dagray

Happy April Fools Day.

New Month, New Thread.

I picked up my trainer wheel (the shop just traded me for my old one and some of the 9 speed Sora parts I don't need anymore since upgrading my son's bike to the 10 speed that was on my bike; I upgraded my bike to 11 speed Ultegra (except for the crank).

I also had the bike shop put in longer tubeless valve stems (60mm), but darn it they were still too short for me to use my pump with (I couild get air in, but no pressure reading), and so I picked up a new pump with a "Smart" head which solved my trouble. I figured a $30.00 pump was less expensive than buying 80mm stems and sealant.

The reason I can't just coble together some gears for my trainer wheel is that I use a smart trainer that simulates riding outside by mimicking resistance for road grade/slope.

Happy riding everyone

dagray

19 miles today on the trainer.

Yes one can hit 70mph on a bicycle on a negative grade... no I don't want to try that speed on a road. https://www.strava.com/activities/923901743

jimincalif

Not to pick nits, but shouldn't this be XXIV? 😱

rgconner

Ay ay ay ay.

DrIsotope

Hey, Roman numerals are hard. I'm still pushing for binary. This would be

Carbo Loading 00110010 00110100

BTW, this broken hand has put me solidly back into Clyde status, I've packed on about 15lbs. But I was expecting 25lbs, so I'm still ahead.

dagray

Well spit... it should be XXIV

Turzy

looks like we're gonna have a nice winter this spring
can't wait to head south next week!

MikeRides

27 days before my big spring-century! Well, the ride's only 50 miles but I'm going for a little extra this year and plan on riding last year's route afterward.

Black wallnut 

#30daysofbiking started 4-1. Another month, another challenge.

indyfabz

75 days until I leave town for this:


https://ridewithgps.com/routes/19192705

Jarrett2

Gotta ask, what did you punch?

Black wallnut 

I'm thinking PJ if he wanted could edit the thread title.......

In other news what is up with the pricing these days on taps? An 8-36 is $30!

jsigone

that tool shop is outrageous!! special carbide?

DrIsotope

I think sufficient time has passed to go about busting @TrojanHorse's balls, because I handed (no pun intended) him a ration of crap when he announced his intentions to join the ranks of the video game cyclists. I almost immediately then broke my right hand, and have been confined to Zwift for about 3 weeks (14 rides) now, during which time I've racked up 380 miles and 20k feet of climbing. And where is that other dude? Nowhere to be seen. Some folks can't even take their video game cycling seriously. Pssshhhh.

The wrist is now the worst part-- there's enough room in the cast for the arm to shift a little, but the wrist is still for all intents and purposes immobile, so it won't hold weight for more than about 30 minutes. I was watching a video about pro Matt Hayman breaking his arm in a crash last year, and using Zwift as his recovery tool to stay in shape (he won Paris-Roubaix 6 weeks after his crash, inspiringly enough) and he was using a painter's ladder to rest his arms, as he couldn't bear weight either. Inspired by this, I cobbled together some scrap wood with a folding stepladder and some clamps to approximate the same thing. Totally works, I got in a quality 2 hours this morning without discomfort. Shame I only figured it out this far along, but hey, whatchagonnado?

Zwift's HR zones are mental, and I don't know how to change them-- I think they auto-calculate? Shrug.

PhotoJoe 

Happy to oblige.

jimincalif

Thanks PJ! Much better!

TrojanHorse

LMAO, I actually went for a ride outside! But not a lot of them. Ahem.

Took #1 son snowboarding too and my right knee is now flat from he pounding it took on the slope. About half the mountain was open, if you can call Snow Summit a "mountain" and despite claims of 12 whole inches of base, I think it was white rocks that we were boarding on. Ouch.

Black wallnut 

Ok I exaggerated a bit, by a factor of 2. Still last time I ordered some taps they were less than $3 each. Now over $12. That is a pretty big price increase. https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/07462591

Black wallnut 

LOL 12" of base. I had two feet of base in my yard in February.

"a ride" outside. Hope you can add to that soon.

IBOHUNT

The screen shot has "Epic" in it. That's some @Black wallnut PoundSignStuff right there.
Can people even write a paragraph these days about something they have done without using a Pound Sign or the word Epic?

Black wallnut 

That is just #epic right there. I mean really poundsignfreakingawesome! @IBOHUNT it all started in the 70's with participation trophies.

IBOHUNT

Homer's Iliad = Epic
D-Day = Epic
10th Mountain Division in the Battle for Mount Belvedere = Epic

Most of the stuff referenced with Epic these days... Not so much

DrIsotope

Hey, I don't determine what qualifies as "epic." Strava is no better in that regard, with their "tough" and "extreme" suffer scores. I'm just glad I won't be mixing Zwift and road riding once I get back outdoors-- because managing training stress/fatigue is tricky enough without getting two sets of wildly different numbers. No two devices will spit out the same scores for TSS, TRIMP, or any other stress-related metric. The 176 above from Zwift was a Suffer score of 75, a Strava TRIMP of 226, and a Power Stress Score of 115. Zwift apparently auto-figures FTP based what the best 20 minute effort was in-game, which for me is apparently ~280w, but I can make a 240w average all day long, so even a two hour session is EPIC by Zwift's figuring. I was focusing on keeping output between 3.0-3.5W/kg on climbs, squarely in the middle of Z3 power-- nothing epic to be seen.

I will miss one thing about Zwift-- it increases the Strava PR opportunity by orders of magnitude. I had Strava for roughly 8 months of 2015, and gathered ~700 PRs in ~6,000 miles. I've ridden Zwift 14 times, totaling less than 400 miles, and have 358 PRs. I am already bored of London, though.

FIVE DAYS TO GO

TrojanHorse

You should move down to where there are more than 2 cyclists. It gets ludicrous, there have to be 4,000 segments on SART (lower) despite only being 40 miles long.

I do like the lack of traffic in zwift and of course, the people passing are always motivation to get cracking. I go riding some days and never see a soul, at least not one that I catch up to or get passed by.

DrIsotope

My normal ride time is M-F, between 7 and 8am-- I will typically see no other bikes during a ride, unless I stumble upon one of the weekly group rides from the local clubs, and those folks are not in a hurry to get anywhere. I'm talking 10-12mph average. Top 10 miles of the SART I might see half a dozen or so, but in my experience, clipping along at +20mph, I pass everything. Seems like most people do 18-19mph at the absolute most heading west, and 15-16mph heading east. No one to chase, really.

I do love watching people in Zwift that have absolutely zero ability to maintain a pace. On the long Watopia climbs, I sit-in at like 3.0-3.5w/kg, and try to hold it all the way to the top. Guys will blast by me at +5w/kg, only to have me pass them back 2 minutes later, then they'll surge by me again. By the top of the climb, 80% of them will be 40-50 seconds behind me, slugging along at 1.5w/kg.

Now, with two Zwift days remaining, I unlocked the Zipp 808s (Lvl.10,) supposedly the fastest wheels in the game. I might get in a few Volcano Circuits tomorrow, see if I can pick up some new PRs on the quicker wheels. It's just mental to me that the Cervelo S5 unlocks at Lvl.24, which is 3,000 miles of in-game riding. I might finish with ~500.