big john

Noises on the bike drive me crazy when I can't find them. Past couple weeks I've been hearing a creaking noise that I can't duplicate when stopped. Tightened bolts, lubed cable ferrules, etc.Riding alone I drop my head and try to listen to it but it stops. One day I'm sitting at a light and turning to look around I hear the damn noise in my helmet. The Roc-loc thing in the back of the helmet is creaking at times.

TheKillerPenguin

In the past 4 days I've done 17hrs. I'm on the fence about doing another long ride today - I have to be up at 4 tomorrow to catch a flight and have trouble falling asleep much before midnight. BUT, I will be away from my bike until Tuesday evening. See how I feel after coffee...

Hermes

I had a creaking noise on my road bike - drove me nuts. I took it to the shop and had them check the bearings, bottom bracket, cleaned and lubed everything. It was better. I took out the rear wheel and changed the tightness of the rear skewer. Boom. Creaking gone. We will see if it returns.

burnthesheep

TT bike plan is coming along. 2x20 Monday, off yesterday, 3x8 today plus 1x8 SS at the end. Power is good. Last year I bested at 243w for 23min on it, but some of that was sat up. So doesn't even count.

I'm doing my 3x8's at 270w. I feel I could do 270 to 280 for a 10 mile ride right now. I want to try, but work, weather, and schedule keep conspiring against me.

At least I have the gym Cycleops erg setup to my exact TT bike dimensions and put the old used clip ons on it.

I need to start checking out the race course and put it into my spreadsheet to work on power splits (flat, uphill, downhill.....overall target) and stuff. The Poc Cerebel is supposed to show up next week.

TMonk

More TT work this morning, slow roll to Fiesta then 1x30' SST and 1x10' at my (road) FTP. Some z1/2 commuting around that and I'll be at ~2.5 hrs by the time I get home tonight.

Off tomorrow.

SDBC team camp this weekend at Borrego! Friday team ride out to Salton Sea at casual pace, then me and a few of the boys are slammin' it on TT bikes on the return leg before team lunch in town. Photos and big ride on Saturday w Montezuma (50-60 min climb) and a nice big loop through Mesa Grande, Julian and back to the desert after. Sunday big loop around town and then we'll split into teams for some race sim. for the newbies.

Wylde06

2x20 tempo last night. I dont really plan on doing anything to high of an intensity right now, just getting back into training. Been riding about 4-5 hours a week right now with plans to bump it up 6-8 in the next few weeks.

furiousferret

2 x 15 @ 80%, which seemed hard but doable. I was going to blow of Santa Barbara on the 25th but really I don't think I fell off that far. Still since I have to work that day I probably won't want to cash in a favor.

burnthesheep

You mean 90%?

All I gotta say at this point is God bless the foam roller. For real.

Bought the Craft LS windstop base layer for some cold outdoor TT fun. That and the Poc come in the mail, time to do some cold simulation outdoor rides and transfer the TT position power and pacing from Zwift to the real world. I'll be ecstatic to put down that power outside.

furiousferret

I wish it was 90%. Coming back from the flu I'm still a bit off so I'm surprised I could do that. There's also a fair chance I'll have to drop my FTP by 5-10. I don't want to do that right away because typically when I'm rock bottom (45 CTL) my FTP jumps up fairly quickly so I just try to ride it out.

burnthesheep

Gotcha. I've been trying to do a better job of stuff like that. Actually hitting the numbers by choosing the right ones and getting productive work instead of "dreaming" I can do something and missing.

Good call.

I was really bad at that when it came to the sub-threshold vs. super range. I'd always push for that super range when instead it was supposed to be at sub. Finally listening to a fast-talk podcast about it convinced me I was really wrong. If I want to work certain systems, going above does me no favors.

I've also cut my ftp in Zwift workouts at home on the fluid versus the ERG at work by a couple watts since they read different. That made a difference also getting that right.

caloso

It’s been a really unproductive couple of weeks due to a combination of weather, work, and illness. Finally got in a decent zwift session last night. Man, I needed it.

Cypress

Did a short sweet spot workout last night because it's a regen week. I forgot to edit the warmup on Training Peaks to include 10 mins of Z2 after the 5-min warmup. Because of this, it had me warm up for 5 mins up to 195W, then go straight into my sweet spot of 305W on relatively cold legs. Bit of a system shock. Methinks a junior designed that one

Wylde06

Attempted a zwift race on saturday..went about as expected. lol

1 hour of just riding yesterday. Almost 5.5 hours for the week. Starting to ramp it up a little bit, hoping to be up to 8 hours in the next few weeks. Actually getting kind of excited thinking about some upcoming races

hubcyclist

channeling my inner TheKillerPenguin and did 4 hours of endurance on Sunday. I had 7.5% aerobic decoupling, would have like to have seen it under 5%. I might try to do more of these and try to get to 5hrs indoors, which I know sounds like torture to many. Someone I know did over 7.5hrs Sat and over 5.5hrs sunday, which is insane (he's training for DK). One of my sort of goals for the year is to be able to ride back to back 100mile days on some weekends and feel good about it

Cypress

Built and rode the new bike on rollers on Saturday, then caught a weather window and rode outside on Sunday. Both rides were mostly just to dial seat position in, as I'm hyper sensitive to that mumbojumbo. The new bike climbs like a scalded ape compared to my 7-year old MadOne, so that's fun.

I tried to sweet spot on an 11-minute climb a few times, but my seat was a smidge too high. Hamstrings complained. Probably for the better, as the climb is wicked hard to sweet spot on. It averages 7% grade over 2 miles, but the damn thing alternates between 13% and flat with a few short downhill sections and a flat finish. Makes for a whole lotta varied cadence and shifting in order to hold a power zone, which is probably a good thing.

Hermes

Back from skiing and off the the track tomorrow. 4 days of skiing out of a possible 7. We had some windy / snow days where we elected not to ski. We took SPO2 readings during the stay. I started with a 90 and ended with a 94. And I felt great the entire week versus, in years past, I would start with an 88 to 90 and go down to an 86 by day 3 and feel lousy with a headache. It always feels great to be back at sea level.

cmh

How high up were you staying? I haven't been on a ski vacation in a bunch of years, but really tended to feel headachy up at Park City or Copper Mtn CO. I always felt super strong coming back even after just 5 day up there but never had a power meter to verify. Could have been placebo effect.

Cypress

FTP test tonight. Going with the standard 20-min test. I've been at this long enough to notice my "old man" power coming out. A ramp test 15 years ago would have been perfect, but my old(er) muscles don't redline like they used to, so I feel like the number from a ramp would be lower. Maybe I'll throw a ramp test into next week, just to see if the numbers are close.

i wish the weather was better. My outdoor numbers are usually good for another 5%. ...but I guess that's a moot point if I'm not training outdoors

Hermes

I stayed at the base of Park City Ski area 7000 feet. I took one of USAC's courses on altitude training. All athletes react differently to altitude but in general, there is a standard response. A complete training cycle with full adaptation is 3 weeks long and the best setup is a place like Tenerife where one can stay most of the time at Altitude but go to sea level for VO2 work.

Day 3 after arrival at altitude is the worst and was our experience over the years at Park City. According to the data, after reaching a low at day 3 one begins to adapt. By day 7 one is in the build mode that continues the longer one stays but reaches maximum adaptation by day 21. The dark side of adaptation is that VO2 and muscle mass begin to reduce. So even though one is adapted to altitude versus another from sea level, the max VO2 is reduced.

When one returns to sea level, the process reverses and one is compromised at sea level due to reduced VO2 capability. After a few days at sea level, the adapted athlete, gains back VO2 and for a period of time has an advantage over traditional sea level athletes until the altitude adaption fully reverses. However, the response is different for all athletes such that some get worse at altitude and never adapt or stay the same. And time periods for adaptation vary as well. And the bogy for time per day at altitude is approximately 15 hours per day at altitude where there is less atmospheric pressure that results in less O2.

So the idea of one feeling stronger at sea level after 5 days at Park City is reasonable due to altitude training but one could also argue that skiing has juiced one neuromuscular capability and that is what one is feeling versus altitude benefit.

We are going to do an altitude block at Park City later this year. And we will drive to Salt Lake City and do some TT work at 5300 feet on Antilope Island to try to maintain VO2 capability.

caloso

Skied on Saturday with my son and two of his friends. I was a little surprised that they didn't seem to mind the old man hanging around. So much fun.
Base ride on Sunday.
Long walk on Monday.
Zwift this morning.

First race of the year is on Saturday. I'm not ready, but what the hell, I wonder if I can summon enough Jedi tricks not to get dropped.

cmh

What is aerobic decoupling? I'm not familiar with that metric.

hubcyclist

I’ll post a link when on a desktop but essentially for steady endurance rides your heart rate aligns with a certain power output. Aerobic decoupling occurs when the heart rate is going up higher for the same power output. It’s said that aerobic decoupling under 5% is indicative of good base aerobic conditioning

that said other stuff can affect aerobic decoupling. I wasn’t eating or drinking all that much so that might have contributed to my heart rate increasing toward the latter part of my ride

burnthesheep

Z2 spin at lunch in the road bike position. I also wrote down those exact measures so the gym bike is never a guess again on setup.

Did one max effort just to make sure the roadie versus TT bike ability was still good. 350w for 5min and HR said I could do longer. I didn't want to fall on the floor for an 8min try so cut it off. I think this year sometime I'll be able to do that for 8min. That would be sweet.

I need to start researching my plan for Feb before the RR. I've an idea what I'll do, but want to make sure. There will be some race sim.

Wylde06

2x15 sweet spot last night. Power is lol, but that'll happen when you dont really ride or train for a while

Cypress

20-min test went as expected. Went too hard at first, then settled in for about 8 mins, then power started to slightly decline, then the last 2 mins was a ramp into oblivion.

20-min power: 353W
FTP: 336W

Current weight: 159 lb

Minus the weight, those are bummer numbers for me, BUT it's January. I have never had good numbers this time of the year, so whatevs.