It's killing me but..........

[MY02_STi]

............... I can show up on practically any ride around here and feel like I'm among friends. Not that I'd start with taunts and antics right off the bat without waiting to see if that's acceptable behavior for the group, but I'd be comfortable joining in if others showed that it was. All it takes is a glance or a smile and a slight lifting of the pace to communicate that the game is on.......

Sounds like we ride with the same bunch

I must admit that I enjoy riding this way, especially with the younger guys (who are WAY better than me) but there are a few 'seniors' in our bunch (me included) that stir it up at times - we give as good as we get

 

[Lucy_Aspenwind]

Tyson - You seem like a nice enough bloke though I could respond and prepare quite a rebuttal but let's be honest....Porque?

I don't measure my success or enjoyment in cycling, life, or any other activity by how many people I beat.

It is that simple.

 

[Alex Simmons]

Tyson - You seem like a nice enough bloke though I could respond and prepare quite a rebuttal but let's be honest....Porque?

I don't measure my success or enjoyment in cycling, life, or any other activity by how many people I beat.

It is that simple.

I can really understand this POV - I raced last weekend (which MY06_STi saw), tried really hard to make the podium and in my bid, failed to do so. But did I measure my success by how many guys I finished in front of - no, because I rode to the best of my ability on the day, tried something that requires a bit of gumption, and that's what counts - and is the great thing about having the PM - I could prove it too (set a power PB).

But when I do finish in front, that I see is a consequence or by-product of being successful, not the success in itself...

I certainly don't gauge my success by performance on training runs against other riders. If we want to duke it out - then we put numbers on our backs.

 

[MY02_STi]

.......tried really hard to make the podium.....

Believe me folks, Alex showed some amazing strength to attack the way he did and from where I was watching (I was marshalling at the top of the circuit BTW Alex , just after the start/finish banner ), it was a full on effort

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

I can really understand this POV - I raced last weekend (which MY06_STi saw), tried really hard to make the podium and in my bid, failed to do so. But did I measure my success by how many guys I finished in front of - no, because I rode to the best of my ability on the day, tried something that requires a bit of gumption, and that's what counts - and is the great thing about having the PM - I could prove it too (set a power PB).

But when I do finish in front, that I see is a consequence or by-product of being successful, not the success in itself...

I certainly don't gauge my success by performance on training runs against other riders. If we want to duke it out - then we put numbers on our backs.

I think I have to stop being the nice guy, because I just don't buy the arguments being put forward.

Alex, in your attempt to reach the podium (even with your power meter) you beat/overtook/ thrashed others which I suggest you used as yard sticks as you worked your way through the field.
Let's say for the sake of argument, you were fully concentrated on beating yourself to the extent that other riders did not exist. Nonetheless, they were there and saw your backwheel retreating into the distance.
Now, they had no way of peering into your head and seeing that you weren't trying to beat them, and that you were riding purely and simply for your own self-satisfaction. To them you were the guy who flashed by them, evoking possible feelings ranging from I have to train harder to perhaps total despair and resignation.
If you ride with others, it is impossible to ride in a vacuum, unless of course you ride as I suggested to Lucy, at the back of the field. Then, and only then to all intents and purposes are you a non-entity in the eyes of the other competitors.

One final thing I would like to add here. These forums (for most people) are about improving oneself to be placed higher in a field of riders. Whether in doing so you weren't trying to beat others is irrelevant because you did beat them. This is not to say you should wallow in your achievement at the expense of others. Simply enjoy the day, because tomorrow they could well be in front of you.
Strive to excel, but be humble in excelling.

My digs at carbon frames, young bucks, and beautifully shaped calves are because some people place to much emphasis on these and not because I enjoy gloating. As Doc Morbius says, it's the engine that counts not the expensive, beautifully styled chassis.

Tyson steps down from the podium and dons a suit of impenetrable armour.

 

[Alex Simmons]

I think I have to stop being the nice guy, because I just don't buy the arguments being put forward.

Alex, in your attempt to reach the podium (even with your power meter) you beat/overtook/ thrashed others which I suggest you used as yard sticks as you worked your way through the field.
Let's say for the sake of argument, you were fully concentrated on beating yourself to the extent that other riders did not exist. Nonetheless, they were there and saw your backwheel retreating into the distance.
Now, they had no way of peering into your head and seeing that you weren't trying to beat them, and that you were riding purely and simply for your own self-satisfaction. To them you were the guy who flashed by them, evoking possible feelings ranging from I have to train harder to perhaps total despair and resignation.
If you ride with others, it is impossible to ride in a vacuum, unless of course you ride as I suggested to Lucy, at the back of the field. Then, and only then to all intents and purposes are you a non-entity in the eyes of the other competitors.

One final thing I would like to add here. These forums (for most people) are about improving oneself to be placed higher in a field of riders. Whether in doing so you weren't trying to beat others is irrelevant because you did beat them. This is not to say you should wallow in your achievement at the expense of others. Simply enjoy the day, because tomorrow they could well be in front of you.
Strive to excel, but be humble in excelling.

My digs at carbon frames, young bucks, and beautifully shaped calves are because some people place to much emphasis on these and not because I enjoy gloating. As Doc Morbius says, it's the engine that counts not the expensive, beautifully styled chassis.

Tyson steps down from the podium and dons a suit of impenetrable armour.

Aw shucks, we need more nice guys.... don't go!!!

I think perhaps I'm being misinsterpreted - or not sure we are talking about the same thing. Of course I was trying to beat the other riders (I was there to race) and if they were grovelling as a result of my attacks then that's fine by me. I was hurting just as much covering theirs. But making others grovel is not how I defined success. I was simply trying to play out strategy/tactics in order to attain the best result I could given the cards I was dealt that day.

And the fact that I didn't beat them in the end doesn't mean I didn't have a successful outcome either. I defnined a successful outcome differently, that's all. But get this straight, I want to win the race, finish in front, whatever but to me winning is but one outcome of a successful race.

I can't argue the yardstick thing as I'm not sure quite what you mean but if it's what I think then for sure, my race strategy will change depending on the "yardsticks" in the race.

I suppose I've got a foot in both camps....

 

[Felt_Rider]

Que que? How did I get pulled into this mélange?

I sure stirred up some stuff yesterday and dragged you into as well.
I was just picking on you. I will pick on someone else next time.

Just as Frenchy picks on me for "drafting" in spin class.

And by the way I was "drafting" this morning for real and the lady looked real uncomfortable with my bike position. I think she wanted me to move it pronto, but I got in class late and that was the only spot left. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[frenchyge]

Alex put it pretty close to my heart. I judge myself strictly on my own performance, even while racing, and there are only 3 moments from this past year's racing season that I feel I came up short. None of them relate to 'losing,' per se. 1) Stopping with a group for a gentleman's break during the state road race, and getting dropped from the pack when the attacks came, 2) A solo crash due to loss of attention and poor bike placement during a big effort on a climb which caused me to lose 12 minutes in the first stage of a stage race, and 3) Looking over my shoulder for the 2nd place guy with 100m to go at the top of a climb instead of just burying it to the line. All my perceived shortcomings were related to mistakes I made in preparation or execution, and not because the other guys were better or worse than me. In #3, if the guy had just come around me at the finish that would have been fine, but the fact that I looked back before deciding to shift at the top of that climb, and then couldn't hold him off, is what makes me judge myself harshly.

So, why compete then? Because the sense of competition helps me draw out that little extra and 'give it my all' in the event. Without that extra little spark, it's too easy to just duplicate the last performance instead of going for something special. I really don't see any difference in racing the next guy, the passing cars, my shadow, an imaginary pursuing field, the clock, the power meter, etc. It's not about winning, it's just motivation to do my best.

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

Aw shucks, we need more nice guys.... don't go!!!

I think perhaps I'm being misinterpreted - or not sure we are talking about the same thing. Of course I was trying to beat the other riders (I was there to race) and if they were grovelling as a result of my attacks then that's fine by me. I was hurting just as much covering theirs. But making others grovel is not how I defined success. I was simply trying to play out strategy/tactics in order to attain the best result I could given the cards I was dealt that day.

And the fact that I didn't beat them in the end doesn't mean I didn't have a successful outcome either. I defnined a successful outcome differently, that's all. But get this straight, I want to win the race, finish in front, whatever but to me winning is but one outcome of a successful race.

I can't argue the yardstick thing as I'm not sure quite what you mean but if it's what I think then for sure, my race strategy will change depending on the "yardsticks" in the race.

I suppose I've got a foot in both camps....

Apologies for misinterpreting what you said. I took your saying,

I can really understand this POV

as concurring with everything Lucy said. Me bad.

However, as you say, you really wanted to win the race. Winning a race unfortunately means finishing ahead of everyone else, or put another way everyone losing/being beaten by you.
May I just hypothesize a little at this juncture and say, what if you had finished at the very back of the field though riding to the best of your ability on that particular day, would you have derived the same amount of satisfaction as weaving your way through the field (beating others) and consider your ride to have been a success?

Yes, I misused the word yardsticks. what I should have said was, challenges up ahead to be picked off one by one. Again, indulging in a challenge involves winners and losers and I would hazard a guess that not many people would consider losing as being successful. Of course the challenge has to be realistic and one has to set their sights according to their ability. We can't all be Lances.

So unless you are going to ride solo against the clock (not including TTs) and measure your progress according to the time you achieve, you have to gauge your success by how many people (in your age group or better still in a younger age group) you finished in front of/beat whilst using them as "challenges ahead".

Tyson gets back into his Teflon suit of armour.

 

[fastcat]

I suppose I've got a foot in both camps....

I guess I do too.

I just think there's a difference between wanting to win and wanting others to lose. Obviously one is a consequence of the other, but there are different sentiments underlying them. So, when it comes to a favourite climb on our club run, I do enjoy the battle to get to the top first. But not because I take pleasure in others suffering more than me (well not much anyway ). But more because I take pleasure in my improving form, in me improving and doing the best I can, relative to others and in absolute terms.

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

I guess I do too.

I just think there's a difference between wanting to win and wanting others to lose. Obviously one is a consequence of the other, but there are different sentiments underlying them. So, when it comes to a favourite climb on our club run, I do enjoy the battle to get to the top first. But not because I take pleasure in others suffering more than me (well not much anyway ). But more because I take pleasure in my improving form, in me improving and doing the best I can, relative to others and in absolute terms.

Exactly! What I was saying in a long winded way.

 

[RapDaddyo]

So, when it comes to a favourite climb on our club run, I do enjoy the battle to get to the top first. But not because I take pleasure in others suffering more than me (well not much anyway ). But more because I take pleasure in my improving form, in me improving and doing the best I can, relative to others and in absolute terms.

I can relate to this sentiment for riders my age (or anywhere close). But, when it comes to much younger, lightweight, fit riders, I must say that I take extreme pleasure in dishing out as much pain on a climb as I can. Some of my MMPs are on such climbs. If you are fit, weigh <130lbs, you're in your 20s, and you come on one of my club rides, prepare for war!

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

To get back on topic. RD, I have been endeavouring to lose weight and so far this week have lost 1 kilo. Hopefully before the "race" next Sunday I shall shed another kilo at least.

My question is this, in practical down-to-earth, nitty-gritty terms - how much difference does losing 2 kilos actually make on a long climb?

 

[RapDaddyo]

To get back on topic. RD, I have been endeavouring to lose weight and so far this week have lost 1 kilo. Hopefully before the "race" next Sunday I shall shed another kilo at least.

My question is this, in practical down-to-earth, nitty-gritty terms - how much difference does losing 2 kilos actually make on a long climb?

To climb at a given speed requires a W/KG ratio (weight being total weight of rider + bike). Obviously, a ratio can be increased by either increasing the numerator or decreasing the denominator. In your case, let's say that your sustainable climbing power is 250W and that your current weight is 70KG and that your bike and bottles and anything you're carrying is 10KG. That's a W/KG ratio of 250/80 or 3.125. If you drop 2KG, your W/KG ratio goes to 3.205. You will climb 2.5% faster at the lighter weight (3.205/3.125). Another way of looking at it is how much power is required to ride at 3.125 W/KG? The answer is 244W. So, you can either view it as an opportunity to ride 2.5% faster or ride at the same speed with 6W less power. Now, here's the shocker. The 244W looks as though it is 2.4% less than 250W. Not true. Physiologically, it is 10% less power! That's a big deal!

 

[RapDaddyo]

Tyson, I finally have my ride file parsing application fully working in batch mode (that last 10% gets me every time), so I sat down tonight and ran it against all of my ride files for 2006. Attached is an overview of my 2006 high-intensity training time by level. The vertical scale is minutes and the data points are minutes per week. You can see where I was cranking up the volume for Mt. Charleston (July and August). These are no-nonsense minutes by level (e.g., L4 is defined as >=10mins at 91%FTP) rather than the frequency distribution by level that you get in WKO+ (not knocking the chart, just drawing a distinction re. the data content). That's right, some weeks I logged >800 mins at L4+.

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

Tyson, I finally have my ride file parsing application fully working in batch mode (that last 10% gets me every time), so I sat down tonight and ran it against all of my ride files for 2006. Attached is an overview of my 2006 high-intensity training time by level. The vertical scale is minutes and the data points are minutes per week. You can see where I was cranking up the volume for Mt. Charleston (July and August). These are no-nonsense minutes by level (e.g., L4 is defined as >=10mins at 91%FTP) rather than the frequency distribution by level that you get in WKO+ (not knocking the chart, just drawing a distinction re. the data content). That's right, some weeks I logged >800 mins at L4+.

Hold on a minute - 800 mins of L4 in a 7 day period.

If these were in 20min intervals, that would mean you did 40x20minutes at L4 (XWatts) in the week or put another way almost 6x20min per day.

Obviously you didn't do it that way. If they were 1 hour intervals you did roughly 13x60 min @ (XWatts) L4 or approx 2 one hour intervals per day for 7 days. I seem to remember you saying that you were working on L4 intervals for 2 hours.

So in actual fact you did 6x2hours over six days and on the final day (or somewhere in the middle) you slacked off and did just a 1x1hour interval.

Doesn't sound so bad put that way, better than 40x20 mins anyway.

After reading those figures, I'm tired and I'm going to go and have a lie down. TYSON

 

[RapDaddyo]

Hold on a minute - 800 mins of L4 in a 7 day period.

It's the sum of L4+L5+L6+L7 and includes both trainer rides and road rides. IIRC, during that time I was doing daily 3x20 L4s on my trainer plus my road rides. So, I had a base of 560 mins of L4 plus whatever I did on the road. During that time I was also experimenting with my efficiency index (L4-L7 minutes divided by total minutes) and I was getting numbers in the 60%-80% range. And I was purposely testing my upper limits for volume and intensity. I wanted to know if my body could tolerate 2 hrs/day of high-intensity work. Envision Dr. Jekyl, the mad scientist in his lab experimenting on himself. And now, inexplicably, I prefer to ride at midnight on full moon nights.

 

[Sillyoldtwit]

RD, have you ever thought of seeking treatment. You are either totally insane, or you need to buy a new power meter.

I said in an earlier post that the "race" on the 5 Nov follows a complicated course and that the organizer is sending me a map so I don't get lost up in the mountains.

Am I worried about this race? I'll leave you to judge after describing my dream last night about the race.

The race was held starting in a girl's middle school. I parked the car in the playing fields and headed for the changing room. The room was in a complete mess with gear everywhere. No cycling gear mind you.

For some reason I just couldn't get changed as I was more worried about my valuables. Eventually I headed off for the start with 3 layers of clothing on plus a winter coat. Not a single bike in sight! I was now carrying my valuables in a giant heavy metal toolbox. I said to the starter "this race is starting a bit late isn't it?" (it was 2pm and we had 137km to race) I said the race will finish in the dark, and he just grunted something meaning yes.

Still not a single bike in sight!

I asked him where I could leave my valuables (giant toolbox) and he replied that the changing room was the safest place. So I headed off back across the field to the changing room. Suddenly someone shouted "everyone to the start" at which point I panicked and ran across the field screaming at the top of my voice "just a minute, just a minute".

When I got back to the start they'd all gone and I realized this wasn't a bike race, it was a running race. Anyway, I set off along this dirt track and could see a bunch of girls running up ahead. I thought, I'll soon burn them up with my power. I actually passed them doing about 1 mph faster!

I then came out onto a road and was immediately confronted with this enormous hill. It was wide enough for 8 cars abreast.
Suddenly I saw my first bike, but he was coming down the hill. The hill was so steep he was hard on the brakes, so hard in fact that his back wheel had come round and he was coming down like a crab with flames and smoke pouring from his rear tyre.

At the top of this hill, as predicted the course became complicated, in fact it went into this house which must have had about 4 or 5 floors. The house was an absolute maze of narrow uncarpeted staircases. I was belting up these staircases shouting "which way, which way?"

Suddenly, there was a room with no walls, which I can only describe as heaven. There was beautiful maiden sitting there covered in rose petals with just, what looked like a Greek toga covering the naughty bits. Upon seeing me she stood up naked and strolled over to me. I thought to hell with the race, I've got better things to do. She sidled up to me, flung her arms about me and moved up close. At this point the race was the last thing on my mind.

Then she turned round and went back to her "room". (Sorry guys to disappoint you)

OK, on with the race - more stairs to climb and more shouting for directions.

Finally I came out into the road again, and I said to these 2 guys standing there "which way did they go?" To which they replied "who are they?"

The bike race, the bike race guys, I shouted impatiently.

They said "do you mean a bunch of guys waving their hands in the air and shouting, yeh heh, wa hoo etc. I said, probably, and they pointed me in the right direction.

After a very short time I came to a fork in the road. There was no one there to ask the way, it was also starting to get dark and I'd covered all of 3 km.
I opted to take the road on the right, but after 100 metres it was now dark and I decided to turn back. As I approached the fork, I unexpectedly found myself wading through grass 8 feet tall, which wasn't there 2 minutes ago.

Finally when I came out onto the original road, I thought that is definitely it, I give up. This was followed by a feeling of remorse, and I thought "what am I going to tell the guys in the forum?"

Then I woke up. Phew!! TYSON

 

[frenchyge]

Then I woke up. Phew!! TYSON

Wait, did I miss the part where Lucy rolled her eyes in pity (and just a hint of contempt), before sailing off to dance amongst the Mistrals?

Or is that coming up next?

 

[RapDaddyo]

RD, have you ever thought of seeking treatment. You are either totally insane, or you need to buy a new power meter.

I agree. I'm going to ponder that thought while I train for this little ride this summer http://www.deathride.com/.

Then I woke up. Phew!! TYSON

LOL. Great story (dream). But, I'm left with one question. What did you do with the giant metal toolbox?