Slowly – and intentionally slowly – starting to train again after travel, injury, and then covid took me out of action. Fortunately, I lost some fat. Unfortunately, I lost muscle, too, which I couldn’t afford to lose.
Went out for a half-mile “run” Saturday, which was enough. It was mostly to move my body with a focus on keeping the hr down. Sunday was an easy 12.5mi spin on the bike, also just to move. Monday was a flight from Boston with the intent of cycling when I arrived in Valencia, Spain, but my tubeless tires went completely flat with one of them coming unseated. I don’t have a pump here to fix that, so off to the shop to fix, followed by asleep by 7p. So, this morning was an easy 2mi run, again focusing on form and keeping the HR low. This afternoon, with the SRAM batteries charged, tires pumped, a spin on the bike.
This is the closest I’m getting to a Col in the foreseeable future.
Nothing special, and my Garmin was unimpressed by my output and all but called me a nasty name.
The aim today was high cadence, low effort, objectives that were generally met.
The intervals chart makes the route look lumpier than it is, if you ignore the vertical axis. The Strava elevation makes the flatness (12.5mi with 210’ / 20km with 64m) more apparent.
@greenbike nice riding. Meiringen is a great town. The AlpenBrevet used to start there and, personally, I think that’s a better town to start and finish than Andermatt.
For the tourists, very near Meiringen is Reichenbach Falls, which besides being scenic, is where Moriarty killed Sherlock Holmes (I think Moriatry died also). Meiringen is also where meringue (like Lemon Meringue Pie or an Eton Mess) was allegedly first created.
@morzak, good ride! The gold is brutal, especially with a mechanical and fueling issues. Well done, though. My first (of four AlpenBrevets) was 2017, and it started in Meiringen. Then, the Gold was just 175km and 4900m (109mi, 16,100’) and with four passes (Gotthard, Furka, Nufenen, Susten). My mechanical then was the rim brakes were poorly adjusted by my (then soon to be former) bike shop: they had cranked down the calipers so they would not self-center. This meant the braking surface on one side of the experimental carbon rims delaminated during the first descent. I called my buddy who loaned me the rims (and had made them) and he said, “don’t use the back brake, which isn’t a problem since most of your braking is on the front anyway” adding “the structural integrity of the wheel is good.” Touching the rear brake made an awful noise, like I was trying to destroy the wheel or rip off the calipers. My top speed on the next three big descents on the generally clear and dry day (there was hard rain near the finish, which I continued to blow through) was 58mph (93km/h), which wasn’t a temporary peak. 
Back to you: Platin next year? 
for you, my best was -10.
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