Did another ride on vacation. Did 2 threshold efforts 18 und 21 minutes. The third one got interrupted because I rode into a hailstorm luckely i ground a farmhouse to wait it out. Have a lot of small bruises to show for it.
Went up the schallenbergpass really nice road. Overall the roads in the Emmental region are great pretty smooth and really flowing corners.
No nice views or pics but a sweaty long run in the gloomy heat this morning 
I’ve done the move… from somewhere very hilly, cold, & cloudy, to somewhere very flat, warm, & sunny. On Thursday night after 2250km & 2½ days on the road I arrived at my destination. Friday morning I got on the bike intending to knock off Tweed +9 on the forestry road. Kept the cadence up & so HR + breathing were elevated too. Part-way through the 4th interval my power meter died so I finished that interval out maintining RPE. I’d given the Assiomas a charge to about 50% before the drive, but it’s likely that with all the driving & shaking around on the road, the pedals had been repeatedly awoken. I didn’t mind too much. Honestly I was a bit gassed: the higher cadence also challenging VO2 max a bit, & if I’d actually got to the end it would’ve been all-out. (I’d finally bitten the bullet & allowed AIFTP to run, reducing from 302 to 296, which was probably a bit conservative… maybe should be a few more watts lower. 
Never mind. I can grow into it.) I canned the workout there, & tacked 15’ of endurance work on the end, doing a couple of laps around the neighborhood (not showing on the TR stats). I’ll have to give it another go next week, keeping cadence in the 90s.
Then this morning I headed out again for some endurance work, emulating Boarstone -2, quantised to 4 more easily remembered half-hour segments at 55%, 60%, 65%, 60%, than the 7×15’ segments prescribed.
The zero-time-coasting detected by TR is flattering, but not entirely true, because there was a period of two minutes halfway into the ride where I ducked inside the house to restart a washing machine. Happy with the rest of the numbers.
A bit of an Under Over session for me today, aka the Lamport (N3/10) TT. It wasn’t the best start from me. The pusher off had me feeling I was a little too much leaning right, so I ask him for a fraction left. I think he over compensated and I had too unclip. Hey ho, if I’d been at the turn roundabout 5sec earlier I would have had to wait those 5 secs. When I arrived it was just clearing so I only had to ease slightly. The net result the start didn’t really cost me I could have done with getting more power out down the hill though 
Coming back after the turn, uphill into the wind, suited me better. Overall net result I managed =3rd on Handicap (I think a 24s PB, 47s up on my Spindata predicted time); aka Not as slow as I’ve been in the past 
It’s summer in Houston. That means lots of heat, humidity, and rain. We get pop up storms once in a while, but it tends to be more “rain for a week, dry for a week, rain for a week”. I grew up in south Florida, where we would get lots of quick, pop-up storms out of no where, and that almost never happens here. When I went to bed last night, it said almost no chance of rain this morning. When I left for my ride at 6am, it said 50% chance, but the radar didn’t show anything in the area, so I figured if I got any rain, it would be a quick sun shower.
Man was I wrong! Left at 6am in the dark. Calm and quiet. I love starting my morning rides before the sun comes up, when it’s just me and a runner or two enjoying the morning before the sunrise. I could see a little heat lightning off in the distance, but it looked like no big deal.
About 10 minutes in, the sky absolutely dropped! Huge rain, thunder and lighting, and wind pushing me around on the road. I stopped in front of a community center to hide under the awning and the mosquitos attacked! I’d rather get wet than get bit, so I did the long wet 10 minutes home watching the rain gust across the streets. Go figure, my Crux is at the shop, so I got caught out on the Tarmac. Got back to the house and the dog was freaking out from the storm, so my wife was awake and had made coffee 
A fun adventure, but I think I’ll finish my workout on the trainer today!
Skipped my threshold TR workout + melo ride yesterday to do “the hill” 2x. It was supposed to be a group going but I rode there, everyone else drove so I ended up getting lost and was late, I saw them coming down the first time and could have caught up but I was pulling out my sunglasses at the top of the descent and launched my earbuds out of my jersey pocket, so 10 min lost to searching for them on the side of the road. Saw them going up as I was going down and probably still could have caught up along the ridge but then someone I usually do the melo ride with was also there doing “the hill” and at the top when I got up there, so we chatted for a bit. I continued on the planned route and saw the group (3) at the top of the other big climb they were doing. Since I was out doing hills I just kept on my way so descended and then climbed up, rode the ridge back and was hoping maybe I could find them on a little side quest the leader had planned, a short punchy climb in a residential area. They were doing a recovery loop and wasn’t sure which way they were going, apparently I chose the same as them so never caught up with them. I got back to where they were parked as the last was pulling out. Rested for a few in the shade and rode home.
The detour put me in some mud so good I didn’t get a chance I swap out my tires for road ones, but also that sucked the rest of the time. More of a workout right?
Biggest climbing day I have ever had. Set 11-21 second all time records, 1-21 season records sprinting into my neighborhood on the way home. 3-20 min seasonal record. Intervals bumped my FTP to 300, which is pretty inline with AI FTP a few weeks ago at 304 that I have been training at. Will do KMP in about 2 weeks to confirm all that at the end of this block.
First ride up the hill I was not feeling great, better than the first time a month ago but was still iffy and feeling light headed. But I went from 33 (with a rest) to 23 min. Second pass felt amazing and thought i was doing better than the 23 but apparently it was 26 min, probably just felt better since I was pacing better. There is “Burgerfest” in a few weeks, unsanctioned event where you climb this road as many times as you can/want. I think I have a 40t (44t currently) laying that came on my crocket around so will make sure I get that on the front and the road tires on for that event, stuck with the 36 in the back until i get a new rear der.
Out in the morning for a ride with a local cycling group (the Yaxley Riders) to a cafe in Willingham we came back by the East of England Mountain Rescue team HQ (you can tell by the elevation, http://www.pidleymountainrescue.org.uk/ )
In the afternoon, I went out for a gravel ride.
I had a nice ride this weekend. One of those days you feel good and don’t want to stop. I would have stayed out longer if I wasn’t missing the family 
Nice ride! Hope you’re not getting too much wind/rain.
Thanks! I did the ride on Saturday anticipating the storm. It’s rained hard all day Sunday and it’s still going this morning with medium winds but overall it’s not too bad.
Got out with a longtime friend for my annual birthday ride on a route that shockingly I have never done even though I have lived in Northern California my whole life. I’ve ridden the area plenty but never set out for the simple lake loop so had to check that off the list. A little too much traffic, but cars were respectful for the most part. Beautiful day for it.
That looks like a very beautiful route to ride. 
As a resident, what time of year would you recommend for a tourist to visit, that allows for a good balance between not too high temperatures and also not too busy?
Also - given the elevation would you recommend that for someone who lives at sea level they ought to consider a short period of acclimatisation before attempting the ride you did?
Somewhat overdue video of my Dragon Ride Gran-Fondo effort from a few weeks ago. Super pleased with my eventual time / pace.
The first question is a very good one, there are a lot of days up there that are very quiet and minimal tourists typically during the time periods where kids are in school. I think that’s the reason it was busier than expected yesterday is that a lot of kids go back to school this week and next week, and families were making one last vacation weekend. So the best time to avoid high traffic periods would be after Labor Day weekend, during a weekday. Late August could be ok too, but Labor Day weekend would be very busy. The weather should still be good well into October, but it is high elevation so that can of course change. Springtime can also be very nice in April/May before the Memorial Day holiday, but you could also run into substantial weather impacts. You would not want to try to ride on the road the week of 4th of July, it gets VERY busy up there. Lots of MTB options in the area though if you wanted to ride trails.
For your second question, I never have the opportunity to acclimatize, it doesn’t seem to bother me too much. You definitely feel the altitude, and power output is of course lower, but unless you could spend a full 8-10 days up there before you ride, it pretty much is what it is.
Great - thanks for taking the time to reply. Really helpful 
Just FYI, if you’re bringing the family, that lake water is REALLY cold. As long as there aren’t fires happening, it’s such a beautiful area. I would 100% recommend.
Ha, good point. I forget to mention that but if you’ve ever swam in the lake you know…
Wednesday evening mountain bike race. A hill climb, with not much descending, so not my forte. But a beautiful evening for a ride in the mountains.
Contrast that to my Wednesday evening ride (about a 1/4 of @DaveWh climbing, in 3 times the distance)
Into the flat fens with the Yaxley Riders Social Ride. At the start of the season I’d barely get out of Z1 HR. I controlled my self mostly last night but there were no beginner riders to hold it back to a pure recovery pace and I even touched Z3 HR for a few seconds. Ideally I would have liked it all in Z1 HR and Z1/2 power.
It was a lovely night though
