Done

Round two of the regional XC series today. Held on a course that is narrow, full of roots, rocks, and short power climbs. So pretty much the anti course of me.

Front row gridding after first round was spoiled a little by me blowing my clip and losing a handful of places before the race even reached 15 meters. Battled for position the whole way and came in 10th in the vet 40 category, so about as pleased as I can be.

Anybody else race on May Day?

Me giving it full beans on the Cannondale

Nice work guys.

I missed my Saturday marathon distance event and have the second race in the regional XC series tomorrow instead.

Feeling much more motivated after a couple of easier days so let’s hope that I can repeat my 5th place, or better, from round one.

A lot difference in various brands way of sizing, that’s all, I’ve had 25’s from one make come up smaller then a 23s from another. Just asking your experience,

How do they size up? Are they a big or small 25?

I rode Bontrager R4’s last year, nice tyre very similar to the Vittoria.

Don’t Conti make a classic version of the GP in skinwall?

I’ve challange CX and wide road tyres and they are lovely.

Loving the photo updates! Havent seen any from my last race yet.

Meant to racing tomorrow in what was supposed to be an important race for me, but suffering from a major lack of mojo right now. Three hour drive there, shite weather, family are a little under the weather, but I’m feeling a little over trained. I need to kick myself into gear over the next 12 hours.

Good luck to everyone else pinning a number on this weekend.

First race completed. Premier of the regional XC series and 5th place in Vets 40.

4 * 3.5km laps with some serious A lines in place with doubles, drops, and rock gardens which made for some excellent tactics and kept things interesting.

As it was the first race of the season I lucked out and got a front row call up in the lottery which meant I had a real chance to get out and smash it. The season is more focused on marathon races but it’s super pleasing to pick up a good result first off and almost podium.

Good stuff there family Weeksy

Link for Suntour junior cranks:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0029MP3AO/ref=pe_385721_37038051_TE_3p_dp_1

Got these, replaced the rings with a single 32t and put it on my sons 26″ Commencal el camino build, perfect!

2.25 Racing Ralph on the rear
2.25 Nobby Nic on the front

Tubeless, evo versions

720 flat Mt Zooms from XCRacer.com

Sell everything you have, your wife, kids, car, even the dog and get a Scalpel

Not helping, really not helping 😀

I’ve a Cannondale HT that I use for racing, I find its fine for everything apart from the longest/roughest marathon races that I do.

At the end of last season I bought a carbon seatpost that’s designed to flex a little, (Cannondale Save), and this seems to have helped a bit.

I can’t really justify the expense but if I was to get a new race bike it would be one of the following full suspension bikes:
Cannondale Scalpel
Trek TopFuel
Scott Spark
Bianchi Methonal

Interesting. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water after one poor result, it may have been down to a 1000 other things not training related.

That said, if the tiredness was felt from the middle of the race onwards then certainly the suggestions to look at tempo/SS type training makes a lot of sense.

Did you start too quickly? There is a fine line in getting to the first single track section in a good position versus blowing yourself up for later?

interesting, thanks.

I don’t think so, the 2016 Habit had a normal Left 2.0 hub which is not compatible with the supermax.

What wasn’t “good” about your last marathon performance? Was it an endurance or intensity weakness?

I’d always want to see some intensity (VO2Max type intervals) in a plan as I think that this is needed, especially in MTB racing for those want to race/be competitive.

the second bit is trivial.

I don’t argue that at all, I just query if that’s what consumers and manufactures desire?

As it happens I’m working on the use case for automatic lane changes based on blue light emergency vehicle information at the moment. So not that dissimilar to what we’re discussing.

Whilst I agree with your first paragraph kcr, (with the correct industry and political willing being in place), I have a hard time seeing the second point coming true in the near term.

That’s a very good point actually – self-driving cars aside, how good would it be if a car in trouble could actively notify other cars in the immediate area?

This is here now. Volvo’s can communicate skidding to other Volvo’s based on location. This is up and running in the Nordics. If you enter an area where one or more cars has reported reduced road friction then you’ll see a notification pop up on the dash.

As always the industry standardisation of these messages and algorithms and adoption will take time.

As an organiser:
Its stops people cutting corners
Never under estimate how people can get lost on a course
Never under estimate how some people will try and “cheat”

As a racer:
Its nice at max HR to have an idea as to where I’m going

ow does the automatic car deal with a blowout, or total engine cutout in the 3rd lane of a motorway

If its in AD mode then I’d say that it will be able to cope better than a human as it will be able to process information and react quicker, this is in comparison to having to over compensate for driver interaction in normal driving mode.

I can see initially there will be some rule that the ‘driver’ must always be ready to manually override and take control and therefore the ‘driver’ remains the person responsible for the car

This is defined as level 3 AD and is a complete legal nightmare, this is where Tesla are today.

Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, but must still be prepared to take control when needed.

The next level is where the industry needs to get to:
Level 4: As level 3, but no driver attention is required. Outside the limited environment the vehicle must be able to enter a safe fallback mode – i.e. park the car – if the driver does not retake control

e.g. having a safe stop fall back option if the driver does not take control

Some interesting thoughts in this thread.

Initially you’ll see the development of existing driver aids and the addition of extra sensors to enable unsupervised driving within controllable environments like motorways and other pedestrian/cycle free roads. This will pave the way for standards, laws, acceptance, and further development that will lead to the type of point to point autonomous driving seen as the end goal by a lot of people.

Solid progress adsh!

I’m working my way through the new short power build plan, which is pretty hard work but seems to be paying off. Starting to simulate TR rides outside now that the weather has improved and the trails are drying up nicely, which makes a pleasant change from riding the rollers.

That schedule isn’t too dissimilar to the one I used last year for my marathon build up. If the OP has a solid background then I’d say that multiple weeks of that level of TSS are manageable.

That’s a tough looking schedule. What’s your marathon PB/plan?

I’d say that you’d do better by dropping the threshold element of the Wednesday run after the marathon and concentrating on simply getting really solid consistent training weeks in.

Start hiking with the family at weekend to get more time on your feet but without the injury risk

100KM will be mental toughness rather than physical form that sees you through it.

Keep us updated! 8)

I’ve been using Tailwind nutrition for the last couple of years with very good success.

http://www.tailwindnutrition.co.uk/

Glad to hear that the race went well Kryton! Nice work

Here we go

Taken an easy week so far due to work/live/fatigue.

Two one hour sessions at around 80% and two 30 minutes sessions.

First blow out tomorrow, I’m doing an 80km gravel ride with 8 marked out segments, uphill, and a 5km handicap race to finish. Nothing serious but it should give me a good indication as to where I am fitness wise.

Good to hear you’re on the mend.

Sounds like a plan. Outside for that session seems more logical if the weather permits.

Bookmarked for later. Thanks.

Love the Stone Monkey film, his line, ethics, and courage on Indian Face are wonderful.

What an excellent thread.

I enjoyed the Chris Harris documentary on his Spa 24 hour race.

FTP (8MP, 20MP or 60MP) is only a point on your power – time curve. It’s entirely feasable that your curve has changed shape whilst your 8MP hasn’t increased.

That’s a very good observation.

Glad to hear it. 😆

You do seem to place a lot of pressure on yourself Kryton57.

Racing every Wednesday with a threshold session the next day in the build up phase to a major race. This does, with the base information I’ve gleaned from this thread, kinda feel like it might not have the desired ending. Sorry.

At what point will you free yourself of the mental shackles of a plan and just go out and ride and recover for a bit?

30 minutes easy tonight, nothing more. If you’ve been ill and raced then you’ll almost certainly still battling through this despite feeling better.

If OK then a sweet spot session tomorrow.

Race as planned.

IMO

TR releasesd a big update on their plans earlier this week.

Build seems to have got quite a makeover.
http://blog.trainerroad.com/training-plans-update-newly-revised-build-plans/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trainerroad+%28TrainerRoad+Blog%29

If you’re on the build plan then you’ll need to stop that plan and start the new one.

Top knowledge, many thanks 🙂