Monday 29 November 2010

Retreading Water

I’ve become completely countercyclical. Cross season ended for most people this weekend, so of course I'm thinking about getting onto some cross frames. Cross is a funny market made funnier for next year by the legalization of disc brakes. I’ve got a series of posts on the hows and whys of disc brakes in cross planned on the place where I spend all my time and effort lately. It’s a complicated issue.

Training for next year continues afoot. I have a few ambitious goals in mind. Mostly what I realize about my training is that I need miles, and lots of them. Fortunately, having been supplanted as the fastest cyclist in our household of 2, circumstances sometimes work in my favor on that end. Some days I'm supposed to ride fast, some days I'm supposed to ride strong, some days I'm supposed to ride long. One day per week I am supposed to do all of the above, in a workout which I lovingly refer to as "the dog's breakfast."

Entrepreneurship is really the best thing that's happened to me, professionally. I'd love to get rid of that nagging day job but I don't think it's going to happen soon. We're off to a fantastic start but... There are some "out there" plans we're looking at, but for the time being they're "out there."

On the trainer, I can't deal with having no power meter. I know that sounds chicken shit, but my perception of effort on the trainer is totally out of whack. On the road, it's nearly astonishingly in whack. It's still nice to be able to go back and say "gee, I really felt like puking there, what was happening then?" and be able to see what was going on. And I currently have a power meter laced to this insanely mack rim (hey, product testing never sleeps, you know?) so it's a pretty nice wheel to ride, but our other power tap is on vacation at a friend's house so when the better rider in our household decides to go slumming and ride with me, she gets the power tap and I'm left with a normal wheel.

I've been doing a bit of riding at night lately. My honest-to-goodness cycling light is on vacation at a different friend's house, so that sucks, but I've got a passable rig set up otherwise. It's good enough to get me to Hains and back. When you're there, you barely need a light. Forestalling dependence on the trainer for as long as possible is critical.

1 comment:

Jim said...

Dude. That wheel is not on vacation. It's busy holding keeping the brothers - aka several sets of base layers tossed in the bottom of my closet - down.

Ping me. I'm driving into and out of town all week and will be happy to bring you your bike, just probably not tomorrow night. Well, I won't be happy, the thing is *sweet,* I'll miss it and I'm toying with buying one a my own. But I'll bring it to you. Or maybe sell it to this homeless guy I pass on the way into work. Either way somebody's going to be happy.