something like 11.5 hours over the past 3 days, totally solo. i'm...tired, but it's been damn fun. looking forward to doing some more big rides over the next week and a half. despite my embarrasing race season thus far, i'm actually feeling good on the bike, which is nice. getting tempted to race again next saturday, rolling 50 mile 2/3 race...

Short sharp hill repeats, 150tss

A lot of 1m intervals in 90+ heat. Had some dude in a black kit with SPY+ all over it ride my wheel for a good fifteen miles. When I dropped my chain on a climb he just went on as if...

First training ride since last Wednesday. I felt surprisingly strong considering that I am now very old (60) and very fat and out of shape riding an old steel bike.

60 isn't old.

Went to national road race event in Chattanooga. Did a few treks up lookout mt after the pack rolled through. Watched KOM finish. Random 7yr old tried to bolt across the KOM after he thought everyone had finished guy OTB and him collided. 7yr old went down and the roadie kept it upright like nothing happened.

I actually REALLY want a steel race bike now. Custom fit,easy to repair. Firefly or speedvagen making me drool but quite a bit of coin when I really don't need a bike.

I believe it's significantly cheaper to repair carbon. Possibly steel allows worse damage to be repaired? At any rate, for a given CF repair, I think the same damage to steel would cost more to repair. I have a teammate with a four-year-old repair on both chainstays on his Orbea Opal. Both stays were cracked all the way through and displaced. $400 out the door with matching paint, and the repairs have weathered four seasons of racing and training. I can't imagine you could replace nice Columbus tubed stays for $400.

I agree with WR, and will also point out that if I tweak my aluminum race frame, it gets stripped and thrown in with the empty PBR cans. A replacement frameset would cost about twice what his friend's repair cost was, and there's a very short list of off-the-shelf candidates...two that I can think of, Specialized and Jamis.

Sunday I did 2.5 hours with El Diablo Rojo and some other teammates. Conversational pace other than one section where we lit it up for 10 minutes or so.

Monday, 5x5x5. Did the work intervals at 104%, and the recoveries at 70%.

Just did a Crybaby Hill simulator ride. 2:30 laps with a 50-second hill, 10 times. Felt surprisingly good, all the times were within 3 seconds of each other, and I had enough left to go ride another hour.

Looking forward to the race, although I have really no idea what to expect in terms of competition.

It's an NCC race. Expect the best. Hydrate well and enjoy the experience. I will make it down there someday.

Had blood drawn today for a routine test. Within five minutes I had a golf ball sized hematoma in the crook of my elbow. It's pretty tender now and it was uncomfortable commuting by bike today.

My doc took a look at it and said it will take 4 to 6 weeks to go away and by tomorrow it will be quite ugly looking ... all purple and yellow. Like LSU colors.

Been there. It sucks.

Did another 5x5x5 @ 104%/70% today with a teammate. It's nice to be at a low enough intensity that I can do many of this level of workout in a week.

Did the local noon ride today. Stayed with the lead group of about 10 guys over the final steep anaerobic climb. :) Trick is don't burn out before the hill, and don't follow anyone up the climb! Too many guys riding backwards haha.

A bit over an hour at ~95%

i rode to a race, raced, beat people, got driven home. #prolife

I was able to sneak in a ride today but had no idea what I would do. I decided on a 20' test since I hadn't ridden in a couple days. I made it 12' before I quit due to feeling like complete garbage and seeing pretty disappointing numbers which continued to drop as time wore on. I blame high stress and poor eating as of late. I need a good reset (and a more predictable routine) to get out of this funk.

Tuesday Night Worlds....showed up so tired. Felt like I could take a nap on the bike. That first surge always screws me up, got dropped, but I picked off a few guys going up. If I could just hold wheels for a few more seconds and make the first climb I'd make a ton of time. Best 20 minute power in the last 3 months, being so fatigued I'll take it as a huge positive.

I've gained about 10 lbs the past month. Blame it on Portland, specifically:

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=383476

Climbers Math: if I lose my 'new' weight, gain 25 more watts, and lose another 5 lbs, I should be able to beat this Jacque-Mayne guy up my hill.

Set a new PR for 3 minutes during my 75/30/75 x 4 intervals, the middle 30 seconds is not rest, but at 80% threshold, long rest between efforts. It was suppose to be x6, but I think I went out too hard on the first one, and I totally died on the 4th one and cut it short. Time to build back up after a few weeks of just riding around.

and trade your 10g top-cap for a 4g one. ;-)

i know you're joking, but as far as setting personal bests, stuff like tire pressure, cadence and more can matter...in a more than subtle way.

(i did a bunch of tests on the same road, sheltered from wind, steep grade (~10%), similar power (corrected for it) where i dropped pressure for each 10' run--just something to play with during an otherwise normal interval session. there were some non-trivial differences in pressure. try it sometime you are playing around on your local favorite hill. you might be surprised.)

Last night's training race was cancelled about 15 minutes before it started due to rain. I was all warmed up and ready to go. There was no way I was going to pack it up and ride the trainer so I just went out there in the downpour and did some hot laps while the crowd huddled under the tents and busted my chops. I has never ridden my race wheels in the rain (404/Corsa CX) because I never trusted them. They did fine although this was not P/1/2 race speeds. Still I learned a lot about how they handled in the rain, and I won't hesitate to race them in similar conditions in the future.

I'm guessing you're all jacked up from Gila and Gila prep. You'll be out of the muck soon. I'd say just stay low tempo for a few days until you feel like riding hard for some reason (testing the water on a hill here and there).

Why would you not trust your race wheels in the rain? Shouldn't they be servicable in all conditions?

Have you ever raced a flat criterium in the rain? There are some bike handling techniques that I can use to reduce the dependency on tire grip, and I'll use them, but when it's balls out gotta go time that stuff goes out the window and I need to trust my equipment. Trust is earned. I'm not always willing to take the chance to let that happen. In the past I have chosen to use my training wheels which I have ridden many times in the rain, and I know exactly how they perform on the edge. I took the chance yesterday because there was nobody around me that I could injure.