IBOHUNT

I'm sure if a video was sent to someone fast he'd take a look at it and give his opinion

IBOHUNT

@Heathpack
Saw an email come in about riding in a group from CTS - 7 secrets

They neglected to mention the one I use as #8... I solo OTB

Heathpack 

Its a really common thing for men to give me advice like this and to assume the issue is that I don't know how to ride in a group and, if only I did, I wouldn't get dropped. Maybe that is the case, its possible that this all just technique.


But I really believe that the issue is fundamentally the huge differences in absolute power that I can put out relative to the men I might be riding with. A great example: when I got home, I looked at the ride leader's Strava (from Saturday's ride) he was riding at a 55% intensity whereas I (even being dropped) was riding at 80% intensity for 3 hours. I'm already riding pretty hard. Could I maybe up that to a 90% intensity and make the effort to hang on by the skin of my teeth? Maybe. But at some point I ask myself why. I'm not really sure going out and killing myself on every group ride just so that I can ride group rides really makes much sense.

IBOHUNT

Sorry, wasn't meant to be posted as a negative towards you at all. Just wanted to point out that it seems there are roadieholes everywhere and that if there is an article that was sent out to the masses there must be some inherent truth to the roadieholes theroy.

To me, group rides make little sense. I never get much out of them. I'm much more like George Thorogood...

revchuck 

Bad to the bone?

Heathpack 

No worries, I did not feel criticized. I think its just hard for people to really understand the physiology gap if they don't experience it first hand.


I don't even think that rides in which people get dropped are evidence that the ride is full of roadie a-holes. If the purpose of the ride includes practicing race tactics and beating each other up, then people will get dropped and that's fine. CBS for example has been doing a Tues night crit practice on our local crit course, people get dropped and that makes sense, its what the ride is advertised as and I don't rush home from work to try to make that ride.


Where I think people are being roadie a-holes is when they advertise a ride as "no drop" or "recovery pace" and then they drop people. If its supposed to be an easy ride, then keep it under wraps. If the idea is to ride balls out and that's what everyone knows in advance, then have at it. I won't be there or if I am, I'll be there to say "hi" to people at the start of the ride or to get coffee after. I also think you're being a turd if we're in a rotating paceline and I take my pull and then you rotate to the front and surge the group and drop me. We all know how it works, I won't be able to get back on and you just benefited from my pull. Bad form.


Mostly I think people have no clue, they don't have a power meter so they don't understand the magnitude of their surge. They think cycling is a total meritocracy and that if I'm slower than you its because you're working harder than me. Maybe they understand there is a physiologic difference between men and women, old and young, but they don't realistically understand the magnitude of the difference. As long as the ride suits their purposes, they see no need to modify what they're doing. Dog eat dog.

sarals 

Oh good lord yes!

sarals 

@Heathpack, on your earlier post about a bike ride being analogous to life's journeys? Yes. They are. Philosophically and literally. I've alluded to the bike "saving my life" a few years back, and that's more that just a metaphor. It's now a lifestyle for me as well a journey.

I could go on, but....

Training.

I'm coming back. Things are getting easier to do, although I just can't get my weight under control. That's another story! Anyway, yesterday was a three minute simulated 2K effort, which I paced slower than I should have but still, it worked well. Today was a cadence drill, and other than the battery dying in my cadence sending unit, that went well. Tuesday's track ride was really good, too.

I'm mentoring a Cat 4/5 crit next weekend, and I have fair confidence I'll actually be a good mentor in that I can stay with the pack.

It's nice to be starting to feel like me again.

revchuck 

I'm at the Rouge-Roubaix venue, just picked up my packet. The drive here was a cluster eff, average speed on I-10 was <40 mph for 120 miles due to accidents. I gave myself a big cushion but it wasn't enough to catch the jambalaya.

Lead up to the race was recovery pace Thursday, 1:30 at endurance pace with a set of 3x2' intervals at 110% with a 15" sprint at the end of each on Friday, and another recovery pace ride this morning.

Currently waiting for my supper, then to Motel 6. Hope they left the light on for me.

sarals 

What the heck is going on I10? Glad you got there safely, Chuck! Good luck!!

Racer Ex 

Good luck Chuck!

Heathpack 

Crush it @revchuck!

revchuck 

Thanks, Ex and Sara! It's been raining and is supposed to continue overnight, tomorrow might be epic. Might need a snorkel and a flotation kit!

Heathpack 

Mucho festivities to attend today related to sailing. But first I wanted to get in a ride. I just took the bike out and rode the bike path along the beach- Marina del Rey to El Segundo to Manhattan Beach to Redondo Beach. Right along the ocean, sand blowing onto the path with surfers bobbing in the water catching waves every now and then. Beautiful morning for it.

Then I climbed up onto the Palos Verde Penninsula and did a little tour there. Lovely upscale area, lots and trees and greenery and flowers. More riding along cliffs and the ocean and good courses. Then I climbed up to the "towers", not sure what these structures are, some kind of comminication thing I think. Great views of the port of Los Angeles and Catalina Island.

Looped back to the marina the short way, but the route still turned out to be 58 miles. Way more than I intended but I was enjoying myself. I paced it very mellow though, tomorrow I'm planning something bigger, 75 miles and 6000ish ft climbing.

Hermes

@Heathpack Great area.

Rode Saturday and Sunday. We planned to ride the coast but we had heavy fog both days. Saturday, we headed inland via Rancho Santa Fe and ended up on a bike path to nowhere. It ended well and the weather was beautiful.

Sunday, we decided to brave the fog and rode in and out of fog for 2 hour of endurance. The fog was not heavy and visibility okay especially for the cars we share the road with.

Next week is a cycling camp in Tucson with the Cycling House. This should be a great time and the weather looks wonderful albeit a little warm. We will probably be out in the morning so 90 degree temps late in the afternoon will not be a problem.

We are driving and taking all our cycling toys. It is going to be a blast - great operator and employees and as well as riding partners.

And the climb up Mount Lemmon...well that is going to be...I love this mountain... what a great climb... I am a fantastic climber...a mountain designed for 60+ riders... cannot wait.

Heathpack 

Have fun at Camp @Hermes! Don't worry, the Bug Juice is not really made from bugs.

Hermes

Will the Bug Juice make me faster?

IBOHUNT

Crush it @revchuck

Spent 1:45 yesterday doing the @revchuck SST thing then today a 2x20 @ LP.

revchuck 

Rouge-Roubaix is in the books. I'm pretty disappointed in how I did - DFL in Master's 40+/55+ - but it was one of the toughest days I've had on the bike. 56 started in my race and 16 DNFed.

This is a two-day event, with a Gran Fondo on Saturday and the race on Sunday. Some friends did the fondo, and it started raining during the latter half. It continued raining all night, ending about 0500. The roads were still wet in places when we started. We had a supposedly neutral start for four miles where the speed wasn't supposed to go above 20 mph...I think I saw 34 on the downhill side of some rollers. The official rollout ended at a low water bridge, and there wasn't really any change in pace for a while until we hit a turnoff into the woods. That's when the surges started, and I hung in there until right before we got out of the woods about an hour later. I and some other folks came off the back, and I was working with another guy to catch back on when it felt like I was riding on the rear rim...because I was. Flatted at mile 25 of a 105-mile race. I fixed the flat and started in on an 80-mile mostly-solo training ride.

I hit the first "gravel" section seven miles later. What I had experienced before as a dirt road with gravel in spots was now a long dirt/sand/gravel-slurry pit. Before long, that slurry was oozing out of my front and rear brakes; luckily it was thin enough that it kept oozing. I got through that section with no problems, grabbed a bottle of neutral water at the feed zone, and kept on trucking.

There was about a 30-mile stretch of decent pavement until the next gravel section. I noticed I wasn't feeling as strong as I thought I should have been but kept pushing. I hit the gravel section and started the first serious climb of the race and noted that it was ridiculously hard to pedal, plus there was a bunch of loud scraping noises coming from the front wheel. I had to stop; turned out that mud was packed so tightly between the fork and the tire that I had to find a stick and dig it out. I had to walk the bike to a less-steep spot to remount, and the muddy pedals didn't want to let me clip back in but finally relented. I made it through the rest of that gravel section okay, even powered through a sand wash which had stymied me when I did the recon last month. Grabbed another bottle of neutral water, took off my vest and tucked it under my the back of my jersey and hit another 15 miles of pavement to get to the next gravel section.

The entry to this section was a short, steep (12+%) climb. My legs and I were arguing about whether I'd ride or walk when I lost traction about halfway up and ended up doing a trackstand, had just enough time to unclip before I fell over. I trudged up to where I could remount and kept going. The downhills were just as steep and gnarly, so I was pretty focused. My front wheel seized up again, so I had to find another stick and take care of it. I made it through some hairy places, powered through mud that I didn't know I could power through, hit some world-class stutter bumps that bounced one of my bottles out of its cage, lost my vest somewhere, bunny-hopped a huge rut when I should have been turning and came about six inches from crashing, lost an empty bottle from my jersey pocket, made it to the last feed zone with about three ounces of water in my last bottle and grabbed another to make it to the end.

There remained about 18 miles to the finish, and about 16 of them were the worst pavement in existence. Right before the finish line there was a short, sharp climb and I got out of the saddle to climb and almost went cross-eyed from the pain in my legs. I crossed the line and I was done, cooked, fried, you name it. But I was there.

This was a pretty deep field. Of the first 12 finishers, ten were from different states. The course crosses from LA to MS and back, but the first local guys came in 13th (MS) and 14th (LA). With the flat and the two mud stops, I probably lost 15 minutes, or at least three places...not that that mattered a lot, but at least I wouldn't have been DFL. Everyone else had the same exposure to the course, so I was just unlucky or klutzy or both.

What a road race bike is NOT supposed to look like after a road race:



Had to use a pressure washer to clean my shoes!

Hermes

@revchuck Bravo. Any race that has Roubaix in the name is going to have unpredictable outcomes and extremely difficult terrain that no race promoter will be motivated to improve. And it was wet.

One always hopes for a better than DFL but having a result in such a difficult race other than a DNF is excellent. I would take a DFL in that race.

Congrats on the prep and race. You are the bomb.

Hermes

Question...were you running tubeless tires with sealant?

Heathpack 

I'm sorry, @revchuck, but that seems pretty bad ass to me! Congrats on surviving it.

revchuck 

Thanks, @Hermes and @Heathpack!

Nope, the wheels on that bike aren't tubeless ready. The wheels on my other two bikes are, and I'm running tubeless on one of them. I kept the tube that I had replaced, and there was one tiny hole in it; tubeless with sealant would probably have prevented that flat.

Heathpack 

Sunday I decided to do a long solo ride, from Malibu home to Santa Clarita, 75 miles and 6000ish ft climbing. Not @revchuck long, but long for me nowadays. After a 20 min warm-up, I tackled the main climb of the day, Latigo Canyon which is 9.5ish miles long. My game plan was to PR that with a long threshold interval and then take it easy for the remaining 60 miles to home. I got a nice PR (by 9 min!) and then rolled on home. Last 25 miles were hot, slightly uphill, into a headwind, so not that fun. Then I got a flat on one of my (tubeless) tires and struggled a bit to get that changed. I was glad to be home and wicked tired afterwards. I think I rode something like 230 miles last week, with 12000ish feet of climbing.


Was still tired yesterday for my rest day and I was a little afraid I'd dug myself an unreasonably big training hole. I woke up this am for some threshold TT intervals and actually thought about how much more pleasant it would be to lie in bed and drink coffee for 90 min. But my basic approach it to always get our of bed and give it a try, even if I don't feel like riding, with the mindset that I can always bail if I just don't have it that day.


So glad I went out. Once I got going, everything just felt easy as pie. Popped off a couple of 10 min threshold intervals, couldn't contain myself for the second one and went over by a good margin. Then 30 min of tempo. Felt really comfortable on the TT bike, don't know what my issues were last week with saddle height, it was right all along. You never know with this cycling business, good days can just catch you unawares sometimes.


Then I get to work and my emergency spinal surgery dog from yesterday is already improved neurologically and he was one who might not ever get better. Now its looking very good that he will walk again. Him being a rockstar with his recovery bought me a little pocket of time to get outside and sit in the sunshine and get a little meditation in. Just an outlier of a good morning so far.


Grateful for it.

LAJ

Nasty, @revchuck. Good you made it through that thing.