I can feel my neck and braking muscles this morning! Just under an hour for the last descent.
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I met some mates in Elton this morning, as usual I was early 
We headed down mainly off road to Geddington Chase. We timed it right the cycle motorcross track was actually in a good condition for gravel bikes. Although one of my mates came a cropper almost, he managed to plug his tyre though and when we got to the end of The Chase he topped it up.
We managed to find a good cafe in Geddington.
As expected we stopped in the pub in Fortheinghay for a couple of Moretti’s. During which the wind really got up ahead of a storm. Which made it a right slog home and I was keen to get there before being soaked. However whilst the rest of the UK seems soaked, an hour and a half later despite the pending storms Peterborough is still dry for now!
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@WindWarrior nice ride! How did your “gravel” bike do? (I assume you took your Tarmac with 32’s.). Some of that gravel looked a little chunky for a road bike.
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Rode the start of the 508 to the top of Geiger, then rode the finish back. Such a great climb! felt like a mini Lemmon. Gonna ride up(and down) Six Mile Canyon tomorrow. After driving the route yesterday, the last k into Virgina City is gonna HURT, especially at over 490 miles in the legs.
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Awesome pics…thanks for sharing!
There’s something oddly satisfying about the elevation being 6789 ft 
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Tarmac was fine, mostly. I rode everything except for that chunky road repair in the pic, and a little farther up the hill after loosing traction on 10-ish percent grade near the top.
The last hour is a little bone jarring on a race bike - hardly a smooth section of pavement to be found and a lot of time hitting the brakes to scrub speed around corners or over undulating/cracked pavement. Spent a lot of time in a shock absorber position to soak up the bumps at speed and not get thrown off the carbon horse.
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I did a local fondo yesterday in central Mass. I’ve been spoiled by summer riding and almost forgot to bring my leg warmers. It was 48°F/9°C at the start 
On the plus side, this was my best average power for a 100 mile ride yet. Pacing and nutrition plans worked too…felt stronger as the ride went on 
The route took me through the Monson State Hospital grounds which looked like a zombie movie set. I wanted to stop and take pics, but I’m pretty sure there would have been ghosts 
The pics below are from the link. I can’t take credit but you get the idea!!! Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t get a flat.
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What bike and tires are you riding on those crappy roads?
Meanwhile I treated my gravel event as a fall foundation ride, and set a new record for lowest HR and lowest average power on a ride > 5 hours Didn’t want to impact my goal of riding 10+ hours this week.
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The bike was my 2021 Roubaix Expert with Schwalbe Pro Ones 700x32. The pavement was bad enough that I was wishing for fatter tires!!
I have Lezyne side loading bottle cages on the Roubaix and my gravel bike. I never had a bottle pop out on actual gravel (knock on wood), but I launched one like a rocket yesterday have hitting some particularly rought spots! 
Lowest HR/power is still a record! 
with the scenery you posted, I’d want to enjoy it!!!
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A little more bike compliance than my rig - a Tarmac SL7 with Conti All Season TR tubeless in 32c. I’ve got a side loading Bontrager on the downtube, and a Xlabs Gorilla XT cage on the seat tube. No bottle has ever moved, at all, on the Gorilla cage (bought 7 years ago). So far the same for the Bontrager cage, I’ve had it for a little over a year.
FWIW I’m 100% convinced this easy .62 IF ride will deliver a fitness bumps, just like last year’s 5 hour .55 IF climb of Mt Shasta. Long rides always deliver #gainz for me, even if they are easy peasy. Ready to go slay this week 
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@rkoswald I just looked and both of those sections had a lot of steep 10-25% grades. On this half-mile 12.2% average gradient, everything in black is 16% or steeper:
No wonder I was loosing traction on the loose dirt and rocks, while riding above threshold on all-season GP5000 AS TR tires! Good times on a road bike with road tires and 33x36 gearing 
Versus last year, I was 15 minutes faster on this second Cat2 gravel climb, about 5 hours deep, despite being ~5kg heavier this year and a slightly lower ftp Not too shabby and a great start to rebuilding my base 3 weeks into my 2023-2024 season!
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Up and down Six Mile Canyon today! Same destination as yesterday, different way to get there. The mile into Virginia City is gonna hurt at mile 489. 1/4 mile at 11% with spikes to 20% Did some 30/30’s, coming from ~1k feet above sea level, I find the relationship between HR, RPE, Breathing, and Elevation weird. I’ve done by fair share of riding over 8k feet, but at this elevation, RPE and Breathing aren’t any higher than at my normal elevation. HR is for sure a bit higher. Currently have 4 days spent at an elevation of at least 4k feet, and will be over 7 days by race day on Friday.
The descent down Six Mile Canyon was a blast! Wild Horses!
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when is the start of the Silver State 508?
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Oh man. I’ve done that drive into Virginia City in a car and there are some seriously steep and twisty turns there! Full respect for doing it on a bike!
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Friday(9/22) at 5 AM!
@Jonathan I’d like to ride my TT bike tomorrow, any suggestions for safe routes starting in south Reno?
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it was super fun! 10/10 would recommend!!!
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Last ride on the TT bike before race day. Rest day tomorrow. Planning on a 30 minute opener workout on Thursday, but weather looks pretty terrible for Reno on Thursday, don’t know If I’ll be able to get it in Garmin recorded a low temp of 52, about as cold as I can tolerate in full summer kit in the sunlight.
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Apparently it was windy today for my commute but I never really noticed it. Maybe I was too busy watching the clock tick down on my workout Monitor -5 (4x6 SS intervals with 30sec recoveries). It had been Tunnabora -1 but I’m listening to the Football (Soccer) and have some other things to do this morning so I used Alternates to select a 30 minutes workout I could do on my commute (using RPE). I’m a bit dubious of doing a workout with the company laptop on my back but it seems secure on my back.
I didn’t plan to do anything other than a gentle recovery tonight but I got caught in the office and I was wanting back so that was a wee bit of a constant workout too. Then I remembered the ongoing gas works in a local village with 4 way traffic control. So I diverted up the hill into the headwind which kinda killed the speed.
I needn’t have rushed.
So I had a 40min wait for a rammed train!
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I hate it when trains are cancelled!!!
Today
Honoring SEPP-
-tember with a 4x, 3x, 2x, and 1xBonus-miles workout…
it said CRUSH them, but hey, I’m starting out my new season. So I crushed them for some 90-day PRs from 25-seconds to 108-seconds:
the off season and injuries are behind me, the new season is on track!
Happy SEPP--tember!
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