Planned to do the 50 mi route for a local charity ride. There is beautiful riding up here in western MA, but it can feel pretty remote at times and cell service is spotty. Tires looked just fine this morning (GP5000 TL with <1k mi) but I got a flat and noticed a small bubble in the rear sidewall. 
Tried to slowly fill it enough to hobble to a spot with cell service, and it exploded with a BANG!!
A group of friendly riders were able to get help and a local gentleman gave me a ride back to the start. 
Starting to wonder if road tubeless is more trouble than it’s worth if something major happens!!
Beautiful!! But better watch out for land mines following those horses! 
My local trails are heavily frequented by horses (horse pastures & stables abut one of the forests). Many of the wide trails (think smaller than a US fire road but larger than a jeep trail) are porous with little dirt and thus little ponding. The result is, in wet weather and in some sections the splatter you just rode through wasn’t wet dirt but a souvenir left by horses. That’s something to think about when you (or rather I) hear the squish and then feel the splatter on the legs or the face. The new, not yet flattened (degraded) deposits are easy to see and avoid in pre-dawn riding.
First ride in the heat since the first day or two of September. So its been about 3 weeks. And I had major allergy attack last week on Fri/Sat/Sun, so it was 4 days off the bike.
Suffered with the first interval in 89F / 32C heat:
Unfed model so the top 2 charts are unreliable, but the 90 day power PR is accurate. Updated FTP estimates from WKO, Intervals.icu, and Garmin:
WKO: mFTP bumped from 247 to 251 watts
Intervals.icu: eFTP bumped from 246 to 247 watts
Garmin: estimated FTP bumped from 258 to 262 watts
I was doing the threshold work at 285 watts, so which do you think is most accurate? In my experience its Garmin Firstbeat for the win 
Rode with the Cycling Donut Warriors crew for a couple minutes, let them go, and then passed them while doing the threshold intervals.
It’s always the highest one. That’s like one of “the rules” or something for sure!
Share away, they are great 
right! LOL.
Watching model behavior when you don’t feed them is a special kind of fun, and I was posting for @DarthShivious benefit as he is learning wko5.
All kidding aside, I am serious that Garmin Firstbeat machine learning of HRV and power-to-HR stuff has been doing a very reasonable job when I’m not feeding the other platforms with enough hard (or long enough) efforts. My experience from 3 years of using the 530.
What I also know from experience is that having a more precise FTP estimate would not have any real impact on my training right now.
The leaves are starting to change. About 2 weeks later vs last year - all the moisture we have had this year means the trees are less stressed.
These next 2 weeks will have some epic colors 
I ran into (almost!) some traffic on the downhill trail back home. Thankfully they heard me before I saw them and a collision was avoided. Three large Moose hanging out on the trail. I waited for about 20 mins for them to take their time and move off the trail, and got a few pics as I passed them by - quickly!
“Retreat”
And if anyone thinks they can outrun a bull elk w/a 25yd lead, they’re so wrong! Those things can run fast and jump high!
It is looking like Sunday was the last sane time for the road bike for another week. We’ve had rain and cool temps around 50F / 10C, often a touch lower. The surprise hail yesterday was noisy.
Not on a ride, but spotted on yesterday’s (or was it Monday’s? You and I don’t care which…) run was this guy I nearly stepped on:
Went out on the gravel bike this morning for a quickie. It was uneventful with only one confirmed “wildlife” sighting:
Also spotted was the dog carriage and the dogs getting ready. The light is low because I dimmed my front light (usually at 2100 lumens) and my helmet light (usually 1900 lumens) to not blind the driver or dogs.
On the trail, returning to the horse conversation above, on some paths which is more gray than brown, the degraded “mud” patches are more noticeable.
Our leaves don’t seem to be changing or falling yet. Maybe that makes sense because it feels like we went from summer to winter with a real autumn.
As a final note, rolling down the ramp into my apartment’s garage, with my left hand holding the key and not able to brake and avoiding using my rear brake because it’s squealing like an air horn and I don’t want to annoy my Swiss neighbors, I decide I’ll roll and gently brake. Except, there’s a hard right after the ramp and my wet trail tires lost it and I went down. Not my right arm and ride side, where I broke ribs in a previous crash, hurt. Nothing terrible, but it’s annoying. 
Those cars! Something needs to be done about the congestion on the cap road. Having discussed this ad infinitum over beers in Pollenca I’ve concluded that the road should be closed to cars on Wed and Sat, and closed to bikes the rest of the week. If I were El Presidente of Mallorca…
Edited to add- I’ve cycled in Mallorca 10 weeks but only ever in April and start-May. I didn’t know the road was car free in peak season?
ooof, feel better soon.
At least horses are really inefficient digesters so their poops are pretty close to the same substance they ate! Sorry, though!
Well, it wasn’t technically today, but I’m just getting around to posting. This was, very sadly, only my fourth mountain bike ride of the year, and only my second since starting TR. I rode the first half or so with a friend who had not ridden in a long time, so we took it relatively easy; and the solo second half felt nice, but I just cruised. All that to say-no PR’s or anything, but I felt great! I felt, dare I say, ALMOST spry and able to focus on some techniques instead of just being so cardiovascularly strained. I think I could have carried on for much longer, but I had other responsibilities to which to tend. I sure hope I can make it back out soon!
Chewacla State Park in Auburn, Alabama
On a separate, somewhat related note, I use my phone to track everything on Strava. On some longer walks, jogs, and ride, it will just drop out in the middle of the activity. It picks back up, but misses part of the activity. Any remedies?
