MDcatV

serious question. what do you expect the outcome of this approach to be?

aaronmcd

Morning group ride. Was kinda lazy I thought, didn't get in a break, quit giving pulls halfway in, but uploaded to strava and noticed the 2nd half was one of the fastest ever (13th overall), so I guess I'm ok with the lazy today. And I'm still a bit tender from all the invisible aero bars over the weekend...

hubcyclist

first time outdoors in nearly two months. 2hrs/37 miles pretty darn strong for me, definitely feeling like the effort on the trainer is paying off.

Wylde06

I rode yesterday, which I normally don't do on mondays..and I rode harder than planned..which I normally wouldn't do either on what was supposed to be a recovery ride. Now I don't feel like riding today..

So it goes..

TheKillerPenguin

windiest. recovery ride. ever.

shovelhd

Did you slow down to a crawl or break protocol?

TheKillerPenguin

140W was good for 8mph. Downhill.

shovelhd

Wow, that's windy.

Dunbar

Best numbers of the year for me today. Within 5w of my personal best. Some of that is crank vs. hub power but I still set a lot of PR's.

https://www.strava.com/activities/269973612/overview

furiousferret

My leg has made a turn for the worse. The muscle has gotten really tight and sometimes when I cycle or stretch, it gets caught on bone and violently snaps back into place. Its not painful, and an odd sensation, but certainly something I shouldn't repeat. The area is in some pain, but not too bad. I'm not sure where that leaves me in regards to cycling, it snaps when I cycle (apexing on the up stroke), not much but enough I should probably stay off the bike until its resolved.

The fix is stretching and exercise. I sit 40 hours a week at work, probably 15 hours at home, and 10 on the bike, which is a lot of time for the hips to be in a shortened state. I was told several times this would happen if I didn't hit the gym and stretch, and now I'm paying for it.

Ygduf

standing desk

bmcphx

I'm his defense I spent about 100 days in a back brace off the bike and my first month back was about 50 hours. Accelerated to pretty decent fitness very quickly but was careful about recovery more so than normal.

He'll be okay if he does it safely.

mattm

rode 2 hours, zone 2.

hack

6x6min VO2 intervals

LMaster

I've had some really kickass winter training and acquired a power meter during the process as well (a steal in my opinion, $250 for powertapG3 lightly used on ebay).

Main focus has been lots of tempo/threshold type work over the winter, but no crazy hard workouts so as to burn out before the important stuff in the summer. Training definitely went awesome. Best 20' power in the fall was 290W effort, a week ago I blew that away with 320W for 20min, with a pretty aggressive start of 345W for the first 5'.

Also had my first race, Lookout Mtn HC TT. While it was a terrible race (295W avg for 4.3 w/kg, considering I had just done 320W) it was a good learning experience. Kinda blew the race going that hard Wednesday (followed up that 20 min power best with another hard 30 minutes of riding) and then was dealing with a cold to boot.

I'm very, very excited for this season though. I've been eating good recently and weight is coming off steadily. Somewhere between 60-63kg is definitely a reasonably target. Combine that with 320-330W ability for 20' power at 7k' and I should have plenty of power as I start racing more, especially in hill climbs or hillier road races

With that in mind, my bike handling is going to need SPADES of work. General handling is somewhere between poor and below average, with a large dose of skittishness thrown in. I probably need to race them, but crit type races seem like an impossibility to me right now given this. I get gapped sometimes around corners on the few group rides I've been on, let alone a race situation where people are pushing it. Descending is even worse. On several local climbs my descent speeds are in the teens when top rides are coming down in the mid 30s. I think I understand the concepts and technique, but just lack the skill and most importantly confidence to really go after it on turns, not knowing exactly how much is too much lean before I go down (even though I'm obviously nowhere close to that point).

My big question would be how best to go about racing my skills. My thoughts were continue to drill and practice cornering/descending whenever I can, while also getting out routinely to group rides. That said from a racing perspective my plan was to race primarily, but not exclusively, the hill climb road races as those are more fitness based and have less premium on bike handling and pack riding ability. Is this a good plan, or should I just get in there are race a ton of crits/road races to gain some experience?

mattm

I vote for race as much as you can.

for both fitness and handling/pack riding.

spdntrxi

3x6 VO2

mike868y

that and an exercise ball. i don't think i could stand all day.

TheKillerPenguin

Crits. Crits crits crits. Road races unfold at a slow enough that even tactical morons like me understand what's going on; crits often require split second understanding of and reaction to situations. Crits are a guaranteed 3-4 corners every couple of minutes so you are going to learn how to go around turns and you will have to get comfortable doing it. Crits require a much better understanding of your position in the field so you are able to conserve energy and also be able to respond to attacks that look promising.

Really, I've only started to appreciate crits the past couple of weekends, but the lessons you learn doing them will make you better at everything. I've spent years telling myself I'm not a crit racer and truthfully at best I have about as much of a punch as Mia Farrow, but they're just sooooo damn good for everything that makes for a good bike racer. A crit is a controlled lab environment and you can experiment tactically in ways you really can't in the middle of a road race and especially not a time trial.

Edit: I mean, you get to race multiple times a day! I've raced 2 days this year and I've done 6 races. All of the practice!

Hermes

@furiousferret Sorry about the leg... IMO, diligent PT over a long period of time is the solution but here is an idea. As I recall, the muscle is the hip flexor. That is the muscle that lifts the leg. Many prescribe to the theory of the smooth round pedal stroke as the best and most efficient way of pedaling and that pulling up or even unweighting the upstroke is a plus. It may be until it creates a problem.

Riding fixed gear there is always power coming over the top which can assist the muscle and take some pressure off.

Interestingly, I have been using my new Rotor SRM with the oval rings. I love these rings and I can only describe the pedaling as amazing. It feels perfectly smooth but more importantly like I am riding my track bike on the velodrome with power coming over the top. Of course, I am the same with the same VO2 capability but it sure feels great which has to be a good thing.

The rings come standard set on the position 3 that most riders find favorable. There are five positions to set so that one could optimize the loading and unloading of the legs.

This may help your condition by changing how the legs load up and recover. Just an idea. Good luck.

gsteinb

I don't think that's necessarily true. in a RR it's often hard to know what's a break with potential and what isn't. **** rolls up the road and for no reason you can figure the break is gone and the day is done. Sure if there's some decisive course feature it can bring clarity, but often in a long RR I've found myself scratching my head as to what unfolds.

TheKillerPenguin

That's fair. I find them easier to read because often times attacks go with the terrain, but there have been a lot of times things have rolled and there's been no obvious why for its success.

Grumpy McTrumpy

gsteinb

too obtuse to make sense

TheKillerPenguin

I think that's a young Mia Farrow...?