Where did you ride OUTSIDE today (2022)

[mountainrunner]

Easy spin this morning with the gravel bike on the trails. Today was my most flat option – a largely out and back with some additions – out of the door that puts me predominately off-pavement. Ditched the TR plan for the week to enjoy just being on the bike and to ease getting back into it. Today was the first trail ride since 20 July while Thursday was the first road ride since 28 July. Mentally, I’m eager to hammer and spend hours on the road and trail. Physically, it’s “whoa Nelly.” So, today was a fun spin in upper-60s F / 19C with a threat of rain and a bit of drizzle on the return.

Below, the hole of blue in the distance, above or perhaps beyond Lake Zurich, would not make its way over to where I was. The second pic is 180º from the first. I came from and returned left of the first / right of the second.

Two pics of the several single-track sections on this route. Both are basically smooth here, but they get rooty and rocky though not seriously technical by any stretch.

“Why so serious?”

A nice spin with pauses to easy by many horse riders and horse walkers, plus a few walkers. There weren’t as many folks walking the trails today as there would normally be. This was either because of the dreary weather or because of the inability to have cooking fires for picnics in the forest due to the otherwise dry weather that’s dried the forests (though that’s hard to see because they are so green), or both. Despite the rain of the last two days and drizzle today, which has picked up as I write this, water levels are still extremely low.

Back to the map above, the loop in the foreground was my pass by a small hog farm. The huge animals, more than a half dozen, were active but the farmer was walking the trail as I was riding toward him, so I didn’t snap a pic.

There was plenty of cowbell, but none worthy of filming, er, taking a video of. I’ll need to check when the cow parades start (in this case, moving the bovine down from the high elevation pastures before winter) and get to some climbs to capture those…

[Pbase]

Been taking it easy preparing for a week of mtb time in Bentonville. Went out today just to get some time in the legs. Two 19 min tempo intervals and then a few 30/30s before a long cool down. We needed rain terribly, and finally got it over the last few days. That means temps were a tad lower but humidity was 92%. Made for some really cool clouds.

[HLaB]

A couple of rides from me today as I wasn’t TT’ing till late afternoon. After driving to Fotheringhay it was short social ride for me to meet my mates in Oundle for a coffee before cycling back to the car.

It was then a drive up to Fardon (west of Newark, Nottinghamshire) for the TT sign on. Quite a simple route from East Stoke on to the A46, down to the Stragglethorpe interchange, back up to the western Newark roundabout, then into Fardon, before finishing in East Stoke again.

A real brutal SW wind and whereas I wasn’t much over 22mph on the way out I was about 30mph on the way back to the Newark roundabout. Unfortunately there was another 2 miles straight into the wind

Heads or Tails

There was one hill on the outleg into that wind. My hand was going numb (bad circulation caused by chemo) and it looked like it might have been a grind so I stood up and near VO2maxed it to maintain momentum. Probably on the same hill coming the other way I was 41.3mph

[FrankTuna]

Had my butt handed to me yesterday. This has been my best year cycling by many metrics…time in the saddle, FTP, etc. I did a 2 day, 190 mile charity ride 2 weekends ago and crushed my prior time/average power by 20%.

I have alot of weight to lose and that’s been a real challenge, but I still wanted to try this ride since it’s close to home…D2R2 in Deerfield, Mass. They have a bunch of routes but I opted for the 100k with ~6500 ft of climbing. I did way better than expected at the 48 mile, 4200 ft climbing Rooted VT 3 weekends ago, so I figured this would be hard but doable.

Yikes…had to pull the plug 12 miles in after 1900ft. This was the hardest 90 mins I’ve ever done on a bike. I think it was a mix of accumulated fatigue, 94F heat, terrain, and just too much climbing!! And I still had to ride back

Also…how the hell to people climb this stuff? There were sections 10%+ grade with small rocks in moon dust. I think 90% of the folks I saw walked this.

I love riding gravel but definitly found my limits (for this year at least).

[HLaB]

Met some mates in Elton today and we decided on a ride to the Fineshade Hill Top Cafe. The majority of them turned up on mtb’s so I guessed we were in for a more technical ride. I wasn’t far wrong I lost them in the Purlieus woods so I went straight to the cafe to meet them. I got back to town a bit earlier than planned so I went for a wee spin. Given the conditions (almost no wind compared to yesterday and a very comfortable temperature) I could have went all day but my legs are shot

[mountainrunner]

Today was a loop around Lake Zurich. (Clockwise, of course, my preferred direction as it puts me closer to the lake with fewer streets and driveways for cars to come out of.)

The twist was I did it on my gravel bike with its 47mm tires. I’ve always wanted to do this loop on my 3T Exploro, but hadn’t until now. Well, been there, done that, and I’m good. Don’t need to do it again. It’s something to really feel the increased rolling resistance of these 47mm not-slicks compared to my 28mm Contis on my road bike. Anyway, the goal was low intensity and high cadence, which was accomplished.

For the first half of the ride, I targeted 90-100 rpm and ideally Z2.

There were a few red lights and slow points passing through Zurich and beyond but generally I was able to keep trucking with a moving time of 2:45 compared to an elapsed time of 2:48.

The second half of the loop had a bit of traffic, traffic passing through Rapperswil, and some construction zones with traffic control (one-lane). I had planned on stopping at Rapperswil to get gelato, but I decided to keep rolling.

Soon beyond the above picture, when the bike lane re-merges with the road, I was “stuck” behind some other cyclists, including a pair (husband & wife?) of bikepackers from Canada (based on a not small flat waving off the back) and New Zealand (based on a much smaller flat attached to the Canadian flag.

Then there was an ill-fated waste of time going off the road to explore a lakeside-ish path that really wasn’t suitable for a bike and complete waste of my time (now I know as I’ve always been curious). An older Swiss gentleman shook his head at me to which I replied “genaue” (exactly)

Later, I did get onto a path, mostly pavement but some gravel, at / nearly at the lakeside to get me off the road and force me to keep it easy.

As part of my climb to get back up to home on the ridge, I took a left where normally I take right because I could hop onto a trail rather than approach home via roads (the right turn). This added more gravel to the ride, which brought the grand total for the ride to maybe 1mi of gravel across the 42 miles.

With only 974’ of “climbing” over the 42 miles, this was a seriously flat ride that my Garmin scored at 4.6 out of 5 for “highly impacting lactate threshold.” (Hmm, so maybe it wasn’t Z2…)

Edit 2: TR says 62% of my ride was split between active recovery (27.5) and endurance (34.8), plus 13% recovery, so I think I hit the goal.

Edit: in the first few minutes, after descending to the lake, I looked at my computer and saw I was really consistent with my power and cadence. Then I realized I was too consistent, so I took a closer look (dismounted and still pushing 215w at 87rpm, nice). Pulling the battery and disconnecting / reconnecting had it back to working condition.

Lastly, I finally took a picture of a car I’ve been meaning to snap for literally years. Behold, a lifted 4-wheel drive Corvette (1963?):

@FrankTuna sometimes it’s just not a good day. But, I zoomed in on your tires and I wonder if the tread was appropriate for the terrain. The dry conditions plus the moon dust and the spaced knobs may not be the best. Also, how much kit do you have in your top tube bag, or is that all the nutrition and you’re not carrying any on your person (back or thigh pockets)?

[FrankTuna]

@mountainrunner

@FrankTuna sometimes it’s just not a good day. But, I zoomed in on your tires and I wonder if the tread was appropriate for the terrain. The dry conditions plus the moon dust and the spaced knobs may not be the best. Also, how much kit do you have in your top tube bag, or is that all the nutrition and you’re not carrying any on your person (back or thigh pockets)?

The moon dust was a small portion of the route. I’m not sure what tire would be appropriate, while also being suitable for 40% tarmac and the rest dry, mostly hard packed gravel? I’d certainly be open to any suggestions but they’d need to probably be 45c or bigger since my Cutthroat is basically a drop bar MTB.

I’m running a half(ish) frame bag for nutrition and tools since I can’t run a saddle bag with the AXS dropper.

I think that much climbing is probably alot for your average recreational cyclist, and even more when one has some body fat to lose

[bobshopsupreme]

Staying on the gravel bikes, I did a nice little ride up the Col de Vars in the Southern Alps. 1100m of ascent over 19km for the col making 97km and 2200m of climbing to get to and from our chalet.

Did it on a Mason Bokeh with 43/40mm tyres F/R and 9+kg weight.

What I find is that on those big climbs I don’t really feel the drag of the tyres as the work is done against gravity on the way up and air resistance on the way down.

Also tried the SIS Beta Fuel which kept me reasonably fuelled and still producing decent power for the last 500m of ascent to get home. Pricey if you’re doing a gel and bottle sachet per hour for 4 hours. My car is cheaper to run!

[JennF]

Looks like we live near each other - my husband rode the other way in Greenfield yesterday when these riders were coming through so we had to look up the rides and routes to see what everyone was doing. Some of the climbs are nuts, especially on dirt roads. On the longest route there are climbs over 25%! That’s a hard pass for me. And yesterday was definitely hot so good to pull the plug before you got too far.

[FrankTuna]

There’s awesome riding in Western Mass and northern CT…especially when the grades are less than 10%

[varmstrong]

Road bike is still broken and I am still waiting on parts. So took the gravel bike out for another road ride. Fighting some fatigue and I may have had a bit too much to drink friday night, so I felt a bit funky all day but held a decent pace, especially using gravel tires and fighting wind.
More Road | Ride | Strava

Those are buffalo in the background.

[mountainrunner]

@FrankTuna

The moon dust was a small portion of the route. I’m not sure what tire would be appropriate, while also being suitable for 40% tarmac and the rest dry, mostly hard packed gravel? I’d certainly be open to any suggestions but they’d need to probably be 45c or bigger since my Cutthroat is basically a drop bar MTB.

Personally, I would not ride the knobbies that you have for the terrain you describe or is pictured. The spaced knobs aren’t going to give you the traction you’re seeking while also providing more resistance than more appropriate treads. I’d recommend a tighter pattern like the WTB Ventures, which is my current (and has been for a couple of years) favorite for all-around use for the terrain I commonly ride. (I do have knobbies for the powder in the winter but rarely do I need to mount them, or perhaps when I need to it’s for weather that I’m not interested in riding in.) Others here will undoubtedly have other recommendations but ultimately a similar tread. I run 47mm on 650b and I too tend to ride my bike like a drop bar / no suspension MTB whenever I can (though I don’t have a dropper). Changing your tires may result in a more comfortable and faster ride.

On the moondust, that will be difficult regardless and requires balance and smooth pedaling technique and may in fact be easier to walk especially at the start of a long ride to save energy.

Maybe I’ll do the event next year with you as I’m currently expecting to be living in Boston starting next August. I’ll certainly seek out ride suggestions from you (and now maybe @JennF) around then.

[mountainrunner]

Jumped into the deep-end today and for more than a moment thought I should’ve worn water wings. Short on time, I wanted to get in two climbs on my fav brutal gravel climb. It’s over .5mi of 12-25% on gravel, sometimes very loose, except for the last 50m or so (which also levels off to 12%). But mostly, it’s 18-23%. I’ve posted about it before. Today was two repeats, which was more than enough.

What the easier gravel looks like:

How I was doing on the first ascent:

How I was feeling on the first climb:

How I felt about halfway on the second climb:

How I felt after the second climb:

That’s it. 9.8mi and 1345’.

[Pbase]

Spending a few days in Bentonville. Got in a few hours playing around in the Slaughter Pen. Laid my Levo over for the first time, so very thankful the bike and I just have some scratches and nothing worse! I assumed I’d crash at least once on a week long mtb trip, but doing it the first day stinks!

Obligatory Bentonville pic everyone takes!

They’ve made some updates to the skills park since the last time I was here. Funny how small things look in pics. The big jump on the far right is a big drop off with a gap jump entry.

Light war wounds. Hopefully I’m done crashing for the week!

[HLaB]

Madarao was in my calendar tonight and it won’t be long before workouts are confined to the trainer so I was keen to get out. It finally started to rain though just as I was about to do so. So I quickly looked at an online weather radar. It was passing but probably not fast enough for the remaining light. So I hung on to let the worst of it pass and headed out. The radar was right, and it stopped raining and the roads dried out before I was even 20mins from home. I went down Bullock Rd and then across to Holme via Glatton crossing over the new and old A1’s. The East Coast Main Rail Line level crossing was down, which can take ages, so I headed up Holme Road to Yaxley before doing a u’turn. When I got back to the bottom of Holme Rd the lights for the barriers were flashing again. I probably could have beat the actual barriers but I decided not to try and instead retrace my steps to the old A1. I had wanted to swerve left there on to the old A1 and go right avoiding the New A1 but a tractor was sitting to turn into it and expecting them to cut across me I kept going straight. A couple of minutes later they were still patiently waiting so I decided to continue straight rather than swerving off. Which could have been fustrating for the driver, he would have waited for nothing As a result I ended up going back to Bullock Road and into Peterborough that way. Light was beginning to fade but I decided to use what was left of it rather than stopping to clip my front light on. I also waited until I was safely outside the apartment before taking a pic.

Oh, and my new HRM (a Polar H10) worked a treat. Wahoo are sending out a replacement TickR and I will probably use that for commutes and maybe gravel biking.

[WindWarrior]

Hard start sweet spot intervals at 91F / 33C on a boring old route. Power-to-HR looks like the ones I did in February and April when it was in 59F/15C and 72F/22C. Heat adaptation for the win.

Came home and was drenched in sweat. Went to cool off and had to deal with this:

Hey you party crashers, get out of my pool!

[JMT]

The Corvette… with the split rear window … wow… and they did that to it?!! Wow. People I know are crying.

So glad you are healthy and on your bike!

[Pbase]

Yesterday was day 2 in Bentonville. Set out to ride from downtown to Bella Vista to ride the Back 40 trail, but there is so much construction happening here that I just kept running into closed trails and paths. After my millionth reroute ended up on a highway, I gave up and headed back to session Slaughter Pen and then do a little exploring. Met a young buck who had no intention of clearing the trail for me, so I told him he was a tough guy while I snapped pictures. Got in 4 hours on the bike, and no crashing, so it was a good day! Today I will drive to Bella Vista and start at the trailhead. Turns out I was less than a mile away when I gave up and turned around yesterday. Ugh.

[WindWarrior]

Tale of 2 workouts a week apart, my ever popular Two-Hour-Tuesday endurance workout…

The heat giveth:

@WindWarrior

Then 2 hours at 200+W and lowest HR ever at that wattage - nothing but low to mid zone2 HR - at average temp of 66F / 19C:

And the heat taketh away:

and in degrees Celsius with green endurance zone (56-75%) overlay:

Ever spend the first 40+% riding into a hot wind? At least it wicks the sweat away, because the tailwind only makes you sweat more

But hey, about same power as last night’s 2 hour Zwift ride by our local 115kg diesel that puts out 350-370W for 40+ minutes on Wed night worlds. He has been killing it with 20 hours/week the majority at 120-130W. Well I got the easy part down, now if I could only figure out how to do 350-370W for 40+ minutes LOL.

[mountainrunner]

Repeating the theme set by @winwarrior, a tale of two workouts. Today, I went out for a late afternoon spin around the lake, this time on the road bike. I can confirm the 40mi trip is much more enjoyable on the road bike with its 28mm tires than the gravel bike w/ its 47mm tires.

My 4:20pm departure coincided with rush hour and peak heat as the hottest time of the day here tends to be around 4-5p. That’s great for those wanting to get in some sun at the lake side, or wherever, after work, and good for getting in some heat time. Now it wasn’t that hot, just 28C / 82F.

Ongoing construction approaching Zurich from my where I live means some time on shared paths. Through the trees are clearings that were full of sunbathers (I took a picture for you all, but it didn’t turn out… and no, unlike other countries, only the men are topless).

Time of day meant a lot more traffic, but generally not a problem. This backup was because of construction ahead making the two way road into a one-way with an automated signal.

Obligatory picture of Rapperswil with the mountains completely devoid of snow in the background.

A “smiling” me with Rapperswil in in the background.

Anyway, back to the tale of two rides. I pushed on this ride and felt I went pretty hard and fast most of the time. Today:
Moving time of 2:05, elapsed time of 2:07 (though it seems the red lights surely added more than 2min). Average speed of 19.0
Average HR 139
Normalized power 191

Ok, the other ride was Sunday July 10, before my 4 weeks off (and chicken pox). That ride was labeled by me as “All about that base, no trouble” and described as “Easy spin…” Hmmm. Moving time of 2:03, elasped time of 2:04 (a lot less traffic).
Avg speed 19.5
Avg HR 127
NP 196
While the temp for the easy ride was 16C+ / 61F+, today wasn’t hot.

Today wasn’t an “easy spin”: RPE was higher, HR was higher, power was lower, and speed was lower. It’s just reinforcing what I knew, that I’m less fit than I was six weeks ago. My Garmin said I was detraining and the numbers don’t lie…