2 years ago I'd definitely agree with you. Last year I'd have said "possible but super hard." I'm really interested in seeing what I can get up to this year and the next.

There are people in my club who are waaaay beyond me. A guy in the club got a flat right at the start of the ride. By mile 25 he was caught up with me again, and he passed right by me too. If it took him 10 minutes to change a tire that means I had a 3-4 mile lead of him that he broke through (possibly he changed it REALLY fast though)

The front group of our club averaged above 21 mph for the 62 miles.

Last week a guy I work with stayed at the front of a race while riding on a flat tire for 45 miles.

The human body is capable of some pretty surprising things.

That is awesome. I am also quite envious.
Next step is a 20 MPH century?

Definitely not in my next century, which will probably be in the easter hill country tour. I'll probably be happy to do that one at 16mph (6000+ feet of climbing)

Maybe doable on the tour du rouge. I think we did 18 mph last year and I spent most of that riding with a small group at a somewhat slower pace than I'd have liked. (TdR is all suuuper flat so with no wind 20mph is a totally fine cruising speed)

Went to watch the criterium series that goes on every thursday. There's not a whole lot to see, laps are short (around 2 minutes) but you can only see the riders for about 30 seconds of that. I was surprised that people made pretty obvious mistakes even in the 3/4 race I watched (going off the front waaaay too early, getting pulled back in).

The race that I'll start in will either be the 4/5 race or the 35+ all cat race (or maybe both). People generally looked pretty fit and there were very few people dropped. Fortunately there was basically no comment or acknowledgement of people getting dropped - those guys either kept doing laps way behind the main group, and/or left the course early and gave up. There was only one case where someone said something - the announcer clearly knew one of the guys and as he came off the course (waaaay early) the announcer said something like "welcome to crit racing John)

Watched the first half of the pro race and it was quite different, those guys obviously know what they're doing. It's over an hour long though and I wanted to get back before it got dark so I left.

This week was a rest week, 6 hours, almost all E2 workouts. I've only done 4 hours so far this week but I'm going to try to get a workout in tonight after the boy's birthday party.

Next week starts Build phase 1. Now the intervals start. There are a LOT more choices of what kind of workouts to do and I'm going to have to do some more research. There is also a lot of judgement required compared to the time crunched cyclist (like a workout will say "do 3-5 intervals and 60-120 seconds each). I have no idea if I'm supposed to always try for the max or the middle or what.

The weekly schedules are the same for all of build 1, so at least there's that. Every week until the rest week it's

M	Tu	W	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
0.0	2.0	2.5	1.0	1.5	1.5	3.0
	M2/M3/F2/F3	E1/E2	**	S3/S5	CRIT/M4/M1	E1/E2

The ** options are:
P1 S6 A1 A2 A3

As usual I'm going to have to rearrange the schedue. Thursdays are the crit series so I'll probably start doing crits as one of my workouts. Probably will do my sunday workout on saturday and my tuesday workout on sunday and so forth, I dunno.

I am way too lazy to list out what all these workout codes actually mean, but "P" ones are power and are usually stuff like very short sprints. S ones are speed, A ones are short intervals, M ones are long intervals.

My left knee hurts and I'm a little afraid it's because of the time I've been spending on my old bike, which may not be ideally set up for me. Not sure I'm willing to spend a lot of dough to get that tuned up but I may make an effort to make sure it's set up more similarly to my nicer bike.

I've been determined to get KOM on this particular strava segment for a while now:
http://www.strava.com/segments/836452
it's on my way home from work.

I almost gave up midway through because there are 3 stops signs and I had to put a foot down at 2 of them. Strava segments count stopped time against you so having to come to a complete stop usually ****s you hard.

I actually ended up clearing the previous record by 32 seconds so I could have let up a little and still made it.

I was looking at a power chart today and if you look at my power curve from 2013 vs this year, this year is about 10% lower. Which is fine, I'm just starting the "build" phase and it should go up.

But then I flipped it to watts/kg and they equalized. Because, duh, I weigh 20-20lb less than last year.

Finally found THE cycling log.
I mean I opened this bitch a couple of times but there was no weights being lifted here and I more or less gave up especially since I realized that LSD in thread title refers to something boring.

Anyway,

Planning on starting to cycle to work soon.
10 km's per side ie 20 km's a day. Not too tough route ie not too much elevation or such.

It's been a while since I last cycled there.

Any tips from the pro?
My ass used to get sore last time I used to cycle there.
Time to buy a new saddle or what?

My current bike is an older version of this (but basically same thing):



The tires are kinda fat.
Been playing with the thought of upgrading them to something slimmer.
Or would it make more sense to upgrade the whole bike to something lighter?
Thoughts?

For a commute of that length, this bike seems fine. Fat tires are also fine, although you might benefit from reducing the tread - on concrete there is literally no point in having any tread at all. Tire tread on a bike is helpful only when riding on a surface that is softer than the bike tires. You can find "slick" tires in all sizes and I highly recommend that. Thinner tires will be more aerodynamic but this basically only helps at higher speeds, and smaller tires = less comfort. I rode a 26" mountain bike around the country side and to work and back for years, it's fine.

Regarding your sore ass: it depends. Most people want a "softer" seat - this usually doesn't help. Yes, you get some pounding from riding a bike but most of the pain comes from rubbing, not from bumping. So you want a seat that doesn't rub too much, and this usually means a smaller less padded seat. Look for one that has a divot along the center, there is literally nothing worse than rolling your nutsack back and forth on the seat as you ride.

Where specifically does it hurt, btw? The nutsack problem is around the perinium. I usually experience pain on my "sit bones" which are basically right in the center of your ass, they're the bony part at the bottom of your pelvis. If your seat is too narrow, you won't be sitting on your sitbones, which is bad, if it's too wide you'll be rubbing it, which is bad. Your local bike shop will almost certainly let you sit on a piece of memory foam. Your sitbones will show prominently on this, especially since you're skinny, and they can measure that and recommend a seat. You don't need to pay a lot of money for a seat. But... almost everyone loves Brooks leather saddles. They're pretty and once they're broken in they are supposed to be quite comfortable, like a good pair of leather shoes. They ain't cheap though.

Oh, and another thing that helps with the ass is padded shorts. When you see a cyclist wearing lycra shorts, that's what he's got on. Not everyone likes to look like a doofus all the time, but they do make shorts that look more or less like "regular" shorts but with the padded shorts built in. Also, of course, nothing is stopping you from wearing bike shorts with regular shorts over them. That's usually what mountain bikers and commuters do.

Good luck, 10km commute is a piece of cake once you get used to it. My commute is about 20 miles (32 km) each way.

Something else about bike shorts that it took me months to figure out. You don't wear underwear when you wear them. Here's how I figured it out: I was complaining about wearing off a layer of skin on very long rides and someone pointed me to something called "chamois cream", it's basically a combination lubricant / painkiller you apply onto the pad of your shorts. I immediately saw the problem of wearing underwear, if you put the cream on your shorts, it doesn't contact your skin because of underwear. The light went off and I stopped wearing them, and this made everything a lot better.

Oh, wow, that's a lot of words. Thanks for the detailed reply.

Lots of words but I like it when I get to read about nut-sacks and stuff so yeah, good stuff.

You're right, 20 km's really ain't that bad after the initial shock on the first week (if the cycling-break was long enough) ime.
30-ish minutes (and probably less) per side, even on fat tires and a semi-heavy bike.
The commute route of mine is pretty much all asphalt but I use the same bike on country roads and on wood trails occasionally so I guess after all it might be better to have all-around fattie tires on all the time.

I think sore was maybe a wrong expression, I'd say it's more of a rash type of feeling, on the back side of testicles or behind the testicles, not quite sure IIRC because like I said it's been a while since I cycled to work or to anywhere further than 2-3 km's away.
I think it's rubbing-related ****. I used to ususally cycle in basketball shorts or sweats or double(triple) sweats depending on the weather.

Thought about it a bit and your postage reinforced it - not gonna bother upgrading anything, at least yet, see how it goes first.

Cycling shorts though, that's something I have meant to buy for years now. Guess it's finally time to man up ang go get a pair, probably one of those padded ones since I don't mind looking like a doofus at all.
Comfort before anything.

ETA:
RE: No underwear.
Yes, that's what I've heard before too. I pretty much go commando 99% of the time anyways unless I'm wearing a suit which is very rare.

64 km's a day sounds like a lot. How long does it typically take you?

Yeah, shorts and a different seat would probably help. I had a bad seat for me when I started and every pedal I was basically mashing my nut sack back and forth across the seat.

I actually usually do about 18 miles on the way in, which is just over an hour unless I get bad light timing. On the way home I do anywhere between 18-35 miles depending on my schedule. The 18mi on the way home takes longer because there's more climbing, maybe 1:15. 35 miles will take me up to about 2 hours.

Mostly I do it when I need a bunch of easy miles. The beginning of every season is nothing but easy miles and even when you get into the hard training you still do 1-2 easy rides a week. Imagine if you could do a weight lifting session in the morning and magically end up at work when you were done - it saves me time.

I can do *some* hard training exercises on the way to work, my first 10 miles is all open road with no lights, no stop signs, and little traffic. But I still tend to do those rides NOT as commutes because I don't usually want to do 2 rides on those days.

All told it depends on the time of year but in the off season I ride about 7 hours/week and during training it probably averages out to 11 hours/week.

My workout plan gives me a variety of activities to choose from in this phase. In particular one of the things I am allowed to do is "training races.". Last week was the first week this was an option, it will be on the list for the rest of the season.

I should probably stop being a pussy and go do them. They're every thursday at a local car race track. I went and watched some last week, looks hard as ****. A friend of mine has helpfully been sending me videos of criterium crashes.

crits look ****ing bananas

Yuuuup. Even the lowest level crits around here get up past 25 mph. Also I know completely zero about tactics or anything. My hope for the first one is "don't get dropped" and maybe secondly "don't embarrass yourself"

Yeah, I'll go and buy shorts first and see if that fixes the problem.
If not, then I'll look more into different kinds of seating options incl. those
Brooks leather saddles.

18 miles in + 35 miles out, wut?
Do not want.

20 mph for hours on end ain't no joke.
I'm pretty sure I'll end up struggling with 13 for half an hour, at least for starters.

Rusty is probably in the upper 25% of recreational riders. Most people cannot average 20 MPH for any significant distance. Nothing wrong with averaging 13 and enjoying the ride. If you decide to get more serious an 18 mile commute will seem like you are barely getting warmed up.

I can't remember the exact formula, maybe Rusty knows, but wind resistance increases at a square to the speed, or something like that. It take a lot of power to go from a 15 MPH average to 20 MPH average.

Wind resistance increases with the cube of speed. There's a decent theoretical calculator here:
http://bikecalculator.com/

But yeah, for example, the difference on flat ground for a person about my weight between 15 and 20 mph is 150 watts vs 210. Going 25 mph would take 380 watts. Also, the ability to output wattage is not linear - doing 210 watts for 10 minutes is way more than twice as hard as doing 105 watts for 10 minutes. Doing 380 watts for 10 minutes is a feat I don't expect to ever be able to accomplish.

So last week was the first week of my build phase. It went OK. A few hard rides but honestly I should have ridden them a little harder. I recalcualted my heart rate zones the other day because I realized that Strava's were not right. The book I'm using uses a slightly different heart rate table than, well, anything else I've seen. So one of the interval sessions I should have been pushing a little more.

I also wish this book focused on using a power meter more. I may need to look up some resources on that a bit. Because the book does not focus on power, I most use the meter after the fact to measure results, instead of during the ride to estimate how hard to work. It's OK though.

I actually missed sunday's ride due to rain but it's not a huge loss, it was the long slow ride of the week.

This coming week is basically the same as last. I'll probably choose slightly different options than last week - I'm trying to alternate through available options and not get stuck doing the stuff I like. People tend to train the hardest on things they're already good at and ignore the stuff they suck at.

I think this schedule is correct for the coming week:

M	Tu	W	Th	F	Sa	Su
0	2.5	2.0	1.5	1.5	1.0	0
OFF	M2/M3/F2/F3	E1/E2	P1/S6/A1/A2/A3	S3/S5	CRIT/M4/A1	E1/E2

bold is what I'll be doing.
F2 - hilly ride with up to 8% hills that take 5+ minutes to ride
A2 - these are short high power intervals, I think something like 2 min each
S3 - cornering exercise
M4 - really this is an M2, which is long steady state intervals (M4 is an M2 that is motor-paced, but, uh, I don't have someone to motor pace me)

Ive been addicted to criterium crashes on youtube since you posted about it.

There's no shortage of them.

I think it's hilarious when people post full race videos though. Oh yeah totally I am going to watch you pedal your bike for 90 minutes or whatever when the only time anything ever happens is the last 2 minutes.

You can divide crit crashes into categories too. I've seen a few awesome ones where someone crashes and the next guy like bunny hops over him or something. The Red Hook Crit where everyone coming around the corner loses it and slams into the barrier and so forth.

Crits here are generally low on crashes... the course is actually a car racing course, not a closed off section of downtown, so there are very few really sharp turns. But also the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM SPEED in the cat 5 races is 18 mph, which is basically around the sharpest corner and uphill.

I rode with my riding club a few weeks ago at Pretty High Speed and I found that my cornering sucks balls, they would slam around corners at 20 mph and I'd slow down and then have to accelerate out of the turn to catch back up. There's a new neighborhood going up near here, they have brand new asphalt out, but it's closed to traffic. I may try to sneak in there and get some cornering work in.

You are doing Joe Friels program? I don't have it, but this book gets rav reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Training-Racin.../dp/1934030554

"Training and Racing with a Power Meter is the ultimate guide to training with power. Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan are, without a doubt, the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to power meters.” — Joe Friel, world-recognized endurance sports coach and author of The Cyclist's Training Bible

Yeah I should probably get Coggan's book. I know a guy who worked with him here at UT actually

LOL I do have his book. Just found it.

I've read a few chapters, not sure it's going to be useful. I'm fine with the plan I'm on, but I'd just like a little guidance. When the Friel book says I should do intervals at a 5a to 5b heart rate level, what power level should I be aiming at?