Yeah, I try to make most of my rides a bit fierce. I'm competitive enough to join in most every sprint to a town sign, and go hard on every hill. I think the best thing was riding with people a lot stronger than me- the chaingang. I was on the brink of blacking out most of the time, I think that must be good training! I really didn't want to get dropped, as I didn't know the roads very well at first.

So do most recreational cyclists do the high tech thing for fun? Or do they just take this a lot more seriously than me? Maybe I'll find out if I do, as you say, hit some sort of plateau.