Guided. Small group - 4 of us. If it’s similar terrain to last years trip, you’d need a MTB. No gravel bike here 
But I’d bet there are alternate routes of mixed road/gravel in the area. Just need to find them. It’s the Pyrenees, so have to believe there are old cow or sheep trails that might be suitable for gravel.
That sucks cause the view looks awesome 
thanks, yeah Tortour gravel 200 could be an option but could conflict with Octopus Gravel. Maybe the stage race for next year as an end of season event. Oh the peimonte trip looks really nice, maybe I can steer a Vacation in that direction 
.
After a traveling mini-break last week, my coach had an endurance build on the calendar. Starting with 3 days of 2 hour endurance with tomorrow being 1 hour tempo. But this week its been Death Valley / Phoenix hot 
which meant riding in the gym.
HOWEVER my mental weakness with riding inside was exposed on Tue/Wed, so instead of back-to-back- 2 hour rides I only managed back-to-back 1 hour endurance rides 
So I needed some help, as today it was day 3 of back-to-back-to-back endurance rides:
55 minutes of solo spinning and then Laura’s class started and she delivered some big-time motivation and I managed a full 2 hours indoors:
at my all-time highest ever zone2 power 
edging out an effort from 7 months ago. The FTP may still be hovering in the 260-270 range, but I’ve brought the floor up higher than ever. Thank you Coach Isaiah!
Anyhow, while watching the back-to-back Zumba classes across the gym I noticed something in the instructor-led (extra $$), roped off section of the gym:
And it looked like a TdF peloton symbol, the kind you see on a Wahoo Kickr flywheel. Here it is:
Did someone say Gravity?
This is the OUTSIDE thread. I think you meant to post in the workout thread. 
Inside out or outside inside
^ @HLaB got it right, it’s like outside inside when you see hundreds of people and talk to a handful of them.
Wow. Beautiful.
Ive a TT tomorrow so I had an extra hour in bed before joining my mates at the cafe for the 2nd half of the Saturday ride and took it very easy. We did of course end up in a pub but I stuck to the Shamdies. Peterborough - Elton - Fortheringhay - Oundle (where I joined them) - Southwick - Blatherwycke - Kings Cliffe ,- Fotheringhay. I then left them on to Nassington to head back to Peterborough via Elton.
It was a funny day weather wise Hot and sunny occasionally, grey but dry and mild most of it but the occasional wet and colder stuff; which threatened to drench you but suddenly stopped as sudden as it started. Until I was about a 1/4 mile from the flat when it finally turned prolonged but fortunately I managed to make it back before the tarmac was dangerously wet.
Took TR outside today. Took a 4 day break after suffering bad overtraining symptoms. Manually dropped my FTP to take a small break and ensure I don’t end up totally cooked before I head for a week of gravel in the mountains. After a month long focus on time in the saddle, this 75 minute workout felt incredibly short. Also, 74 degrees with humidity in the low 70s was gorgeous after a blazing hot August. Nice to feel cool at the start for a change.
Felt like getting some time on the road bike so I checked the forecast. Forecast near me and in the areas I wanted to ride – different lake regions so potentially very different weather due to the mountains – had low to no chance of very light rain. Well, you can figure out how it went by that setup. The start had a moment of very light drizzle near me, and then nothing, which was expected. A few miles in, there was a museum pulling out its vehicles for a show today, including this bridge layer, so I paused to take this video as it was coming out of the garage as I rode up.
(sorry for the transitions, I let the GoPro app merge and slice three different clips how it wanted)
Soon, I got over to another area, where the rain was light at first but then as I continued, it picked up a bit.
It wasn’t terrible though and I was dressed adequately. My light “rain resistant” windbreaker (picked because of the low chance of light rain) worked well enough with the temps. Traffic was relatively light and there were very few cyclists out.
The anti-/counter-clockwise route took me along Lake Zug and then Lake Lucerne, during which most of the time it was a noticeable rain, generally about the same as the video above. And then it cleared at Schwyyz, with some actual sun near the top of the climb. Dry along Lake Aegeri (far right) and only a moment or two of light drizzle but sometimes dry pavement as if it never rained on the last few miles (and yet sometimes the pavement was soaked).
It was, based on my normal rides, nearly flat with less then 3800’ across 73 miles.
I pause a few times. The first time was to watch the bridge layer (nearly 10min), then a few times to take gels at a trash can, once to figure out where I was going (I thought my route was clockwise, so in pouring rain, I was reviewing checking the Garmin’s routing), and once to refill bottles (just after departing Lake Luzern at the bottom right of the map).
There were some good views, but few were captured well by the GoPro.
Shorter one today, focused on hill climb pacing in advance of our club’s annual hill climb which is a week tomorrow.
Put in two efforts, hitting a PR time on the second hill.
All time PR power numbers for 5, 6 and 7 minutes at 434w, 426w and 424w respectively made me super happy 
Rewarding myself with a lemon muffin afterwards at the coffee stop may have been a bit of self-sabotage in terms of the weight loss goal but man cannot live by coffee alone 
No pictures as I didn’t get any but squeezed in 50km between coaching sessions at the velodrome today. I’m glad I scheduled the mental health ride since after wrangling 17 kids in my first session I needed a reset!
A somewhat local to me charity 105 miler. Front group ended up being 7 of us. I literally cramped with 3.5mi of downward false flat to the finish left…coming out of the last damn turn. That cost me the 23MPH average the other 6 ended up with, but still a fun day on the bike and I’ll take it after just coming back from being sick for like 3 weeks (Monday was the first day I’ve felt “normal” on the bike since like halfway through August).
Well the heat wave ended today, but now we have to worry about air quality. Big forest fire in Mosquito Ridge area - I’ve posted pics of long HC climbs in the past. Deep canyon from elevation 2000 feet to 6000 feet and it’s burning out of control.
Easy endurance today:
With two handfuls of short sprints / accelerations at the end:
Always a potent combo workout 
All started with a helicopter landing in the park we live next to:
Turns out the city police were doing an outreach event including a barbecue and more:
A lot of sweet corn harvesting these days:
And then I ran into oak obstacle:
Grapes already being harvested but here are some vine ripened beauties waiting to be picked:
Hoping to avoid smoke the next couple hours of days, otherwise I’ll be back in the gym.
Did the Bodensee tour. It went ok. The weather forecast said it will be light rain until 10 or 11. And when we reached the ferry in Constance rain Stopped. But arriving on the other side it started again. That was the time my GI issues started. Needed long toilet breaks at the feed stops and could only fuel about a gel an hour or my intestines would bloat to much. Still could put out the power fine. Next stop it looked again like the rain stopped even some sun was visible. But the. It started to pour down for the next hours. On the last stop it cleared up and despite my issues and little fuel. I still felt good. And was able to ride tempo for the last 40k and finish strong. Don’t know what went wrong with the fueling. Did same amount in training and was fine.
All in all it was a good ride and felt way better after then I excpected.
Man. Hope you guys get a break. It’s been a tough summer. Again.
Ugh. I’ve been there. Glad you still had a good ride in the end.
Is that a little alligator with a fish in its mouth?
