Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Day 3 soloflex

Cross bike in cross setup on the quest for elevation. This morning was the eastern route.

My primary mission was to see if there was a loop with enough elevation to make Everesting viable. The best I could find was an out and back of about 4km with 100m of elevation. Much of the climb was in a couple of 10+ % grades in the middle, so there is potential to get the climbing in, but it would be painfully boring to go back and forth on such a short stretch. I'll check the west another time, but those roads have a lot more traffic, which would make climbing 9km much less fun.

The bike definitely needed to be in cross setup - the roads are a mess, even without running into the construction with looks like it will as a few thousand more houses on the edges of the moraine. I find that very annoying, but that's another story.

I wore the Fugo jacket again to see how ride friendly it was. It has tons of storage for spare gear as you peal stuff off. The pockets aren't very handy for getting little things out of on the move - entry is a bit of an odd design. To be fair, the conditions that the jacket is designed for are probably ones where you would be pausing to reorganize.

Fat bike test.

I didn't make it back in time to test last week, but went in this week just in case there was enough snow and muck in the woods to give it a fair test. These bikes are a lot of fun. The one I tried hand 4.6 inch tires and was inflated to 14 psi. It can run happily as low as 6. I found a decent amount of ice and snow as much as about 10cm deep and road over it without any problem. Muck about 5cm deep wasn't a problem either.

You get a workout pretty quickly, but can certainly ride in conditions that would probably send you home pretty quickly.

Great fun. It's a good thing it is spring and time for normal bikes.

Day 2 free weights and push ups (70, 75, 61)

It killed a good chunk of the time I have to sit and wait for a courier before heading home.

Great afternoon for a ride after work: 20C and sunny. I didn't even mind the 30km/hr wind, which has seemed about average this spring.

I took Smokie out for a lap around the neighbouring town hing to get a sense of how the short steep climbs are in nice conditions. My heart monitor, however, disagreed. It seemed about right up the the 150s but was reading quite high beyond that. At first I thought it was just reading high, like when the battery in the sensor is low, but if noticed it was consistently high when the wind was on my torso - either cross or front. That is also when I was working hard. I'll get a new battery and keep it handy.

Real average was likely low 150s.

Note: rate was 159 cresting the 12% grade with one gear left. I liked that.

Traffic was routed from the highway to my street after work so it was far from bike friendly - so another trainer day.

Trainer spin

Reading: Warren Buffet's annual letter

Day 1 free weights and push ups