Man, I am so not used to the heat yet this year. 87% humidity at 7am today.
I live where it’s very flat, but our MTB trails are super flowy with tons of short, steep ups and downs along a river bank. I bought a Levo for when I travel to places with far more climbing and to my surprise, I love it at home too. I take it along the local trails and just leave the power off. Pedaling a 50lb mtb up and down all those short steeps is a great workout.
I disregarded the TR calendared workout, which was easy based on yesterday’s sweet spot which I didn’t do because I swapped that for 90min of outdoor archery with the son (160 arrows for me). Instead of a replacement or the prescribed workout, I went for my short & fun trail ride. I have about 14 months left here so there’s a bit of “inventory it all” going on. As a result, I replaced the headlight mounted under the Garmin with a GoPro. I was able to get out at a reasonable morning time after making the son his breakfast and before taking him to school, which is a late start for him today because of exams. So, with a 7:30a departure, the light was good and the temp was cool at 48F (light long sleeve, light gloves, and a light gilet… no heat or humidity).
It was a short ride at 10 miles and with only one real hill at .6mi at 14%, but the main part of that climb is the gravel section at .4mi at 20% (shorten that a touch and the average goes over 21%, which I did at 300+w avg today… woo-hoo; this is the same hill i do my VO2 repeats on), though with smaller bumps along the way.
I did try to add Garmin power and incline data, but Garmin Virb was taking too long on my MacBook Air spec’d for writing not video editing (or games). I guess my videos are too long… anyway. One of the take-aways from these videos is Garmin’s stabilization on the GoPro 10 is pretty awesome, it sure smoothes out the trails. These were recorded in 4k and uploaded to YouTube in 4k, so hopefully you can enjoy them in HD. In order…
This is the first descent of the day, which ends with a logging vehicle:
Or, using the TR chart, this video is this:
The next is the approach to and up the main climb, starting with “bluebells?” because there are some flowers (not really visible in the video) the camera is facing when I start. A commuter going the other way is just one example of why you can’t barrel around these trails. On the above, approaching the “fireroad” / “logging trail” I slowed to look for horses, dogs, walkers… the same for the curving descent. Before the 3min mark a train goes by (not too loud), at about the 3min mark is the local bridge that gives me the feeling of being in an HO train set, and then I start the climb.
Here’s the segment for the above:
Next up is a lead into a single track section with a steep, rooted, yet short climb (& I verbally note that I failed to not put a foot down).
This is just before the :54min mark.
After a short time, another approach onto single track, this time slowing or stopping for people and their dogs and ending with a pause to take in a view of Lake Zürich.
Last is a mellow single track. This opens with another pause to enjoy the view of the lake and mountains.
Hope you enjoy it. I know I’m lucky to have this riding literally out my door. The last video ends a few minutes before I’ll be rolling into the garage and where I’ll be soon after I hit reply on this message to walk the dog.
and about 20 seconds later it sounded like a wee bit of disc brake rubbing as you were putting power down.
Que bellisima! Is Spain the next stop on your world travels?
Got to love northern Norway with another round of snowfall ruining a perfectly good spring-in-progress. 
Shitty weather the past week, so impromptu rest week.
Today was mostly snow free roads and all right weather, so longest ride yet for me and definitely felt legs were quite done the last 8km into a headwind. 
Gorgeous! Totally jealous.
Stunning scenery!
Southside at Croft State Park South Carolina
The word of the day is “Don’t”
I feel numb. Theme song:
Play it. Feel it. They went fast and we feel numb. Jose died on his mtb in the Bay Area. RIP.
This shall pass.
The next home base will be Boston (US, not UK 
). The wife and daughter are already there which is partly why I have more free time because it’s just the teenage son and me (and dog and cat) here and he only wants to shoot archery with me. The routine(s) will obviously change quite a bit then but with new places to explore. I’ll be asking for route suggestions in about a year for road and trail…
OMG. How horrible. I’m so sorry.
Tour of the Battenkill in upstate New York…75 miles, lots of gravel, and 5,650 ft of climbing.
Note to self…Schwalbe Pro Ones and pointy gravel are not a good combo!! Got a flat with 12 miles to go. It sealed with 2 dynaplugs and lots of swearing, but I blew through 3 CO2’s trying to reseat the bead and then had to use a hand pump! Back tire was probably at 20 psi which is a little low for a guy my size 
Thanks, and yeah it can be a little shock to the system, but when you are born there is only one sure thing in your life. Someday “the ride” is gonna end.
Yesterday - soul ride with my wife. Today - another one with wife and oldest kiddo. Turned off the tech. Ended up at the brewery and got to catch up with family friends that went to same high school and college as kiddo #1. They named their kiddo #1 the same as our kiddo #1 (hint: “ruler of the elves” and Jerry Maguire). Alex said they only know one person with that name - our kiddo #1. Its a great name for a girl 
Theme song:
Happy Mother’s Day!
Ride on!
i rode from singapore to malaysia and back
Despite the TR plan of threshold yesterday and sweet spot today, I opted for easy rides around Lake Zurich, which is what TrainNow suggested anyway. I just wanted constant pedal pressure, which obviously doesn’t happen on my hill options, which include every trail, and didn’t want to be outside for too many hours. So, it was the 41mi lake loop for me. Saturday was rather miserable with gray skies, often wet pavement and occasional light rain, and chilly at about 10ºC / 50F. I wish I wore a jacket rather than a gilet but the gloves were key and bib shorts were fine. Took a short nap afterward, woke up to a hard rain, then when it cleared, went to the archery range with the son.
Today was the same route, clockwise around the lake. No rain, a couple of degrees warmer (as in 12 / 54), a bit less gray (just a bit). Again, the focus was easy, good cadence, and enjoy the ride.
To the right is the northern end of Lake Zurich. The white tent (seen across the water in the earlier part of the vid and again to the left at the end) is a circus setup at the plaza before the opera house. Not a terribly interesting video, but…
Across the lake, a bit right of center, up on the hill is where we live. Zooming in, I can’t see the place but as I type this I can see this coastline.
Conveniently to us cyclists, whether commuters or otherwise, some parking is off-street. Each time riding past here causes me to think of the relatively miserable runs along here, regardless of my direction, was somewhere around halfway, give or take, into 18-mile road runs (done for either IM or an ultra).
There was this close encounter this morning before the ride when I was walking the dog. That was a good start for the day.
@FrankTuna been there on the CO2, which led me to get a small pump. Something to think about. In the old days, I had a small hand pump that could also take threaded and non-threaded (as in much cheaper air gun CO2) cartridges. That was awesome but alas…
It wasn’t actually today (which was travelling) but the last week has been spent cycling in Calpe.
After collecting the Hire Bike (a rim brake Orbea Avant) the first official day took us a route up Col De Rates. I was 90sec faster than my self in 2009 and there was more to give Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 1 - Col de Rates'
The second day almost didn’t last long when my gear cable snapped at circa 8.5miles in Teulda. After adjusting the limit screws so I was in the 3rd or 4th smallest cog (I forget which one) rather than spending the day alone I decided to press on there was only one short sharp climb anyway, the circa 2 miles long 5.7% Montgo Climb, again compared to myself in 2009 I was slightly faster up the main 1mile 6.3% section and with the climb and with the segment finishing just over the crest (where I must have stopped pedalling in 2009) I am 28 sec faster and I was the fastest up the climb on the day Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 2 - 2 Speed to Denia'
I was expecting bad legs on Day 3 but they weren’t but when it was suggested that we went to the north of Benidorm and save the relatively bigger climbing for another day I didn’t argue. Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 3 - Cafe Ride'
Day 4 was torrential but whilst some decided to make it a rest day some other idiots decided to ride. It wasn’t actually too bad until we came down the fast main road descent into the north of Calpe, then the heavens really opened. Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 4 - A Trip to the Waterpark ⛈'
Day 5 in contrast was back to the ideal weather of the day before and we decided to make it a longer one. I miss judged the main climb though and thought it would be 2 or 3 miles longer so I had too much energy left so I used some of it up on the 6miles long undulating climb to Alcala https://www.strava.com/segments/6080552 I managed to be second on the day behind a pro (although his KOM is 6 min faster ) We decided we’d save Cumbre Del Sol until another day. Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 5 - Val de Ebo'
Peurto De Tudons was next up for Day 6 its a long climb but I was saving my legs for Cumbre del Sol the next day but whilst I was fresh others were not and talks of Cumbre del Sol were a bit subdued. Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 6 - Peurto de Tudons'
So the last day was a bit more subdued and Cumbre del Sol will have to wait. Relive 'DCC Calpe Tour Day 7 - A Classic Bun Run'
Took a trip ‘up North’ to ride the JCB Sportive. This was being hosted in aid of the NSPCC charity. A great opportunity to ride new roads and meet new riders.
Great day out on what proved to be a punchy course. The roads were in pretty bad shape for large portions of the ride and the ability to bunny hop at short notice was a required skill, in my opinion.
Still, we set a respectable time and had a laugh. The beer and pizza at the end were inhaled!
P.S. Yes, Dan (the tall lad) is similar in stature to Nate and I can attest to the fact that sitting on his wheel is gift from the Cycling Gods 
A “Hot Pursuit” between the rainshowers.
25’ threshold + 10’ FTP
some Z2
Than 2 short sprints
I’m having so much fun checking out the Relive links that I am going to be late for my morning run! That is so cool HLaB! Was this 7 days in a row? My gosh. That is a lot of climbing. Beautiful, though.
Yip, 7 days in a row
Oh my gosh. WOW. That is impressive.
