unterhausen

I guess if the casinos banned smoking, all the weak-minded people that are incapable of weighing health and financial risks would be gone. I am a little surprised that there don't seem to be any non-smoking casinos though. I wasn't even in the casino when I had the bad asthma attack, I was next to it in the cafe.

I can understand the appeal of zwift, I just think I probably would be too undisciplined with it. I'd rather have a fixed workout scheme. Stress/recovery is how to get faster, not constant stress.

clasher

I used to play video games as a kid but don't really enjoy them nowadays, so until I try zwift I don't know how I will feel about it. I have been following a basic cgn video for riding the rollers and it makes doing that a lot easier than it used to be just watching TV and trying to do some productive training. I started weightlifting this winter and that has really driven home the stress/recover thing for me.

unterhausen

don't know if zwift has free month trials. I can give you a free month of trainerroad. Trainerroad has a good reputation for cancelling any time as well. I originally thought of just paying from November-March, but I have been using it year-round

clasher

I might take you up that TR... I found a decent deal on a powertap wheel and a dumb trainer, that seems like it would work well enough with zwift and I guess TR too... and I could use the power meter on the rollers and outdoors too.

unterhausen

When you are ready, PM me your name and a valid email address. You don't have to claim it right away, but if you never claim it I will get a little judgey. I have 2 to give away.

atwl77

Zwift has a free trial, at least last year when I gave it a try. It felt... uninteresting... after a while. I still want to eventually give their races and group rides a try eventually, but just ordinary riding felt boring despite seeing your avatar riding in a virtual world. I guess it felt meaningless, if that's the right word?

On the other hand, I'm using The Sufferfest for my indoor training and I don't get bored with that. I guess it's a bit like Trainnerroad, in the sense that there is a structure to the workout with various interval sessions at a variety of power targets, but with additional video and soundtrack and (sometimes humorous) onscreen prompts to keep me interested.

clasher

Turns out my computer doesn't have enough graphics power to run zwift and I don't feel like upgrading it just to try zwift. I am loving the TrainerRoad program I started (thanks to @unterhausen for the free trial). I think the highly structured format of TR really appeals to me, I've never followed something like that until I started a weightlifting program this winter and it really works for me. I also like being able to watch netflix or music videos of my own choice depending on how I feel... I have done a few indoor group training at an LBS that uses something like TR and they are kind of fun too but the leader gets to control the music and they only put race footage on the TV. My partner goes and I'd take her spot when I couldn't but I am not sure I would pay to go often enough since one session is the same cost as a month of TR and the workouts are a bit different than the program I'm following on TR but the social side is kind of nice I guess. TR is also a lot easier to use as a guide when I'm stuck in a hotel trying to use an exercise bike.

GadgetGirlIL

The Louisville Bicycle Club had the first of its PBP series yesterday, a 200K. I decided to make the trip since I'm so frustrated with our endless snow, ice, and cold in the western suburbs of Chicago. Of course, some big weather system decided to come through the Midwest this weekend. The forecast was for rain the entire ride. But the temps were supposed to get up to 60 degrees so I figured that had to be better than the cold and ice.

Temps were in the low 40s and it was light rain when the 7 of us started just before sunrise at 7:00am. But after about 10 miles the rain stopped! The next 87 miles were very pleasant. The roads were in good shape, there were lots of horse farms, and even some distilleries. Oh and hills. Nothing was flat and roads were rarely straight! It was an out and back course that started in Shelbyville and went east through Frankfort (capital of Kentucky if you didn't know!) and continued on to the turnaround in Georgetown. It was in the mid 50's when I got to Georgetown. I even saw the sun come out for a few minutes on the way back.

When I got back to Frankfort at mile 95 after climbing up Devil's Hollow Road and got to the control, I picked up a text from my husband. He said I should ride fast as the rain was coming back through. Hah. I don't ride fast so within 2 miles the rain had started up again but it was heavier than the morning and constant. I had finally caught up with another rider at Frankfort but he got out of the control faster than I could. I did seem him later on during some long climbs. When it got dark about 10 miles out from the end we stayed closer and finished at the same time.

I'm really glad I didn't let the weather forecast deter me from doing this 200K. The countryside was so pretty. I'm going to do another permanent tomorrow that starts in Frankfort heads to Georgetown and then heads north to make a loop back into Frankfort. There is some overlap with the 200K but not much. I was going to ride it today but the winds have been crazy with gusts up to 50mph. I also found out by pre-driving that one of the roads is closed due to flooding of the Kentucky River. I've figured out a detour and have cleared it with the route owner.

My rain gear got a good stress test and the only fail was my Sealskinz gloves. They are fine for damp, misty days. But the constant rain left me with puddles in my fingers at the end.

clasher

Sounds like a great ride! I was on the fence about going down to Rochester, NY for their first brevet and I'm glad I didn't... the weather here has been abysmal and I think it's similar across the lake... wind gusts getting close to 60mph here and some heavy rain at times. Yesterday was really nice though, go figure.

antimonysarah

atwl77

Did a tough 400km over the weekend. The route itself didn't seem like much -- a bit of mild rolling, and a moderate climb in the middle... but the heat! The timing of the climb coincided with the hot afternoon with my Garmin recording as high as 42.8 degrees Celcius. I've seen screenshots of others with their Brytons showing 45C. Coincidentally the Meteorological Dept warned of an incoming heat wave the day after the ride, so I guess we were right at the precursor of it. Anyways, I wasn't really feeling that well for most of the ride; partly because I may have gone a bit too hard on that first 100km, also maybe something I ate the night before(?) that left me feeling bloated for the rest of the day that I wasn't really eating or drinking properly the whole time... which now that I think about it, was pretty dangerous. But anyways, I toughed it out, mainly because I needed this for PBP, and also because I was so far from home (3 hours drive) that I didn't want to inconvenience anyone if I abandoned.

By evening everyone was suffering from the heat that we decided to just sit it out, have an early dinner and get some sleep before heading out again. I think we spent around 90-120mins of that, which was I think a pretty good decision as I felt a little bit better after the nap. Still a lot of time wasted though, because by the time we reached the third checkpoint at around 11pm, that was nearly 17 hours elapsed time with 110km to go. Furthermore, the subsequent ride was hampered by a slower-paced night ride along with sleep deprivation issues. We stopped four times just for naps, plus one puncture stop in the middle of a relatively dark road with just a street light help get that inner tube replaced.

The last ~60km of the route was unpleasant, jarring broken roads that made my butt hurt. I got dropped within the final 20km, although I could keep up with the group's pace on the flats but my climbing performance was completely shot. Oh well, doesn't matter, we all completed successfully without that big of a time gap between us. 25:49 total elapsed time for me, and 16:57 moving time.

With that done, I have a 600km coming next month to fully qualify for PBP. Here's my ride video for anyone who's interested: https://tinyurl.com/yxruluab

clasher

Last year I did a brevet week, we call it Devil's week here and it was diabolical... the hilliest part of Ontario was the location and it was a tough week but very rewarding. I hope you have a good week in Florida. I am hoping to get enough trainerroad in my legs to do the Tucson brevet week but maybe Florida would be a safer bet.

@atwl77 there were more people on that one ride than there is Randonneurs in all of Ontario I think. It's exciting to see how much the sport is growing all over the world.

unterhausen

Good luck on the 600k, and thanks for the video, the quality is great. Must have been hard riding that far with a selfie stick though

I always say the second sunrise on a 400k is the best.

antimonysarah

Me too. The Arizona one looks nice too - I rode several of those roads on an non-randonneuring trip out there last year, so I wanted to do something different this year.

@atwl77 I cannot even imagine surviving that kind of heat on a ride. Wow! Congratulations.

atwl77

Not really, the GoPro with its little tripod handle is pretty small and fits perfectly into a jersey pocket. Here's how small it is, with a Rapha large waterproof case for comparison:



A lot of people on the photography/video forums love to slag GoPro for their "overpriced" and "buggy" action cameras, but a lot of them do not care for the fact that the GoPros are all waterproof without the need of additional bulky cases (which would make it uncomfortable to carry on a bike), and the stabilization on their latest models is excellent (in good light).

Thanks. I remember recently there was a race in Australia with that kind of heat wave going on down there too... and they had it worse because they're racing at maximum intensity.

atwl77

Completed my 600km over the weekend and, with that done, Super Randonneur 2019. Like last month's 400k, we're still in the middle of a heat wave and what seemed like a pretty straightforward ride turned into another tough and physically taxing brevet. Refilling and nutrition planning and strategy was also very important because there are several long 50-70km stretches of empty countryside roads with no stops for food and drink. What I did was basically study the route and mark down all the potential stops (petrol stations, 24-hour convenience stores, etc) as course points in RideWithGPS to be loaded onto and displayed on my Garmin, so I always knew how far I was from the next food or refill stop.

The good thing is that we started at 1am in the morning, so we had plenty of time to gain some good ground on relatively flat roads until the first checkpoint at the 150km mark. After that, it was mostly rolling roads all the way, with heat, plus additional headwinds once we reached the east coast. At the second checkpoint at 318km, most people planned their overnight stop here but for me, it was still too early to rest and my ride strategy involved me pushing onward to the 390km mark where there is a small town for my overnight stay. Soloed all the way on long stretches of dark, unlit roads and reached my destination just before 11pm. Discovered the hotel there to be a pretty posh one, they even had a bathtub so first thing I did was to jump into a tub of hot water for 30mins before going to bed. Slept less than 3 hours total because the third checkpoint closes at 8:30am with lots of narrow, broken and rolling roads in between - so I had to wake up early to ensure I reach in time (plus additional buffer time for safety).

Third checkpoint reached in good time, took another hour or so of nap before the final push back. Not many climbs now, so the only obstacle was the heat, and it was pretty bad. Worse than the previous day. Still, kept pushing at it, made plenty of stops for water, cold drinks and ice cream. Eventually made it with just over 1+ hour remaining on the clock. Didn't bother with much celebration afterwards, just got myself a hotel room, showered and slept for a couple of hours before driving back.

Besides the heat and other route conditions, I had some saddle troubles of my own doing. Firstly it was a relatively new, week-old saddle... so yeah, I had committed one major randonnee sin by trying something new before a ride. But actually, that wasn't the real issue, it was practically the same saddle as my old one, just with additional centre relief channel. The actual problem was that I think I under-torqued my saddle bolts. Everything was flat, as I like it, at the beginning of the ride but I already started experiencing discomfort before 200km. Didn't think much of it then. By 500km, the pain was already unbearable but I still didn't really think much about it and just endured as much as I could. It was only during one water refill stop that I noticed my saddle angle was pointing up. Whipped out my phone and measured 5 degrees tilt!!! Not exactly sure when or how that happened, but I believe due to under-torqueing the bolts, my heavy saddle bag was constantly pulling down on the saddle until it began tilting upwards. Anyways, I fixed the tilt, got everything nice and flat again, and I could ride properly once more. Didn't do anything to alleviate the pain, but at least it was now a whole lot more bearable and I could apply power to the pedals much more efficiently.

On a side note, there were a couple of riders on Brompton foldies as well as one guy on a time trial bike. I believe they all (or at least most of them) completed successfully also. Big kudos to them.

Also as usual, I made a ride video.

rhm

Pennsylvania Randonneurs kicked off the 2019 SR series yesterday with a 200 km ride that was pretty extreme.

I saw @unterhausen, @iTrod, @seajaye, @greg3rd48, and a few dozen other riders. There was a fatbike and a tadpole tricycle with faring, and a lot of variety among the other bikes we well. It was a big roster. 41 starting Saturday morning, I'm told this is the most riders ever on a PA Randonneurs brevet.

The route was hilly and the day was windy, not very warm. Big hills, little hills, steep hills, some steeper than others. And unrelenting wind with a sneaky way of changing direction now and then so it always felt like a headwind.

Oof. That was a hard ride, but almost everyone finished.

unterhausen

rhm, sorry I didn't say hello. Too dark at the start for me to recognize anyone. And then I stopped trying to keep up because I forgot my inhalers and it was an asthma-inducing sort of day. I had a lot of trouble with the cue sheet format, probably the worst fit ever in my map case. Flipping it 24 times on a ride was a bit much. Most times I flipped it while riding, but 4-5 times I needed to flip it at the top of a hill and the wind made that a little too difficult.

seajaye

Glad you made it in. I should have used my inhaler; I thought my breathing problems were in my head but two days later and I still don't feel like my breathing is 100%.

I reformat every single cue sheet, either in Excel, or physically after printing it out, to fit in my 10" x 5" map case. The newer ones are much more annoying to format than the older ones from when I first started. It can be a lot of time up front but saves a lot of headache day-of.

unterhausen

CJ, I should have reformatted, but I didn't print it out until the last minute and couldn't figure out a good way to modify it. The only good news was that I could read it without my glasses. Chris says they are going to switch over to automated cue sheets through RWGPS, so reformatting will be a lot easier. SIR has a tool to convert RWGPS cue sheets into a useable cue sheet, so I might start doing that now.

clasher

NJgreyhead

Thanks for another cool video, @ atwl77 . I enjoyed it.
Kudos on the 600k, too.
-NJg

clasher

Well I decided to hold off on this one since the weather is looking terrible and the job I was supposed to go to got delayed a week so I can hopefully make another 200K next week and have better weather than what's predicted for tomorrow. If the job stays as it's planned I will be back in time for the first 300K on the schedule too. I was thinking of heading down to do the Saratoga 400 in the Adirondacks but I will have to make a decision on that one soon since I'll have to join rusa and get a motel booked. I loved that area when I was down in Lake Placid last year and it seems like a good practice run for PBP with all the hills.

rhm

Well it's a lovely day to be out on a bike today, no wind, weak sunlight. Wednesday and Thursday evenings I cleaned and prepped my bike, put on my summer tires, resoldered a couple connections between the dynamo and the headlight, straightened the outer chainring, adjusted brakes etc. Yesterday I got cash, put gas in my wife's car, gathered all the stuff I need to bring or wear on a 300k brevet, and went to bed ca 10 PM.

And then (as is not unusual) I slept poorly. When my alarm went off at 2 AM I had to face the fact that I was in no condition to drive. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep.

I trust @unterhausen, @iTrod, @seajaye, @TimmyT, and others, are having a great ride. I'm sitting in the sun drinking coffee.

znomit

Bathroom breaks are bad enough, they don't want people having to stop shovelling coins for a cigarette.

I am considering jumping through the hoops to do a ride in Italy May 1st. They seem to require a medical certificate to say I probably won't drop dead at the first climb (sounds like you need these for all types of amateur cardio sport in Italy).
Or maybe I'll just rent a bike and ride the course.
https://www.audaxitalia.com/index.ph...=146&obid=1330