than going out on the bike for first time in ages and realising that you have lost evey bit of fitness you had, not just race pace, not just out with mates pace…everything…

cycling for 6 years..I am literally back to stage one….

🙁

Ha, I hear you, thought I was ok yesterday until I turned back into the wind, and that was just on the town bike to ASDA.

Aye, that is me on almost every ride for the last 18 months – it is the lack of frequency. Utterly soul destroying BUT, the next ride is never as sore as the last one…so keep it going and it’ll be back soon enough. I’ve found a vast improvement if I can get 3 or 4 rides in in a week…makes a huge difference.

No, you’ll get it back quite quickly. Maybe not to quite where you were at your peak, but pretty close. You’ve still got a lot of what you need, it just needs tuned up.

than waking up and realising I’m still me.

to ASDA.

Yep, that wins.

😉

Do something about it! Or don’t..

Every journey starts with one step. You just took your first, the next few will be easier

Yep. I’ve recently been through this. Having our first child put me out of any real cycling for about 15 months
It did feel like starting from scratch but the legs soon remembered what they are supposed to do once I started regularly pushing them…!
It does come back…

its the motivation required..I had a few rides a week around april/may and the first one was awful, but they got better.

I think I just need to go out more, not to train, just to get use to being on a bike.

Worst idea was earlier in the year I took the roadie out, which has a power meter…oh dear..I didn’t just feel I was unfit, the numbers were there to tell me!

I will definitely remove it until such times as it doesn’t actually depress me to see how patetic my numbers are!

I too feel your pain. Only had chance to get out a few times this year and thought I was dying each time. Lots of pushing where I used to be cycling with ease. Actually got overtaken on a steep climb by a family out walking 😳

Diving to Scotland with the bikes, but not the pedals or QRs is pretty depressing!

Most depressing this weekend: the guy in the van I had to share the road with, honestly thinks that it’s a cyclist’s responsibility to get out of his way when he overtakes.

I know this because then he stopped and told me. A lot. Because I didn’t. This vexed him enough to risk squashing me.

Most depressing this weekend: the guy in the van I had to share the road with, honestly thinks that it’s a cyclist’s responsibility to get out of his way when he overtakes.

I know this because then he stopped and told me. A lo

We had something similar on Saturday. He stopped a quarter of a mile up the road. I took his photograph with his car. Reported it to the Police. They are coming to interview us on Wednesday. He’s not going to be best pleased when the Police come knocking on his door. Report it if you have his details. The Police took it very seriously.

Good work mcmoonter. It’s easy,in one sense, to shrug and move on after the adrenaline has washed away but stuff needs reporting.

Op I regularly find I get an enforced break from riding due to work travel or other priorities. I find sticking to some pure fun type riding really helps (twisty singletrack at the local trail centre) at least then while you are flogged on the up you can really enjoy the down.

For me few things more depressing (leaving aside the various global political and humanitarian crises) than the loss of any streak of humanity and manners and the utter incompetence of many privileged people when given keys to a motor vehicle.

than waking up and realising I’m still me.

You all right, Bud?

I hear you, 2015 i did 10 events for charity culminating in riding 310 miles in 19 1/2 hours from Newcastle to London, 2016 cycled 9000 miles for the year, 2017 chronic fatigue/overtraining syndrome, whatever you want to call the broken man that i am currently, can’t ride more than 20 miles and all power has gone!

Due to ill health, I’ve barely ridden a bike apart from to work and back for the last 18 months. I live on the edge of the Peak District. I have an almost brand new, upgraded carbon Scott Scale and an upgraded carbon Di2 Ultegra Focus Izalco Pro….. and no desire at all to ride them. I should have been riding part of Canada and the length of America this month…
Went out on Saturday morning, did 20 miles on the road and I was knackered and fed up.
Currently fighting the urge to whack them in the classifieds and call it a day on bike riding.
Although I really would like that Genesis Day One in the classifieds…

I think I just need to go out more, not to train, just to get use to being on a bike.

^^This^^

It’s easy to get caught up in your own head and sack riding off because you don’t think you’ll enjoy it knowing you’re not “fit enough”…
The thing to do is forget worrying about or trying to measure your fitness, watching the stats on strava, etc and simply get out and enjoy a ride, it releases the old endolphins don’t you know…

It’s summer and ten slow miles in the sun is a trillion times betterer than mowing the lawn and wishing you’d gone for a ride…

Stop putting pressure on yourself and just enjoy whatever riding you do. If you used to be fit and are now less fit the thing thats ruining your ride is the comparison with yourself at a different point in time under different circumstances. Which, unless your a pro, is pretty pointless.

I’ve actually started riding deliberately slower at the start of rides. This takes away a lot of the trepidation some rides have that they will be hard work and allows me to just ride for the primary reason – enjoyment. Throw away all the comparison data and just have fun messing about on your bike.

FTP went from 330w (5w/kg) to 240w (3.5w/kg) in the space of 5 months since having our first baby.

Two rides in now. Long way to go but priorities have changed and no intention of racing this year (not that I was much cop at it anyway) so just going to roll with it. Can’t wait to take her out in the trailer, think that’ll probably help anyway!

That reminds me of last years “epic” ride… A friend of mine who introduced me to XC MTB and who has been my MTB Guru for long time for some reasons stopped riding a lot – just very few, irregular outings. It has been really difficult to get him out as well. But one lovely day he felt the call and we drove to Quantocks for a “Whole Day Epic”! I planned the route, including the pub lunch, we had the whole day to ride the bikes! We arrived early, around 8am, after 2 hours of driving.

Not even 15km later we were packing the bikes back on the car, ending the Epic Adventure before midday…