Road ride yesterday. Tray Mountain-2 (3x12min sweet spot) was the workout. After our not-summer, we’re in not-autumn. Temp was mid to upper 50s F (<15ºC) for my roll south along the western shore of Lake Zurich. A slight detour on the return to get a pic of this tower built in the mid-1300s that was, at one time, part of a somewhat larger, but not large per se, complex of defensive structures. The lake is behind me.
The pause after the second interval (before the :50 mark) was to roll off the route to get this picture. The break in the effort after the :50 mark, in the third interval, was to chat with a cyclist who I passed and answered my “Hoi” (Swiss German, if not Züricher-Swiss-German) with a very English “Hello” (turns out she is a rower on the bike to cross-train outside of the cold lake). The flatline was to answer a FaceTime with the wife (did she know I was speaking with a cute rower?!) and help her with something in Boston that I neglected to do when I was there last week (and I was supposed to get done). (I arrived from Boston Sunday, she was on the same plane to Boston hours later.)
I’m in Taipei. The pic was taken while crossing the bridge on the east side of my of my ride if you look at the map. I’m looking back (w/sw) towards downtown. The tallest bldg is Taipei 101.
Awesome, thanks. We get a lot of pics from the US and Europe, relatively few from Asia. I enjoy seeing the different scenery, but just about anything is different than my basement.
The midweek Paceline again for me tonight.
A bit of a mare just before, I couldn’t find my right gloves so I used a spare pair. Then by mistake when the Garmin asked me to update I said yes. Its been asking me occasionally for a couple of weeks but when I go to manually update it says the latest firmware is installed Anyway it was an estimated 8min so I didn’t panic, it would be complete by the time I was out of the park. Circa 25mins later it was still stuck on 27%. So stopped at lights I did the IT thing ‘switched it off and on again’
So after magically (according to Strava anyway) transporting to Hampton I found I had 8mins to go the mile to Yaxley.
Oh and I died on the way back without noticing. The HR flatlined this new TickR has lasted less than a month before playing up (on the way out it wouldn’t detect at all). So I’ve used GT85 on the studs to see if there’s a bit of corrosion causing it
Creature of habit. Same roads I ride all the time.
Tempo (I’m guessing that 280w is about 80% right now) with :15 “sprints” every 5 minutes for the second half of the ride. I can’t sprint for crap, and it’s hard to kick it out when you’ve been chugging zone 3. But, being able to repeat “sprints” while fatigued is something you need, and the repeated short efforts do have some endurance benefit.
But my HR peak is only about 164*, and currently my FTP HR is only 149. So 29 beats below FTP HR, or pretty close to my AeT (maybe 119).
w/kg is more indicative of fitness than watts/hr, I’d say.
*the highest HR I saw on 2 x 8min tests in 2017 was 167, so maybe it’s a few beats lower now. I don’t know – I haven’t really done a test that would elicit HR Peak since 2017.
First off, my choice of pre-workout meal was not ideal. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but I think I could have done better. I scarfed this at 3p as my first “meal” since some yogurt and a dark wheat roll with fruit bits at 7a (with a noon flight to Spain): a bottle of horchata, half a bag of jamon flavored chips, and guacamole (not pictured).
Rushed out for a TR outdoor workout – Thunder, Sweetspot – to beat sunset. Went out on my usual flat route that’s nearly perfect for doing TR workouts. The first has surges getting out of the city, mostly due to stop lights, then a cruise section before the largely open road. Can usually cruise through the roundabouts, but sometimes not.
Pause near the end was after the TR workout was done when I got a call from my LBS about the power meter on my gravel bike. SRAM didn’t believe it was a warranty replacement. We sent them the receipt (from a different LBS that I switched from). Part of SRAM’s disbelief was they said they’ve not heard of two PMs dying with the same rider in two years. My momma always said I was special. So I’ll have my gravel bike back when I return to Switzerland – and temps in the 40s F. (Daytime temp here in Valencia today was 80ºF but rain comes tonight and temps drop to around 70F for the next several days.)
On my flat route here, there’s a reminder of hills: Coll Vert (the green sign), a campground without a mound, let alone a Col to be found.
Now off to my favorite Mexican restaurant, owned by a Frenchman former oil industry worker who traveled the world and met his now-wife in Mexico, who made the menus and recipes. Delicious. Well, off in 20min when they open since most restaurants don’t open until 8p
More fall riding in Colorado. This is a trail I hadn’t ridden before - the Palisade Rim, and the lower part of Palisade Plunge. The latter is a new trail that opened this year, and has been compared by some to the Whole Enchilada. That’s a lot to live up to. I’ll ride it next year and see how it compares.
We saw some cool petroglyphs on the rocks. Course some jacka$$ went and defaced one of them.
Rain + lazy yesterday = no ride and no run. Today was nice, though with damp roads and puddles in parts. A nice day for TR’s Warlow (threshold) workout outside. You can see in the speed chart where I encountered (“hit” isn’t a good word here) a roundabout, some were small and tight (traffic calming) while others were damp (and I don’t want to break ribs on slick asphalt in Spain, again). Temperature: around 15°C / 60F, so very nice.
The EBs group ride for me today. A pretty relaxed first half to the Oundle coffee stop. After which the two fastest guys pulled off and went straight back to Peterborough, so I went faster to get some threshold efforts in. It a pity AT doesn’t yet take account of these efforts though
Did a long gravel ride today. In Summer, there was a gravel series in Germany called „Orbit 360“. 9 different courses, spread across Germany, all between 150 and 220km long, mainly off-road. Those weren’t races in a classic sense, but rather pre-scouted courses, that were uploaded to Komoot, and then you could ride the course as fast as you like or can, and then there were leaderboards.
The series is long over, but those courses are beautifully scouted by locals.
That‘s why I decided to finally give the one closest to my home a shot, as it is probably the last chance for this year.
157k (98mi), 1250m of climbing, 90% off-road, some of it single trail, some of it forest paths, some gravel.
Really fun. The weather of the past days was very bad, so some of it was so muddy, that I had to ride very slowly there. On the plus side, the sandy sections had become a little bit easier to ride.
All in all 99% of it was rideable. The scenery was very beautiful, known for its heather. Obviously, that looks best when it blossoms, and it is far too cold for that right now, but it was still beautiful.
I was doing well for most of the day, but between Kilometer 105 and 125 I had a long deep valley of pain to go through. Felt sick in my stomach, a little dizzy in my head, a little sleepy. Not great. I think I had eaten enough, but just haven’t done very long rides in ages.
A little break and a caffein gel helped me over the hump and with the car coming closer and the sun setting, I was motivated to bite through.
I rode today with my 2 boys on probably our last bike ride of the season. It was my younger sons first ride after his broken collar bone. He killed it . He rode all the downs, and had only a couple of walking spots on the ups. My older son was a rockstar being patient.
In another few weeks the boys will be skiing, and I’ll be on the fatbike. Theres a fatbike race in January I’m thinking about doing. Need to get back on the training horse!
Anyway it was an estimated 8min so I didn’t panic, it would be complete by the time I was out of the park. Circa 25mins later it was still stuck on 27%. So stopped at lights I did the IT thing ‘switched it off and on again’
. He rode all the downs, and had only a couple of walking spots on the ups. My older son was a rockstar being patient.
