Cleave

@revchuck, did you type "new bike"?

Glad you're recovering and retraining well.

revchuck 

Yup. New frameset, actually - Specialized Allez Sprint. I splurged and bought carbon bars, but just about everything else on it came off the Ridley Fenix I was riding; the Ridley frameset is going up for sale very soon. I need to pin my ears back and take pictures of it.

I took it for another ride this morning, my longest since getting back on the bike - 51 miles. It appears that my fat burning ability has degraded from my time off the bike; I needed a gel at 1h:45 and should have eaten another one at 2h:15 (finished at 2h:48). I was used to doing a ride of that length on water or water + electrolyte. I spoke with my coach today, and she told me not to sweat it, just eat what I need to complete the rides strongly. Legs were fine, as was the hip. TSS 133, IF .69. 45 minutes in Zone Zzzzzzzzzz after my shower.

I'm riding tomorrow and Saturday morning, then off the road until the monsoons leave. Unfortunately, coach knows that my trainer has been located and works, so I'll be doing time there.

sarals 

@revchuck, I like reading "new bike". Cool!!

I'm in a taper, riding pretty well, protecting my back. Well, maybe OVER protecting my back. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

The other day the Venge somehow fell off of the bike stand in my bedroom. It lives in the top cradle, and my Bianchi L'una lives on the bottom cradle, one above the other. I heard the crash, ran back to the room, saw the Venge in a heap on the floor, the Bianchi was still where it belonged. I picked the Venge up and looked it over, nary a mark on it. I hung it back up. Later that day I removed the towel that I had over the top tube of the Bianchi, only because I wanted to use the towel. That's when I discovered that the chain ring on the Venge had punched a HOLE in the top tube of the Bianchi. Oh, ####.... That's going to cost a bit to fix, and I doubt the paint (silver fade) can be matched. It's going to have to wait, no matter what I do.

revchuck 

Dang, Sara, that sucks. I'm pretty sure Calfee can fix that, including the paint match, but they ain't cheap. We've had good luck using them at our shop.

Heathpack 

@sarals, that does suck. At least you can drive the bike over to Calfee though, saves on shipping. I think they repaired my BMC frame for something like $150, including paint. I remember thinking how reasonable they were actually.

Racer Ex 

Sad face on the Luna. When they came out with that bike I thought it was one of the best looking bikes out the. Still do.

sarals 

Thanks, guys. I haven't had the heart to tell Alex. He bought it for me. It just breaks my heart.

I am going to take it to Calfee, but like I said, it's going to have to wait until after Worlds.

Heathpack 

I've spent the past few days here in Reno mountain biking with @Racer Ex. Trying to get my brain to process the terrain quickly enough that I can actually roll along the trail without constant interruption. It's a bit of a challenge but just something that seems like a huge bang for the buck to me. Really enjoy it all out of proportion to my abilities.

We rode some local-to-the-house Reno trails and today went a bit farther afoot, drove up to the top of Mt Rose to ride the Tahoe Rim Trail from Tahoe Meadow south to the Flume Trail and then more south to Spooner Lake, where Mr. H picked us up.

Meadow was beautiful and green and full of airy flowers.



Lots of rolling but generally downhill terrain after that, in beautiful open pine forest. The trees were covered in bright green Lichen, very stunning.



The trail was mostly straightforward, I got stumped by a lot of it but got to roll along sometimes.



Then onto the Flume Trail, an easy easy trail, mostly the only "interesting" part was riding right along some steep drop offs. Huge bang-for-the-buck, though, incredible views of Lake Tahoe.



At one point, we just had to stop to admire the view. I found myself lounging on the most comfortable rock ever.



@Racer Ex contemplating how rough his life is, and how challenging it is to live somewhere extraordinary.



Some other people went by on the trail and I figured I'd snap a pic for documentary purposes- so y'all could see what the trail was like.



tl/dr: a really nice day on the bike, y'all should all come up here to ride for sure. 😁

revchuck 

There's some pretty country up there!

Want some of our extra rainfall?

sarals 

Sometimes I wish I had a mountain bike to ride...

...and then I come to my senses.



Not to take away from all ya'll who ride mountain bikes, it looks like fun, but with my back, my crazy schedule (and life) and I BARELY have time to get to the track and do what I need to.

It sure looks like fun, though....

sarals 

I've been lurking over on the Velodrome Forum quite a lot. I've been sucking up information and entertainment. There's some knowledgeable people over there, I have probably met some of them and don't know it (other than the obvious ones). Every now and then I'll reply or remark about something, and while it's not the 33 where flaming is common, I DO tend to get ignored. I won't let that frustration get in the way of my studies, though.

The last couple of training rides have been H A R D. Coach is working me hard before the A races start. The problem is that the workouts coincide with some really stressful times at work (I think I need to track MENTAL CTL related to work stress, it DOES affect me), and I've not been performing well on the bike. I actually had a pretty good peak about five weeks ago, and I've been below that since. Today I was stiff, stiff, stiff when I started the ride. I was disturbed to see that I had difficulty holding high numbers, and the Venge felt like it was mired in soft cement or something. In one week is the District Crit, and I want to win my age group. By golly I can, but I'd better be on my game. Things are not quite what I'd like right now.

Am I worried? Not with the Coach I have. He'll get me there.

But I'm serious about tracking CTL from work. It does take a toll.

Heathpack 

Now where did I leave off??

Sunday was a rest day, which I needed, was just wiped out. We moved from Casa Ex to our timeshare over at Northstar, about 15 min north of Lake Tahoe.

Monday was a delicious road ride with @valygrl, sister of valygrl, and @Racer Ex. Awesome 30 mile/4000 ft climbing ride on a recently-paved forest road. Beautiful, shady, lightly breezy, and almost no traffic. And great company. All my friends were posting miserable rides at home in 108F temps, while we were in the upper 70s. Lucky on so many levels!



The womenz. I'm the chubby one in pink, lol:



Today @valygrl and sister of valygrl and I did a wee mountain bike ride. It was a beginner trail outside of Truckee called the Sawtooth Trail. Still, it was hard to me. Just the right amount of hard though, had to walk some bits. But I also rolled along with some ok flow at times, making progress. More great riding & great company, really enjoyed it.



My new favorite thing is mountain biking, I'm smitten. The trails here are just fabulous. So I'm going to try to pack as much mountain biking into this trip as I can.

sarals 

@Heathpack and @valygrl - so lucky indeed!!

sarals 

I have the long awaited and anticipated District Crit this Sunday. We'll see how it goes. Eyes open, head up, focus on. As I told coach, "On any given Sunday".

Heathpack 

Good luck with it, @sarals!

sarals 

Good thread over on the Velodrome Forum.

https://www.bikeforums.net/track-cycl...ff-season.html

I've no comment, I'm still reading it. There have been several points that have rung bells, though, and I thought it would be good to share.

sarals 

Thanks, HP! I've looked at Bike Reg, "who's registered". The usual. It will be a clean race, and probably pretty fast. In my age group, I've got Norma. My teammate. I have a plan. We'll see if it works.

revchuck 

Well, I'm glad Harvey has left. Most of the folks where I live got through it with little to no problem. A lot of people who built houses or had trailers near rivers and bayous lost everything.

I got out last Friday and Saturday, ended up the week with 481 TSS, which was twice as much as the previous week. Yesterday afternoon was the first time I was able to get out, and I had to modify my route since one of the bridges I had to cross was still under water. Not the approach, the bridge. I'm going to be doing a lot of backtracking until the water levels fall. Still, it was a decent ride and I felt pretty good on the bike. 1h:37 for the ride, TSS 87. This week's goal is TSS 400, should be doable.

Bandera

After a long hiatus I re-installed Strava on my 'phone to not have to start/stop timers on three private segments I use for short HIIT work.
Looking at the download I saw that Captain Fast had set-up a segment in a residential neighborhood that:

Starts in an elementary school zone
Gathers speed on a gradual downhill into two short sight-line intersections w/ left turning traffic
Enters the Community center's crosswalk to pool, b-ball court, kiddie park, rec center and walking trail
Ends in a "sprint" right where erosion ripples the pavement and washes pea gravel across the surface

Sheer narcissistic/anti-social/dangerous genius!

Apparently the idea is to draft an outward bound school bus, build speed to dive into the crosswalk's crowd of baby strollers, skateboards, dog walkers, family's on the way to swim lessons and joggers in a desperate "sprint" for a meaningless "KOM".

Deleted Strava, again.

-Bandera

Hermes

@Bandera Invite Captain Fast to the track and see how he does. He can draft motorcycles instead of school busses.

Hermes

I am training at VSC this week. Yesterday, I drained the tank doing 4x100 meter flying efforts.

Racer Ex 

Never installed Strava.

Fine for those that use it and enjoy it. Just not my thing, in part for some of those "segments".

Heathpack 

More great mountain biking with @Racer Ex

On Wed, we rode a 12 mile/1600 ft loop. The first leg of the loop was something we'd ridden on day one and it seemed insurmountable to me then- I had to stop and visually inspect every rock before I'd consider riding over it, lol. Then on Wednesday, same trail and I was thinking "what's the fuss??!" Not that I rode over everything but just suddenly it seemed reasonable to try, huge progress.

It was a beautiful ride, starting in the open desert sagebrush around Ex's house and then up into open pine forest along a rushing stream, then up into an open meadow of brilliant yellow grasses before descending a lovely flowy trail amongst the aspens. Really great ride, incredible thing to be able to do right from your front door.

The destination is called Dry Pond, here's a pic:



Yesterday we rode on the slopes above the western side of Lake Tahoe again. This time we rode the Incline Flume Trail (a new section) to the Marlette section of the Tahoe Rim Trail and then back via the Marlette Flume Trail. The flume trails are flat and pretty easy technically. But the section of Rim Trail we rode is a long technical (but not too hard) climb, I'd guess 1500-1800 ft over around 4 miles. At altitude, you wind up at a max elevation of almost 9000 ft.

Neither Ex nor I were feeling terribly perky and we considered just doing and out & back on the easy (but still stunning) Flume Trails. But we both were of the mindset- heck, we're here, might as well ride something more challenging. So we forged ahead.

Absolutely beautiful ride, and again I was much better with the technical stuff than I was just a few days prior.

We came upon a small lake, place that sometimes has a little water but never is an actual lake. Ex showed me the tree frogs that make so much noise in these parts. Beautiful fragile little things, getting by in a difficult place.


We kept going up and up- through forests and open piles of boulders, stopping whenever we felt like it to take a look at something or catch a rest. Sometimes we'd both stop, sometimes just one of us. Nice compatible ride, knowing you didn't have to spend every moment together. Ex stopped to climb some boulders, I rolled past and then was catching my breath in a shady bit of forest when I see him rolling down the path towards me:



Climb climb climb and I'm getting really tired. Keeping my eyes on the trail, Ex yells something and I pause. Haha, he's yelling "Snow!" from behind me. We made it to the snowy peak. Sweet. It's 109F at home and we're making snowballs.



Finally we make our way up & over the saddle for a great view of Marlette Lake, with Lake Tahoe in the background. So beautiful, I'm filled with a sense of gratitude towards whoever built these trails, lol.

Then we start to make our way down and a few minutes later I am compelled to stop. We're amongst a huge field of purple flowers. They are shimmering in the sunlight and breeze and the trail is infused with their perfumy scent. I pick some to bedeck my bike in flowers and start wondering where Ex is. Then he comes roaring down the path with purple flowers woven into his mountain bike helmet, lol.



More descending and we come to a junction. I'm not sure which way to go but a right turn seems to keep going down. Turns out I got us onto a new trail but since we climbed a bit before I realized it was something other than the trail we'd intended, we were invested. Might as well go to the top.

New trail that traverses a ridge overlooking Marlette Lake. Same double view of Marlette & Tahoe as we had before, but a better vantage point. Wow.



It was all downhill of flat from there, although we were still probably 10-12 miles from the car. But just an incredible, exhausting, 100% enjoyable ride. Really great to ride with Ex on a personal level, we just appreciate the same things. Well, maybe he likes rocks a bit more than I do, but why quibble over details?

The huge thing though is what an extraordinary teacher/coach Ex is. Most people who are willing to try to teach you something are really doing so for their own purposes- they show you how to do something in large part because they want to see themselves as a good teacher. It's never like that with Ex- he will show you something or explain something but process it in your own time. When most people say "you can do it," they are in actuality pushing you to do whatever. When Ex says the same thing, it's more a statement of fact: that is a rideable element for your skill level. But no pushing, no disappointment if you don't try it. It gives me way more confidence about stuff and much more willingness to give something a try. Nuance but it's huge for me and it's just a massive part of any success I have on the bike. Obviously over time, Ex has evolved to be a friend as well as a coach. But the coaching relationship has been one of the most positive relationships in fifty years of living. It's worth mentioning because I'm very fortunate to have it.

Great trip so far, just two more days...

Racer Ex 

^Can't follow that with much more than:

Big two weeks of riding. 10/12 hours of work, running the TSS up. Had a good race Tuesday and starting to feel like a bike racer again. Districts getting close.

Really was a great time getting out on the MTB and getting to share some of my favorite trails.

sarals 

I use and have used Strava for years. I could give a **** less about the segments, QOM's or anything else. I have my goals, I don't care what anyone else has done where I'm riding. I compare me to me. I do like the social aspect, however. And the PenVelo Women post upcoming rides on it and use those posts to poll who on the team can make it. It's good for those things., IMHO. And yes, I know it's abused.