yeah, but more accurate than no power at all. and it didn't matter to me if it was accurate, as long as it was consistantly inaccurate, which it was. I has kickr now, so I haz all the power.
Jshort’s bike thread
- Thread starter jShort
- Start date
The days are melting.
If it weren’t for my kids, I’d have no idea what day it is. I know i am not unique in this perspective but it’s still very unsettling. I think this is the start of week 3? And no end in sight? It’s a lot to take in, especially with kids. If I were single or we didn’t have kids, this would be like a borderline vacation. Although i think that perspective only comes once you have had the experience of raising small children.
This is a time when I really appreciate bikes. Everything about them. Looking at them, cleaning them, fixing them, maintaining them, thinking of ways to upgrade. Really the list goes on and on. I can just go in my basement workshop, and start straightening up and next thing I know my crank is off and I’m pushing fresh grease in to my BB.
Then I start to come up with ways to improve myself with regards to being on the bike. Nutrition, training, strength training, yoga and flexibility, all these things really help to keep my mind off of the position we find ourselves in.
Last week I managed to do a 1 hour set of intervals at a specific watt. It wasn’t perfect but it was possible. It’s amazing how much easier it is to do intervals outside. Maybe the PM isn’t apples to apples, but its close enough.
One of the cool features of TR is the ability to push workouts to your garmin to do them outside. At a high level, once you select to do the workout outside, the Garmin will sync over WiFi and pick it up. Then it will ask if you want to do “X” workout. It will tell you to warm up at a certain range of watts and once you get to the spot where you will do the actual workout (because you may have a bit of a ride to get to where you can actually train), then hit the lap button. Once that happens your interval timer starts.
You need to have the screens set up right on your Garmin (but there is a handy guide for doing just this).
The only reason I am telling you this is because I was really impressed with the Garmin integration. They did a really great job and its worth trying.
Friday was a scheduled “off” day but with the weather being so awesome I took my MTB and explored some small park which is a 10 minute ride from my house. My neighbor told me there is a little bit of single track there which is worth doing so I checked it out. I was pretty impressed with 3/4 of it, but the last 1/4 was shit mud hole. But I think it could be remedied with some basic re-routing. Considering its just a boulder field I think I can find an easy route. It would give me a 70 minute ish ride from my door which is always a good option.
Saturday and Sunday were back in the pain cave. Saturday was a legit threshold interval workout and I covered up my heart rate on the screen just so it wouldn’t psych me out. I feel like looking at HR during training is counterproductive, and when races start I’m going to try and break the habit of having it in on my screen.
For challenging workouts like that, I try to fuel like a race. High carb drinks and a gel on hand. I’ve learned from experience that fueling properly for hard indoor sessions is vital for completing them without feeling shot afterwards. I have come to rely on Maurten drink mix and SIS Isotonic gels. I have trained my gut to be able to take in a lot of carbs during sessions and it is a big part of my training.
On an unrelated but totally relevant note, I got a par of Air Pod pro’s and they are the best earbuds I have ever used. The noice cancelling almost mutes the trainer noise which is great. I just pair them to my Apple TV and the sound is great. During times like this I really just want to leave them in my ears 24 hours a day and block everything out.
Another thing that has come in handy is this little phone holder thingy. I have been FaceTiming like crazy and not holding my phone is nice...
Oh. And Coffee. So much coffee.
.
If it weren’t for my kids, I’d have no idea what day it is. I know i am not unique in this perspective but it’s still very unsettling. I think this is the start of week 3? And no end in sight? It’s a lot to take in, especially with kids. If I were single or we didn’t have kids, this would be like a borderline vacation. Although i think that perspective only comes once you have had the experience of raising small children.
This is a time when I really appreciate bikes. Everything about them. Looking at them, cleaning them, fixing them, maintaining them, thinking of ways to upgrade. Really the list goes on and on. I can just go in my basement workshop, and start straightening up and next thing I know my crank is off and I’m pushing fresh grease in to my BB.
Then I start to come up with ways to improve myself with regards to being on the bike. Nutrition, training, strength training, yoga and flexibility, all these things really help to keep my mind off of the position we find ourselves in.
Last week I managed to do a 1 hour set of intervals at a specific watt. It wasn’t perfect but it was possible. It’s amazing how much easier it is to do intervals outside. Maybe the PM isn’t apples to apples, but its close enough.
One of the cool features of TR is the ability to push workouts to your garmin to do them outside. At a high level, once you select to do the workout outside, the Garmin will sync over WiFi and pick it up. Then it will ask if you want to do “X” workout. It will tell you to warm up at a certain range of watts and once you get to the spot where you will do the actual workout (because you may have a bit of a ride to get to where you can actually train), then hit the lap button. Once that happens your interval timer starts.
You need to have the screens set up right on your Garmin (but there is a handy guide for doing just this).
The only reason I am telling you this is because I was really impressed with the Garmin integration. They did a really great job and its worth trying.
Friday was a scheduled “off” day but with the weather being so awesome I took my MTB and explored some small park which is a 10 minute ride from my house. My neighbor told me there is a little bit of single track there which is worth doing so I checked it out. I was pretty impressed with 3/4 of it, but the last 1/4 was shit mud hole. But I think it could be remedied with some basic re-routing. Considering its just a boulder field I think I can find an easy route. It would give me a 70 minute ish ride from my door which is always a good option.
Saturday and Sunday were back in the pain cave. Saturday was a legit threshold interval workout and I covered up my heart rate on the screen just so it wouldn’t psych me out. I feel like looking at HR during training is counterproductive, and when races start I’m going to try and break the habit of having it in on my screen.
For challenging workouts like that, I try to fuel like a race. High carb drinks and a gel on hand. I’ve learned from experience that fueling properly for hard indoor sessions is vital for completing them without feeling shot afterwards. I have come to rely on Maurten drink mix and SIS Isotonic gels. I have trained my gut to be able to take in a lot of carbs during sessions and it is a big part of my training.
On an unrelated but totally relevant note, I got a par of Air Pod pro’s and they are the best earbuds I have ever used. The noice cancelling almost mutes the trainer noise which is great. I just pair them to my Apple TV and the sound is great. During times like this I really just want to leave them in my ears 24 hours a day and block everything out.
Another thing that has come in handy is this little phone holder thingy. I have been FaceTiming like crazy and not holding my phone is nice...
Oh. And Coffee. So much coffee.
.
I saw you commented and I knew this was going to be what you said. Verbatim.
I guess that doesn’t take a psychic to figure it out.
You going to go YouTube / zoom live?
Zoom, which we will record both audio & video. Sean will do the audio version and I'll drop the video on our newly created MTBNJ TV YouTube channel.
Noted about live broadcasts in the future - I'll look into it. If nothing else, this "event" will open up the airwaves even more for people.
The live part lets you take live questions
Yes but I can't just share the link, lest random people come in and make a mess. I need to figure out how to broadcast it without just making it an open forum.
Start a thread !
This bike with a 120 Factory F34 really really rips. I only rode for 2 hours at Nassau so Ill have to take it somewhere else to really test.
I’m going to throw some meaty tires on instead of the XC Schwalbes. With wider rims.
Stans needs to make a wider lightweight XC rim.
There’s another race this Sunday so I converted my bike back into light weight mode. Swapping the fork, dropper, took ~ 15 minutes.
As shown it’s 23.5 labs. XL. Pretty light
I’m going to throw some meaty tires on instead of the XC Schwalbes. With wider rims.
Stans needs to make a wider lightweight XC rim.
There’s another race this Sunday so I converted my bike back into light weight mode. Swapping the fork, dropper, took ~ 15 minutes.
As shown it’s 23.5 labs. XL. Pretty light
You feel like the weight gains from losing the dropper out shadow the benefits of having a dropper? I’d think you have plenty enough power to take the weight penalty and utilize its benefits.
Yea. For this race especially. There’s zero tech, just single track and a few fire roads. (Assuming not much has changed since last year).
I really just wanted to see how light it was sans dropper and bigger fork.
And I have a different seat on it. It’s just sitting there waiting for me to put it back on. It’s external so it’s literally a 5 minute swap. Probably closer to 3.
There’s a 50-50 chance I put it back on. I’m going to do a few rides this week and see if I can live without a dropper. I’m not sure I can.
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I guess if you have a bunch of just flat out sprints and non tech climbing it’s worth the 200g or whatever it is. I had a dropper get stuck in the upright position and I just lived with it for like six months saying “whatever...I managed before droppers were a thing...” then one day I fixed it and was like “wtf was I thinking...” now I’ll never go back.
I can’t imagine needing a dropper for Mayhem.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
I love the mayhem course. I agree that fs not needed there but I will probably run mine because I love it so much. I even raced it with 2.4s and enduro wheels at last weeks race and was thankful for it, even with all the climbing. Weight was around 26.2. I put valors on with 2.1s now but I think I will race it like that this weekend. I don’t notice the weight that much on a course like Mayhem. On the other hand a course like cathedral is absolutely better on FS. Good luck.
So are you COVID free?
there are a bunch of twisties they had last year. I like droppers for tight turns almost as much as gnar.
I was slow in converting but now I use my dropper more than I shift gears by a long shot.