By the way, the S1s have been very effective. My cruising cadence has gone from 90 to 100 (meaning when I am not struggling up inclines my natural cadence is near 100). The max cadence I can sustain without bouncing is up to 125-130. When I started I struggled to do 115.

Just looked at weather for this week, going to amend this.

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
	1.5,1	1.5	.5		3.0	2	9.5
	E2,S1 or S2	E2	M1		E2	E2

The M1 will go one thurs or fri, not sure which, will probably be indoors on the trainer since it's so short.

Tomorrow is the only day this week with reasonable temps both in the morning and evening so I pretty much HAVE to ride in that day. Wed has reasonable temps in the evening so I can do the 1.5 after work. Sat/Sun viciously windy but not too terribly cold so I can deal.

I took a shot at making home mad energy "gels." I really can't abide by the texture of most of the ones you can buy, it's like a mouthful of warm pudding. I usually can not force myself to eat one.

The ones I made are fine - not like "delicious" by any means but inoffensive. They're basically apple juice (reduced), maltodextrin, cinnamon and caffeine. I'll be trying them out today and tomorrow. Most recipes call for pectin to make them... gel-like. But since that's what I hate about commercial ones, I just left it out. So it's just a very thick syrup.

You can carry them in little bottles - they're about 100cal/oz. I actually did 4oz mixed with an oz of water for today, its cold and it should keep it more or less a liquid.

This week went pretty good. Squeaked in at 9 hours 31 minutes, 1 minute over the goal. Will post next week's schedule when I have a little time. Not sure how I'm going to do it, weather will be **** this week, not getting nice again until Thursday. Probably have to suck it up and ride while it's in the 30s again.

Just got back from a pretty sweet group ride. I've started doing these sunday rides with a racing team here in austin. The rides are pretty laid back (their saturday rides are much more intense). Still, there were sections where we were booking it pretty good. Doing 30 mph in the middle of a peloton is such a terrifying and awesome thing.

I can't stand the liguid Gu, especially when it is 90+ degrees. I like the Cliff shot blocks and the Powerbar Gel Blasts. Are those ones you have tried and don't like? They are more solid than Gu.

I don't really care for the shot blocks, no. They're OK but sort of a pain to eat. The nice thing about gels is that you can carry a little bottle and squirt some in your mouth every half hour.

This week's schedule. I've already juggled it around in my head. Week off to an awful start, mon/tues too cold/wet to ride (imo). I need to get 11.5 hours in this week which will be tough.

Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
OFF	OFF	2.5	1.5,1.5	1	2	3
		E2	S1,E2	M1	E2	E2

I have a feeling I'll end up either missing one of these or having to shorten it, and trying to make it up on the weekend.

I feel antsy as hell, just trapped in the office, all I want to do is go out and ride.

Today I found out about a power meter from the company "Stages". It's basically a left crank arm with some sensors in it and a wireless package (bluetooth and ant+). I might get one for my nice bike since I'm also considering buying another wheelset (and getting a 2nd powertap is not as good of an option as getting a crank or pedal based power meter)

Stages start at about $700, which is also cheaper than a powertap.

I bit the bullet and bought some cheap chinese carbon fiber wheels. Experiences range from "crap" to "great" so I guess we'll see.

On a related note I'm thinking of getting a Stages power meter. Unlike the powertap it goes on the left pedal crank, so you can swap wheels out without every wheel set needing it's own power meter. I'll probably keep the powertap and use it primarily on my 2nd and 3rd nicest bikes.

The new wheels are, allegedly, 1330 grams, i.e. just under 3lb. Kinda curious what my current 2 wheel sets weigh - both came standard with the bikes so I am guessing quite a bit more. The powertap itself is pretty hefty also.

I think power meters will basically be standard bike equipment within 5 years and most everyone will have one, like heart rate monitors are now. Prices have come down a lot and so has complexity. The Stages unit is self contained, batteries last 200 hours and are replacable, it adds like 20g weight or something like that. Uses ANT+ and bluetooth smart (so a lot of smart phones can record data from it). Things like this were $2k+ a few years ago, now they're more like $700.

Last week was tough but I got through it. Bad weather meant no riding monday or tuesday at all, nor wednesday morning (cold and rain mostly). So I rode every day from wednesday to sunday. I came it at 11:20 or something like that (11:30 was what I was supposed to meet so close enough)

This week is basically identical to last except that it's 12.5 hours instead of 11.5. The hard part is that I need to get both a 2.5 and 2 hour ride in during the week. 2 hours is doable, 2.5 is rough because it starts to get dark. Might have to try to get in to work super early so I can justify leaving early also.

The following week is going to be a rest week and I am so looking forward to it.

Sunday's ride turned out to be quite tough. I went with the VC group again (also I joined their cycling team last week, don't remember if I mentioned it). Usually this ride is quite sedate with one fast section in it. This week, something kind of unusual happened.

About 12 miles into the ride, we'd been going very easy, like 125 watts avg maybe. When I ride alone on these base rides I usually do 150-160 so 125 is very laid back. Then, out of nowhere, a huge dog sprints out of a yard and into our group, and actually BITES one of the guys. We yell at the dog until he runs off and amazingly no crashes. Anyway, about 1/3 of the group stays behind with the guy (they called a sheriff and got him taken to the hospital, and stayed behind as witnesses)

Anyway, the ones who stayed behind were, let's say, the more prudent members of the group. When we left the scene of the mauling some young strong guys got up front and immediately jacked up the pace. I was holding on for dear life until we got to the store stop (another 12 miles in). We probably averaged 225 watts for that 12 miles, I spent a lot of it at around 90% of my max heart rate.

So that ride put a huge bump in my FTP-vs-time chart, because all of a sudden my 20-minute max effort went from like 200 to 250.


The dog thing was kind of funny. 99/100 times you pass a dog nothing happens at all. Half of the dogs around here don't even bark or look at you. Most of the rest will bark at you, maybe run next to you the length of their property, and that's it. So it was totally unexpected that someone might get bit, I'd never even heard of that happening to anyone. What is FAR more common is that a dog accidentally runs into a bike or vice versa and someone goes down.

So most cyclists barely even notice dogs. After the biting incident though, the rest of the ride everyone's head was on a swivel. If anyone heard a bark immediately every head turned toward it.

The dog was a huge rottweiler, btw, the damage was minimal all things considered. Guy got a few puncture wounds. I love dogs and I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt. I really hope this doesn't end badly for the dog. The police took him in for quarantine and around here there's sort of a 2 strikes thing, after the first strike you're usually required to provide proof that you're keeping the dog away from people. 2nd bite and they take the dog (not sure if he's euthanized or what)

I wouldn't say I barely notice dogs, at least when I'm by myself. I had one T-Bone my back wheel / rear de-railer at a high clip. I didn't pay enough attention to the derailer and found he bent it enough that it got caught in the rear wheel on my next ride. That sucked. The funniest dog incident was on a very hot summer early evening. I climbed what passes for a hill up here and was sucking wind at the top. There was a pretty golden retriever lying by the side of the road, watching me. He didn't appear to want to cause any trouble and didn't move a muscle as I approached. Right as I passed him he let one loud WOOF. Talk about being startled. He must have smiled about that for weeks.

I'm surprised that a dog would go after a pack of bicycles though. I wouldn't hold it against the dog, though I would bear a grudge against the owners.

Are you going to ride in the Texas Gran Fondo?
http://www.texasgranfondo.com/

They must have a good turn out, there are almost no hotel rooms left in Fredricksburg. Kerrville is available. I'm not sure if I am going to try it, but maybe next year with a little more planning.

I'd never heard of it until now. Probably not I guess if there aren't any hotels. I am doing the texas hill country tour again this year, though, in Kerrville. 3 days of supported rides, varying distances. Start whenever you want, no mass starts. This'll be my third year. If I have time I'll do all the longest rides (you can get about 200 miles in on all the longest ones)

Yes, obv ****head owners of that dog. Luckily you were men (well manlets anyway) and not a 5-year-old kid, who could easily be killed by a dog like that.

It is euthanized, assuming this is standard among states. In IL, they (euthanizing vet) cut off the dogs head and send it to a state lab so the brain can be looked at to ensure that the dog didn't have rabies.

The more you know.

This was way out in the country, whether it's legal or moral or not, I dunno, but it's super common for people to have dogs running around. I'd prefer they weren't 90 pound killing machines but what can you do. Riding alone it's usually easy to avoid a dog.

They're not killing the dog afaik - the 2nd bite think I mentioned has to do with a dog being classified as dangerous and then biting someone else. They're quarantining the dog for 10 days. I am not sure if they're starting the dude on the first course of rabies vaccine or not, might depend on whether the dog has been recently vaccinated.

Came in at 12:20 this week, target was 12:30. Today's ride I had figured at 3.5 hours but we were done in 2:55. So I sucked it up and rode another 35 minutes. I'd have been pissed every time I looked at Strava otherwise. I figured out last year - no one ever consistently does more than their weekly hours. They either meet them, or do less. I figure given that's the case I really have to try to meet them, otherwise I'm consistently under-exercising.

This coming week is a rest week. 6.5 hours. Three 1 hour rides, one 1.5 hour ride, one 2 hour ride. This will almost certainly be to work and back twice, plus one 2 hr weekend ride. All "E2" workouts except one of the one hour rides is supposed to be a T1 () and one of them is supposed to be an S1, S2 or S3. I might try S3, it's a cornering exercise.

T1 is an aerobic time trial. I think I was supposed to do one last rest week also but I forgot to. I'm not sure if I'll even bother since there won't be anything to compare to?

Didn't quite get to my desired rest week hours (supposed to do 6.5, did around 5.5). Was supposed to do 2:45 today but the temperature dropped unexpectedly and it started to rain. I headed back, the rest of my group went forward - although I later found that they looped around shortly after and only did about 5 miles more than me. Even 5 more miles might have done some serious bad news to me - when I got back I could barely move my arms or fingers. I was soaked to the bone, temp just kept dropping.

In fact it was 75 when I got up this morning. It's now below freezing and expected to get to the low 20s tonight. 50 degree swings in a day, nbd.

Next week is Base 3 week 1. 10 hours. I don't have the sheet on me but I think its
2 1 hour rides
2 1.5 hour rides
1 2 hour ride
1 3 hour ride
same basic mix of rides as usual - a few "speed" skills rides, a bunch of E2 endurance rides, and probably a ride with a tempo section - I'll be doing 25 minutes of tempo for the next week I think. I have a kind of hard time keeping track of that, I need to adjust my garmin again. Right now I have it showing 5 mile laps. At 20 mph you do a mile in 3 minutes so 5 miles is 15 minutes. So you can't show an interval longer than 15 minutes on the lap screen. NBD I just need to shuffle things around or something.

What a ****ing week. All this happened this week:

1. I get 2 flats on the way to work. I give up and walk to a bike store

2. yesterday I got a flat on the way home, thankfully only like a mile from home. I just walked the bike home, the tire needed replacement and I had a spare at home, why get it off and on right now just to fix it again in 5 minutes?

3. I get my new carbon wheels and all the extra stuff (tires, tubes, casette, veloplugs). But I can not get the mother ****ing tires on. I finally get the technique refined enough to get them on without tools (trying to avoid using prybars because, well, they're carbon)

4. Take bike out for a spin today. It's raining and kinda cold. I run over something and puncture my brand new tires. Don't have a spare tube (requires tubes with long stems, didn't have any extras). And now there's a hole in my brand new tire. Not sure yet if I have to junk it.

5. I move a cassette from one wheel to another. I tighten it down pretty good. A little later I hear a weird little "plink" sound and my wife is like "what was that?" I say I dunno but I figured it was just an allen wrench or something sliding off something. Turns out, it was the threaded part of the freehub breaking off. So that freehub won't hold a cassette on it now.

6. The freehub is one of the kinds you can swap out easily. But I can't ****ing get it off. This happens sometimes and I can get it off with a gear puller. Except it won't hold gears any more so I can't.


So tomorrow I'll be taking out my old bike on my oldest set of wheels, one of the tires is probably old and maaaaaybe needs replacement. I fully expect to crash or trash another tire or something.

Damn, Rusty.

Hope things run more smoothly soon.

Me too Way behind on hours for this week. Was supposed to do 2 hours today but only did about 30 minutes. If I'd have had a replacement tube I would probably have kept riding even though it was raining a little.

Speaking of which I didn't buy replacements because I'm trying to find a reasonably priced source.

Bike tubes come with different "stem" lengths, the stem is the part you attach the pump to, to put air into. Bike wheel rims have different depths and you generally buy one with a stem that sticks out 1 or 1.5 inches but not more or less.

For tires sized appropriately for my bike, you can get 36mm, 48mm, 60mm and 80mm lengths. I need 80mm for the new wheels.

36mm: $5
48mm: $5
60mm: $5
80mm: $11

What the ever loving ****? The answer is really plain - if you need 80mm stems you have a fancy pair of wheels and you're a fancy lad and you'll pay a fancy lad price.

I bought 2 tubes in the store because I wanted to ride on the damn wheels but decided to find a cheaper way before buying replacements.

Surely I can get through a week without getting a flat right? Nope, can't get through 30 minutes.


Anyway today I got some stem extenders. You have to get a tire with a "removable core" but basically you unscrew the core, stick in the extender, put the core back in. This lets you use $5 tubes again.

Finished week at just over 9 hours. Cranked out 3.5 by myself today. Next week's schedule basically the same but more volume. Weather looks like it should be nicer albeit windy.

Surpassed my 12 hour goal this week by about 20 minutes. Got some good rides in. Thought I might have to miss yesterday's ride but then the rain cleared and I got a few hours in.

Today's ride was pure hell for most of it. 20-25mph winds from the north. Went on the "Violet Crown Recovery Ride" which is supposed to be fairly laid back (and usually is) but they went pretty hard today. I record laps of 5 miles each and out of a 55 mile ride I had 5 laps that were 200 watts or over. I had a hard time keeping up at the end and really only made it back with the group because they kept getting stopped at lights. Anyway I did 2300 calories of work and got 7 strava PRs so it's not all bad.

Next week is the same, but 13 hours. I'll try to plan it a little better so I don't have to ride so many days. Week after is a rest week and then we start the "build" stage. I'll probably start doing some training races next month.

Ahahaha son of a bitch.

There's a strava segment I've been trying to take #1 on recently. Today I was determined to do it. I start the lap timer where the segment starts and I start hammering. I get to the end of the segment and I have 25.5mph average for the lap - top speed on strava is currently like 22. Totally in the bag!

Except I was wrong about where it started - it started like 1/4 mile earlier when I was just doodling along.

So I have the #2 time. I am so getting it next time.

On a related note, I love my new wheels - this was my first time on them.

I'm 6.5 hours into this week's training load and only halfway done Trying to get enough to eat and sleep, trying not to drink to much (I say with scotch in hand). I was supposed to get some cornering practice in today. I had a place in mind, a set of neighborhood roads near my house that were put in years ago with no houses, but since I was last out there they opened it up and started building. So that was kind of out. Probably rode too hard today, overall, oh well.

Saturday I have a charity ride to do, the club I joined started this ride 20 years ago and they encourage members to go. It's close to here so why not. It's 62 miles, so the question is whether it'll be a 3.25 hour hammer fest or a 4 hour relaxed ride. Weather kind of looks like it'll suck (rain)

So I did a charity ride today called "The Rosedale Ride." It was started by a few members of the club I joined 20 years ago. I was not sure if it was going to be social or a race. Turns out, both.

Because of our association with the ride we got to start up front. The pack took off at a reasonable pace but it was fine and we did that for about 5 miles. Then some group comes up from behind and passes us and it's ON. So we work pretty hard for a while. About 15 miles in I derail a chain and stop just for a minute to put it back on. The pack is gone. I make a shot at catching them but realize it'll be impossible.

So I ride by myself for a bit, and off and on with another 2 or 3 people. There were stops every 9 miles but I didn't stop until mile 35. I waited there a few minutes and then the 2nd group from my club (the ones that didn't follow the racing group I guess) came in to the stop and I left with them.

Long story short, I rode 20 mph for 62 miles today. Pretty sweet imo. 3 hours and 4 minutes, broke a bunch of PRs, in the top 3-5% on several well travelled Strava segments.

This seems impossible.