your daily bicycle log

I did a slow 50 miles on the bike this afternoon, trying out new shorts in the hope of less chafing. Even with chamois butter my lady parts feel like they've been sandpapered. Cycling and vulvas just don't seem compatible; I'll have to tweet Lizzie Armitstead and find out how she does it...

!

Have you ridden that far before? If not, it might just be that your body needs to get used to it.

I have, but not often, and I don't commute by bike any more so I think I've gone soft. New bike, too.

I'm supposed to be doing a big race next Saturday, but I don't know if I'll bother - I'm nowhere near ready for it.

I did it. I was nowhere near ready for it. In fact, I think it was probably my worst race ever (and that's saying something). Even if I was fit I would expect to struggle against 3rd cats, so in all honesty I wasn't expecting to last more than 20 minutes before getting dropped (on the Hog Hill circuit). In reality I lasted about 3 minutes! I started near the front of the bunch, then was terrified as we flew down the hill with a sharp bend at the bottom in high winds - I was doing 38-39mph but people were whizzing past on either side of me much faster. I was rapidly losing position and within the space of a minute probably went from 10th to 60th place with just a handful of people behind me. A gap had already opened a few riders ahead of me and as we went up the climb at the end of the first lap it was already clear that we weren't going to get back on: (just behind red straggler). To put it in perspective, averaging over 22mph on this circuit usually makes me feel like I'm dying - my first lap was at 24.3mph and I was already off the back and my race was over. I went round pointlessly with the dropped for a bit with the intention of getting lapped and sitting in for a bit to at least get some training benefit. I was caught on the climb and the entire bunch went past me in seconds as if they were all on motorbikes. I gave up then in disgust.

4 weeks into track season now (races every Tuesday night), and although my base and tempo fitness is way better than I felt it would be at this time, my top-end speed is TERRIBLE. As such, I've taken to suicidal solo attacks. Held off the field for 5 laps to take the final sprint in the points race last night. That is the WORST, MOST PAINFUL, STUPIDEST way to ride races. I was DYING afterward. Really need to do some leg presses or squats or whatever so I can mix with the big sprinters because this TT shit is no fun.

i could never figure out if the sled and squats ever helped my usable power. i have been doing way more anaerobic and v02 max drills on the trainer than i ever did while racing regularly (which was very little, and duh, why was my sprint so slow, i guess). i feel better during the short sharp action, but it's not race tested.

as an aside the 50 y/o masters racers physiques that i'm seeing on rides these days are really lean but with crazy quad mass for such old ppl. i can't figure if its that they never whittled down the extra mass over a longer period of racing, or if ppl lift more now, or if they are on t, or what. actually, the fast old school dudes i've known forever look about the same, really lean and not big.

tt tonight in 45 deg rain on shortened course. position felt perfect for a short effort, seemed so damned good and fast. But the results were meh.

I fell off today. I've been going really well recently and I had a bike fit on thursday, of which more later when my wrist feels more up to typing. Very windy today and I wiped out on an exposed S Bned that went from crosswind to to tailwind to crosswind; as Icame bak into the crossind at speed I got hit by a gust, the bike started to go out from under me, hit my brakes too hard and the back wheel locked, blew out and I skidded across the tarmac.

Luckily a friend was able to come and pick me up and take me to urgent care for a wrist x-ray and to have some nurses giggle at my arse as they irrigated it with hydrogen peroxide solution. I'll be suffering from road rash for a few days yet.

went out yesterday with a group of people i mostly didn't know. didn't think i was going that fast, but set a bunch of PRs in the first half of the ride, then cracked and limped home in the second half.

I was supposed to do a time trial on Saturday, but didn't bother. It was more than a 100-mile round trip and the forecast was heavy rain and strong winds and it was on a dual carriageway course. I weighed it up and decided that there was a good chance the event would be cancelled (which happened last time I tried to race there and it poured down with rain) and even if it was on it would be too dangerous for my liking and I'd have no chance of getting a good time (even if I was in good form, which I'm not). So I did a 42-mile ride instead and got home just before the rain arrived - much better.

ain't done much riding for pleasure in the last few weeks - semi-exhausted from new job. however I am very much back into the swing of the commuter wacky races.

Things have picked up for me: I've managed to squeeze in 4 races in the last 12 days (two 10-mile time trials and two hour-long road races). Finished in the bunch (or rather, right near the back of it) on Thursday evening and got dropped with just 3 or 4 minutes left to go today (in a race against 3rd cats, so I'm pretty pleased at lasting that long).

Rode without arm warmers today. Commuted 40+ miles on Wednesday so I could do a shorter ride today, as well - nice to have my whole afternoon free, tbh.

"my" local canyon is such an overcrowded shitshow at this point that there were 4 police cruisers handing out tix to cyclists up and down a 10k stretch. over 20 years i've watched it go from a 1.5 lane seldom travelled goatpath to a 3 lane highway with continual bike and car traffic (over 1000 bikes/day on weekends). i don't really care so much about the traffic, but i'm sad because i think sooner or later, this bike route is going away, and theyre not building any more mountain roads.

Wait you think they won't allow bikes any more? Isn't that the opposite of how things are going most places?

they can't expand the road anymore afaict, and the residential population above the canyon has really increased in the last 15 years. it's not a suburb, it's a car based exurb. i don't see how they are gonna limit local car traffic. who knows though? this is the road where this happened last year to a guy i raced with in the 90s:

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/11/bike_rage_byron_nix_herbert_hoover_grandson.php

i will not claim that i don't see cyclists do pretty thoughtless/oblivious/inconvenient things on that road.

how are they limiting motor vehicle traffic out there?

Bay area you mean? Dunno about outside SF, but here they're just gradually reducing parking spaces afaik. There's talk of expanding the subway and limiting car traffic on some roads but I haven't seen any action.

It's hard to build here so total populations isn't rising much. Of course, that means anyone who doesn't make six figures is getting fucked ...

*population

sorry I'm on an Untappd binge

Did a group commute today. Fast - I got dropped a little over halfway. The group was really a small set of really fast guys and a larger set of people just hanging on. If I had been smart and stuck with the second group, instead of trying to take pulls when I was almost redlining in the draft, I probably would have made it. Also need to get better about grabbing the back of a fast paceline when I'm spent. Anyway, fun!

Oh yah and this was a little over 40 miles, super flat.

That sounds fun, I wish I had a commute like that.

Also need to get better about grabbing the back of a fast paceline when I'm spent.

Yeah, my solitary experience of a two-up time trial largely consisted of me pulling off the front and completely failing to get onto the wheel of my partner who would then drop me by two hundred yards before realising I wasn't there.

Well that's a hard situation (especially if your partner surges when you pull off, maybe?) It should be easier for me because there's a relatively long paceline which should give me time to match speed.

WENT MOUNTAIN BIKING IN COPPER HARBOR

SO GNARLY

srsly "the flow" might be the best thing I've ever ridden

Really lovely post rain ride this evening, 50km in a little over 2 hrs with over 900m of climbing

http://app.strava.com/activities/61314240

I've been taking advantage of an unusually light workload and nipping out for a bike ride nearly every day recently. I'm absolutely flying at the moment, I feel so fit. Got a course PB last night in the Hog Hill 10s, just been a nabbed a strava KOM this afternoon, it's all good.

enjoy, you earned it

today's pulls courtesy of a white-haired, middle-aged Irishman who would pull at 24mph for a while, drop back for a couple minutes, seemingly spent, then start pulling again.

I bought a helmet cam and started recording my afternoon commutes for the lolz, because I got sick of every cycling article in the local paper being met by a chorus of "goddamned red light running cyclists why can't they follow rules" crap. Behold some of the stupidest behavior I have ever seen, yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGdylGnjWVQ

Was there a red light?

Nope. He tried to pull into the bike lane - which is a violation of state law here - so I honked at him, and he drove forward and just sat at the green light, then made that illegal lane change when the bus behind me honked. The stupid thing is that there's a parking lot on his right.

I got thoroughly drenched last night, biblical deluge and I avoided the straightest way home because I didn't fancy going over one of the highest hills around with lightening cracking all around.

Blimey, not only did I smash one of my two strava goals (short climb behind the zoo) I smashed it by 18s better than the goal and 37s better than my previous best. Strava says 370W I'm not sure where it came from unless their EPO and testosterone in Trader Joe's Cinnamon and Raisin Bagels.

Nice. Get me one of those bagels.

Failed at my other goal for this month, not enough bagels. Still had a great ride today.

I also sold my full size crank this week, not going back I don't think. Got an SRAM red one to seal the deal.

Gorgeous sunshine as England basks in a heatwave, banishing the bleak memories of last year's summer of eternal rain. I pootled down to Hyde Park, passed many a happy hour doing family things (mostly paddling in the Diana thing) and checking the TDF madness on twitter, then pootled back: car-free wide open spaces on Consitution Hill and The Mall, maybe I should head into town more often on a Sunday. As I entered Leyton on the final stretch of my ride I hit a 1-mile long flat strava segment and spontaneously decided to go for it. My previous best was 21.9mph, today I was going hard for a while and glanced down at my computer and saw I was doing >30mph. I knew I was going well so dug in and kept it up as best I could (though it meant I was a gasping freak by the time I hit the traffic lights at the far end) - got Strava KOM by 1 second, average speed 28.5 mph.

Was on Holiday in Montreal, great city for biking around in. Used a combination of Bixi share bikes and rented a road bike for a day. Road bike was fun but a pretty cheap aluminium frame with a savagely boneshaking ride.

I've done over 200 miles in the last 6 days and it's been over 30C every time.

Dunwich Dynamo survived. Awful, wonderful experience. It took me 12 hours, overtaken by every fucker on the road, but I got there and I only fell off once despite my chain coming off repeatedly. \o/

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/994860_10151792934734104_1796150932_n.jpg

Respect - well done

Thank you!

missed this, but that's great! also i like the color of your bike, i had a steel one mostly that color long ago, miss it.

something magical happened with my pedal stroke yesterday

Strava Heatmap!
http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.html?id=ad13e8823b9f320ed1815e260c641212141df37c
Those are all my rides in the period of just over 1 year since I joined Strava. Well, except for the little local commute type things that I didn't upload and anything in the 'exclusion zone' around my flat.

me tooooo

http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.html?id=6f8ad5aaa0d92cd1fc474a56149c7ea7c723f140

Cool

http://x.raceshape.com/heatmap/view.html?id=a6523179dfbe076c6cc5e1b845e7c511b0d53f62

Ha! Those straight grid American roads. You've got a ride in the middle of nowhere, from nowhere to nowhere, that consists solely of two straight lines at right angles to each other.

yeah that, and the other weird griddy nowhere to nowhere track to the north east are tt race courses out on the high plains.