Thank you for saving the turtle! awwwwwww.
Warmest day of the year today so fairly early startâŚ
3hr z2 on the cards but as the ride went on I just found myself crusing at higher power and gradually moved from mid z2 to low z3 steady power across the 3hrs. Was feeling pretty good for the final leg home so finished with a solid SST effort as I always like to raise the effort for the final âsprintâ home if I dont have a hard session the next day. Noticeable HR increase in the last third of the ride as the temps rose - quite unusually warm for this time of year in the UK.
Hope the weather continues for the next few weeks as I have some big 100-130 mile rides in the next few weeks leading up to my first A event.
First is my first rail trail ride on the new bike, with a new club. Iâd had a rough ride the previous weekend, so I was grateful for some mellow âhappy wattsâ. It was also nice to be on the trail instead of on the asphalt for the first 30C ride of the year.
At the TT turn-around last night - 6 seconds off (slower) my PB on the course and I feel much less wrecked today than I did last year when I set the record. Should have gone harder. Planning to use the TT bike for the next attempt at the course. It hasnât been ridden outside since August 2019 so I might have to do a refresher session first.
Is that a âdead turnâ on the TT course (no roundabout/ traffic circle). My old club course was like that, Google Maps, lol on the TT bike my lack of bravery saw me unclipping 
Yep, thatâs exactly what it is. I basically spend my warm-ups practicing u-turns
Itâs so easy to lose so much time - I always land up braking way too early.
YIKES!!! Are copperheads aggressive? We have rattlesnakes here (California) and they totally scare me, but I have never seen a copperhead!
No, none of our snakes are aggressive, but they will certainly defend themselves! Our venomous snakes (copperheads, cottonmouths, and corals) are all pretty commonplace, but if you give them a minute, or toss something near them, they will usually slither away. The problem is that they can feel hikers and runners stomping the ground and get out of sight, but bikes move too fast and you end up right on top of them if youâre not looking ahead.
A few years ago I ran over a rattlesnake on a group century ride!
Yesterday was Mount Alyeska+1 for a Vo2 go. Instead of 8x4â intervals, though, I did 1x2.5 (ie 1x10min), another 10min that had an unintentional pause as my bike computer screen started changing from sweat and still changed after locking it, distracting me leading to a loss of traction on the climb. Then by 2x4â. Of course, I did this on my âfavoriteâ climb nearby.
Basically, all the climbing was done by mile 7.2 with nearly 1700â, but overall 11mi and 1800â including the ride home, including some singletrack.
Because Iâm still experimenting with Virb Edit and procrastinating, hereâs the first go of three up the main climb. The descent took a bypass into the woods on the right, leading me to the second (from the start) no-go barrier on the right (they are resurfacing the path beyond this section; the first & second barred paths ultimately connect), which is a nice way to not go straight down on gravel.
Here are two single track bits:
And another (the very last wasnât recorded and was / is always a mellow cruise):
Near the end, I paused to take in the view:
This morning, I went out for a leisurely 35min spin and enjoyed the same spot (pretty close, before was a GoPro, below is an iPhone) at 6:08a.
@Scheherazade in 2019, I did a half-IM (in Montenegro) with a similar âdead turnâ (twice as it was two loops). Because my tri bike has a terrible turn radius (meant for going fast & straight), I entered wide on the extreme right side, turned as hard left as far as the steering would allow and still barely cleared. Makes for a good story, er, ok, anecdote when bored.
@pbase the only time I would regularly encounter rattlers or similar (usually the former), it was trail running (not here in Europe) and the key point was always to be in front 
OMG!! Did it die? Iâm glad you didnât get bitten (right?) but yuck! They are starting to come out again, I think.
Did you ride your gravel bike on that single track? If so, WOW! I would totally break out my full suspension. LOL. Nice video. Love how green it is there.
Only on my gravel bike and no suspension. No mtb in my collection and this is why I ride with 47mm tires and my LBS tells me I ride this bike âhard.â There are two maybe three quick moments you can see the shadow of my drop bars. I can keep up with mtbâs on climbs but they drop me on the technical descents, which happened on the section seen in the last video. I closed on the rider at the beginning but he dropped me once the grade pitched down.
There were about 10 people in the group and I was the second one to run over the rattlesnake, and nobody stopped to check on it!!!
@Scheherazade here is the 5 mile turn-around on our local canal TT, as seen from space:
The 5-mile line complete with turn arrow is at the pipe going over the canal, on the left side of pic. Thatâs not a real road, the inspection cars take up most of the lane between the white lines.
Thatâs a pain associated with the Edge 1030. It locks the data screens but not the screen rotation, my Edge 1030 seems to have got a lot more sensitive to rain/sweat now 
@mountainrunner love that sunrise pic!
Yesterday was Typical Tuesday with a Twist, Twice.
In honor of the Giro, I tried to hold 600W steady as long as I could:
45-sec sprint, held 600W for 27 seconds:
And Iâm not smart enough to have a GoPro on the front, or dumb enough to pull out my iPhone during a seated sprint that hit 30+mph, so here is a Google Maps pic:
That was into a bit of head/cross wind at 8mph gusting 15mph.
Next up was a 30-sec sprint, held 600W for 3 seconds:
And a Google Maps pic of the scene:
Hmm, that looks like a January (or mid-late November) photo with the Grinch xmas decoration still in someones front yard. I respected the speed limit and only hit 25.1mph max / 23mph average on that 30-second joy ride. More or less directly into a headwind.
Was suppose to do 6x45-sec/30-sec max effort on Monday, but life interfered and no ride that day. So I did those near end of 2+ hour ride, after 1200kJ of work.
My coach will likely not be amused, but I like seeing efforts like these because they give me hope that age is just a number (sometimes). Because sixty is a big number.
I call yesterdayâs 45-sec effort a tie for 3rd place on the 45-sec all-time best chart 
More is possible, my FRC is roughly 16kJ and that 45-sec effort used about 11.6kJ FRC ((600-270)*45). Hope springs eternal.
Dumb things I do to keep things interestingâŚ
Out to Crowland for me tonight for the Hereward League Barrier Bank TT. I managed a 1min 1 sec PB according to the OT but lol, according to Strava it was only a 52sec PB. Lol, its the first TT Ive had a pusher off for in a few years, shows how much time I lose trying to clip in with these chemo damaged feet.
Edit: My next TT is a 50miler. Iâve held that power for a 25miler (circa 88%), could I hold it for a 50 or should I drop to circa 81% 