Wore my heated gloves today and I’m glad I did the weather was dreich which put off most of my Sunday group so the fast group and slow groups merged. I sat on the front all the way round but it wouldn’t have been fast enough on its own to keep my hands from going numb without them.
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Another audax yesterday, definitely a test. “Peachy Mee”, a ride to Peachester via Mt Mee & back via Redcliffe for 204 km. (Clockwise on the map.) I cycled to the start point at Ferny Grove, with the return commute as well making it a total of 237km.
The forecast was 29° & humid, with the climb up Mt Mee peaking at 560m. Started out with a big bunch but the first gradual drag up out of Ferny Grove split things up. I found myself solo: fourth behind a group of three. I caught them a couple of km later as the road flattened out, but let them go again on a very short climb into Samford. My game today was to be conservative, & even more conservative when in the sun. After my DNF on another route on an unseasonably hot day earlier this year I was determined to use less power & drink more than I thought I needed. Consumed 8.6L of water & 650g of sugar in a bottle in the 11 hours I was away from home.
At times I moved over to the opposite road shoulder to find shade. I was grateful for every cloud passing over. 
A photo from a part of the climb to Mt Mee, with Brisbane off in the distance:
Stopped in for a gelato at an air-conditioned café with 30km left in the audax. That i even felt like eating anything I thought was a really good sign.
The brevet card, with the shop attendants’ signatures at the first two controls. I tell them it’s like a treasure hunt.
A successful day, retribution after the DNF. A few unpleasant moments, but some fun descents, & very nice scenery. 
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I finally got my new rear tire to seat and seal. Took some trial and error and a few additional wraps of tape on each side of the wheel. But this time it worked, and there were no leaks, despite some steep, hard riding on some segments.
There’s one half mile segment at 15% grade that’s only rideable when the snow conditions are right. Today was one of those days. A good VO2max segment to get the heart pumping on a cold day!
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@roleypup congrats on getting your hydration and fueling sorted. How much sodium / electrolytes did you take in with those 8.6L?
Nice job with the audax, too!
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Thanks heaps! So firstly some of that water (about 300mL to start with) was what I consumed with the sugar, & I had 500g of sugar in the bottle which I think is 600mL. Before I left the house I had a Basica Pure electrolyte sachet. (In a pack of 20 & with one sachet per day intended for general health it’s not exactly cheap at ~A$2.40 a sachet). For the bike I distributed 7g of table salt across the two 800mL bottles I took with me. A little more concentrated than was ideally palatable but I knew I’d be diluting it at some point.
2h after leaving home I refilled one bottle from empty with water from a tap, topped off the other, & alternated between them each time I took a sip.
At 4h10’ (Woodford control) both water bottles were empty so I refilled both & got some salt from the café. It tasted like 4g/L again plus I had some more for later. Also my carbs bottle was a bit over half empty so I refilled that with straight water, diluting it, which I thought was fine because my needs had shifted more to water than carbs at that stage. The water that was left over went down the hatch. 2.1L added to bottles & body.
At 5½h I bought another 1½L. Sugar bottle was down to about the quarter mark so I refilled that with 150g of sugar & filled the rest of the space with water. Fully refilled one water bottle & topped off the other, adding another ~3g of salt to the one that had arrived empty. Also, with the remaining water not yet in a bottle, I swallowed one 150mg magnesium & 600mg calcium tablet each, which I’d brought with me & intended to have about halfway, after all, it was approaching the time I’d otherwise be having my second meal of the day.
At 7h (Morayfield control) I bought another 1½L at a petrol station. An empty bottle refilled (+ another ~3g salt), another topped off, sugar mix diluted again. Some of the water I bought there did get poured over my head, but not much; it was out of the fridge & a bit of a shock on hot skin. Drank the rest.
At 8h10’, I found a tap at a park. Drenched myself under it & refilled a bottle. That soaking was responsible for some interesting salt stains.
Didn’t need any more refills thereafter, & got home with a few mouthfuls left in one bottle which I drank straight away. No cramping on the ride, not even when I went a bit silly & “sprinted” through a set of lights about 2km from home. For a few hours after the ride I occasionally had the feintest hints that a cramp might happen when sitting oddly (that feeling that a muscle is tensing up a little but doesn’t go into a full-on contraction) but nothing eventuated.
Really I was drinking water & electrolyte “by feel, but just a little more”, & I think that worked well. I think it’s really positive that I felt like eating when I got home. Sometimes the demands of a long ride can do weird things to the digestive tract.
[Edit: I just realised I didn’t answer your question. The ~16g of salt throughout the day + the sachet + tablets gives about:
6.5g of Na
175mg K
875mg Ca
225mg Mg
plus a few other electrolytes in smaller concentrations.]
On the subject of the audax, my brevet card wasn’t found by the organiser, & I think I’d misheard his instructions on where to hide it. He said he’d go & get it the coming weekend. I didn’t want it sitting for that long under a rock in a random garden at a train station so this morning (Monday) I went out to retrieve it. An excuse to get out on the bike. Yesterday was red, today is yellow, & I had the idea that today could be one of my “shorter” Z2 rides, but with all the traffic lights, & a couple of moments that “maybe I could keep up with the commuter traffic if I just went a bit harder”, I kinda threw the Z2 plan out the window, deciding it probably wasn’t going to be all that productive, & just had some fun where available. Cost me only four donuts, but now tomorrow is yellow too. 
No matter, we’re due more rain. Another 33km added to the Vanity Metrics.
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@roleypup thanks for the detailed report! Even though you “drank by feel,” sounds like you got it right.
I make my own carb / electrolyte drink mix that has about 300 mg of sodium per 1L bottle. That seems to work fine for me for rides under 3 or 4 hours. Longer than that and I find I need to increase my sodium intake, and substitute the Nuun tab for a Precision Hydration 1000 or 1500 sachet. A bag of potato chips (ie “crisps”) also helps!
Again, awesome job! Audax’s are really starting to interest me so all of this info is super helpful.
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Oh yeah potato chips are so enticing in that situation! 
I don’t see or hear a lot about this subject but I prefer to keep carbs somewhat separate from hydration. My theory is, because of the temperature changes that sometimes come into play on audax rides, needs for hydration can fluctuate wildly but needs for carbohydrate will probably stay relatively constant.
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I got out for my first mountain bike ride since… January. 
I’m thankful I at least got to do it! I sure hope it will not be that long until my next one. It was also the first bike ride with my dad in… probably a couple years or more. He rode from his house (jealous) and we rode 7.5 miles together (part of western “Lowers”). He headed back home and I rode 4 more miles (part of eastern “Uppers”). There’s a climb I like to do every (rare) time I go to see where my ~5 minute fitness is. Unfortunately, it was more like ~6 minute fitness this time. 
I also like to stop by the bench where my wife and I got engaged and send her a picture just to remind her that I’m thinking of her. 
This is at Chewacla State Park in Auburn, Alabama, where XCM Nationals have been the last two years.
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A slow recovery ride on my gravel bike tonight round one of the man made lakes in the estate. Bess was my scheduled ride. Maybe I kept it too low intensity and the blood flow to the fingers wasn’t enough and they quickly went numb. I’m off to find a shorter stem and look at getting a new bike fit in the New Year, but I may just have to accept that low intensity rides are just not generating enough heat in my fingers anymore post chemo. The numbness only really seems to happen at low intensity and a gravel bike ride seems to have long periods of low intensity, 
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5 C with 11 mph wind from the NE.
Not the most conducive conditions for warm fingers!
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Pretty mild compared to where I was brought up. My mates up there garmin’s said it was -7deg C today (that would be the feel like temperature). It was delightfully still and sunny though which would have been perfect before. However, my peripheral circulation post chemo is terrible now and that would be dangerous these days
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A similar low intensity ride part in keeping with my recovery week in the plan, but mostly for fact finding. I wanted to test out the shorter stem on the Gravel bike. My heated glove batteries were flat too, so I went doubled gloved (winter running gloves under a regular pair of cycling gloves).
Its a marginal improvement, it took my fingers longer to go numb and the pinky fingers never did, so at least I could change gear. They also came back to life faster after the ride, but I had left my house heating on though :-/
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Inside 4 days a week. Outside one day. Plus commutes which I do not count.
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A Pre Beer’age cycle yesterday.
A reasonable pace on the way out leading out the group, I left them before the cafe though 
so I could get back in time for the afternoon drinks and I was rather chilled out on the way back. Tubeless done its job thankfully and sealed somewhere. Post drinks I had to spin the wheels though and let it reseal as it had lost about 40psi. Thankfully it didn’t lose any more overnight.
Surprisingly after waking up a few times last night with a bit of a hangover I woke up 3hs later and felt ok for the Sunday group ride.
Only the slow group riders turned up but its guaranteed they’ll stop at a cafe. Afterwards I went on a bit of a high tempo solo to burn off the lunch.
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Likely my last workout of 2024 as I’ve got a medical procedure on Thursday. That said, it’s too nice outside for mid-December.
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Great dog!
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Today is yellow according to TR, weather forecast says raining intermittently until Wednesday evening, but when I awoke today it was dry with the radar showing rain only to the north (including where the track is), so I changed it up & headed out for an anticlockwise loop south of me. Took the cycleway attached to the Western Fwy, noodled around Darra & Rocklea just following my nose because those areas are unfamiliar to me, then found a road I knew, headed east to the cycleway running alongside the SE Fwy, & back over the river. Got somewhere in the ballpark of the 60% for 2 hours that I wanted, but all the traffic lights & hills… gave me a much better appreciation of the facilities I have nearby.
Not a full-on ECG, but more troughs than I would like.
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Finally some decent weather today only for me to find out my heated gloves hadn’t finished charging. But given it was so nice (well for this time of year) I went out for a bit anyway. I had been intending a short recovery ride before doing my TR workout in the evening. However, when I came back the gloves were nearly charged and the weather was still good so I had some lunch and went out to do it on the old railway path. I had ‘Manly’ in the calendar which had an average IF of 0.7 with 0.77IF 3 min intervals. The gravel bike doesn’t have a power meter so I just used RPE/ HR as a proxy the only problem with the quite nice Lull between the storm I kept it up for 2hours it was supposed to be 30mins 
Edit Boarstone seems to be roughly the equivalent of what I done.
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Absolutely crazy someone would drop this guy off at the pound at 5 years old. When we adopted him, his card said “Good with kids, dogs, and cats” (we have all three) and we thought there’s just no way someone would surrender him!
He’s been in our family for over a year and a half now and he’s such a sweet boy.
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