A couple of laps of Conington Airfield (now private) for a Recovery Ride (Bald -1). I also wanted to test out my shoulder. I think think the nerves in it after a fall last year and chemo damage to it impinges too easily. I think it impinged again leading to numb fingers when I let the arm go cold. After stretching it out last night its sore but not too sore and the fingers were less numb than yesterday. Perhaps I should 'bite the bullet ’ and see a physio 
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Next week is a recovery week, & yesterday was the 200km Mulgowie Moose audax ride done under BRM rules, so named because the Ride Organiser found some roads that resembled some strav.art, plus the route goes through a hamlet called Mulgowie.
There it is, at the bottom of the front legs.
The route was a figure 8, the head was clockwise & the body was anticlockwise. Controls were Ma Ma Creek (58km) at the end of the docked tail, Laidley (128km) at the top of the front leg, & Coominya (178km) at the top of the head.
I was treating this as a bit of a test. My 8-hour power PR was 180w set by doing a custom workout so I thought I’d head out at 190-200w & just see how long I could keep it up for. It could’ve been emptying the tank, or it could’ve inspired a revisit.
Nine of us started on this route at 6:30 from the town of Lowood on the tongue. (I have no idea whether a moose can stick its tongue out like that, & nobody ever mentioned this one’s impossibly narrow neck or misshapen head, but we’ll just go with it. I’m just impressed that the RO could draw such a figure on seemingly-random country roads & overrun the nominal distance by only one kilometre.) The area is known for thick, soggy fog & cool mornings. Start temperature was 13°C & expected to rise into the 20s. Naturally I was out in full summer kit.
Some rain clouds threatened, I got maybe six drops on my face but that was about it.
The route was generally very flat through farmlands, yes a few lumps & some subtle rises & falls, but a lot of space to lean over on the aero bars, pick a power target, churn out the miles across the countryside, & shake my head at barking dogs.
It took me about 40km to notice there was nothing in my back pockets, where there should’ve been a 250g pack of white sugar each side. 
I’d put 500g in my third bottle which would get most of the way to the second control which would be my next real chance to buy more.
Me not really enjoying the lumpy section on the moose’s underbelly 
:
Leaving Mulgowie… super flat again:
A still from a video I took just outside of Mulgowie. The southbound section of the front legs was at the foot of those hills.
Control at Laidley, stocked up with 2L of water & a 500g pack of caster sugar.
At Glenore Grove (the neck, about 140km), I could no longer ignore it… I’d run out of puff. Actually I was feeling the distance by Laidley but was trying to pretend I wasn’t. Gutted it out at 20kph (!) against frankly a pretty weak headwind when heading west, then sat up & let it push me along when heading east. That’s when I let the power drop right off.
At the Coominya control I bought some more water, & just as I was about to head off another randonneur caught me. He was just making a short stop so we headed off together. I feel that some time in the shade plus riding with someone gave me a new lease on life & we traded some pulls to do the last 22km in 50 mins, & finish the ride in 7h47’.
So I didn’t do my 190-200 watts over the entirety of the ride, but I did set a power PR of 187w over the periods 4h15’-4h35’ (& that’s including stopped time), a few watts higher than those durations during aforementioned 8-hour workout. That corresponds with the time before the second control. Average power over that time, ignoring the stoppage at the first control, was 196w.
So I went out harder than I could manage for the distance, fell on my face a bit, so some could say I went out too hard, but I’ve got some info that’s very handy for the times I choose to do long Z2 workouts.
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Awesome ride! Well done!!
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Hains Point Hämmerfest
Washington, DC, USA
First Hämmerfest of the year for me. Lots of surges. Got dropped on the last lap (28+ mph) when I didn’t accelerate quickly enough to catch the back of the peloton. Finished the lap solo at high sweet spot, then did two more laps on my own.
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I had an Endurance Workout in my calendar today (Daemon) the web instructions said one 50mins interval but I was delighted to find it more like the trainer version (warm up, 10on, 10off, 10on, 10off, 10on, cooldown) I ended up further from home than I meant to be so it was a pretty long cooldown.
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Im use to riding in strong winds (the forecasted worse, whether it actually was that was 80mph solid with 120mph gusts, I hugged the glens up north and got blown home). But I was wondering beforehand for ‘training’ if it was actually worth it and maybe I should have set up indoor. ‘Mentally’, having actually done it I think it was worth it. Although I wasn’t always consistent with zones for strict training. For some reason under threshold (237w target) seemed hard to hold one way but a breeze (excuse the pun) to hold the other way later on. Some of it wasn’t due to the wind though, I had a twerp with a massive trailer coming the other way to turn in front of me and then brake at every traffic calming. If I had been going straight at that junction there’s no way I could have stopped in time. I finished directly into the wind and decided it would be grim at recovery power so I kept it tempo.
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Spending a few days vacationing in Boulder, Colorado. No workout today as I was tired after the drive from Houston, and I need to acclimate, so I just went for a ride around the northern parts of Boulder. It rained a lot yesterday, but I thought the gravel would be dry today. Boy was I wrong! The gravel was odd in that it would be sandpaper sticky and make things feel harder than normal, but also be slippery, so I felt the need to take corners slow. First day in town too, so with that, I took it easy and just tried to breath (my house in Houston is at less than 100 feet above sea level and Boulder is at 5,000+ )
Turned out to make for a nice ride because I felt like I could stop and take pics and look at the animals. Got back absolutely covered in mud!
Can you guess what this is?
Saw a rabbit in the garden when I was rolling out.
That’s right, that first pic is my Varia! Amazingly, it still detected every car. Got back to the place I rented and saw that it, and the bike, were filthy! Rode around for a bit looking for a hose but couldn’t find one, so I washed the bike by hand by filling up a dog water bowl and pouring it on the bike and scraping mud with my bare hand…over, and over, and over…
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Those gravel roads look amazing 
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Boulder is a special place. It’s not cheap, but it’s incredibly cycling friendly for a US city
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A. Garnin Varia caked in Boulder mud?
B. Sprinkled eclair donut?
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I admired Cameron Jones’s bike-washing technique in this video. Bike bottle, water, hotel shampoo (or whatever kind of soap/body wash). I’m sure there’s a chance people will say that kind of soap is not good for things, but I guess he can get away with that…
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They gravel roads look cleaner than some of our main roads in winter. Over the last few years that’s influenced me to pick my bike with mudguards (keeping the Varia cleaner).
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Felt a whole lot better today. Beautiful weather, mostly dry trails. This one is the South and East sides of Boulder and the surrounding towns of Gunbarrel, Lafayette, Louisville, and Superior.
Snow capped Rocky Mountains
Gorgeous skies and trail conditions
Trails were busy today. Saw some fox cubs, but didn’t get a picture as they ran off and I figured momma was close by. Met a nice Aussie riding horseback too.
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An endurance ride was in the calendar tonight so I took it down to the Conington Airfield. The road is pretty badly cut up at its southeastern bend but you are lucky if you meet one car on the old Airfield road. I had been thinking to make it a rest day after skipping Mondays rest for a 0.85 IF 2 up of 30miles then a 0.75 IF 40miles Paceline, but it was too nice not to go out 
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Bellthorpe Bonanza (200km BRM) audax was yesterday. Weather forecast had been high-teens, low twenties on the Celcius scale, 25% chance of 1mm of rain. So I dressed in my usual summer kit. I cycled to the start, accidentally adding 4km to the 20km route by becoming disoriented in an unfamiliar suburb in the dark. Just made it on time to the start point at the Ferny Grove train station. I had a chat with the organiser just after the others headed up the road. I didn’t mind.
Hit the first of two big climbs: Mt Mee. (It was very different today, being winter, & cloudy, than it was the last time I did that climb which was six months ago in the full sun in summer. 
) I’d caught one of the others & was chatting with him up the climb. He said I was far too chipper for someone who was climbing a hill, but said it was brightening his mood so it was okay.
Looking back towards Dayboro this was the last evidence I witnessed all day that there was actually a fiery orb in the sky doing its thing.
Then we headed up towards the clouds
It was cloud interspersed with proper rain, & the first part of the descent was shallow, permitting about 45kph. The tiny raindrops were stinging my face like shards. As another randonneur said on his Strava later, it was a “classic [Bureau of Meterology] stitch up!”
Next part of the descent was steep (previously fun but this time tedious & potentially treacherous), a short, sharp up & down over the next spur then a little bit of flat to the first control of Woodford at 74km.
Some more country roads then the main climb at Bellthorpe. Beautiful forest, another steep climb. I was glad to have a 26:36 low on these wet roads. Rear tyre slip was very real & I was glad that my gearing permitted a reasonable seated cadence.
And you know the threat of landslip is real when they need to shore up the land with blocks of chickenwired stones.
(I really want to descend that road one day, when it’s dry! )
Got up on top of the ridge finally & visibility of objects that were not lights was down to about 50m. We were properly up in the clouds. What followed was the most lumpy descent I’ve ever done. I can’t remember ever having to do 500m of climbing to descend a hill that’s 600m high. Patience was key here, because of lower visibility & traction. Couldn’t just bomb through a dip to get the run on the next rise like I normally would, lest I come across a sharp turn, a pothole, a wallaby, a fallen branch, a car…?
Nothing to see here!
Past McCarthy’s Lookout the road started to get a bit more tame. Short descent on a main road, off onto another side road & a few more lumps but more tame & with better visibility. My front derailleur had been gradually becoming recalcitrant but now it was completely failing to shift down to the granny ring unless I did it from the big ring, skipping over the middle. I think some grit off the road had got into it. I could manually push it further in which made the chain shift, but it would not shift down far enough of its own accord just by slackening off the cable with the lever. I had the idea to do an audax the next day (i.e today), but I realised that this FD would need investigating before taking the bike out again, so I decided to bail completely on the next day.
Onto the next control at Peachester at 129 km. I caught another randonneur there who was just leaving. I noticed that the second of my rear lights had died. Unusual. I’d previously been able to get well over ten hours on each of those lights. They were supposed to be sealed units, but possibly some water had got into them. That was something else that would need attending to before riding the bike on an early morning, & I contemplated the risk of even continuing…
I was pleased that the final leg back to Ferny Grove was uneventful. I opened it up a bit more, realising I wasn’t going to ride the next day. I rolled into the train station at 16:28. Stationmaster signed my brevet card, then I caught the train to a point where I could ride exclusively on cycleways to get home. Rain, dark, & no rear light isn’t a great combination.
Beautiful places to be, but in that weather it would be much nicer to be looking at them through the windowpane of a cabin than misted-up sunglasses on a bike. One of those “character-building” rides. But hey, I got home unscathed, no punctures, so that’s gotta be a good thing, right? 
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Antelope
Anacostia Park, Washington, DC, USA
Getting back into it after a week off of the bike for family vacation. That, plus the heat and humidity, made this feel tougher than it should have.
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Carson +2
Anacostia Park, Washington, DC USA
More sweet spot, more loops of Anacostia Park. Gotta take advantage of warm, dry (eg not raining) weather, even if it is humid. Struggled on the 7th interval - could have used a gel in addition to my carb mix - but recovered for the last two.
Drank almost two liters of water. One 1-liter bottle had 90g of carbs plus 300mg electrolytes, the other was straight water. I think I need to add electrolytes to the water bottle. On longer rides I always crave salt and for a while have thought that the electrolyte intake was low.
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I used ‘Alternates’ to select a VO2max workout of slightly lower difficulty to tonight’s scheduled VO2max work out, it gave me Spencer -2 (5 Blocks of 6 (30s on 15s off))
I think it was pretty strong winds (30mph +) which meant I didn’t go deep enough though in the exposed Fens. I then decided to do it again to give me something to focus on rather the head wind although a lot of those intervals aren’t 125% VO2max,
The 1st workout:
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Kinda a work out from me tonight. I headed to a meeting point for a ride, not expecting anyone to show up. Some one did, so my official workout was abandoned. He sat on my wheel into the strong west wind that was gusting 30+ mph. He seemed to be coping fairly well with me going 83% for 40minutes. He then slammed on his brakes and started cycling the other way and when I shouted to ask if he was OK, he kept on pedaling. Im guessing he ‘spat the dummy’ but if the pace was too high why didn’t he say something
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