Also, mostly people are nice, especially out in the country. Very rare to have a guy do what he did.

I think I'm pretty lucky in that I've never had any kind of issues with car drivers, although there definitely is a sizeable chunk of people in the UK with an anti-cycling mentality. The most common justification for dangerous or inconsiderate behaviour in drivers is the "I pay road tax, you don't" argument. I can't wait for someone to take that up with me because not only is it no justification for dangerous behaviour, it's also completely wrong and I'd love to take some ****** to school over it.

Lol just realised how 'English' that is.... I want to give someone a dressing down and educate them on the subject whereas you guys want to shoot their windows out.

Yeah the exact same argument comes up here and it's so obviously horse ****. Tell you what guys, disregarding the fact that I own a car, I will pay road tax on my bike, commensurate with the amount of damage my bike does to the road compared to your car. Here's your 2 cents.

I dunno if it's the same system you have over there, but here you pay 'car tax' or 'vehicle excise duty'. It's basically a tax on emissions and on owning a car. The money raised goes straight into general taxation and not specifically to anything to do with the roads. I pay income tax (well actually I don't cos I'm pro poker player but they don't know that) so I contribute to the upkeep of the roads just as much as them. Plus I also own a car so even if their argument was correct, I'd still be paying "road tax". Also the law states that bicycles use the roads in this country by right, whereas cars use them by license, so I have just as much, if not more, right to use the road than they do, even if they paid "road tax" and I didn't.

It's very similar here although I do think that car registration, at least some of it, goes to the state department of transportation - which is, uh, responsible for maintaining highways (which cars drive on and bikes do not). City streets come from the city budget with subsidizing from the county and maybe some from the state. That comes out of city taxes like property and sales tax. So basically it's all bollocks.

I hadn't really been loading data into training peaks all summer but I finally did yesterday and got sort of a surprise. My 20-minute and 60-minute max power has been steadily rising small amounts all summer. Unsurprisingly my short-term power fell precipitously after like march (like 5s-60s)

http://www.strava.com/activities/79484046

Haven't really been dutifully logging here, not really much point to it I guess. I ride 3 days/week most weeks, it's all in strava.

But today's ride, holy ****. I skipped riding yesterday because I was tired and I knew I'd have today off to ride. There was only one ride going and it was a "B" pace ride. These are marked at 16-18mph but almost always they are faster than they're graded at. I wasn't sure I could do 46 miles at 18 mph.

We averaged 18.6 though and it wasn't even too hard. If it wasn't for the heat I think it'd be a piece of cake. Fastest ride I've done all summer, probably. I had like 8 PRs and several 2nds (although also I don't ride out on this route that much)

My triumphant return to cycling has me actually starting the Cyclist's Training Bible program. I'm in the "Prep" phase which is followed by Base, Build etc. Prep is 7.5 hours/week (based on the yearly # of hours I chose) of mostly low intensity work.

So today I was supposed to do a few hours of zone 1-zone 2. I actually ended up doing 2.5 hours of zone2-zone3. The upper end of zone2 is 140 bpm and it was very hard to keep it under that, esp as it heated up. The intensity level was pretty low so I guess it's probably OK.

Ego wise it was very difficult to keep it that low, I got passed up every single hill multiple times.

http://www.strava.com/activities/82653152

So here's what the prep schedule looks like. There are 5 rides/week but I can do 2 rides/day on some days so I will probably continue to do 3 days/week. 2 days will be riding to work and back, and those will be 2 workout days.

The 5 rides are supposed to be:
1 hour E2
1 hour S1
1.5 hours E2
1.5 hours E2
2.5 hours E2

E2 is basically keeping it in HR zone 2 or lower. It is hard to keep it this low.
S1 is basically intervals where you pedal at maximum controllable cadence for 1 minute, then normal for 3-4 minutes, repeat "several times"

So probably I will do 1 hour + 1.5 hour on tues/thurs and 2.5 hours on the weekend.

I do this every week until mid-january.

Did 2 workouts today, 70 minutes and 90 minutes, AKA biking to work and biking home plus a little detour. Both were E1 endurance rides, trying to keep the HR under 140. Way to work was pretty successful, way home HR got too high, was in zone 3 probably 40% of the way home, can't really be helped. I'm sure it's fine, it's not like the zones are hard boundaries.

http://www.strava.com/activities/83136470
http://www.strava.com/activities/83024598

Good to see you back on a training plan. I can imagine that all this low-hr stuff can get a bit boring though. I'm planning on doing at least one long ride per week where I keep my hr low and I'm not really looking forward to it, but I guess it'll do us good in the long-run.

I've started trying to incorporate zone 1-2 rides into my training and I found it really hard to keep my hr down on any kind of hill at all. At some points I was almost stopped, just pedaling as slowly as possible in my easiest gears, and this wasn't even on proper hills. Is there any trick to it or it it just a case of sticking at it until you become fitter?

Yeah on hills I basically have no choice.

However I did basically re-base my zones the other day. I had originally been going off the standard HR zones based off max HR. But the cyclists training bible actually suggests using zones based around your lactate threshold heart rate. I haven't tested my LTHR since last year but it doesn't change that much/often.

There's some info here: http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblo...ing-zones.html

So the top end of zone 2 is more like 149 than 140 for me which gives me a little more room - so I don't have to ride at 14mph on relatively flat roads.

Also it's not a huge crime to have brief periods of high activity during these things.

Sorry to pop in and talk about random **** but did you see the city is taking a lane out of guadalupe for buses and bikes? I go home that way and there's someone riding there almost every day. Pretty dangerous because it gets a ton of traffic. They are slowly but surely trying to make Austin bike friendly. Still not a lot of riders but a lot more than there were 5 years ago.

A whole lane? I know they extended the bike lanes on guadalupe to closer to downtown some time in the last year but I was unaware they were going to do more. I've never been too alarmed there except where it Ys off north of campus, people take the right turn into the fork pretty fast and I'm usually going to the left.

These days I actually take a more remote way home, I go out east to Spring Valley and go north from there all the way up to pflugerville.

Thanks I'll look into that. Tbh I'm not sure how much I buy into the whole hr zone thing because there are so many conflicting opinions on what the zones are and which zones you should train in etc. I'll give it a go though and see what happens.

Ugh, I didn't ride this morning because it was raining and it's been raining so far all day with no sign of stopping. Which probably means an hour and a half on the trainer tonight. Boo.

It seems a little odd to me that you are doing heart rate based training when you have a power meter available. Everything I've read rates HR based training a poor second to power meter based training. I also think you know this as well, so just curious about the choice?

I keep lusting after powertaps on ebay but haven't wanted to spring for the 700- 800 they always seem to go for to put on a $900 bike.

If I ever do spring for a power meter, I've heard a lot of good things about this book.
Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Hunter Allen

Power-based training is basically more useful when you have power targets you're trying to hit. This pre-season training is basically about building aerobic base while expending the minimum amount of effort possible. So power is pretty irrelevant.

Honestly, you don't "have" to stay in zone 2 or lower. But the benefit you're looking for doesn't increase with increased effort so all you'd be doing is working harder, and increasing your overall load for the year. So I don't really obsess about the heart rate, I just look down frequently and make sure it's not creeping up.

http://www.strava.com/activities/83917348

Didn't ride yesterday because of the rain and reeaaaally did not feel like getting on the rollers. This morning was overcast but no rain was forecast and the roads were dry so I left around 8 or so, after verifying the boy's soccer game was cancelled.

Weather was just amazing. Sun came out a little but due to all the rain and the winds from the north, it was around 69-72F the whole ride. Very stiff north wind so I chose a route that is mostly east-west. Kept it under 147 most of the way, only 10% of the ride above that.

Saw some pretty cool stuff. Had a hawk following me for a little while, just overhead and to the side a bit. Rode by a field with some horses and a donkey. They were either playing or fighting, wasn't sure at first, biting at each other and pushing each other around. I stopped to look and the donkey came over to see what was up. The horse started nudging at it again so I guess they were probably just, uh, horsing around.

Going to ride again tomorrow, need to get at least another 2 hours in this week.

http://www.strava.com/activities/84150807

Beautiful god damn day. It was 60F when I started the ride and rose to maybe 70. Very slight northerly wind (of course, if the weather is good, we're getting wind from the north). Went out and rode 2 hours.

Went to 2 of my friend's birthday thing at a local bar (they both have the same birthday including the same year). I knew it was going down so I basically starved myself pre - just had some chicken for lunch. I ate/drank like 2000 cal at the bar, it was awesome. Half a pizza, several beers.

I don't remember if I mentioned it but I started trying to lose some excess weight 3mo ago. Depending on how you calculate for it, I am now down 20lb in the last 90 days.

(Technically, I'm not. I account for weight loss the same way I account for poker. I lose 1.4lb/week so technically I'm at like 180 but my scale this morning said 177 which is 20lb down from 90 days ago)

http://www.strava.com/activities/84593332
http://www.strava.com/activities/84724215

Nothing too eventful, to work and home. Did a "S1" workout on the way to work, which is basically just spinning as fast as you can smoothly for 1 minute then off for a few minutes. I didn't have it set up to tick off the minutes while looking at RPM so I did it by distance. Assuming a 4 minute mile (15 mph) a quarter mile is a minute, then a mile for 4 minutes off. Did 5 repititions of that.

http://www.strava.com/activities/85267915
http://www.strava.com/activities/85370043

To work and back again. On the way home from work I came really close to running over a medium sized diamondback rattler. I turned around to go back and check it out, turned out to be dead. Gave me kind of a scare though. On a recent big charity ride someone got bit by one - I never did get a straight story, some people said he ran over it and it struck him, others said he was stopped at the side of the road. Anyway it's a reminder to not go wandering around in the brush around here.

Dunno if facebook photo links really work but this is the snake:

http://www.strava.com/activities/85797469

It rained buckets last night and the forecast had a 50% chance of rain in the morning when I woke up, but it wasn't actually raining so I decided to try to get a ride in. I went someplace where visibility is not an issue, and where I could bail pretty easy and/or get out of the rain if it started coming down hard. Basically an isolated stretch of road with really good shoulders, low traffic, lots of bicycles.

About 10 miles in I turned around to go back. I was soaking wet and it was about 65 degrees out - 65 is not cold, unless you're wet. It never actually rained but sort of just drizzled/misted the whole time.

I kept the HR in zone 1/2 but for one section. This area of town has one steep longish hill, about .6 miles. It's not a steep grade but it's long and steep enough to make it an effort. I decided to go all out on this and for about a minute I maintained a pretty amazing pace. You can see the places where I had to downshift on my power chart.

Anyway, I beat my record on that climb by a ton - my previous best was 14.4 mph, 253 watts. Today was 18.2 mph, 350 watts

The best time up the hill that actually has power data associated with it is 24.2 mph, 400 watts, so either a guy who weighs much less than me, or had a pretty good wind assist, or both. I'll have to try this again some time when there's a fierce wind from the north (not common around here)

http://www.strava.com/activities/86195997
http://www.strava.com/activities/86322088

Ugh, I lost my post from before. OK short version. 2 flats on the way to work so it got cut short. Had a longer ride in the evening.