Originally Posted by
bigfred
2.For now, don't go hard the day before your group ride. At some point, as your performance increases, group rides may actually start to represent "moderate" to "easy" distance rides. But for now, nothing harder than a recovery ride the day before.
Yeah I have this impulse control thing. The weather was so nice the day before, I had to go; felt like I would be wasting a perfectly good day if I didn't. Then on the ride, I intended to just go slow, but for some reason I just cannot ride slower than my maximum. I'm not sure why that's the case.
I noticed while on the group ride, even though everyone was going faster than me, I had the highest cadence. I didn't think my cadence was particularly high, only around 85-90, but everyone else was clearly in the 70-80 range. Obviously they were in a higher gear than me, but I've found that in order to go the same speed in a higher gear, I wear my leg muscles out much quicker; ergo the preference for the higher cadence. Is that odd?
3. Oatmeal! It's Mrs. Fred's and my secret weapon. It seems to have more stick to your ribs, slow release, energy than just about anything else we've tried. Then, we carry three types of pocket snack: First, a piece of fruit (banana, orange wedges, etc.), Second, a longer chain carb snack (usually granola bars), Third, simple sugars to get to the finish(rice crispie treats, jellies, etc.)
Homemade or instant oatmeal? Made with water or milk? I'm going to have to try that out.
I recently acquired a taste for bananas, and have been eating 1-2 a day. However whenever I try taking any with me on the ride, they just get mushed up and squishy and gross, so I don't bother taking them anymore.
I bring Quaker granola bars, those seem to do the trick for me. I used to buy jellies too; Clif Shot Bloks to be specific. Problem is; those things are very expensive, and I always end up eating them outside of rides; ie like candy. Given how many calories those things have, I decided to stop buying them because I obviously cannot control myself when they're sitting around. One thing I've been meaning to try however is just buying 2 individual packages a week instead of a whole box, and using those on my long weekend rides. Hopefully I'll have more self control if I only have 2 instead of 20 lying around!!
Keep up the good work. And next time you pass a couple of peleton refugee's, "SLOW DOWN" for a few minutes. Give them a draft to suck. They're as toasted as you were when you got spit. Once they've recovered, you'll have the beginnings of the "B" group. When you find the third refugee, explain to the second that both of you will slow just a little to collect said person. Let the third sit in, while you and #2 do the work. Now, you'll have a paceline and you'll no longer be cycling alone. YOU, will have formed a group. This is one of the hardest lessons to get newish peleton refugees to subscribe to. Once people get dropped, they tend to go into solo mode. Then, when they have the opportunity to collect a fellow rider, they speed up, pass, gap and destroy, in order to increase their self esteem. Thereby assuring that the other solo'ists remain just that. If you adopt the former instead of the latter, you may find that you become a B group hero. Groups typically have a "leader" in them. The "leader" is frequently not at the front.
I thought about slowing down, but they were clearly toasted. I was doing about 12mph at that time and they were going about 6 or 7mph, which is probably the only reason I caught up. I will consider grouping up more in the future though.