Couple of British who did the ride, I thought GB is a windy country

https://www.strava.com/activities/953118439

https://www.strava.com/activities/952739986

https://www.strava.com/activities/953021996

Hey, nice job!

There's a technique for dealing with side winds but everyone has to be on the same page. Rather than try to describe it, I'll find a video. It's called a "rotating pace line"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWEoBFkwsc0

It is a really great skill to have because in any situation where you have less than, say, 10 riders, you will desperately need a way to keep the pace high without having anyone stay in the wind too long.

You're constantly either moving forward or backward relative to the line next to you. The usual trick to it is that when you get to the front, you are going to move one to the slower line and start moving backward relative to the line next to you. People want to speed up as they get to the front - do NOT do this! Keep your pace, pass the guy to the side of you, who should be slowing down, get in front of him, and start slowing yourself.

It helps if you remember who you're going to be "behind" as you're moving forward, so that when you see him come past you, you know you're next and get read to move over.

A group doing this can easily go as fast as or faster than the main peloton, unless the main peloton is also as organized - a really good organized chase group will be doing a rotating group at the front with a bunch behind them. In *really* windy conditions in pro races you'll see rotating pace groups that are 30+ riders long. I wouldn't recommend that.

I seem to remember that y'all don't have much in the way of organized club rides and stuff there. But if you can, hook up with 4 or 5 other guys and get them to practice this with you. It's especially a good method when you have a strong side wind. The slow side that is moving backwards will be on the windy side, protecting the ones who are moving forward.

Well done, sounds like a brutal day. Must have been world wide, it was also windy here in Texas!

You should really invest in a power meter. Knowing what you can put out and for how long is a big advantage on a race /ride like this.

Rusty, that was an interesting video. I do however think that a group of strangers will be rarely organized in such a manner in an amateur race, also we were riding in traffic, a couple of morons were beeping their horns at us for not respecting the authority of an automobile even though we had numbers on our backs. I guess slowing down for cyclists even when racing is just too much to ask for some people.

unfrgvn, I intend to get a powermeter, what would you recommend? I have a Shimano 105 crankset, so I was thinking of getting this single pedal powermeter for around $500. I know that dual would be more accurate, but I don't think it is worth the extra cost.
http://www.stagescycling.eu/shop/STA...00-Silver.html

btw: sorry for the late reply, just a bit busy traveling

I have both a Stages power meter and a power tap. I bought the powertap first, and I think they're fine, although they're pretty heavy in comparison. You can usually find them pretty cheap on ebay. I bought mine inside a full wheel, which is usually going to be cheaper than getting a hub and building a wheel.

The stages are accurate enough, and very convenient, light and compact. I was worried about the longevity of them, especially since with mine (a first gen) there were problems with the battery covers. These little tabs would break off when you put the cover back on and then if it was wet outside your unit would short out and turn off. They fixed the cover and I haven't had problems since. I think I've had mine for about 3 years.

There are lots of other options. Crank based, pedal based, crankset gear based, etc. I even had one that was chain based - I could never get it to work. It measured the vibrations of the chain as it passed over the unit. Don't get one of those.

Riding in traffic!! Most races here are not on closed roads but they'll have a lead and follow vehicle and usually motorcycles protecting the race.

I did 2 group rides this year with our club in our slow and medium intensity rides, cycling is getting more popular so we are starting to split up the rides. Both rides were in windy conditions, but not extremely windy, we rotated 2 by 2 but at a much slower pace than in the video.

our slow ride:
https://www.strava.com/activities/936524435

our fast ride where the fastest riders hold back:
https://www.strava.com/activities/924591730

fast rides were they don't hold back very much:
https://www.strava.com/activities/934149011

so yeah our clubs fast rides with 6 riders average over 22mph

Reading this, I think I will stick with the stages powermeter, I'll keep an eye on second hand bargains. I think power meters are just too useful of a tool to disregard these days, also I feel like something is missing when I get off Zwift.

btw, I am guesstimating that my Tacx Flux was probably showing 40-50W too high at threshold levels, I did a 287W FTP test on it, 230-240W FTP seems more reasonable given my real life performance.

I have a fluid trainer and it's power estimates are pretty good
a) if it's properly warmed up
b) within certain ranges
I think both of those are acceptable limitations, but yeah, it's not going to be exactly the same

Power meters kind of seem like a dumb doodad to some people but I've found it really useful. Around there there are 2 kinds of terrain
1. pretty flat
2. steeeeeeeeeep short hills
I live where it's pretty flat, but there are lots of rides that go in the sharp steep parts and I had a hard time with them. I finally figured out that I can do X watts for Y minutes. So it's not hard to estimate how long it should take to get up a hill, therefore I can look at my power chart and figure out what power to attempt the hill at. Typically if I stay under that power, I can get up it, otherwise I might burn up in the attempt. And that works really good.

On the training side, it becomes pretty easy to do intervals. If I hit my power target, great, otherwise either something is wrong or I didn't try hard enough. As I do more intervals in one workout I can also look at them and see if my power is dropping off, a sign that I may be done for the day.

When I did time trials (a race where each rider has their own start time and are just judged on the time it takes to complete the course) I found a power that I could hold for the duration and basically kept my head down pinned to that power. When I got to the last quarter I could consider ramping up a little bit. Lots of people don't regulate themselves and work way too hard in the beginning, then slowing down.

It's just a subset of knowing yourself. You get to a point where you don't really need a power meter, to a certain degree I can tell you within 25w of how hard I'm going based on my HR and what it feels like, and vice versa if you tell me I've been at 200W for the last 5 minutes then I can probably tell you my HR within 5bpm (for me, I'll be at 165-170bpm almost surely)

The Stages is one I would probably buy if I was to get another way to measure power. I like the ability to pace out my efforts based on the feedback from the PM. I do agree with Rusty, now that I've had one for a while I pretty much have a feel for how hard a given effort is, but I'm sometimes surprised by a headwind or a really hot day.

No powermeter yet, still riding the old fashioned way.

I did Vätternrundan again this year, I was worried that the lack of long rides would lead to a blowout, but luckily that didn't happen. Instead a good starting time let me ride with some groups holding a good pace, so I managed to beat last years time by 53 minutes.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1040748887

If I ride again next year, 8h 30 mins will be the goal.

I feel like we should chip in and buy you a power meter if only to vicariously experience this ride. Some day I am going to visit your country and do this thing. (Not this year, for sure)

Your heart rate looks really good. It's very consistent over the entire ride which is a real accomplishment. The tendency for heartrate/power to have an upwards slope is so common that there's a term for it, although I don't remember what it is, and it's a measure of your long distance fitness. We don't have your power data but your heart rate is steady and so is your speed so I am going to assume that your power is too.

Usually rides of 65+ miles are long enough to show a slope, this is like 3x that and your HR is well centered around your average.

The estimated average power might actually not be too far off there. I don't know what you weigh but I think mine would be that or a little higher. 7000ft is a lot of climbing, although over that distance I'd say it's somewhat in the moderate category. It's basically what I would get riding around here, which is considered flat. (But not Dallas or Houston flat, just Austin flat)

The lack of resting time is also very impressive. I would probably want 10 minutes every 30-40 miles if possible. I mean, I've gone 80ish miles with no stops before, but at the end of that I was DONE, I didn't have another 100 miles to go.

Thanks for the great feedback, very appreciated.

It is a great event and draws participants from all over Europe, I believe it is the worlds largest recreational bike event. Hope you can make it sometime

The first 100km of the ride was more intense than the rest, I held an average speed of about 35-36 km/h for that part and then slowed down to averaging 33,4 km/h for the whole ride, so there was definitely some fatigue going on even though it is hard to see in the data. I also had an elevated resting hr on my stops which I also believe is a sign of fatigue.

As for the total elevation, Strava does not seem to be very accurate in that regard, many riders were getting 1500m total elevation according to Strava, which I think is closer to the truth, most of the ride is fairly flat.

I would be surprised if my average power was over 180W, much of the ride was done in groups of 10-20 riders which as you know helps a lot.

Believe it or not, I am actually heavier now than 2 years ago, weighing in at 83 kg, none the less I think that I have improved a lot in these past 3 years, I guess it just takes time to develop the kind of leg muscle that is needed. Anyhow if I want to further improve I definitely need to get rid of that excess weight.

What does "largest recerational event" mean? Number of people? How many people do this thing?

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/sportiv...ke-ride-125736

From the above article, I don't know what other sportives have a similar amount of participants 20000 - 30000.

Quote:

Taking into account the number of participants and the number of kilometres cycled between them — nearly eight million — this event has every right to call itself the world’s largest recreational bike ride.

That's pretty crazy. I've done the MS150 which is usually around 10-15k riders, I think. Is it total chaos? Do they send you off in waves or something?

Yes they send off groups of about 30-40 riders every 2 minutes for almost 24 hours! There is plenty of room on the road.

edit just checked, 20:00 to 13:10 the next day, so people start over a 17 hour timespan.

I'm in.
Cardiac drift.
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/h...nd-heart-rate/
"Cardiac drift is characterized by an increasing heart rate while maintaining a steady power output. Everyone who uses heart rate and power has experienced this. But cardiac drift may not be as pronounced as once believed, especially for advanced to elite athletes. A study done in 2006, analyzing race files from road cyclists, found little to no heart rate drift for all competitions under two hours and only a 5 beat drift in heart rate for competitions from two to four hours."

I would say you qualify as an advanced, and possibly elite athlete.

As I commented on Strava, an awesome accomplishment. Congrats.

thanks unfrgvn,

Don't worry guys, I can afford a power meter I think a hr monitor does a good job of indicating how hard one is working. I am curious about the numbers from a power meter, but other than that it seems mostly unnecessary. I might just order one soon anyhow.

I am far away from an advanced let alone an elite athlete performance wise, but happy that I didn't fade too much during Vätternrundan though, seems like getting those long rides in is not necessary as long as you get the total miles in.

I don't know what "Advanced" or "Elite" means officially but you're probably advanced at least. I agree that total saddle time is a decent predictor of longer term performance. When I ride to work I usually total 3 hours or 3.5 for the day, broken into two rides. This is probably providing less benefit than a 3 hour ride in one piece, but it's also a lot more convenient.

For a really long even like this a lot of it is mental, most people just are not prepared to spend 8 hours in the saddle. I think the longest ride I ever did was maybe 6 hours with at least an hour of rest stops (7 hours elapsed) and by the end I wanted to throw the bike off a cliff.

A guy here in austin does a lot of ultra length events and part of his training is riding a trainer indoors for 6 hours at a time - no movies/tv/radio/whatever. Staring at a wall. He says, if you can't do this, don't enter an ultra event. Probably true.

by ultra events I mean he does those epic solo races like http://www.raceacrossthewest.org/
930 miles, no rest stops or anything like that. You bring your own support team.

I imagine he'll take a run at RAAM eventually.

Damn, that sounds like torture especially in the heat of those areas! These events can't have many participants right? Some impressive times on those leaderboards!

858 miles for 46 hours at 18.54mph average including rest. That is insane.

Do they do it on tempo bikes?

They usually do it on time trial bikes, and THESE guys are elite athletes. The guy I know, Andrew Willis, is a former local hero bike racer, maybe was even a domestic pro, I don't remember. He and his wife promote and manage all the local races. It's his business, more or less.

I would guess that there are usually hundreds of participants.

To even do RAW or RAAM you have to qualify by completing a series of longer and longer races. The shortest ultras are maybe 250 miles or so, there are a few near here.

There are other types where you ride for a set time and the most miles wins, like 6h, 12h, 24h, and so forth.

There's a documentary about RAAM called "Bicycle Dreams" that is pretty decent if you like that kind of thing.

Me? I like my races at about 50-60 miles.

Those events are pretty expensive, around $1000 per person. You can also do RAAM(3000 miles!) or the Race Across the Southwest as 2, 4 or 8 member teams. There are not many people that do the solo ride, but there are some. Fair amount are DNF's.

By tempo bike, you mean like a time trial bike? I don't really know, but my suspicion is most people use a road bike with aero bars.
Edit, missed Rusty's reply, I guess they do use TT bikes.