I spent about a year at VAFB (contractor) and got to see a couple SpaceX launches. It was quite a fun time… seeing those roads and that scenery in your pictures really brings back some good memories.
Anyway, got a good ride in this AM. Got my light setup more dialed and plan on doing more pre-dawn rides in the future. No cars, no one on the paved trails, just the quiet and the cool weather.
Franklin County, ME, USA
The gravel route I wanted to try today was too much for the road bike, so I put the 28 mm tires / wheels back on and hit the road. Way more climbing / slower than I anticipated so I turned back rather than looping around Rangeley Lake. Good thing as the plug in my rear tire worked itself out and I needed to plug it again. I’ve got a new tire waiting for when I return home but the bacon got me home.
No ride pics but this flock (?) of loons were off our dock when I got back. There are six in this pic but the other six had dived to go I fishing.
One of my usual training routes and despite it being blustery I felt really strong into the wind. Now I am back though I can feel my calves tingling and I’ll be dead in the morning 
It was just down Bullock Road as usual before cutting through Glatton to Sawtry. I usually turn left at Sawtry to make it a loop but I decided to turn right so that when I did go North I finished before the Stilton roundabout (traffic circle).
Given it was a nice night I decided to stop during the cool down for some of the customary pictures at Orton Mere.
I’m sort of proud of this. Pre-TR days, I used to push my bike up this hill. Saturday, I actually managed to ride up it. I was sloooooow and it’s not much of a challenge when compared to what everyone else does, but I’m still really happy to see that all the training rides on the rollers have made a difference.
Long time ago I lived across the Carquinez Strait in Benicia, and there are some wicked steep pitches all over the Bay Area!
Benicia is super cute! And full of really steep hills!
Super windy!
Nice one 
It would have to be up for 9miles down for 0.5miles for me to stand a chance. Add any technicality into a descent and I can’t descend for the proverbial toffee and off road with the unknown I am even worse 
I was supposed to have an over/ under session tonight but its also usually the chain gang and when the weather is good I usually opt for that. Most folk were away except one mate. After a gentle warm up to the meet he said he didn’t actually fancy the chain gang tonight just a ride, so it ended up so but I had a few controlled digs. AT has matched it to the threshold workout but I’ll change that to a tempo session with bursts as the the ride including the roll to the start only an IF of 0.68. Take the trundle to the start out and its an IF of 0.7 but its still no over/ under session
Two Hour Tuesday - finally getting my training mojo back with a nice steady endurance ride:
Temp at 94F / 34C when I left, and 66 minutes later it had dropped to 79F / 26C. Always fun to keep putting out more and more power while HR stays the same, thank you falling temps for that negative decoupling 
But seriously, the second half at 79F was one of my highest power:HR for the entire year. Gotta love the positive aspects of heat acclimation. Which leads me to a post ride pic:
Thankful for the inner peace and cooling that pool brings to my life.
This past Saturday I had the pleasure of seeing Carlos Santana return to the stage after collapsing at a show in Michigan on July 7th. I’ve seen a lot of concerts, going back to 1977, and this was one of the most incredible and inspiring concerts for me personally. The entry gate was slow and about 7:40pm we were finally nearing our seats when he started playing Soul Sacrifice. As I sat down the giant TVs had this scene from Woodstock:
There were 3 drummers on the stage, and along with the bassist they threw down the MOST SAVAGE PERCUSSION BEAT for nearly 20 minutes straight. Everyone was moving and grooving. His wife Cindy is 63 and had the center drum kit, all I could think was “that’s like doing a 20 minute field test at 105% ftp.” Later in the show, after her drum solo, Carlos said “you gotta do five things to play like that, diligence, discipline, devotion, dedication, and diet. If you try playing like that you will fucking pass out.” #CindyRocksTheKit-and-VO2max
Ok, now I’m going to get a little preachy and hippy because I’m also a boomer. A few of Carlos Santana’s thoughts:
Theme song:
You know you’re one of the greats when you do a collaboration with Chris Stapleton and he doesn’t even play.
Santana told the story of his manager reaching out to Chris Stapleton, he agreed, and Chris asked what type of song they should put together. Carlos said lets give it a Bob Marley beat and make it about the stuff I quoted above.
Wed night social ride with a workout:
Power flattens out around 50 minute mark when 4 of us split off the peloton to take the shorter route. I was pulling the group, and then I turned around and they were gone 
and back about 1/4 mile, which was fine because I had some intervals. After the 1-minuters I slowed down, but they never appeared on the horizon so I figured they took another shortcut.
And then I started a 10-minute lower threshold / SS interval, just before a left turn, and saw the 28+mph express train (5 man lead group) coming. Made the turn, up and over the tracks, woosh they blew by me and kept rolling along at a nice clip while I ‘puttered’ along 3-5mph slower and by the next left turn 2.4 miles down the road was about 1 minute down.
The lead group that passed me did it around the middle of this segment:
Yup, the boys were flying last night and it was just an average not-too-windy 8-10mph (gusting 15-19) tailwind! The guy doing most of the pulling said he was putting down 300-350W. Savage. #Goals.
At the regroup:
I had an hour and a half SS workout in my calendar tonight but I was meeting a mate for a Pizza and a Pint. So I clicked on the alternates (much more intuitive TR, good work 
) and selected a 60 min option, Mount Field and I roughly had a 18 miles route in my head, 24 if I did a loop of the village the pub was in. It probably wasn’t the best route for a workout (too many ups, downs and twists but it was the best option for 
Just Checking if @mountainrunner has already posted about his Halekalā-ascent… apparently it’s still night time on Maui😂
I think you’re looking for “Gucci”.
How do you like the hunt wheels? I’ve been looking at them HARD for like a year. Just can’t convince myself to pull the trigger.
@Aeroiseverything outed me here following my Strava post. Yesterday was a ride up Haleakalā (Maui), ten days before was a ride up Stevlio (Italy), and three days before that was riding in Zermatt under the Matterhorn (Switzerland). It’s been a not-so-terrible two weeks.
After I dropped my friend off at the airport last Tuesday morning, I got in two rides before a Wednesday evening flight to Boston. On the ground there for 20hrs, my son joined me on the flight to Los Angeles Thursday evening. Friday was driving around with the daughter, who was in LA for the previous two weeks with in-laws, and son doing a school tour and errands. Saturday was several more hours of driving to spend time with my dad, followed by hours of driving Sunday to pick up the kids from Orange County, get to West LA, then the hotel, and then to a K-Pop concert in downtown. Monday was several more hours of driving to visit another school and eventually a Tuesday morning departure to Maui. The go-go-go sure made it feel like I was off the bike for weeks, not just a week, when I picked up my rental on Wednesday. Here’s the story…
I picked up a Specialized Tarmac SL7 from West Maui Cycles, a shop I’ve rented from several times and recommend, at noon with the ride back to the hotel as a nice shake out cruise. It was near 100ºF, but it felt good.
The next day, Thursday, was my planned ride up Haleakalā. My original plan was to ride the ±22mi from the hotel to start the climb, but that was scrapped due to events.
On Thursday evening, when I was in Boston, I received a request to testify before a Congressional committee (no, not that one) Thursday morning. Initially inclined to decline, my conversation with staff changed my mind. I borrowed a coat and shirt (staff said no tie would be fine, but I wanted to wear a coat for minimum decorum) from my brother-in-law. The catch is the hearing was for 9:30a DC time / 3:30a Hawaii time. Knowing I was on holiday and they approached me at the last minute, the subcommittee chair allowed me to turn in my prepared testimony after the deadline (48hrs before the hearing). Considering the schedule and being on holiday, I finished it about 11:30p the night before. I hit send and then got about 3hrs of broken sleep before getting up at 2:50a to shower, shave, “dress”, and get to a small conference room the hotel gave me for my call.
The hearing concluded at 5:40a (Maui time). If you’re bored, you can watch the hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Committee website. Dawn broke while I changed, got the bottles ready, etc. I was in the car at 6:10a to be dropped of near the base of the climb to save time and spend the afternoon with the family.
I rolled at 6:40a under a clear blue sky with light traffic. Before I started, my Garmin reported my “Body Battery” was 5. I didn’t feel like it was 5 (out of 100) and felt good even though I knew I wasn’t exactly well rested. A short flat spin soon found me on the climb.
The ride up would end up being 50 miles with 7k’ of climbing, but that’s misleading as the main part of the ride was 24 miles with over 6700’ of climbing. With only a few breaks, the climb is steady, smooth, with great pavement (with rare exceptions), and good views. The steepness doesn’t hurt, it’s the duration that wore me down, well that and the fatigue going in.
The ride was up was enjoyable, not difficult on any particular segment, easy to keep a high cadence with a “low” 6% grade, and generally relaxing, if I can use that word. Here’s a typical once you’re above the forest line (and before the next forest) looking at west Maui.
Traffic was light going up and without any threatening or aggressive passes by vehicles. On my ascent, I only saw to three cyclists, not counting the downhill riders (many of whom were riding the brakes and didn’t look comfortable). One guy I passed and the other two were an older couple on e-bikes who caught and passed me.
As I neared the Ranger station, I could feel the fatigue setting in and it was becoming a chore to ride. Running out of water didn’t help, but I knew it was only a couple miles to the station. Not wanting or needing to bury myself, I decided to turn at the station. The ranger let me use his tap and I hydrated and filled my bottles. Feeling 100%, possibly because the climbing was done, I turned the bike down the hill and rolled.
With the roads well surfaced, the turns wide and banked, descending was a blast. Passing the downhillers stopped at the side or rolling was fun, too. (If you don’t know what I mean by downhillers, check out this company to get the idea.)
I thought I took more video on the downhill, but I didn’t seem to capture the interesting bits, so the above will have to do. I was apparently the early crew as there were at least ten cyclists climbing as I coasted down.
A cool thing that happened was on the climb, my wife and kids passed me on the way to their zipline activity. (We’re in Wailea on an event through my wife’s company,) She texted me that they passed me (they were in a van) and I “looked strong” (I’ll take it, I wasn’t working hard, after all), which was nice to read on my Garmin head unit. On the downhill, I thought I saw the van I figured they had been on still parked at the zipline place, so I pulled a u-turn, went in, and they appeared perhaps 3min later from ziplining. What great timing. A nice chat, a kiss, and back onto my descent.
I returned the bike after the ride. The original plan was to get in a third ride today by riding the bike back to the shop, but I opted to lean into my “detraining” and spend more time with the family. This thinking led me to cancel my reservation for the bike for next week when I planned to ride the West Maui Loop when we move from Wailea to Kaanapali (on the Loop). So, no new pics of the West Maui Loop will be coming from me next week. Nor will I have anything the week after as I don’t get back home and to a bike until 15 August. I’ll have 3 weeks to “train” for the AlpenBrevet on 3 September (maybe I won’t do the 130mi / 16,700’ “Gold” and just plan on the 67mi / 10,500’)…
I thought I’d have more exciting pictures and video, but I don’t. The pics and vids I took don’t convey well the serenity, beauty, and feeling. Hopefully, the above few pics and story make up for the lack of quantity.
Overall, the ride was fun. I came here for a holiday, not to ride, so whatever I got in was gravy and good times were had.
Rode a loop on local roads close to home. Hit every single traffic light on the way out of town and on the way back in, got stuck at the railway crossing. Still managed a bunch of PRs and made it back in time to watch the team pursuit and team sprint finals at the commonwealth games. I think the legs are finally recovering some of their zip after the France trip.
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