My last decent ride before my holiday was Ironbridge Gorgeous on August 23. There my legs were cast iron and I went really well all day but since then I barely rode in the week before my holiday, probably one ride. I managed a single gym session on a bike on the cruise ship the following Sunday then I got ill and haven’t touched the bike since until this week. That’s effectively 3 or so weeks off, so it was inevitable my fitness would drop off a cliff not withstanding the weight gain from so much food and drink.
I have The Brampton Valley Bash on Sunday, so this week has been a Rocky montage of riding to try and regain some fitness ready for the 50 miles on Sunday. Lets see what that looks like.
Monday
I’d had a decent sleep, no real jetlag to deal with despite been up 30+ hours Saturday and Sunday. After catching back up with work I decided to ride 30 mins on the turbo just to wake the legs up again and it was horrible. The first ride back after an extended period off always is. I felt fat, sick, out of breath and a shadow of what I was doing before. It never feels good but experience told me tomorrow would be better.
Tuesday
Turbo again. A repeat of Monday’s session + 10 mins. My body didn’t complain as much today. A bit out of breath but the sick feeling had subsided and the extra 10 mins were good for the mind as it showed progress. It also gave me a chance to analyse and work out what level I was at. I estimated my power was down around 10% which I would dial in for tomorrow’s session.
Wednesday
The muscle-memory kicked in today. I set my power at 10% down and aimed to do an hours base on the turbo using a session I do regularly when I’m fit to maintain my core fitness. My goal was 60 mins which I achieved. This session gave me a real boost that things were progressing well and fast.
Thursday
Yesterday was my first outdoor ride. I wanted to do 90 mins but told myself if I couldn’t manage that anything over 60 mins would be fine. When I got out into the lanes, I was riding along at 20mph and could feel the power was down and my strength on steeper inclines was particularly lacking but I tried to maintain the effort and actually felt stronger as the ride went on and managed a tidy 85 mins and 25 miles which I was pleasantly surprised with.
Friday
Today I’m taking off
Saturday
This will be a steady 60-90 min road ride
Sunday
I will take it easy on Sunday with the sole goal of just getting round and finishing with 50 miles in the bag. Speed is unimportant but time in the saddle will be.
Hopefully a bit of consistent riding this week will be enough to get me round on Sunday. The weight has started to come off too as I’ve cut down on the beer until I get back on track.
New Bike
There isn’t a better way to motivate yourself to get fit than when you’ve ordered a new bike. I didn’t get chance to order it before I left for Alaska and trying to order it abroad proved problematic so I eventually pressed the button on Monday.
I’d poured over colours and specs for weeks but in the end decided to say ‘fuck it, life’s too short’ and went all in.
So my new Dolan GXC 2.0 will have an orange/black fade custom paint job with a gloss finish + Shimano GRX 1×12 Di2 gears. I’ve also ordered some carbon wheels to replace the stock Mavics it come with.
After doing some research I’ve plumbed for some Superteam Gravel Classic PRO G34-30 DISC which are Chinese but get good reviews and are a decent price at sub-£500.
The ordering experience with Dolan, having had 2 off them already, wasn’t great but they did resolve it quickly and my bike is now in a build queue about 4 weeks away. By then I should have my wheels from China too.
Look out for Sunday’s ride report to see if this week’s emergency training paid off
Adios