royalflash

I gave up trying to get my existing friends on two wheels so I decided it was time to find some new ones and went on a group ride with an MTB club. I really prefer road biking but I know that many of the members road bike as well and I like to keep an open mind anyway.

It was a real blast. If anyone knows Munich we went out on the trails that lead from the centre of Munich along the Isar-river to Schäftlarn. Its a really beautiful ride - through the trees with views across the valley with the river at the bottom.

I really need to get faster however. I am not so bad on the flats (just a bit slower) but going up steep hills I really suck. They were way faster than me. Maybe I am just to old (39)- maybe they get in more practice than I do- maybe I am just naturally unfit (like on the opposite end of the cycling scale to Lance)-maybe too heavy (95 kg)- maybe it is partly the bikes fault? (I didnt really build the bike to compete with immensely fast MTBrs).

I also snapped a chain for the first time. Luckily I had an SRAM power link with me so I just put that on and kept going.

Anyway I took the bike down to the LBS the next day and got them to swap the fork. The old Suntour boat anchor went into the parts bin and on went a Rock Shox Pilot. I also got some more aggressively treaded tyres fitted. There´s not much else I can do with the bike now without changing the frame.

Thats the easy bit. What do I need to do to keep up with these guys?- more miles?-more climbing?- how much and how often to make a difference?

At the moment I commute 22 km (edit thats total distance there and back) per weekday (35 mins each way) and cycle about 80 km on Sunday (average 25 km/hr).