Are we there yet?



@felt, 90 CTL, someone is putting the time in. I saw that thread started about no need for base if you are a weekend warrior and most CAT 1s do less than 14 hours a week with plenty of rest time. Sorry I do not see it unless your goal is to do well at crits, just do not see how it could work well for longer events. Also these weekend warriors who are CAT 1 I bet were cycling in their earlier years putting in the base and building the aerobic systems.

@swampy, good luck dude! Just do it.

-js
 
Do not know what it is but luck has not been on my side recently. Anyway again was ready to go out to do the ride and this time the weather dipped back below freezing.

No choice so headed to the office and put in the 3 hour stint and boy did I get to that office fast as was not ready for the weather. BRRRR...Cold!
 
Originally Posted by Felt_Rider .

swampy, are you still on for the 180 this weekend? I don't know how you do it. I did the 100 on Saturday and I am still feeling the impact of that higher TSS for the last couple of days. I trained last night, but struggled to hold 85% of FTP. I did not train on Sunday or Monday because I felt I needed the extra recovery time. I will probably just do 80 this coming weekend.
I'm still on for it... Not sure which bike I'm gonna ride as all three are in various states of tear down. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/ROTF.gif The old adage of not making changes to a bike before a big ride... right... LOL - the mongrel I'm piecing together in order to get mudguards on (or fenders or whatever y'all call them overhere) is basically a frame/forks and a bottom bracket right now... Looks like tommorrow I'll be going out for a little bit.

How do I do it? Push down on one pedal and gently pull on t' other. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/biggrin.gif Eat, drink rinse and repeat... or as the case looks like at the weekend, eat, drink, hose down and repeat.

I was OK the week after the last one and trained well during the week. Kinda smashed two hard L3 rides at the weekend, with an hour of L4, and I was really tired on Tuesday. Legs felt great - but enthusiasm for sitting on a bike = zero. I've been there before and just trained hard again and then looked back and in hindsight it was a bad idea. Thankfully, after a few bad moves like that I had the foresight to take note and jot down notes in WKO to that effect. When tired to the point of wanting to snooze in the car after work, rather than walk in the house and go snooze - don't train. :p

I learned a bit on the last ride (130 miles) about my current form and what to expect on this one and to pace accordingly. I will not be sitting on the hills ~240 to 250 watts, nor will I be hitting L4 on the little rollers. The ol' hamstrings really didn't like me too much after 110miles the last time but I had a tail wind. It's predicted that there'll be a headwind and rain on the 90ish mile return leg just what you need after an early o'clock start that has a predicted 39F temp with wind and rain. Similar faux-pas

The route:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/24005

You can tell the guy is using Garmin guestimation technology. 11,000 calories and an average power of 238watts... :p 13hours moving and that power... does not compute on that course.

I've made a few tweaks to the position and 190 to 200watts while on the bars nets me ~20mph with the rack and bag, and its pretty comfortable.

This one is a bit more of a litmus test for the last two in the series. Those rides have checkpoints further apart, ~60 miles, and minimal food/drink provided. So it's on with the mini-rack and bag and plan accordingly. The 258 mile (400km) ride isn't that hilly, there's a couple of hills a couple of miles in length with some grades steeper than 8% for about a mile, so it should be less taxing than the Alta Alpina Challenge for example. The 600km... well, not sure what the scoop is with that yet other than I've entered it, it starts at dusk and the course with very scenic - not that I'll see much in the first 10 hours. I'll see what happens with the 400km first. I always seem to go alot better after long rides like this - not sure why and combined with the fact that I need more big rides to have a fighting chance to feel good in the last 100 miles of the Alta Alpina that take is 4 big climbs at altitude, I need to get rides like this done. I could just go out and put in 6 hours on my own but it's not as much fun...
 
I'm not sure when I decided that I HAD to finish these brevet rides with an "at all costs" mentality. They weren't a goal of any kind - just a few rides to help me get the longer miles in for events like the Alta Alpina. So... When I'm heading up the second climb of the day and get pretty bad stomach cramps - with about 140 miles left, that should have given me a clue that something wasn't right. Violently expelling stuff that looked exactly like the chocolate Ensure that I'd been drinking would have been clue 2... And clue 3 at top of Cobb Mountain... Thankfully things dried up probably because I could really eat or drink. Clue 1 should have been not being able to get over 200 watts after the cramps started.. During one stop because of stomach cramps I even re-zero'd the PT again... But it still told me the same woeful story. I don't know whether it was the cold but I had empty legs all day... Jumping in the SAG van would have been the wise thing to do. Plus I would have got to see others suffer. But I finished - and finished like a drowned rat that'd been placed in the freezer for a while. I was dressed for winter, even fitted fenders - which was probably the only wise thing out of the whole ride. A 20 minute drive home with the heater on full and I was still shivering. Cobb mountain was a b**ch. 5 miles, average 8% with 2 miles of 11%. What the average doesn't tell you is there's a nice little descent thrown in just to skew the numbers. But it from mile 140 when the skies just dumped rain, the wind got up and the temp dropped. 46 miles of frozen riding with a fairly lumpy 20 mile section full of idiots in big trucks towing boats at 60mph on narrow roads in torrential rain. I'm really not looking forward to that section of road during the 400km brevet when we'll be passing through several hours later in the day. On the upside I did lose 10lbs - on the downside most of it will be back on in a few days and it'll probably make it harder to recover not that I feel overly smashed. Gotta find out why it feels like some part of the drive train has "square bearing" - it sounds like the Phil Wood BB has bearing that need replacing but I've had similar noises and "crunchy" feeling through the pedals both time my powertap's ratchet pawls and bearing under the cassette body have died... I wouldn't put it past the P.O.S. speedplay pedals either - but they feel smooth. The 145mm cranks felt good - yeah, I should have ridden them before yesterday (around the block) but I had no issues with using that length last year on the adjustable PowerCranks. The change in the position made things very comfy and I 'suspect' more aero - but I won't know for sure until I test it. The 400km is flatter - so I'm up for free speed especially in comfort is enhanced too.
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970 .


But I finished - and finished like a drowned rat that'd been placed in the freezer for a while.
Enjoyed reading your ride report.
 
It has been a long while since I posted. Training is spot on and I am feeling better on the bike that I would have ever imagined possible, it is actually kinda scary. I have yet to miss even an hour of planned training and have pretty much followed my plan to the tee, and have even managed to avoid any sicknesses despite weeks with 16-18hrs on the bike. I am at the tail end of a rest week and have 4 more weeks of building base until I can start to focus on some higher intensity efforts. To date much of my time has been lower intensity L2/L3 efforts, with very few higher intensity efforts (a couple days where I tested, 3 training rides on some steep hills, and a couple 12-15min LT intervals), but predominately my time has been spent just building base. So I had some testing scheduled today just to see what building base did for my 1min, 5min and 20min efforts and the results were surprising. This a.m. I weighed in at 83.4 kg, which is 1.6kg lighter than last time I tested.

1min-647watts (7.75 watt/kg)
5min-417watts (5 watt/kg)
20min-355watts (4.25 watt/kg)
est FTP based on 20min-337watts (4.04 watt/kg)

My previous test results from 2/1/12 were:

1min-530watts (this was a horrible # that I knew was off when I did it)
5min-390watts
20min-325watts
est FTP based on 20min-310watts

Now don't take the significant gains as being reflective of being completely from training, when I did the initial test I had not gone hard in months and my legs felt pretty blocked up. So I would guess the initial #s should have been a bit higher, certainly the 1min #. However, I don't think they would have been anywhere near the results I got today. If I can manage to get down to 80kg, which is my goal weight and manage to gain a bit more power, specifically in my 1min # I think I will be well on my way to being a real contender this year. I will update with new results the next time around!!!
 
bg, nice gains. I look forward to you 2012 race reports. Sounds like it should be a good year for you or at least a good step forward.
 
@swampy, That is one hell of a report. It does make you wonder why we put ourselves through it all. In the end I can only speak for myself but it is to prove that we can still can. Just reading the story made my stomach feel a bit queezy. To continue riding after emptying yourself twice is crazy. Amazing you had the mental fortitude to finish dude. Inspiring on many levels...

@bg, awesome improvements! You may want to slow down so you do not hit that wall so fast. JK. You are on your way to a great year. Loosing weight and get the watts up. OK so now the question when and where is first event? Especially the TT.

For myself I have started some outdoor rides. The funny thing I see two extremes for myself. Meaning I can either easily stay with most riders or do not chance in hell holding on. This is a huge improvement from the days that most riders pretty much blew me out of the water in CP, now most do not and just keep looking back to still see me there. Than there are the others that will just fly bye :( All in good time I think the difference maker now is to work on the higher end stuff. I believe I got the base miles in, now just have to be able to hold >300 watts on the hills. It will happen.

But life gets in the way again. Tomorrow I leave for swampy-state (California), LA, SD and Malibu, part business, part pleasure. Looking at schools for my daughter and making some visits to pitch the latest web series to the usual cast of characters at Hulu, Showtime, PSN and the rest. This is a two week excursion where I basically land next Thursday and than head to MInneapolis for a convention. OH FUN!!!

-js
 
bg,

Nice gains - sounds like you've been having fun training. I don't think you'll need any more power for 1 minute than you have already, the key will likely be how many times can you produce that effort.

Thanks Felt.

JS, Because it's "fun" :)

I didn't really see it as being grim until I'd finished and I was sat in the back on the car with the hatch open shivering like crazy... and still shivering after 20 minutes in the car with the heater on full blast during the drive home. I'm sure that if I'd been using the bushes on a frequent basis then I might have reached the "grim" conclusion much earlier. As it was I was kept entertained at the end of the ride by the spray off my front wheel sparkling in the beam of light from the front light (there's something to be said for simple things amusing simple minds :) ) ... yet wondering at the same time if I'd not been holed up in the portapotty that I would have finished before it got dark, really wet and cold. Hopefully, the weather will be better for the next one in the series and both my bike and body are a bit more upto the task. I kinda like these Randonneur events - more self reliance rather than having a thousand folks cramming around food tables at every stop like starving seagulls at the dock with each person thinking that their need for food is greater than the next.

Have fun in Cali - I hear there are some really fun colleges down there. Party on! I'm sure you didn't want to hear that :p Not too sure about LA but SD is very nice but if there's a school that excels in what your daughter is studying then I guess LA's craptacular demeanor could be overlooked. Can you tell I don't really care for the place? :p
 
@swampy, "fun", that is what I tell my wife when she asks why. This is the kind of fun some S&M clubs could feature at times. Honestly the most fun I had was doing touring especially up to Boston and honestly last year CP with my first year of atleast being competitive was fun. But for me it all about the sense of accomplishment. If it is just holding for 5 more minutes the watts, I am thrilled.

As for CA, I really doubt my wife will let her go, too far away. Just an excuse to get to the west coast for them ;) I did get accepted in my day to USC and now wish I went but I am a NYC kind of guy and while it is a quite a beautiful state I am a sewer rat deep down. Hey you seen one set of woods and one coast line you seen them all. We will be going to Pepperdine, USC, University of SD UCSD and a whole bunch of places like that.

-js
 
js- I am a bit worried that my fitness is progressing very fast, but I have pretty much stuck with the plan and have not done much high intensity work. So, either I am really going to make a huge leap in fitness from last year once I get in full form, or these hill training sessions and testing has been enough to knock me off track and I am going to peak by May, lol. I guess only time will tell, but I feel like I have a lot of room left to increase intensity. With regards to racing I have some small races that I will treat as training races starting this weekend. The first race that I actually care about is not until May and my target 1st peak is the end of June, I hope I make it there.

Swampy-Great advice. I consider myself a pretty good sprinter, but I can't really look at a 5 second # very accurately with the computrainer, at least I don't think I can. As far as repeating the effort, gosh, that 1min effort is extreamly painful, I hate to think about having to repeat it multiple times, but I am sure I could if it came down to it. I just would not enjoy it.
 
bg, if you have a bigger power/CdA than the next guy then he's gonna hate those big 1 minute efforts more than you do... It's all a matter of perspective Of course you can always start turning the screw before they have a chance to react - big efforts out of corners, right before the top of hills etc so you can make their efforts just a little bit harder and a bit longer :) muhahahahahhahahaaaaaaa :*evil laugh*.

Including plenty of L4, L5 and L6 will likely raise power across the board quite nicely after about 8 to 10 weeks as long as you manage to retain some freshness.

JS,

I have to disagree with you there - one coastline isn't just like another or that if you've seen one forest you've seen them all... If that was the case, the woods that I spotted in Oaklahoma on the way to Tennessee last year would look as majestic as the pine forests up in the Sierras or down in Yosemite - well, they didn't and looked more like a place where very bad things happened after dark.... :p The Pacific Coast Highway is just ace... The first time I was up in Tahoe, high up in the mountains it was pretty hard to comprehend the scale of things coming from England - it made the Lake District look very small, drab and dreary... LA is about the only place in California that I've been too that I didn't care for much.

You should bring the bike out and go for a ride up Mt Baldy while you're down in LA.
 
Well ****......I have another infected hair (I suppose) (size of a peanut right now) right in the crease of the saddle area. A very discomforting annoyance. I plan on hitting the intervals tonight, but I am not sure what will happen with doing my Saturday endurance ride. Fortunately I still have the topical medications prescribed from the episode last year, but not the oral antibiotics. I keep up with fast post ride hygiene, but I may have to change my screen name to swampy2. Lots of heat, sweat and friction these days as I am sure it is with most of us.

Such is the beauty of this game we play.

Swampy, what is next in the series? Another long one this weekend?

js, have fun with family in CA. Those are the good memories.
 
I normally poke such things with a "home" sterilized needle, squeeze out the goop (which hurts like hell), clean it, slather with some OTC antibiotic/antiseptic cream and cover with a band aid...

Next long ride is 400km of fun and it's in the middle of April, so this weekend is a ~3 hour ride on Saturday and a one of "several hours" of L2/L3 scoping out parts of the route for the next long ride on Sunday. It goes over some semi-local roads that I've never been down before and while Google maps and street view is nice, there's nothing like actually riding the roads. I could always just follow the route map and directions during the ride but to be honest it'll be a pain in the behind after 200+ miles and probably in the dark.

I'm off to a local frame builder soon to "fix" a stripped thread in the bottom bracket of the old TT bike. It had a 45 degree angled face ground into the inside of the BB shell for a Mavic bottom bracket. Sadly the Mavic BB's axle tapers are campagnolo spec and not Shimano/JIS so the short cranks don't sit on in that well. I could tighten the bolts to 70lb/ft and loctite red them but eventually the crank will end up in a non-too-happy state. I'm sure Alf Eng would recommended "JB Weld"ing axle/cranks but no. :p They'll likely cut Italian threads into the stripped side and I'll just get a different BB cup from Phil Wood for the Phil Wood cartridge BB that I have... If it needs a new BB shell brazed in I'll get it done and give the frame a rattle-can paint job - it was, and still is, a "test mule" after all. ;)

Spent some time with a video camera pointed at me on the trainer last night. A few riders during the last ride commented that my right leg looked shorter than my left (very toe down and I was rocking) - and too be honest I didn't really notice the rocking part but I've often had tight right hamstrings. The last bike fitting I had (and the last I'll pay for) put 7mm of shims under the left food - so the observations are counter to what the bike fitter did. So after several days of stretching and some easy pedaling I finally took a looksie to see what was going on. A few adjustments later and no more rocking, no differences in foot angle (toe up/down) and it actually feels better. Until someone pointed out that something looked odd I didn't really think much of it but had I looked at it I would have done something about it.

One slightly laughable thing was finally seeing what I look like on a bike these days. Fugly would be an apt descriptor. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/ROTF.gif Despite having the stem jammed against the headset it looks like the arm rest pads could do with being dropped about 6". Still - it's comfy and it's been getting the job done so far but there's always room for improvement.

With the afore mentioned 400km being quite a bit flatter and the hills on course not being much more than a mile or so of ~7% average I might use the old TT frame for a laugh. It'll be interesting to see how comfy a not to aggressive position would be on that bike given that it has a ~81 degree seat angle and will have 145mm cranks. It'll be a good point of reference for the 600km in May. I remember the TT bike handling like a road bike due to the massively long top tube and generous fork rake spreading my weight fairly evenly between the wheels.
 
Originally Posted by swampy1970 .

I normally poke such things with a "home" sterilized needle, squeeze out the goop (which hurts like hell), clean it, slather with some OTC antibiotic/antiseptic cream and cover with a band aid...
Poked (sterile syringe), bled, cleaned, prescription ointment, trained, cleaned...........

Training last night went so well that I thought something was wrong with my PM. About 10 minutes into the first interval I stopped to check the calibration. Everything seemed to be okay and back into the groove with holding higher than usual numbers. I am still not sure if that darn thing was zeroed because the session went so well. I was skeptical the whole time, but then I was considering the physical symptoms and when I got off the bike with a racing heart rate and dizzy feeling I guess perhaps it was calibrated okay. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

There is still a lump in the groin area, but I am planning on riding/training tomorrow. Just not sure how many miles/hours. I am thinking a 4 plus hour ride if the saddle area is not completely discontented with my desires.
 
Nice. It's always good when training sessions go like that.

Do a 'stomp test' to double check. I typically do one once every couple of months or when a session goes 'way better than normal'.
 
I'm not sure how to phrase this one so f**k it ;) Why FTP is like vitamins (ie important) but L5 and L6 is like porno sex. Tom Bonnen at 1:00 http://proracingtv.com/full-hd-highlights-e3-prijs-vlaanderen-harelbeke-2012/ ... And again 2:00 later. Tommeke!
 
Had my 1st "race" of the season. I use the term race loosely because it is really a race/ride that our team puts on every spring. 50miles about 50-60 people, but most of them are just hanging on for the ride. In the end it ended up me, 2 ex pros, one Cat 1, and two Cat 2s. We busted things up pretty well within the first few miles knocking it down to 12-15 people and then down to the 6 of us by the halfway point. I felt like I did more than hold my own with the other 5, doing more than my share and ending up in several small breaks throughout the race. Once it was just the 6 of us, we all knew no one was really going to be making any big moves, so it ended in a sprint and I took 3rd. Considering I am not even close to being at the form I hope by mid-summer, I was really happy with my performance. This is just another thing that confirms that I am on the right track to accomplishing my goals this season. So far all of the hard work seems to be paying off!
 
Originally Posted by bgoetz .
This is just another thing that confirms that I am on the right track to accomplishing my goals this season. So far all of the hard work seems to be paying off!

Nice going and reading your report I can see why you are feeling good about the coming season.
 
Talk about a tough 3 weeks but no other way to describe it other than bad. Well I had gone to CA for business and checking out colleges with my daughter and my wife pretty much insisted no bike to bring along and to be honest I really had no time anyway. When not seeing schools I was going to folks at Hulu, PSN and such.

@swampy I was just teasing. CA is beautiful and in many ways so of the most beautiful coast line. I went to San Pedros and the hills getting to the coast line on Hawthorne were insane and the coast line ****** me off as so beautiful to ride. Than I went to Malibu which was also awesome as so many riders on PCH and finally Dana Point which was amazing. We took a day trip down to La Jolla to check out UCSD and I have to ask myself why I am here in NYC. In the end saw USC, UCSD, Pepperdine and was overall impressed. Wish I went to USC as a film student.

But as far as cycling, none to report in the last 3 weeks cause as soon as I came back from CA I went straight to Minneapolis and got home Sunday night and leaving again Thursday to go to Nashville. IN CA I was feeling great, the allergies were gone and same for MN but I am back in NYC and miserable! Could not get on the bike just so tired and than add in pushing my back to beyond I have done in years not the best idea.

I was really thinking given how much time and effort I spent this last winter on that trainer and now be 3 weeks off the bike that I should bag this venture. But I am stupid and next week my schedule goes back to somewhat normal so I will get back on.

Will be interesting to see how to approach it.

-js
 

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