4.0 by 40

[weeksy]

I don’t know- I just don’t have the appetite for risk these days. I think trying to improve V the chaingang regulars and then winter zwift racing is going to have to be enough for this year.

Unless the weather changes 🌧 and some power reappears

Although racing pro, elite and cat 1 roadies at the British gravel championships is seeming very pointless until I can hang with the chaingang to the sprint at least.

I guess that depends on your enjoyment until you get dumped. My racing is different in that it's solo against the clock. But even before I enter I'm aware the chance of me coming last is high. But I enjoy riding, racing, pushing and trying, even if it's fairly futile. I'm usually just trying to beat my own boundaries, goals etc.

[Crosshair]

The course doesn’t really have many intrinsically motivating features I must admit Not like Dirty Reiver where the scenery and trails are great in their own right.

This was like a giant CX Course- boring to ride but fun to race.

And if they do 500w for a minute off the line- I ain’t gonna be doing much other than a boring TT

[Crosshair]

Was lacking in motivation today. As in- asleep on the sofa (Well, it is recovery week!). But then Rich text about doing the Newbury Velo chaingang as Neil had mentioned it on Tuesday.

2x Chaingangs on a rest week sounds silly but with the thirty miles extra knocked off the start, it’s actually a good way to keep some fitness without adding tons of fatigue.

Anyway, after drifting back to sleep again, I woke up at 17:35 with barely enough time to get geared up and out the door.

We needn’t have rushed though as nobody else turned up Because we’re not technically members, we’re not in that WhatsApp group.

Plan B was a nice dose of sweetspot. Rich had some tempo to do in his plan so he was able to use me like ERG mode, moving in and out of my draft as required to keep his watts in the right zone. I just stayed at a steady 290/300 which evened out with the downhills to 293NP. The loop took 45mins at 21.5mph and my HR was 172bpm.

It is crazy how far off my numbers are as back in May, I basically did 2hrs at 282w at 160bpm!
I still feel totally blocked the instant I go above threshold. With no events close by, it doesn’t really matter I suppose so I’ll continue to push through it and just do plenty of what I can do.

Tomorrow and Saturday are both going to be completely off and then I may try a century on Sunday to kick start me back into next week.

[Crosshair]

Woke up with a noticeably high resting HR this morning. It’s been down to 43 lately but was nearer 60. Not sure why as I felt okay and had just had two days off.

So I decided to crack on and try a century anyway

Sure enough, HR was high for zone too. I’d aimed to target the top of Z2 (220-240w) but that slipped away as the miles ticked by.
And HR was 150 v 140 for similar power rides in the last fortnight.

I was over 18mph for a bit but by half way, I was down to 17.2. The wind was brutal but I knew if I could make it to about mile 60 not too far behind then it would be tailwind home.
So that’s what I did. I never quite made it back to 18mph but 17.8 and 25mins quicker than my elapsed time last time, were both solid enough.

I managed the entire thing without stopping today. Fuel was sugar in the bottles but I’ve found my limit! 100g an hour in 750ml of water has been fine lately. But today, I tried adding extra to make the ratio 100g per 500ml and then drink one of those portions every hour. And that is just too hypertonic. If I’d had one bottle of plain water, I could have diluted it a bit.

It’s amazing how doing more long rides makes them feel like they go quicker. And even better, it makes 2-3hr rides seem tiny.

[Crosshair]

Just looked back and that’s 10 outdoor rides over 100 miles since I started back last year. And two on Zwift

I really need to decide on a plan for the rest of the year now

It’s interesting how I’m a different cyclist than before. I’ve lost much of my punch (which was how I faked it in the faster group rides) in favour of endurance.
It kind of depends on my goals as to which way I go. For Dirty Reiver focus, I ought to keep the volume as high as I can (around work) and add more intensity. Whereas if I fancy a crack at the Gravel Champs then I think I need to drop the hours for the next couple of months and try and restore my 4-600w toolbox.
I was hoping to use Zwift season as my intensity block but that is obviously too late for Gravel Champs.

Going back to a bit of Crit racing would be the best training for gravel champs I think but I can’t face the crash risk

[weeksy]

surely the risk is only really there if you put it on the line in the last 400m ? If you break, attack, play then sit and relax with 500m to go you'd be OK ?

[Crosshair]

Whilst most happen in the sprint, the rest just happen in the bunch- for no obvious reason And there’s always a time when you have to be there.

I’ve also changed my system at work since I used to race so it is a little harder to get away at the right time. Not impossible but definitely trickier.

[Crosshair]

Just listened to an interesting FasCat podcast (Frank Overton’s company- he trains Phil Gaimon).

His catchy phrase is “switching from base to race” and basically he says 6 weeks out is the right time to do so.

Working backwards, minus a one week taper, there’s 12 weeks to go. So that leaves 6 weeks to fill in

The podcast recommends doing what I thought and dropping your hours for that final phase. It also recommends a sweetspot block to fill in the gap.
That makes a lot of sense. I could still leave the Tuesday night chaingang in, then do a shorter sweetspot session on a Thursday and a longer one on a Sunday.

So a typical week for the next 6 weeks would be:

Monday- off
Tuesday- Chaingang (but ditch the Z2 pre-ride) 120 min total
Wednesday- Easy spin, 60 mins
Thursday- Sweetspot, 90 min session / 60 min work
Friday- off
Saturday- Z2 endurance 150 mins
Sunday- Sweetspot 180 min session / 120 min work

[Crosshair]

Well things aren’t going great at the minute. Despite the grass pollen dropping off now, and my breathing feeling a lot better, I still seem to be haemorrhaging power. I went to the chaingang and got my two hours riding in as planned but it was insanely hard. I was already feeling on the edge when in the draft and then when it was my turn to pull through, I just went nowhere. I was maybe 2mph slower than the speed the others were pulling at. Then twice I just completely died! Luckily the guys noticed and eased off but it was so disheartening, I was almost glad to let go of the wheel on the A4 for the final time (which is considered every man for himself territory).

Work is about to get a lot more involved from tomorrow so I may scrap riding until Saturday at the earliest.

I’m roughly tracking my ‘fitness’ number on intervals.icu website and I haven’t managed to move the needle at all for the whole of June. After peaking at “82” in May, I’ve been hovering around “75” all month. That’s going to crash lower now if I take a few days off but maybe that’s what needs to happen. Perhaps I can’t start rebuilding until I let it drop and truly freshen up

This is where a coach would earn their keep but i can neither afford it or justify it

[weeksy]

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/rimpact-l ... serts.html

[Crosshair]

Back out on the chaingang last night. Got dropped at 24 miles but it was a toughie. Almost past caring about fitness now- just need to keep the consistency going and wait for it to come back.

[Crosshair]

Life is tricky this month. I’m suddenly thrown in the deep end of working long hours. As always, it takes a few weeks to adapt to starting at 05:00 and doing my last checks at 23:30. I do try and nap in between but after being ultra consistent with my sleep for months on end- it is tough to keep up with training.

Thursday, I hoped to do some sweet spot work but I couldn’t push 300w for more than 4 minutes! Let alone two hours total work

So I slunk home and ate. And ate and ate Literally shovelling in bowls of wheetabix with spoonfuls of nesquick and sugar on.
My legs felt totally empty.

Then today was the Banjo ride. Rich and the two Nicks have been to the Alps and did 26h last week so were feeling fit.
Hence why at the last minute, we switched to the FAST GROUP

I had switched to my ‘training’ wheel set with 45psi in the Conti 32mm tyres and was loaded up with enough water and inner tubes for 4hrs of 15mph cruising.
And then had to try and keep up on a flat out smash fest V aero bikes.

I won’t say I made it- I didn’t, as people had to wait on a few climbs. But I was in the middle group rather than the abandoned tail end Charlie bunch.

Power wise I felt great! NP for the 2h30 was 275! Not a million miles away from my still illusive 300w/2h.

I’m glad I turned the week around. I think continuing to ride but abandoning the diet this month is the best option. But I’ll definitely cut down the hours considerably.

I probably won’t head out again now until Monday for an easy spin to open the legs for more smashing on Tuesday

[Crosshair]

Well we went out yesterday for a cool evening spin. But I was on my race bike!! I decided on a whim to try and rebuild it.
I had put the normal profile bars on there last year (for lights, tri bars etc) so that made the rebuild tricky.
Joe kindly sold me some cheap cervello aero road-bars back in the day with internally routed cables and they are a nightmare to thread up. Helpfully, a piece of offcut brake cable was still on the floor in the shed so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Tyres were a mishmash. One GP5K and a tidy 4k made up the set but I did knacker one latex tube in the process.
Rich still has my Prime aero wheels so I stuck the Shimano box section ones on there. This makes for a 7.3kg build! Whilst bike weight isn’t the be all and end all, -3kg is still an awful lot of dieting

I’m kind of torn. Half of me enjoys thinking the maybe all the aero stuff is marketing trickery but also, I’ve seen some pretty clear and amazing example of it in action.

Although we just pootled around, there were a couple of times on descents where it really did feel much much faster but I guess tomorrow will be the real test!

I have a few tweaks to make. The bars, hoods, rear mech and stem all need a little adjustment and I’m going to change the saddle over to the original Syncros one from my Scott Spark.

Everyone always goes on about gear ratio calculators and theoretically possible cadence/speeds when talking about gear ratios but what I never hear people mention is the ability to tick along at low cadence (which helps your HR recover) whilst still adding in a small amount of power on gradual descents. This makes quite a big difference to your average power over the course of a ride as on the gravel bike (48-11 v road 53-11) those moments are all spent coasting at zero watts.

I’m not convinced it will be enough power saved to get me to the finish line tomorrow but it will be fun finding out.

It made me love lots of things about the gravel bike too. The ride quality of the wider tyres and suspended stem plus the ability to actually stop with disc brakes mean I certainly don’t have buyers remorse (even though I’ll technically have a bike that’s better off road and one that’s better on road).

[weeksy]

i look forward to the answer !

[Crosshair]

Well.. annoyingly my power meter would not pair for the main part of the chaingang tonight
So I can’t do as good a comparison as I’d like.

But the road bike was unequivocally easier. I left nothing to chance mind you, smashed carbs all afternoon, drank 100g of sugar during the ride, wore my skin suit and aero socks and even took an old 2l squash bottle of chilled plain water to the meeting point which I poured all over myself as we set off (and then binned the squash bottle).

There was one moment where a tiny (59kg!) guy called Nick did his pull and I was in his draft (only there wasn’t any ) and then it was my pull for three minutes, then Rich aligned with the next hill so I shouted to him to pull slowly (as 3 hard goes in a row might have dropped me).
Otherwise I did all my pulls for the entire route. At one point, going downhill a touch, I just pulled through and went straight to 30mph ….. to the wonderful sound of shouting from behind as I dropped them

Eventually we reached the ski slope and it was game on. But nobody really drilled it so I was able to hold.
Plotting my move between the A34 roundabouts, Darian went so I was able to do my attack but in his draft.

A slow car into town meant the others caught and eventually it was sprint time. Rich went first so I muscled on to his wheel. Next, the other three went so I got on theirs. Then finally it was just Darian left and I beat him to the Pelican crossing with a bike throw

It’s quite nice in one way that there is some fitness coming back but I reckon there was 20-40 watts saving with the bike swap.

[weeksy]

SO you're telling us the lighter, faster tyred bike with skinsuit is faster

[Crosshair]

I do usually wear my skinsuit on the gravel bike too to be fair

But yes

I’d love to know where the biggest differences are. Obviously weight is a factor for the first 12 miles.

I think the newer, tubeless GP5k on the gravel bike do actually roll faster than the old, tubed one on the race bike but there is a significant aero penalty with the 32mm v the 25 as that is the first thing to hit the wind. (Hence TT’ers often opting for 23f/25r still).

The aero road bars definitely help but interestingly they are almost an identical height to the gravel bar hoods so I could probably switch out another spacer (I’m feeling really comfy on the bike these days so definitely room to improve my position).

On the one big descent, I probably lost a bit of time thanks to the brakes. I was way more cautious knowing I never had discs and wide tyres to slow me down.

[weeksy]

I do usually wear my skinsuit on the gravel bike too to be fair

But yes

I’d love to know where the biggest differences are. Obviously weight is a factor for the first 12 miles.

I think the newer, tubeless GP5k on the gravel bike do actually roll faster than the old, tubed one on the race bike but there is a significant aero penalty with the 32mm v the 25 as that is the first thing to hit the wind. (Hence TT’ers often opting for 23f/25r still).

The aero road bars definitely help but interestingly they are almost an identical height to the gravel bar hoods so I could probably switch out another spacer (I’m feeling really comfy on the bike these days so definitely room to improve my position).

On the one big descent, I probably lost a bit of time thanks to the brakes. I was way more cautious knowing I never had discs and wide tyres to slow me down.

It's an interesting question because i know with your scientific approach you can remove most of the guesswork in terms of the human element of effort/form etc.

[Crosshair]

[Crosshair]

It was a big shame that the PM wouldn’t pair. I may try the Banjo smash fest on Saturday so hopefully will have some data.

Without it- there was literally nothing objective I could compare as the wind and conditions were different.