Ask and you shall receive…
But yeah, in short, don’t use Bitter Batteries for power meters.
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Thanks.
Rained all morning, heavy winds, and afternoon scattered rain. Put the power pedals on the grocery store bike and headed out on a Wind Warrior blustery evening ride:
Long steady distance? Limited slow distance! 
Not aero, haven’t maintained the drivetrain, and some 35c Pirelli Cinturato slow rolling tires. Couple of times I was putting down 230W and doing 9mph into a massive wall of wind.
Creek near our house forced an alternate route out of the neighborhood
On the west side of town these nut trees took the brunt of the heavy wind and rain. Pollination might have been interrupted, the petals are on the ground looking like snow.
No bueno.
Grocery store bike:
A lot of trees coming down because the ground is saturated and high winds. Here is a beautiful old valley oak tree that met its match:
Sad but we needed all this rain.
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In stark contrast to yesterday’s snow and freezing temperatures overnight this afternoon was lovely and warm. I wore the gloves I should have worn yesterday but my lightest bib longs and a short sleeved Gabba.
Sticking to my endurance Wednesday scheme I decided to take an old favourite Giroud. Ive probably said it before but I like it as its not one long outdoors interval. I spun round at a relatively high cadence to the temporary traffic lights that seem to have been permanent. Down Bullock Rd to the Washingley Cross roads and down through Folksworth to the old A1 before cutting through the recently built industrial estate to Peterborough. I was a bit earlier than I planned so to finish the workout on reasonable roads I turned left and came back by the Lynchwood Business Park and the Orton Wistow spine road.
There’s a bit of a lull as coasted to the temporary lights and a sprint through; a bit of a lull where I was too timid to sprint down hills and surges at roundabouts (traffic circles) but on the whole I think it was reasonably compliant and I achieved my goal of keeping my cadence fairly high.
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2 hours of Z2, mostly gravel for the first time this year!
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Missed the first Wed ride after daylight savings time…
30seconds of pain, hurts so good 
Good enough first hour, definitely lost some fitness last few weeks. Left some out on the road and didn’t do a complete second set. “Live to shoot another day.”
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Our clocks dont spring forwards until the 26th, except for the hour less in bed that morning, I am looking forward to it; the chance of some outdoor evening workouts or the majority of my commute in the daylight at both ends (a month after that or so it should be the entirety).
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It’s so nice to have sunset after 7pm!
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Easy ride shaking off the 30-sec repeat work from 2 days ago.
First late afternoon ride it felt good wearing a summer kit all the way to the end.
Chased by a large German Shepherd early in the ride 
- the owner lost control. Sprinted and outran the dog. 
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Fun in the sun today. Winter is over. It’s official I suppose as I received the text from the tire store reminding me to swap out my car’s winter tires for my summer tires. (My understanding is it is not mandatory, but if you have an accident in the winter and do not have winter tires, it’s pretty much your fault regardless.) Well, the text and the weather.
Starting from the end of the ride, or, more precisely, after the ride:
This is outside of our apartment, which we leave in July. It’s not a bad view to wake up to, and it’s only half the view, or perhaps less than half as it doesn’t capture the full 180º, i.e., left to the top of the lake and Zurich.
Part of my typical pre-dawn ride (nearly 100% of the rides pass through here) and run routes (more than 60% of runs over 3mi). (The first tap of the brakes on my typical gravel ride is typically about 2.2mi in, which is beyond this point.)
The below three are from the other side of the river. The picture above is in the forest along the ridgeline in the distance and to the right, across a small unseeable-from-here river valley (a somewhat liberal use of the word here). My “forest” is beyond that ridge line and through an underpass to the highway, but home is nearly straight ahead from this point, 2.23km / 1.4mi according to Google Maps’s measure distance feature, i.e. direct as the crow flies).
17 miles, 2240’ of climbing with temps calling for bib shorts but long-sleeve (thin-ish), with insulated gilet, and light gloves. It was usually around 40F in the shade and 60F in the sun. A couple of times areas really demanded a slow roll to enjoy the scenery and the birds chirping, like around the area in the pic above. The forest ground to the right was just solid green with all kinds of birds singing at once.
Friday morning was a 4.3 mile run, which was fun and noted only to share the picture below. This spot was last seen here six days ago as icy under a falling snow.
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I wouldn’t exactly call it a workout but a pleasant social ride for me today. From Elton Furze down to Oundle via a spurious route and back to Elton village by another spurious route and the pub at Fotheringhay.
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@mountainrunner this is beautiful! I’m concerned you’re going to have a bit of adjustment in Boston, though.
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Group ride with 14 of my 4-5W/kg friends. At 3W/kg I consider it a win to make it to the 2nd regroup without ruffling any impatient feathers, told them to not wait for me after that!
Some pics while I eat lunch…
Lost a long finger glove somewhere between there and here
Spring has sprung
Sacramento downtown off in the haze
Only one animal pic
Lunch is served
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Big ride today with a long climb to get it started. Despite multiple stream crossing, bone rattling washboards, stinky mudpits and a flat five miles from the finish, I had a great ride. Super happy with how I felt on the bike today and my fueling strategy. I was able to hold near-ftp up the entire first climb and had power on all subsequent climbs and other sections as well. A huge difference from how I rode about six weeks ago. Ready for a rest week before the next block.
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And you are trading that for Boston 
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A steady gravel bike ride for me this morning on the way to the cafe I could tell that my strong mate was itching to smash it. We were joined at the cafe by another mate and he needed to get back for Mother’s Day. So I used that as excuse to let him go. Just having a look at his Strava which has a number of cups including:
There’s no way I could have stayed with that, it was a more leisurely ride closer to 8 mins for me today.
The full route was Peterborough to Elton, where I met folk for a ride to the Fineshade mtb centre/ cafe. Some of the trails though were still totally flooded. Then a leisurely ride to Nassington, where two of my my mates live then up to Wansford where the other lives. It was warming up nicely so I went a tad further on a solo ride. Bearing in mind how bad sections of trail were I cut down to the unflooded section of the Elton Bridleway we took this morning and came back by bridleways that are usually ok. Over a road to Haddon which had been severed by the A605 and is now an overgrown bridleway. Under the A1(M) and the bridleway south of Hampton (the one my mate got his 2nd on. Another bridleway to Standground and the east side of Peterborough before following the south riverbank back in to town.
It finally feels like Spring has Sprung 
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The temperature went above freezing and there was sunshine!
Got the long neglected winter commuter bike out for a ride. No power meter, no HR monitor, just enjoy the sunshine.
Minnehaha Falls is picturesque with its winter ice build up
The Mississippi River is mostly ice covered (unusual for mid March)
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Yesterday morning was a trail run of 4.6mi and, apparently, at threshold (according to Garmin). It felt good. Here’s a selfie of me and my dog on the run.
Frogs came back, or rather, some frogs returned. I don’t know if the few I saw are late bloomers, survivors, desperados, desperate, or what…
In local (around Lake Zurich) news, there was a story with the title (translated from German): “Conservationists speak of a frog massacre” (Here’s a gift – so free to you – link if you want to read the story) You’ll see in the story a picture of temporary barrier between the woods and a road and a volunteer with a bucket. I see several of these, including one I’ll probably ride by this afternoon. The barriers are to keep the frogs from crossing the road on their own. In effect, they are forced to “wait” until the volunteer shows up and carries them across. It’s better than a frog massacre.
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When I was in grad school, rather than a volunteer w/a bucket 
, the govt built tunnels under the highway (eco-passages) in addition to barriers to prevent animal massacres (e.g., frogs, opossum, alligators, large turtles, raccoons, deer, snakes, fox, rabbit, etc… ) on the highway that runs thru Paynes Prairie. On occasion the massacres would be so bad that the road surface would become extremely slippery and result in car accidents. Of course, there were sometimes accidents when hitting a larger animal.
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It is sort of New Bike Day as this afternoon was my first time on the new bike. It was mostly a road ride with a short bit of gravel. I’ll tell you that 47mm tires at 30psi feel a lot different than 35mm GP5000 at 70psi!
In the second pic above, you can see a gravel trail in the woods climbing up. It’s 15 going to 18% there, bends left and then goes to 18 and then later 25 or 26%. That’s my “fun” gravel climb I do on the gravel bike. I didn’t go that way, instead I turned left onto a gravel track along the river. There is a right turn after a while to stay on gravel and enter and climb in the forest, or keep along the river on pavement, which is what I did.
This is after the top of the main climb – 1mi paved at 9% – which is where the bike is facing. I could gravel in the forest or take a paved road home from here, I took the later.
It was a fine time on the bike. and sort of flat with 950’ over nearly 15mi (well, nearly flat for staying local). I wish I wore a gilet as I was a bit underdressed, but it was good to be on this bike. I will take the seat mast down a bit, maybe a 1cm and probably take another spacer out to lower the stem.
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Was supposed to be cloudy and maybe some rain. Was able to get out in some sun and no rain! was a perfect March day! Wasn’t even terribly windy!
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