chasm54

The weather here has been foul for several days, driving rain and winds up to 70 kph. So I'm being a wuss and taking something resembling a rest week. I'll have to get out soon, though or I'll start eroding my gains of the last six weeks or so. These are the moments when my hatred of trainers costs me some time on the bike. May have to set up the rollers, they've been packed away since I moved house in June.

valygrl

Try Zwift. I swear I'm not a shill. but it makes riding indoors way better.

chasm54

I don't think you're a shill at all, but I hate the thought of it. Unreasonable of me, I know, but the point of bicycles is that they actually go somewhere, imo. The notion of virtual reality cycling just makes me cringe. I can bear the rollers only because I can tell myself I'm maintaining my skills - and even then not for long.

I've thought about why this is and conclude that once I started to consider the bike as being principally about exercise, it would lose a lot of its appeal. If I just wanted to get fit, I may as well run. The riding's the thing, for me, and it has to be out on the road.

Heathpack 

Testing the waters day 2 with a 90 min sunrise tempo ride solo in the cold. Ave temp: 27 degrees! A little nippy for sure. I really need to get some booties.

98% improved, it was really nice to get out there.

Am I the only one who likes the trainer? You can hit all your interval targets, its a beautiful thing.

chasm54

It's an interesting insight into differing motivations for riding, I guess. The cycling's an end in itself, for me, always has been. Efficient training is nice, but it isn't really the main point.

Racer Ex 

Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Just think of the rollers as healthy exercise that will keep you fit and trim. Channel that inner motivational exercise guru.

Despite taking a couple of days off after hitting the post, and doing the Holiday thing, managed to crank out 8 hours and 525 TSS this week. Long ride yesterday, partially on a road I've never been on. One of those deep coastal canyons that still have old growth. Steep, damp, and cold, but amazing. I took the cowards way out heading back and rode where there would be some sun.

Work this morning, then maybe try to do some XC skiing before my strength work. Still have a pointer in the ribs if I push on them, but the range of motion seems to be ok.

Heathpack 

Yes, I think its interesting what gets people on a bike. I like the way it moves and I like the sensation of moving through space. I like riding in beautiful places with good people. I really like coffee.

But my biggest thing by far is that I like the training process, I like the evolution of it, cracking the nut, so to speak.

I rode on Sunday with my old beginner group and they are all riding exactly the same as they were 6 months ago when I last rode with them. They are happy and we had fun but we don't 100% relate. We're doing it for different reasons. But we all like coffee so we wound up in the same place at the end.

Hermes

I like to ride the trainer / rollers and find it to be a very effective workout. With the local terrain, it is very difficult to do some workouts on the road and hit the numbers.

IBOHUNT

While I understand the being able to control the variables for workouts I can only add that I don't enjoy a trainer.

To quote a manager.

"Now, having said whatever I said" if I have a workout to do and I can see it in Trainer Road (Trainer Road lets you create workouts) then I'll do what I can then soak up the small lake of water I leave later

Hermes

I also like to go around in circles at the track and never get bored.

Racer Ex 

You have company.


What struck me about this was both the lack of proper banking and no helmets.

IBOHUNT

I seem to recall some other person doing the round in circles bit back in October whilst he was in @chasm54 land.

YogaKat

I have yet to get a trainer (have one on my Amazon list) and haven't tried Zwift yet but it looks like fun to me. I do wonder if it's really fair to be able to Zwift your way up the Strava mileage leader board when I'm out in the damn cold. (Just an observation looking at my local Strava clubs.)

Hermes

I believe he was in a monkey suit on a bike or the pivot man in the middle.

Racer Ex 

Blue jersey, red shorts, riding the balustrade.

Did anyone else notice the Bianchi rider at 0:05? Celeste is always in style.

sarals 

Probably the fastest one out there, too. Was it Cleave?

Yoga, you should get DOUBLE Strava miles for riding in that arctic mess you have there right now.

Yeup, I've got try Zwift. I've got the ANT dongle for the computer (which I hope works), and I'll try it with the PT wheel, HR and cadence for now. If I get hooked I'll look at a smart trainer.

IBOHUNT

IBOHUNT

Don't really need a smart trainer. Dumb trainers, like my Kurt Kenetic, work - well, it did when I was FreeZwfting

IBOHUNT

67 minutes on the trainer doing some Z2 stuff

TSS 58

revchuck 

The house we're buying is in an area with broadband access - where I live now is limited to DSL, for which we pay broadband rates - so Zwift is now a possibility. All I need is an Ant+ dongle, I guess.

1:21 this morning with 2x20' threshold intervals. My coach has given me a minimum overall volume and total times at different levels of intensity and is letting me determine the schedule, due to the uncertainty of when I'll need to do the varied tasks involved with buying a house and getting ready for the move. TSS 106, IF .88, 1019 kj.

Hermes

Interesting article in the WSJ about Klaus Obermeyer, Obermeyer Ski wear. Klaus in 95 and going strong.

I find most of this type of article bogus but Obermeyer works out a lot - gym, martial arts, swimming and skiing.



He claims his fitness and vitality comes from Japanese martial art, aikido, which Obermeyer has practiced for 35 years.

“This is a peaceful martial art form,” says Mr. Obermeyer. “The idea is not to hurt, but to control your opponent.” Mr. Obermeyer says he applies this principle in business and everyday life. “Every attack that comes at you can be seen as an opportunity,” he says. “You can make it work in your favor.”

Asked if he as a playlist....

“Music defeats the point” of aikido, Mr. Obermeyer says. “You want to achieve the Japanese state of mushido, where you are totally thoughtless; your mind is blank.”

I think the blank mind point is an interesting one. For bike racing, IMO, the easy part is the metabolic conditioning. The hard part is training the brain to put athletes in the zone and go faster and / or play better than one could ever hope to achieve.

Obermeyer seems like a very positive guy. I would not imagine him complaining about being old or competing against younger competitors. He would embrace it and use it to his advantage.

Of course, some could argue that hey, this is bike forums...we are already totally thoughtless.

IBOHUNT

That's some serious old school form. Wonder if it's old school ski length ski's as well.

Interesting word 'mushido'. Is the root of that 'mush'?

I can see the meme generator being overworked now with "He went totally mushido!" (The PC form of the redneck "Hey ya'll watch this!" not that I've ever muttered that phrase.)

Heathpack 

Spend a few years focused just on poetry and you will notice a strange effect: you get these little scraps of poems (and sometimes entire ones) embedded deep in your brain. They never go away, just sit there for years, with you only somewhat understanding them.

TS Eliot, in Little Gidding, mentions "the stillness between two waves in the sea". I know exactly that sensation, when something is very dynamic and constantly changing, yet it is comprised of all of these individually silent and still moments. The bike is like that too, especially the TT stuff. You have the whole race, which is a very dynamic thing. But the race is made up of all these discrete moments, each one that you have to manage well in order to set you up for the next moment.

Later in the same poem, he mentions a "condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything". He's talking about something way bigger but I've always liked that line. Because simplicity really is a difficult thing to achieve, 99% of the input our body receives at any given moment is irrelevant. The hardest thing to learn I think is what is that 1% that's important and how to ignore the rest of it.

chasm54

In almost every form of physical activity, getting your consciousness out of the way is critical to success. By that I don't mean you are unaware of what you are doing - far from it. I mean that your awareness is not mediated by your conscious, verbalising mind.

This is evident in something as mundane as driving a car. You're processing, without conscious thought, huge amounts of information - your speed relative to the vehicles around you, the child bouncing a ball on the sidewalk who may run into the road, the exhaust smoke from the parked car that indicates it might be about to pull out, a host of other changing and potentially hazardous issues. You navigate through them effortlessly. If you tried to process them individually at a conscious level, you'd have to drive at ten mph to stay safe.

It's the same with sports. You train, and practice, consciously. But you do so to create a conditioned reflex that allows you to perform without thinking. The service comes and you play the topspin return without thought because it's what you've done so often. And if you had to think, you'd miss. You are in the moment, you don't have to run any commentary in your head.

Since, @Heathpack, we're on the subject of poetry, there's one called "Thrushes" by Ted Hughes in which he contrasts his own laboured intellectual struggles with the purity of focus of a thrush taking a worm on the lawn outside. "Nothing but bounce, and stab, and a ravening second..."

sarals 

Try hovering a helicopter.