I did hear 😱

I haven’t ridden today at all 😴 Hopefully tomorrow will flick the switch back on 🤣

I haven’t had a good turbo week – only tried to do one Thursday night but got interrupted and just couldn’t get going again so bailed.

Have bmx’d Tuesday, mtb Wednesday night, bit of turbo Thursday, weight training Friday and mtb again today. Strava saying my fitness is on way up still today.

Biblical rain and mud today – took out the hardtail and got my first tubeless failure with a hole from a rock (even with rimpact in) but an anchovy fixed it. My mate spent most of the time lying in the mud on the floor – maybe my root / mud skills are better than I thought 🤣

🤣 I think I would be the mate slipping face first into the mud Joe.

Was good to get out today. Muggy but otherwise great riding conditions. Because of the weather yesterday, there were a few of the shop-ride lot out.
We stayed together as a group of 7 initially but then 5 of us elected to do the shorter route back. It knocks off ten miles and removes a couple of annoying climbs. Natch, I prefer the flatter route but I also don’t like the traffic on the other one.

There’s a segment that’s kind of Swindon-Aldbourne-Hungerford-Newbury and is 18miles which feels downhill but there is 400′ of climbing somewhere as you go. We flew down it today at 26mph in 42mins. It really flatters you, especially as we caught a nice Westerly tailwind on the A4 but then I see my Strava crush Harold did 27.3mph average for 50miles yesterday and you get a reality check 🤣

I felt awful to begin with- the relationship between HR, power and RPE was really out of whack having not ridden for 4 days. But I could appreciate the freshness by the end- I was able to push on when it was hard beyond what I expected.

Anyhow, I need to try and string together three good weeks of Tour of Cambridgeshire prep now. Loosely, I’ll try and do Tuesday Chaingang, Wednesday easy spin, Thursday intervals, Friday off, one weekend hard group ride, one weekend Z2 ride and see where I end up. Hopefully the weather and work are helpful.

“took the day off” well didn’t ride my bike, it’s never a day off, was nights last night, then had the boys this afternoon and caught up on some gardening, rock and roll, so binned off the planned Z2 turbo session, legs felt ok, but my core I guess, has some level of fatigue from hammering it for 2hrs on the mtb, checking back, that was only my 2nd mtb ride in a year, yesterday, February and last May 17th 🫤 so hardly surprising, amazing how a year can just slip by

so just under 5hrs this week, split over three days, couple of hours Z2 outdoors, Vo2 Intervals, and 2hrs Hard

I had a great ride on Sunday. I did 4hrs at vaguely zone 2, and felt great at the end of it. I could have carried on for ages. This is pretty good for me given recent years.

I rested yesterday now I’m looking at doing a 1hr ride Tuesdays/Thursdays and smashing the climbs (there’s usually one longer one and three or four short ones) then doing a regular 4hr ish ride on Sundays to get to my 6hrs/week. There’s also the option of a short one on Saturday too.

The issue I now have is that if I’m not riding I do bugger all other than maybe walk to the shop. I need to fit something else active in otherwise I won’t leave my desk.

Sometimes I can be stubborn. I was really excited about the chainganag today but the horrendous weather ruined it.
However it was dry when I should have left home- so I went regardless.
… And rode through some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever ridden in 🤣

At times the wind was gusting as a 15-20mph headwind too but I never really seemed to get the same strength tailwind coming home 🤔

Anyway, I rode the ‘Hour Crown’- a local 21 mile loop (that we sometimes Chaingang) in 58mins (21.6moh).
I did 295w for an hour straight but it was frustrating as I was trying to hold closer to threshold. I did get pretty numb in the second half mind you as I was only wearing a summer skinsuit and track mitts 🤣

I felt really good on the bike but I’m missing the dry balmy evenings we enjoyed this time last year.

soooooo hard to turn my brain off and tell it everything won’t have gone to shit in 3 ridiculously busy days, random night out in Leeds on Tuesday, assignment writing Wednesday and lads birthday this evening, coupled with being on 830-430pm placement hasn’t left much time for anything else, however assignment & semester put to bed, will be what will be, scrubbed the night shift I was meant to be on on Saturday just too much, will make sure I get a few hours in between now & the end of the week

Yeah no panic Dirtrider, you’ll probably even get a little bump in fitness 😀

I’ve had a busy week at work and so have just been trying to hit my intensity days. But it went wrong yesterday. I thought I’d eaten enough at the right time to have a really good vo2 session but I fell asleep on the sofa waiting to go and when I woke up I felt almost hypoglycaemic.
I didn’t really want to eat even more carbs, so went out anyway with a plan to start sipping drink once I’d warmed up. And my legs were awful 🤣
I tried a few times to start my intervals but it just wouldn’t happen.

The local shop lot are off to the beach tomorrow but it’s advertised as 20mph which will put people off (who could probably easily sit in the draft and join us) so another long endurance day.
It should be my new longest ride by the time I get home- and if so the old record will have only stood for 2 weeks 🤣

Just finished one of the Zwift MTB plans (lots of low cadence stuff) and got a nice wee bump in FTP (ramp test though) from it, 270w and 3.75w/kg. I’m not entirely sure how accurate it is, given that the last 2 days I’ve done a couple of B races and had my ass handed to me 🙄

Biggest difference is, unsurprisingly, on the MTB. There’s a climb round here of about 300 vert m, straight up, probably mostly around 20%, with extended sections edging on 25%, on loose gravel. It’s bottom gear, <60rpm stuff. Rode it for the first time since Christmas and sailed (maybe overselling) straight up. I was genuinely shocked not to explode! Likewise, cruised up another climb I know well, nowhere near as steep, got a PB.

For me, that’s what it’s about, if I can get up the hill faster, with a smile still on my face, that’s more laps in the bag! Almost (almost) makes the up bit as enjoyable as the down bit.

Not sure where to go now with my “training”, if you could call it that.

The local shop lot are off to the beach tomorrow but it’s advertised as 20mph which will put people off (who could probably easily sit in the draft and join us) so another long endurance day.

200km at 30-32kmph…no thanks. Can’t come anyway as busy…but I wouldn’t as apart from anything else my right forearm and wrist still hurts from last week’s pot hole incident.

@andeh – that’s the sort of thing I’m  really training for – found I minced my mate up a few technical climbs (both on hardtails) which was nice. Part me having more fitness and power / part me handling the tech better as it was pretty wet. Never done that before as mate is super fitness fit and lighter. So all the training is paying off!

Sadly I came down with norovirus Sunday night so I’ve been dead most of this week. Dropped from just over 76kgs down to 73kgs this morning – it’s been a horrendous illness.

Hoping after a weekend of rest to get somewhere back to being a bit more normal next week and then think about so gentle bike sessions to ease back in and hope I haven’t lost too much fitness / power. Feel so weak at the moment.

Dropped from just over 76kgs down to 73kgs this morning

…just think of the W/KG gain!

But really, that sounds shit. Hope you’re not laid up for too long. Don’t push it too soon or you’ll end up feeling worse. I don’t think a week will do your fitness too much harm.

Ah bugger Joe sorry to hear that! Friel says two days easy for every day you’re off the bike ill when you start back so may be something to bear in mind when you feel better but aren’t “normal” yet.

@anagallis_arvensis He is funny like that 🤣 I don’t think he could bring himself to admit a ride was going to be slower.

I’m not too worried- my solo all day pace is 18mph now so worse case scenario, I get dropped and get home 30 mins later.

The wind is a headwind coming back which is a little annoying.

I’ll be interested to see how they ride it. I was super pleased with my Dirty Reiver pacing so I’m confident I can ride 2x4hr rides with fish and chips in the middle at the correct intensity. I guess I.C. did Strade Bianchi, N.P. did 312, Rich did Reiver with me and D.V. knows his way around a long ride. It’s only M.H. who is an unknown as it’ll be his first ride over 100miles.

Until 112 miles at any rate, I did enjoy my day out to Hillingdon the other day. There’s something super cool about knowing that with a pocket full of food, you can just set off under your own power and transport yourself a long way.

I am sure you’ll be fine, just tuck in on the way back!!!

@joebristol sorry to hear you’ve been unwell. Sounds like you have the right idea easing yourself back in – you’ll probably feel a bit on the bike even when you’ve recovered but the fitness you’ve built won’t have evaporated so stick with it.

I’m off on my annual bikepacking trip next week – this year I’m riding solo to cape wrath from (near) home. Had a random off-plan week this week so just decided to ride what I fancied which included a workout with 1 min on /30 sec off intervals just to see how my legs are. I sort of expected to bin it half way thoujgh as I’ve not done that kind of work this year but they were actually fine – I think having concentrated harder on the z2 work in my polarised plan has been useful for recovery from hard efforts. My theory is that recovering from short hard stuff is an aerobic process so a better aerobic engine helps. It is, however a theory that I have made no effort to corroborate with any science.

Nice one Stevious 💪🏻
I think you’re exactly right. “Anaerobic” is a total misnomer for most of the hard efforts it is used to describe.

I’m trying a bit of an experiment tomorrow. Less carbs in the bottles and more real food in my top tube bag. Probably overkill seeing as I will devour my weight in fish and chips when we get there, but it might be interesting to see if I can keep my power closer to the top of Z2 than the bottom by the end of the day.
My mind says it will be a worse outcome but my heart is saying “yum! a whole day eating 😋” 🤣
And if it saves me having to raid a garage, so much the better.

Phew that was hard. Couldn’t bring myself to round it up to 150 so 148.5 miles with 7080’ climbing for a battered sausage and chips at the beach 🤣

PM battery is going so lost calibration with 25 miles to go which messes the stats up a bit.

It was about 19.4mph with the group and 18.6 from home.

It was actually a stunning route. Bombing across the dead straight road on one of the old airfields on the New Forest at 29mph with a tailwind was just insanely good fun.

Amazingly we had zero punctures despite the awful roads at times.

chapeau 😎

every time I do 100+ I’m just miserable and stop riding for a few weeks after 😂 I’ve doubled up a couple of times, and I just ride the first 1/2 far too hard and it’s a war of attrition to the end, I reckon I could pace it a lot better these days though

anyway, felt like something less structured today after a few days off, couldn’t get outdoors and had an hour at best, so I attempted the Epic KOM today, missed all-time PR from 2020 (314w av) by 13 seconds 😩 new Zwift low weight of 77.3kg in kit prior, and did 302w av for 23m 27s, intervals gave a new FTP of 290w, happy with that,

progression this year (via intervals FTP detection) after 6 months off and 2022 where my best 20m av was 265w in mid June

5/2 – 249w (Tacx Neo, Zwift Crit Race)
21/2 – 253w (MTB Quarq, Sherwood)
2/3 – 256w (Tacx Neo, Zwift Race)
30/3 – 280w (Tacx Neo, Epic KOM)
17/4 – 282w (Tacx Neo, Innsbruck KOM)
6/5 – 283w (MTB Quarq, Dalby)
13/5 – 290w (Tacx Neo, Epic KOM)

exactly 100 days between the 1st & 7th – 41w increase 😎, I’d be happy with +10w in the next 100 (takes us to 21/8), I’d suggest the easy gains bump is levelling off, but we move on!

Boom well done 💪🏻

thanks, feeling better than ever, enjoying it, popped out this evening rather than spin the turbo as it was warm in my room, and I just needed the headspace, wondered it was a bit of a ‘float’ evening, warm, sporadic rain, had a crack at the strava segment I missed by 2 seconds last week, and considering I’d be at five guys not 3 hours before and had a pint on the way home, I obliterated it 😂 despite being held up behind a car on a tight country road junction, who then pulled over and the drove behind me 🫤, knocked 20 seconds off the kom, dropped it to 12m 55s, 8.36km circular loop, average speed 40.1km/h, 313w av, 😎

Nice one DR! Top bombing 👏🏻

Chaingang this evening. I noticed most of the others had done a dick-swinging ride since our beach adventure on Saturday 🤣 You could sense they were uploading smugly thinking ‘I’ll show them I’m not tired!” 🤣

I on the other hand, did two hours on Sunday but at about 12mph moaning about 360 degree headwinds 🤣

So it was noticeable how few turned out tonight. But also made me feel good about my training how strong my legs were. Three of us did a 24 mile loop at 21.8mph (inc a quick stop).

Once I realised nobody there was going to drop me- it freed me up to do hard enough pulls to hit vo2 max each time. On the rolling sections during my pulls, I was climbing as hard as I dare out of the saddle, then sprinting to accelerate as it flattened out and then holding threshold again over the other side. Proper real world over/unders.

I actually set off not knowing if it was going to be on. I started off doing like a “5 mile ramp test”. The idea being I would set auto-lap to 5 miles and try and up the average power with each one.
Once I found the chaingang was on, I thought I’d have to ditch the idea but actually the ride kind of matched any way.
So my first 5 laps went 162, 200, 225, 270, 295.

I think this definitely warms me up the best. If I have to go harder earlier, the whole ride goes to crap 🤣

Still sub 74kg this morning. Decided to do a very easy 30 min turbo this evening – West Vidette which is so easy I didn’t really notice I was pedalling whilst watching ‘Death Race’ on a tablet.

Legs felt slightly rusty to start with but fine after a few mins.

Think I’m going to mtb tomorrow night – actually a little pump track session before riding a lap of the local easy trail centre and see how that goes.

Glad you’re on the mend @joebristol – you might find you’re a bit low on glycogen so it’s worth taking a bit extra food and being extra vigilant of impending bonk.

I was supposed to be churning along a track somewhere near Ben Hope just now but my shifter shat itself leaving me with just one gear. Rolled past a hydro power scheme in the middle of nowhere (and I mean really nowhere) and asked for some wd40 to see if that might help. Didn’t work, but one of the hydro workers was on his way to Inverness to visit his sister so he gave me a lift home! Talk about luck rollercoaster.

@stevious – I had exactly the same with a shifter a couple of weeks ago. Xt 12 speed lost ability to shift to a lower gear so I was stuck in about 10th or 11th. I just screw in the high adjustment screw so I got to about 6th and turned it up every hill as best I could!

Out on the hardtail tonight was fun – had a pizza at lunch from a good market and a double caramel magnum just before riding so no bonk. Just a sugar high to carry me through. Didn’t feel too bad once I got going – sprinted about quite lively at times. Just my lungs need to get back up to speed for big / hard climbs I reckon.

Well done Joe, glad you’re back out.
That’s a bummer Stevious!!

Work is proving to be a living nightmare this week. Still not at the end of it so not sure how much riding I can get in. I think tomorrow needs to be a ‘whatever happens, I’m going riding’ morning as otherwise I’ll spend all day trying to catch up.
Makes me glad to have front-loaded the year but I think we’re in maintenance mode between now and Tour of Cambridgeshire rather than adding any polish to my fitness.

Tour of the Peaks this morning, after a week of messing on Strava with kom’s going back and forth, someones rattled 😂 and he takes it too seriously, anything I took was attempted or taken back within 24 hours 😂🤷‍♂️ he’s a good lad, just zero bants sometimes

anyway what a beautiful day for a long ride, didn’t hammer anything, it’s too long to do that, just rode to what I thought was sustainable, got it pretty spot on I reckon, 7am start meant a 430am alarm call, luckily being north of 40 my bladder wakes me up anyway at about that time, such a swing in temps, 4 degrees at the start and over 20 at the end, some people were dressed for the antarctic, always are, 116 miles, and 4154m of climbing, slights different route to what I’ve done previously so cannot really compare like for like, some hills don’t change though, a minute quicker up Winnats than my PR from way back in 2015, 20 seconds quicker up Ewden Bank, almost a minute quicker up Holme Moss, basically PR’s everywhere

did 500g sugar water as well, marked up the bottle for the first 5 ish hours, such a good option, I’d bought soft flasks, but they were leaking and hard to drink from, so just used one of my frame bottles, just had plain water in the other bottle, until I ran out and mixed what I could at the feed after 4h 20m

so 116 miles, 4154m climbing, 7h 25m ride time, only stopped for 9 minutes, 25.3kph av, 195w average (228w NP), bit attritional after 5 or so hours, but it’s a stupidly bloody hard ride, intervals bumped by fitness by 12 😂

I don’t have a quarq double at the moment, so mulleted the systemsix with my MTB Mech/Cassette (mixing AXS components is so good) so I could use the 52t quarq (you know you have issues when you got to such a length to collect data 😂), such a talking point for anyone that saw it, did get bored of saying I have 52t at the front so it’s 1:1, it’s a harder gear than 34/36, I’m not twiddling away at 9 million rpm 🙄

Awesome ride well done 🤣👍🏻
That’s a cool idea with AXS!

That’s a cool idea with AXS!

I’d been waiting for the 2x force axs integrated since launch, but they silently doubled the price and availability has been about zero, and everything on eBay for the OG Red one was either high, or looked hammered, so I took a bit of inspiration from Vegancyclist, and switching over took about half an hour, cadence over the ride was 81av, so a 50t would have been better (bit it is what it is, and there is almost zero flat so never felt between gears) and yer 81rpm (for me, is low) but I’ve ground up climbs on similar rides before in poor gearing at 50/60rpm

nice couple of hours in the sun this evening just spinning the legs, and a mid-ride pint,

and I’m just going to post this (please ignore the toes) it’s from this morning and I was deffo majorly dehydrated, but I’m taking it 😂 on the 26/1 I reinstalled Myfitnesspal, and arbitrarily stuck in a goal weight on 75kg, I think I was 88kg

anyway

Ye ha 👏🏻 Well done mate 👍🏻

I lost 3lb last week. Then my mum took us out for supper on Saturday and I put 4 back on 🤣

Back to the same weight I’ve been every Monday since January this morning 🤣

I’ll ignore the fact I’m probably about 80kg this evening after a mountain of curry/rice/bhajis/beer 😂, appetite after yesterday returned with a bang, at that weight though i’d need +8w to reach 4w/kg, or -2kg at the current FTP, we’re not a million miles away……

maintaining is better than gaining & mum’s need looking after 😎

Superb work on the weight loss – that’s amazing!

Mind you, I thought I had minging bashed up feet until I saw yours 🤣

@joebristol I said IGNORE the toes

@dirtyrider – it inspires me to watch lord of the rings again

Chainy last night. 6 of us on the tools. I felt great after warm up so started a little hot maybe! I had two strong guys in front of me in the rotation which is probably preferable than having them just after me. Ie I was able to just do a crappy weak pull if they chose to turn on the gas rather than getting dropped.
At times it meant I was already over threshold when I got to the front.

Again, I was able to push myself to vo2 max a few times so hopefully created a bit of stimulus to adapt.
The trouble we have is that everyone attacks the A4 ‘Ski slope’ at the end of the ride. So from about 22 miles, I’m already unable to fully commit to my turns because I know I need a bit in reserve.
Anyhow, attack they did and I was able to hang, then get away with three others.
One got separated on the roundabout so 3 of us lead it out into town but in the end, we just fizzled out rather than sprinting.
The segment is called Baydon Loop and is 30miles. We did it at 24mph last night which was good but a little way off of the 25.1 we did in August last year with 10 of us. Interestingly, my power was almost identical.

Hopefully heading out for a couple of hours on the gravel bike in a bit as need to start ramping up the miles for ToC.

Just an easy spin today. Love how riding more actually makes you feel better. (Vrs last week when I only had time for two rides).
The data backs me up too with -6% decoupling shown.

Strong work – sounds like an intense chaingang ride!

I’m still under 74kgs at the moment – my weight from being I’ll hasn’t gone back on – so it can’t be dehydration. Must have lost some muscle I suspect.

Crooked my back a bit a few days ago with some deadlifting so doing lots of stretching and popping of pills to ease it at the moment.

Managed to do a 30 min turbo this morning – my ftp feels like it has dropped as I turned down TrainerRoad by 5% to get through it. But felt ok afterwards so hopefully it’ll build again quite quickly. Week after next I’m going to do a new ramp test to reset ftp so a sensible level to train from again and start building up.

Actually still feel strong on the bike out in the real world so perhaps my weight loss has offset some of my power loss 🤷‍♂️

Did 45 mins on trainerroad yesterday as planned quick lunch ride didn’t happen as my front tyre was flat. Did Washington -4 which is 3 x 7 mins at 105% FTP. Was hard but got through it and AI detected an increase in FTP from 270 to 275. Puts me at 3.65 w/kg, progress is getting harder now as my weight is pretty stable.

Well done guys! You go steady Joe 🤣 I’ve shied away from any form of x training, even science backed for cycling weights, as that’s how everyone seems to get injured and lose a load of training consistency. One of the locals has just done an Achilles playing tennis 🙄 🤣

It may be interesting to note that on Intervals.icu, for age group 40-49, there are nearly 16,000 users. And actually holding 4.0w/kg for 60mins would put you in the 95th percentile 😎
Even getting given an eFTP of 4.0w/kg would get you into the 85th percentile.

No real point to that observation other than it’s a very very respectable goal indeed 👏🏻

What if I were to do all my riding between Thursday and Sunday, then rest for 3 days?

It’s what I’ve ended up doing recently, short fast ride Thursday and Saturday then long slow on Sunday. Seems to be manageable for.me but is it a bad idea?

Certainly not losing any weight lately.