Harvest is coming soon…
2+ hour endurance ride. Nothing to see.
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I tried out some upright but non attached stands a few weeks back and found them very stable so I ordered another and Gravel bike to go with it. Today was its maiden voyage. Just round a packed park and back via the unsurfaced riverbank track, being unsurfaced and through a field with cows was pretty empty.
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Short one today. Tried an experiment. Could I hold my TR threshold power for an hour?
Obviously (for me) that is simply not possible straight up - so I was aiming to hit the target via weighted average power.
FAIL - hit 264 WAP against a 279 threshold
2x Crowns were scant consolation 
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I parked up in Fotheringhay this morning and cycled down to just south of Oundle to meet some mates and headed back to Oundle with them for a coffee and a chat.
In the afternoon I headed down to Six Mile Bottom for a jaunt on the A11. The things we do for fun 
It might have been a tad windy too looking at the Strava segments, 23.9mph out and 29.3mph back (I do like the symmetry) for almost identical watts.
It looks like I threw it away (not that I was ever in the mix) on the 2nd quarter of the TT.
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Met some mates in Elton and we made our way off road to Fineshade Woods and the cafe in the centre. I had took the bike out on Friday for a quick test ride but I was pleased how the bike handled on slightly more arduous terrain today, given I have rarely been off road.
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A big ride yesterday for SBT GRVL.
That was my A-race/event for the year. The nice thing about training for events like this is now I have the fitness to have fun on the bike for the rest of the year. Next up, a MTB trip to the Pyrenees, followed by a few trips to Moab. 
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Monster effort dude 
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Sorry it is a couple days late.
DAMn(Day Across Minnesota) on Saturday. First and Only Tandem to ever complete it!
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It was the last club TT for the season tonight. I was all psyched up until I went to find my car keys. When I couldn’t find them at first, I knew it was going to be one of those nights.
At the start I missed the clip in first time which sent the Favero into a spin and lol I did it again. Just as I was recovering the time I think I got stopped at the blind corner behind a car turning right. We both had to give way to traffic on the main road. We did get lucky with the weather though and it stayed dry overhead. The village of Southorpe never got so lucky though, it was soaked. Given I had lost any hope of a PB I decided to ease off a bit on the slippy bends, the near head on with the driver on the wrong side of the road also convinced me, and save my legs for the final hill. I’ll need to clean the bike after that
Oh well at least I can claim a seasons best VO2 max
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Did a TT today. It was against others but with huge time gaps, as events like this are currently prohibited.
The whole course is 16.8k, or 10.5 miles.
I have singled out the first 10 miles to kind of make it applicable to times others are chasing.
I went (almost) all out in terms of race day gear, so full skin suit and over shoes, Poc Tempor, Veloflex Record with Vredenstein Latex Inners, Race day chain, disc valve hole covered….
The only two things I didn’t do is remove my spares box and shave my legs (90% of which were covered in overshoes anyway).
I could have dug a little deeper, but I don’t know if I could have gone significantly faster.
The 10 mile segment:
This is the whole ride, including warm up and warm down:
MyWindSock. A little wind penalty. Apparently my CdA was below 0.2m2, which would be super pleasing at 1.90m in height.
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A relaxed round about ride down to Oundle for me. It looked like rain and the forecast said it would be prolonged so we took the short route towards home. Lol, then it brightened up and someone mentioned a pub, it didn’t take much to convince us
A while later we wobbled home
Half an hour after I got home, in mid afternoon, the heavy prolonged rain that was forecast for this morning started
Edit: I’ve just updated my log that’s 15,000miles for the bike thats just under 3 years old (I like to get my moneys worth )
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After weeks of smoke from the fires to the west, finally had decent weather and air quality to ride outside, which happily lined up with my work schedule. I tried to make the most of it. Felt pretty good!
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It’s great to see everyone getting in more miles and getting more fit (kudos to @hlab, for one). Me… I’ll hold down the other end of the line.
I’ve got many excuses for the drop, some valid, most not. On the former, I was off the bike for >10 days, due to a trip to Boston (USA, not UK, which is a bit different of a place), returning home this past Tuesday. I did get in some runs (5) there which, woo-hoo, was, combined, more than 10% of my year-to-date run mileage (er, I ran about 22 miles total).
Friday and Saturday were glorious summer days here in Zurich. On Friday, I went out for a lunch ride for a quick 15 miles with 2k’ of ascent. Being August, even though I was rolling at 1p, the normally busy (a relative term) roads were quiet. This two-way stretch at 15% is usually quiet, however.
Yesterday, Saturday, I went out for a TR workout, Mount Baldy+1 (threshold). I extended this 1:15 threshold workout a bit to a 2:37, 45mi ride.
The flatish clockwise roll around the lake wasn’t a complete round as I veered off the lakeside for a climb so my final run home would be downhill (literally, not figuratively).
As it goes here, our allocation of summer ended. Perhaps you’ll get more summer later, but last night we transitioned away from summer and today was a gray day. Today was TR’s Townsend-1 (1:30, endurance). Rolling out, I went counterclockwise around the lack. Instead of turning around to not exceed the dictated time too much, or taking the ferry across the lake (which was nearly at the 90min mark), I opted to continue the round-the-lake route, still focused on Z2.
No intentional hill climbing, so the ascent was only 1k’ (for 42mi), which besides the incidental rollers, was really just getting up the hill to home.
Now to rush to get in shape so AlpenBrevet doesn’t suck in 13 days (4 Sep). That’s possible, right? There is that turnoff on the course where I can switch from the Gold route (4 passes, 5100m, 206km) to the Silver route (3 passes, 3190m, 103km)… @Aeroiseverything if you end up coming, I’ve a got tow rope you’ll never feel (though you’d likely do the Platinum route (5 passes, 7170m, 264km).
Sadly, my A event this year was canceled: 3 days in the Atlas mountains for Gravel Epic Marrakesh.
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Visiting the place where I grew up. Is always good to be back. You can call home to whatever you want… but home-home is just one place.
Just 30km at endurance pace so that I don’t feel so guilty about stuffing my face!
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I was actually planning la Marmotte on that day, but sadly I’ll end up passing up on both.
Alpen Brevet is on the calendar for 2022, maybe even self-supported, if I can’t make the date.
I will definitely go to Andermatt next year again, Nufenenpass, the Klausenpass, Scheidegg, and the Full Tremola up Gottardo are still untapped for me, and all on the bucketlist.
Had a Marrakech vacation canceled last year 
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Same. I was signed up for Gravel Epic Marrakech last year. Canceled again this year. 
for next year (that it fits my schedule and it happens, better safe than sorry though)!
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I couldn’t say 100% where I rode outside today other than East Northamptonshire. I met a couple of mates in Elton for a bit of off roading. Unfortunately one of the guys had a blowout. We patched it up but he didn’t fee confidence in the repair and was close enough to his house and went home. My other mate and I pressed on for a coffee in Oundle. I rode back with him to Warmington. After 30 or so miles I was feeling it so I went for a recovery bimble. Goodness knows where I actually went for that
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41 miles through the thick dregs of Hurricane Henry. It was actually quite pleasant. Just warm enough for the showers to be refreshing, Sunday morning empty roads, and almost no wind (I am 150 miles inland in Northeast PA). Steady Z2 ride, a very nice way to clear the head.
John
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