Dudelsack 

So it nudged 60 today, and anyone who didn't ride who physically could have is a communist.

I elected to take my Lemond as I didn't want to drag the bent out of the basement. It felt light and joyously supple, but after about 25 miles all the the aches and pains I was getting reminded me of why I ride a recumbent most of the time.

Unfortunately the ride was 35 miles, and I felt pretty beat up at the end.

The trainer also does not help you develop bike handling skills, which would have been useful on a day with black ice ambushes and pot holes that made the city streets look like the Battle of Verdun.

I met a Natural, some retired GI who started cycling a year ago and now can rip the legs off most of the cyclists out there. I enjoyed talking with him, and, as he uses Strava too, we now follow each other and may become BFF.

I suspect if a part of my body doesn't hurt in the morning, it's only because it doesn't have nerve fibers.

Dudelsack 

Really wasn't as sore as anticipated for the rest of the week.

Today is clear and sunny and I got most of my ride in before the gusts of wind picked up. I can tell the trainer time is helpful (over 400 miles this year) but nothing exactly duplicates time on the road and climbing hills just always hurts. I don't know why I thought it would be otherwise.

Anyway, 30 miles and 1500' of climbing. Average speed is irrelevant (and slow).

StephenH

My tale of suffering is that I rode all day long with Sharon, Vickie, and Debbie. Headwind until lunch, tailwind thereafter. Shirt sleeve temperatures after mid-morning. We got in just before dark.

Dudelsack 

Today I was going to do a 5 mile Strava segment and see how fast I could manage. I rode over it once to check for potholes and stuff. As I was psyching myself up, the temp dropped 5 degrees and it started raining, so I bagged it and came home. It's supposed to be nasty for at least another week.

I'm grateful for the four days of decent weather, but it's back to the trainer for me I'm afraid.

Dudelsack 

For those following my blog, whoops, this thread: I took the day off yesterday as my daughter had her ACL repair. She'd had all sorts of issues with two previous visits to the hospital, so we collectively were quite anxious. They gave me permission to get into scrubs and take her back to the OR, leaving immediately after induction. She did fine, BTW.

I did the most advanced barfomatic of this particular training series (new century rider) and my legs felt pretty tired. The last three weeks are now "maintenance".

One weird thing about Strava. I took a leisurely ride on Sunday, skipping some speed work because I didn't want to get rained on. I went 13.9 miles at about 12 MPH. It said my weighted average wattage was 127. Then I rode intervals today, going 13.9 miles at about 12 MPH, and feeling kind of barfy as they were barfomatics. According to Strava my average wattage was 107.

Weird but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

BlazingPedals

I sure feel sorry for you dudelsack, suffering through those high temps. It was a refreshing 13 degrees (F) at lunch here. I'm actually getting used to it; if not for the ice on the roads I'd go for a short ride after work.

Dudelsack 

High of 27F today. I just don't like riding in it.

So now I have my bent in the garage and the Lemonster on the trainer. I consider it cross training it's not supposed to warm up for at least a week.

Needless to say, I'm not doing the 200K this weekend.

Someone around here said you should be able to do in a day what you can comfortably manage in a week. I rode 95 miles last week, almost all of it outdoors, so according to that, I must be ready. Shame my century isn't until April.

Dudelsack 

Rats. I have a choice now. First, I can get dressed and ride outside. It's low 40s and destined to get colder for the next ten days, so it's now or...wait a while.

Or I can ride my DF on the trainer in the basement for two hours. Boring, and hard on my curiously sore upper back.

Or I could bag it and sit around all day and goof off.

Maybe I should start a poll.

Dudelsack 

Rode one hour, then moved the bent back downstairs. I'll blame the tire marks on the freshly painted walls on the dog.

Dudelsack 

Hmmm. The battery in my power meter quit on me after 15 minutes. Angry and deprived of numbers, I rode on the trainer doing 5 minute intervals at my highest gear, 50X12 on 26' tires at 50 rpm. Off to Sheldon's to see how fast that was.

Anyway, that is the end of 8 weeks, with the last three weeks intended to be maintenance. I think I might benefit from high gear low cadence intervals to mimic my suffering up hills.

Dudelsack 

Had a good workout today, combined barfomatics. Posted a general question on the training and nutrition forum about cadence and power.

Heathpack 

@ dudelsack, I just now read this thread & my hat is off to you! I can't believe how many nay-sayers have posted in this thread, how many people advise against training. This is completely inconceivable to me. You are doing the right thing IMO by having a training plan. More power to people who want to ride in an unstructured way, they should do so & enjoy themselves. But a training plan will take you farther faster and if training appeals to you, by all means you should do it. Which obviously you've already done, so my encouragement I'm aware is a bit late here.

I'm also shocked at your inability to feasibly find hills in your terrain, it's so different from where I ride. I live in a valley and literally if you want to go anywhere you will wind up riding 30 miles uphill. Sometimes it's hard for me to realize how different everyone else's paradigm is, I'm such a newby myself.


What bike are you going to be riding in your century? Whichever it is, that's the one you need to be putting the hours in on. Forget the other one. If you get sore with that bike, you need to figure out why. Fit, wrong saddle, lack of core strength, lack of flexibility, etc- the sooner you address them the better. Of course if you have something like a disc herniation or other medical condition, that is another matter, I'm not sure how to advise. But systematically start fixing all the other issues now and get in the hours on the correct bike, which I'm assuming is going to be the road bike.


Good luck to you. PM me your last name & I will find you on Strava.


H

Dudelsack 

Thanks for your kind words. I didn't mean to give the impression that there are no hills here. We have them everywhere unless you go downtown and ride along the Ohio River. Our hills are usually not higher than 200', though. Many have very sharp grades.

As far as dialing in a bent, we're usually on our own.

Heathpack 

What does that mean "dialing in a bent?"

If your hills are only 200 feet high, you know what that means? You just have to go up & down them 20 times.

H

Dudelsack 

No one knows, not even benders.

There's a lot of tweeking to the type of seat, distance to the pedals, angle of recline, position of the handlebars, and stuff like that.

On the hilly century I plan on riding the bent, all 35 pounds of it. I worry about my ability to clip out quickly when I stall on the 20%+ grades, but I like the SPD-SL pedals so much, and the shoes to match, that I'm not likely to go back to me MTB shoes and M520s. I can clip out plenty quick on those.

Heathpack 

Are you kidding me, 20% grades?! Why would you even pick a ride like that? Thirty five pounds is a huge weight to lug up a hill like that. What does your road bike weigh?

H

Dudelsack 

Bents aren't for sissies.

Heathpack 

Yes, but couldn't you just make your task more reasonable by using the road bike, which is probably, what, 20 pounds?

Personally, I'd take the sissy route.

H

Dudelsack 

I did the 70 mile route on the bent last year. I've also taken a bent to the top of Vail Pass and up a cat 4 or 3 climb on the Tour of Colorado.

Bents are so much more comfortable than DF that we put up with the agony of climbing. This is one reason I wanted to do the TCTP, my attempt to have more matches to burn on hilly centuries.

Ultimately I'd like to try touring. Those people lug heavy bikes everywhere.

My road bike weighs 19 pounds and feels like a toy. I would love to try a well fitted Domane, but I'd have to ride it for several hours before making any conclusions.

Heathpack 

I rode a Domane set up by shop per my fitters numbers and he had an adjustable frame & had dialed in the Domanes frame geometry, so I'm pretty confident the fit was very good. I did not like it. You should test ride a BMC GF01 Now *thats* a nice bike, not that I'm partial or anything. But you can't put fenders on it, and you'd probably want that in a a touring bike.

I have never ridden a recumbent bike so I can't speak to relative comfort. But I'm comfortable on a road bike so that works for me & saves some weight up the hills to boot.

Well good luck on your recumbent century. I feel so bad for all you people suffering through winter, I have literally not lost a single ride to weather since the fall. Well, actually I had to move one up a day to avoid some rain, but that's it. You'll be happy when spring comes at last. Not too much longer.

H

Cougrrcj

Still 4" of snow on the ground this morning, and salt-covered roads. I'm not taking any of my bikes out on salt! The way things are looking, it'll be mid-April until the salt is washed off the roads! D*** Winter!!!

Dudelsack 

Junk miles this morning. It's supposed to be a decent day for riding tomorrow. We'll see....

Dudelsack 

Holy moly. The family went shopping and I went riding. They were gone when I got back, so I laid down "for a few minutes" and woke up two hours later.

No amount of indoor training prepares you for steep grades. They just hurt. There are two Fisherville grinders I took on. One tops out at 15% grade, and I handled that, but the other tops out, albeit briefly, at 20% and I walked that. I'm not confident about panic un-clipping with my SPD-SLs.

I could use legs that are 20 years younger. Losing 20 pounds also wouldn't hurt.

Jim from Boston

Same here.

Cougrrcj

There is a huge salt mine that runs under Lake Erie. Since they mine the stuff here, road salt is cheap so they use a LOT of it.

Back in the early '70s, I had a five-year-old bike that literally rusted out! I rode year round here in the Cleveland suburbs - in the Winter and salt, too. It was only my Ashtabula-crank Sears Free Spirit three-speed. I knew I was hard on it, so I would take it completely apart at least twice a year down to the bare frame for a thorough cleaning. Year four it even got repainted. Then late that fifth Winter, I hit a pile of snow that turned out to be harder than I thought. The rust-weakened frame snapped. The top tube broke just forward of the seat tube.. Rusted from the inside out. I had it welded at school, but the toptube broke again a few weeks just forward of the repair. That's when I got my first Fuji Special Tourer...

Back in those days, our family never had a car that reached anything over 80,000 miles. They'd just rust into a pile of junk. My first car was a '72 Cougar bought in '76 - and already the doors were flapping in the breeze and quarter panels rusted through. Driver's floor, too! Remember the first Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare? The fenders on those rusted through in just two years, prompting a factory recall. The front suspension torsion bar crossmember would rot out too, and you'd see a lot of those with their 'chin down'.

I HATE RUST!!!!

/rant

We now return you from this off-topic rant back to the topic of... whatever the heck it was. Winter training, I guess.