Cypress

Did an hour indoors last night because I ended up with two missed rides last week. Mostly just Z2 with two little 1-minute pops at ~550W. This week is the first of two bigger weeks before a rest week, so time will tell if last night's ride was a good idea or not...

Cypress

3 x 20 tempo tonight. I made it a point to go lower cadence (86-88 rpm) on the last interval to simulate final-hour climbing. Ended up having to dig kinda deep to complete the interval without going over the assigned wattage or upping the cadence. Guess I need to do a bit more of that mumbojumbo.

Wylde06

Even though my legs have been feeling great these last few weeks (power is still low compared to where it has been, but my legs are definitely coming back around), I decided to take this week as a "rest" week and will do some sort of FTP test this weekend. TSS numbers the last 2 weeks seem to be a bit inflated for the effort I have been putting in and my legs havent been as fatigued as the numbers would suggest (I rode Monday with a tsb of like -45..definitely wasnt -45).

Feels good.

hubcyclist

I'm on the endurance recovery week of trainerroad's SSB2 HV plan. Finished the phase with CTL of 83 and TSB of -21

I think I did some quality training but I don't think FTP will be appreciably different. Did my training based on 295w FTP and it all felt appropriately challenging and the muscle endurance is better but I don't think I'll be changing my target, especially for a more challenging build phase. Maybe I'll feel differently once I get through the entire recovery week

Ttoc6

Alpine skied yesterday, crappy snow, basically a leg workout. Today was squat day. 3x8 @235. Slow rebuild in strength. Climbed afterwards and flashed my first 5.11 on led, so I'm pretty stoked on that.

Cypress

Currently at 430 TSS for the week with a portly weekend on the calendar. Glad today is an off day, as the dog was kind enough to vomit every 20 mins from 3am to 5am last night.

Spesh

Snow finally came to the front range. 6 hours of trainer on tap for the weekend.

Wylde06

Did a ramp test Saturday, told me FTP is 253. This seems to be a common number for me this time of the year, looking in WKO, it looks like ive been around 250 in february more than once

All things considered, Im happy with that.

Cypress

730 TSS for last week. I was absolutely drained on Saturday (probably lack of sleep) so I shorted the workout by almost 2 hours. I would have ridden longer yesterday, but I put a new set of tires on and the file treads SCREAM on my rollers, so after 3 hours I couldn't handle the noise any longer and quit.

To anyone curious: The IRC Formula Pro X-Guard Tubeless in a 28c is only 26.5mm wide on a 19mm internal width rim. I want to use this tire for the Belgian Waffle Ride, but now I'm questioning if it's going to be enough.. I'll run it in a race on the 29th of this month and see how it handles Oregon gravel.

wktmeow

Im pretty sure I rode with you on Zwift for a bit the other day. Do you have belgian waffle ride in your name?

FWIW I ran tubeless schwalbe pro one 28mm last year and I believe it was plenty. I was certainly thankful for the fast rolling on the 90 miles of road. My skills in the dirt were holding me back, but I don't think the tires were.

caloso

I am pretty wiped. 2 crits on Saturday and MTB on Sunday. Still haven’t gotten a MTB so did it on my CX. As usual mostly got passed on the downs. Suboptimal. But I did look at a Stumpjumper yesterday and will probably get it.

Cypress

That's me!

TMonk

I'm probably going to pass on BWR this year b/c our sponsors aren't paying for us this year. Damn!

Cypress

TMonk

Also it's "sold out" (note the marked use of quotations). I'm sure if I tried I could weasel my way in... I know MMX personally as he used to ride with me and sponsor me when I was on Spy a while ago. If I can get it for a good deal on entry I'll do it, otherwise you can likely catch me having a beer at Lost Abbey in the afternoon

Cypress

I'm fairly certain he'd let you in. Just tell him "Denny needs all the help and guidance he can get."

If you can't swing the race, I'll still be in town Tuesday-ish to start preriding the nastier bits...if you had free time. Misery loves company.

Hermes

I looked at the promotional material for the BWR. Cyclists were depicted riding on deep section Enve wheels on roughish terrain.

With the mix of road and dirt, it seems more like one would need a more rugged cross style bike with wider dirt tires and maybe some suspension. Am I being a panty waste?

Cypress

From what I'm told, it's a road race with some gravel, a sand pit, and a few hairy rocky sections. Going "easy" on the hairy sections and losing 10 seconds here and there is worth gaining the aero, CRR, and weight advantage for the other 130 miles.

(at least that's how I see/hope it)

wktmeow

I did it last year, so here are my thoughts:

Totally doable on a road bike. Gravel/CX bike is overkill unless you want to be extra comfy on the rocky sections, but you'll pay during the 90+ paved miles. Tubeless is probably a good idea. I did fine on a Tarmac Disc with 28s, and was held back mostly by lack of skill. I hit the dirt section probably in 30th position or so, but I quickly lost ground due to lack of skills (I was passed by many with skinner tires than mine, a teammate that I did the recon ride with was on 25mm gatorskins and consistently pulled away from me in the dirt so I just suck at dirt). There are a few sandy/loose sections. Some of the sand pits are quite deep. The black cyn descent was, for me, quite scary. I'd start losing traction in the corners, but others were going a good 5 mph faster than me, so again a testament to my wimpiness.

TMonk

I lost tons of time on black canyon. If you make it our here earlier Cypress I recommend sessioning it. You can climb it from Ramona, turnaround at the bottom of the descent, then do the descent + climb again. You can ignore the eastern half of the climb b/c it's done in one direction only and you won't ever need to descend it.

burnthesheep

3hrs gravel Sat. 1:1 HIIT Monday with 10min total at 400w in a 30min workout. Then yesterday.

Did 3 hrs yesterday in two workouts. A total of about 2hrs at an avg of 250w. Did the Watopia KOM climb and got the jersey doing a 1x interval at threshold. That set me up for some serious pain doing the Alpe at SS. That was a touch under an hour of some pretty bad hurt.

But, easily broke an hour on the Alpe at under my better SS power and got some stinky gloves.

Pretty epic few days of work for me.

Yesterday was about 45mi and 7500ft "virtual".

Hermes

Yesterday, 2.5 hours of endurance / tempo riding along the coast. It was a beautiful day with temps in the mid 60s.

Hermes

With respect to the BWR, it looks like an epic event that would be a lot of fun to do but for being a 2k pursuit, 500 meter and 20k time trialist. Is there a just eat Belgium waffles event?

burnthesheep

Dumb question on my part.........isn't there a 4k IP in there somewhere?

Hermes

Only elite racers do 4K IP. Masters 35-49 do 3K and Masters 50+ do 2K. Some masters racers feel that the 2k is harder than the 4K. I suspect it is more about ones physiology and muscle composition than age and whether one favors a 4k v 2k. As you know, as the race get shorter one has to ride faster.

The same is true for the kilo, Elites and some age group masters race the kilo while masters 50+ race the 500 meters.