I call BS. You just want to stay inside in the air conditioning.

I did a recovery ride this morning before sunrise. There were water droplets on my arm hair and dripping off my helmet 15 minutes into the ride. No rain, just humidity.

Haha, so much humidity lately. The AC is noice!

Checked out a new group ride today. It was great, and a bit more mellow than my usual Saturday ride, just what I needed because I've been real tired this whole week. However, I saw the other group as we were riding back and I couldn't help but feel lame,like I'd done the JV ride instead of the Varsity ride lol.

Missed the group ride, did a fast solo effort cus I woke up and couldn't move my neck to one side (probably from sleeping in a bad position) and I really didn't think it was safe in a group if I could only look to the side in one direction!

Openers on the schedule. I did a threshold test, cause it's about that time. Surprisingly, almost exactly the same as my last test in July. I thought it would be lower. 246W for 20'. Even better, I'm about a kg lighter than I was a month ago. 4.39 W/kg for 20', estimating 4.18 W/kg FTP. A solid number to build on for next year. Pretty pleased with that. On the other hand, 5' power is way down. Given that CX season starts for real in 3 weeks or so, that's not so great, but oh well, it'll get better.

openers for me as well. and by openers i mean riding until i'm no longer hungover.

Cold wet foggy day. Up and down and up and down the mountain again and again. Eight times in all. 9000+ feet of gain.

Local hammer ride (one of the three Saturday ones). Good ride, second in the sprint and wasted teammate's effort. Headwind sprint from 200m and one guy was able to sneak around.

5 hours 89 miles 300+ TSS with the club. I ride out to the ride and back. I did not push it to stay with the lead group, just paced myself well as I knew I was going long. No cramps, no bonk, just a solid effort. Next time I go harder.

Rode to the ride, rode the ride, and rode home. 100 miles (rode around the block a few times just to get the 3d digit). 300 something TSS. Took 2d on the 2d sprint -- misjudged the line. D'oh!

Just over 4 hours 220 tss, 80 miles. Rode to the group ride, got dropped on the fast part when I thought there were more guys that came along...then rode after the group ride. Finally a morning where the humidity wasnt super high and it didnt feel like riding through soup

1:10 on zwift.

Last race of the year. Crash behind me and somehow my rear skewer was pulled open. Whittled 75 racers down to a group of 10-12 and I was feeling good. Oh well, time to start training for next year. (60 TSS for the race). Two questions to answer though, how / why do I join a team and do I get a coach?

Thursday, off; Friday, somewhat spirited 25 mile ride; Saturday, 50 miles at a moderate pace with a few efforts here and there; today/Sunday, 73 miles, rode to Wells Ave, raced for 30 miles, rode another 35+ miles at a mild to moderate pace.

You join a team for the comraderie in the 4/5's, though a few are insanely funded and have team tactics. You get a coach for various reasons, if you stagnate, not sure what you are doing, need the push, etc. If you are asking if you need a coach then the answer is probably yes.

2hrs on zwift, steady 200w (80%)

Coach? Let me get my popcorn for this one.

11:40 for the week, 637tss (~35 of that from a run on friday) and I set a new one minute PR today

Team group ride today which was essentially a 30 mile ride to a Cat 2 climb and back. The climb was somewhat of a litmus test to see where I'm at, and it was meh. Dropping and running over my glasses (getting sweat out of my eye) mid climb didn't help.

20 hours this week, some solid training but not the big jump in FTP I expected. Too much z1. Physically I feel pretty good, a lot of my back and leg issues are in stasis (for the moment) and my body feels remarkably fresh.

Yikes. I've had a rear skewer opened by contact in a race once, and it was pretty scary once I figured out what had happened (gears were skipping like mad). Glad you stayed upright.

20 hours a week will change that.

The brakes were also rubbing like crazy, if that hadn't happened I don't know if I would have bothered looking down.

This is why I use an RWS with a very small twist tie on my road/CX bikes.

With the MTBs, thru axles make this a non-issue, too. I'd have to be 5-6 full revolutions out to actually be in danger of having it come out of the dropout. Particularly with a Maxle Stealth/Fox Kabolt/Ibis Hexle, etc.

Back to the RWS. If the twist tie fails, you can just unclip and retighten it with a foot. Before you say, "Really?" yes, really. I've done it when a tiny sapling got caught between my frame and thru axle during an MTB race; I looked back and it wasn't in the normal position. During a brief respite on a downhill fire road section I unclipped, and pushed it back into place with my left foot.

You could always lockwire it...

50 miles with 4200 feet late this morning. Had wanted to do more, but didn't get out till late, then was sore the first hour. Warmed up and felt good, yet really just wanted to get home at a decent hour and relax so cut the ride in half. Stretched for an hour or so, which was nice. Need to start stretching more again.

Not having a big jump in FTP or feeling good? (nervously await reply)

Change the feeling good, I'd wager. Also, I don't think ftp ever comes in big jumps unfortunately :(

hmm, I have the RWS skewers on my mountainbike, never thought about using them on the road. I hate all the skewers I have so I may as well give them a shot.

@ff I'll give you my 2 cents on lots of hours in the saddle: it can be a tremendous plus!

I just started riding outside again in May, increasing my saddle time cautiously. At the beginning of July, I did. 21-22 hour week of just riding at a pace that I could manage -- not pushing the envelope -- and have probably averaged upper-teens hours per week since then. I'm just riding and not race training. Although, I toss in some efforts here and there. Just doing that made me competent in my first crit in early August. I'm not looking to get razor sharp this year. But, even without that, the hours alone have made me capable of sticking reasonably well with the 1/2/3 crowd in a crit.

The remarkably fresh part for certain.