some old cobbles replaced long ago by the road to the left, on the other side of the (still used) tracks.
It wasn’t a workout as much as just a break and procrastination.
The club’s Rimes Cup TT was supposed to be last week but road works stopped it. They were removed today but the club only had permission for 2 laps (Stanford Rd, Bainton, then Ufford). The first lap went ok’ish after a terrible clip in. On the 2nd lap things just didn’t feel right. Pumping my tyres up to 100psi on this course wasn’t a good idea. It had shook the TT pole bolt loose
I rode in our local weekday XC race series yesterday.
Basically, a time trial on the way up, and on the way down.
I’m not so good on the way up, but managed to snag an almost-top 20 on a long descent section.
Apparently, there were 6 moose spotted at various points, but I didn’t see any as I was too busy either suffering or trying not to crash.
Did a nice 60 mile ride, trying to hit all the hills in my area (there are few and far between).
The wind was pretty strong and came from the right direction and I had a strong lead out man, so I went after the most coveted KOM in my area and placed 3rd of over 2K, which I am pretty happy with.
Especially because the number 1 is German U23 TT Champion and number 2 is a Former World Champion rower.
Wondering what a skinsuit might have done 
.
Also had to end the activity after the segment to check strava .
New 8 minute power pb @5.6Wkg. 
A quick revision has shown that I placed even Better on a longer segment, before the German TT Champ.
I’ll tell myself it wasn’t for the fact that I had better conditions
And then there is Andrew Feather, who averaged 62 Watts more, for 35 seconds longer, while being 4kg lighter.
Geez man, I am humbled.
an honest coffee ride recorded on Apple Watch:
^^^ nothing to see except AW recording 63 feet of ‘climbing’ which turned into:
hrTSS of 49 on TP and 46 on TR, so I’m happy to see TR’s hrTSS estimation working just fine.
11 bikes at the coffee stop: 2 families of 4, one dude, and our two bikes.
A short ride down to Oundle again for me this morning to meet some friends for a coffee.
It was looking like a hot one 
As they headed to a beer garden, I headed to a TT just south of Sleaford (Silk Willoughby to Doddington and back, 25miles)
I got stopped at two roundabouts (actually the same one on the way out and way back) and the race was in 30deg heat, so I’m quite pleased with the provisional 1min 41s PB on the C25/22 at Silk Willoughby (1h2m27s) 4 years after I last rode the course.
Third tractor down is a Fordson Major - I basically learnt to drive on one of those!
Yesterday headed off early to try and beat the heat for a ride in the Yorkshire Dales. Except I didn’t (beat the heat). The idea was just a steady Z2 ride but take it as easy as possible on the big climbs. Up Wharfedale and then over Fleet Moss, highest road in the area, and down to Hawes for a café stop. Up Widdale and over to Ribblehead then down to Settle for another café stop.
Got to within about 20km of home and began cramping, so there were quite a few temporary stops to let this pass. Took an age to do the last climb to get home. Was completely knackered by the time I got back. I really don’t do heat, it was 28C during the afternoon.
100 miles yesterday on Colorado’s finest gravel. This was a reasonably chill ride where I got to enjoy the views, including some new stretches of road I hadn’t ridden before.
Forecast said 15% chance of rain. We got caught in the 15% in a short heavy thunderstorm. I had a freshly waxed chain on the bike. I can confidently say that fresh wax and wet grit do not mix. After the rain stopped and things dried up, my drivetrain sounded horrific. These are challenging conditions for any lube, but this was really bad- worse than I’ve experienced before.
I stopped, cleaned it, and applied some Squirt. The good news is this process is quick, only a minute or so (I had a small brush I used to brush the chain, cassette and rings to remove dried grit), and helped significantly.
I guess it better not rain during SBT GRVL!!
10 mile shake down ride on the upgraded old aluminati road bike. Got 5 short hill repeats in. Man, Ultegra 11 speed shifts like a dream, even on my big pie-plate rear cassette.
The ride proved I need a shorter stem. Bike shop was sold out of 90mm stems, so Amazon to the rescue. Zipp stem en route…
Yesterday was a 3:30a wake-up to get the son up and off to the airport for a 7a flight for 2wk trip to Africa on a medical internship for high school students, home, wait until he lands in Amsterdam and is on his next leg, then out the door on the gravel bike for a quickie.
After fatherly errands and duties around the house, I returned to the airport for a 5p flight for Valencia, hit the market (open until 9:30p), and then dinner at 9p. I slept in and lazed around until getting out at 1p on the road bike under a clear sky with a warm sun and temp up to 35C / 95F, which is quite the difference from yesterday’s 16 - 18C (<65F). Tried to focus on Z2 with any efforts above kept to sweetspot (there were some exceptions).
