Sierra_rider

Just a couple of zone 2 Zwift session since my big ride on Tuesday. Finally got outside and back to racing today...it was billed as a "dirt crit," basically a short XC mtb race, but not quite short-track xc. While not normally a technical course, it turned into a mud bog today. Standing water all over the course and I was spinning and drifting everywhere.

It was only 10 miles of racing...1st place was 15 years younger than me and turning some very fast lap times. I've got another race tomorrow, that's more important to me, so I backed it off and made sure to consolidate 2nd.

rsbob 

Good on you competing with the youngsters. Hopefully the wisdom of age will prevail next time.

I did 1.5 hours of Zone 2 on the trainer, while watching Griselda on Netflix, after yesterday’s mountain bike slog.

Sierra_rider

Thanks. The wisdom of age is probably what kept me in 2nd. This was a really minor race in my overall calendar, so I made a conscious decision to not leave everything on the course and save myself for the next day. Although playing it safe only got me so far. There were lots of crashes out on course, but I kept it upright almost the entire course...I still slid out in some rocks with about 2 minutes left in the race, luckily only some minor scrapes and bruises.

I've been doing quite a bit of zone 2 trainer time myself. I used to just try to "ride lots" and wouldn't think about zone 2 that much. After incorporating quite a bit more zone 2 last year, I'm now a true believer about all the current zone 2 hype.

38 miles is a long ride on the MTB. Even on my XC bike, a mtb ride feels like twice the road miles.

rsbob 

Run the minor races as practice - but second ain’t bad. Better luck Sunday - and no crashes.

I always felt that running a dual suspension bike with knobbies was tantamount to riding twice the distance on a road bike. Appreciate the validation or we both are nuts.

diphthong

stuck in a zone 2 rut the last decade. works when you're doing 400-500 miles (or more) a month. when you're doing less...not so much.

808HIcycler

17 yesterday and 41 today. Signed up for my first bike race (9.2 mile TT) so been riding to get used to the clip-ons.

Sierra_rider

I guess that's partly why I'm into it. Since partaking in zone 2, I've been able to up my volume. I'm going to pass 600 miles for January and possibly hit 50 hours of workout time for the month. No way I could do that if I didn't have some easy days.

Anyway...day 2 of the double-header XC racing weekend, we even had a WT road pro in attendance. 17 miles and roughly a 14mph average for me, good enough for 2nd in my class. I ended up on the wrong side of a crucial split on lap 1, I hammered down and eventually caught/passed #2 and 3 on the last lap, but the leader was long gone. Since stepping up and racing with the big boys, I've learned that there is no room for tactical errors.

Sierra_rider

Took advantage of some epic weather today...average of 64F, which is exceptionally nice for mountain weather in January. I took it a bit easy today, as I wanted a little recovery for tomorrow's ride. Anyway, 30 miles and 4000' of climbing.

Sierra_rider

72 miles and 8600' of elevation gain.

Did a local scenic route through a bunch of Forest Service roads today, these roads may be unridable until May, depending on the snow forcast...so got the miles in today. I was going to make it a loop, but got turned around because of snow at the 5500' level. Turned it into an out-and-back, I usually take the gravel bike, but took the more compliant of my road bikes(with 30mm GP5000) today and was rewarded with some Strava segments...and no flats either with tubeless(oh, that's an argument for the other thread lol.)

rsbob 

Oh man you ride a Canyon (a very complimentary thread) and you ride tubeless (an equally non-controversial and complimentary thread). You live life dangerously - must be that thin air at elevation. It must help your flatland racing. Love the pics.

rsbob 

A quick 16 miles at 18.6 MPH

Here are the sad facts:


The last entry sums it up… “HELP”

The Chemist

A wet 10 degrees today. Felt more like swimming than riding for a good part of the ride, but still had a great time celebrating my birthday.

Sierra_rider

Very dangerously, I own 5 Canyons. 4 of those, plus my Santa Cruz XC bike, are tubeless. Despite all this, I'm somehow okay. I am running Amazon TPU tubes in the clear-coated Canyon in my previous post...mostly because of the weight, but also because I had superfluous non-tubeless tires.

Living at elevation is like legal blood doping lol. I really like doing events at elevation, I just don't experience nearly as much power loss as the valley guys do.

Thanks for the compliments on the pics. I've lived up here almost my entire life, yet I still take a bunch of pictures on every ride. Awesome days like today, only make it harder to go back onto the trainer.

jaxgtr

Got outside today, started out cool for us, around 50, then rapidly warmed to about 72. As it warmed, the wind picked up in front the rain hitting us tomorrow, but it was a beautiful day for riding. I got in 81 today and did 4 bridge loops netting me 820 ft of climbing and one very close city bus pass. I followed it to the next stop and had a few calm words with the woman driving the bus. Reminded her that the law is 3ft but no harm done this time, but be mindful in the future. She apologized and said she did not realize she was that close. I wanted to say well you almost clipped me with your mirror, so you were that close, but I told her I did not get hit and to have a nice day and drive carefully.

Forgot my pic of the river and blue sky today...

bampilot06

nicer man than I ever could be.

jaxgtr

I have my my moments.

rsbob 

47 road miles with 2,300’. Garmin yelled at me at the end of the ride and told me I over extended and should take 56 hours off. Homey don’t play that - but I will take one day off and gently spin the next. Did get a leg cramp tonight, so maybe it’s onto something.

cweb99

47 miler. Don’t ask why I didn’t do 50. I have been pondering that since I finished the ride

jaxgtr

Meh it happens, one day I did something like 61.9.... All I had to do was one loop around the hood to get over the metric century, but I was not paying attention and hit the stop and save and by that point, I was like screw it.

jaxgtr

Did 23 with 2600 ft inside, weather was cold and miserable,

rsbob 

That was my attitude yesterday when I hit 47.6 miles and didn’t round it off to 50. I had the energy to do it easily but said the hell with it.

Sierra_rider

On Sunday, I did some short track XC mtb racing...only 8.5 miles, but I won my class. I try to not care too much about these early season races, but to get a win again was a boost to my confidence.

Crappy weather moved back in Sunday night, we had nasty winds...somehow my power never went out. Anyway, more indoor trainer rides. Today's was a virtual 20 miles and 2300'...damn Garmin/Tacx trainer was being obstinate though. I had to stop 3 times to calibrate the trainer...on the final one, I noticed that the default weight in the Garmin trainer app had defaulted back to some 15lbs less than I had it on before. All was good after that, but then Strava auto-flagged the ride for the virtual segments because it thought I was cheating. If I had a time machine, I would've bought a different trainer than the Tacx, it's been a PITA ever since I bought it.

rsbob 

Congrats on the win, even if it was minor league. Good to know about Tacx

rsbob 

1 hour zone 1 and 2 while watching Reacher

The Chemist

Chilly, but at least it's dry today. Warmer weather coming soon. Can't wait!