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Currently at ~4.35 w/kg FTP, 162/320w.. Aiming for 4.6 by Q1/17. That's losing another 1.5 lbs and adding 10 watts. At 53, that's hard work. Mostly just 1-3min intervals and trying to fit as many interval sessions I can during the week without being too hammered to race on the weekend. Now with the short days, I do almost no endurance or LSD paced rides of 3hrs or more. 1 or 2 2hr tempo rides if I can fit them in. But if I can't do any long rides, I still do the 45- 90 minute interval sessions no matter what. That is the biggest difference for me these days. Do the short hard efforts no matter what, then try to do some temp paced rides if possible. For cross, that 15s- 1 minute power is all the matters. Having a gas tank finish strong on a 6hr ride doesn't. In the spring after DST is over, I can start adding frequent 3-5hr rides and my FTP shoots up another 10w. That's when I start doing the grinders that are 4-9hr hurtfests and also racing XC.
Winter just hit here so I'm back to focusing on 5-minute power and "350w as long as I can go" intervals. There's one more CX race in town and it's the big, UCI round, so I'll probably skip that.
The real goal is a 290w+ FTP, 360w repeatable 5-minute power on the trainer, 5lb loss. 175lb and 290w FTP would put me mid-pack in cat-4 here.
Hit 3.77 before stopping riding to remodel a kitchen late in 2015. Got back to 3.65 in March of this year and was looking really good to go much higher, but I took some time off to recover from an injury... that led to 2 months of not riding at all. Committed to saving to buy a house, which means more work, which means less riding, and I am now at a whopping 2.88. Going from 170 to 180 lbs does not help.
We will be buying a house early next year. That will slice about 3 hours a day of driving out of my life, giving me more time to ride.
In other news- got my mtb ready for winter... New shorty spike tires, new chain, new steel front chainring (kick *** for not wearing out in the mud/grit), new aluminum seat-stay (the carbon one was cracked and Trek is being cheap not giving me another carbon one).
Going to continue to kick the **** out of this for winter and save my new bike for better weather.
Ride mountain bikes long enough and instead of just hearing stories about people falling on **** in their jersey's and camelbaks and breaking vertebre... you actually meet some one who's done it. Not trying to sound like a badass... but I do at least 1-2 rides a week where I am 2-4 hours walk to my car and a minimum of 1-2 hours away from being rescued if **** went down. This isn't road biking where you have support just a quick 911 away... this is man **** and you best be prepared. That is unless... you plan on riding around in 4-7 mile circles with all of the mtb racing bro's that never take their panties off long enough to do a back country ride.
Ride mountain bikes long enough and instead of just hearing stories about people falling on **** in their jersey's and camelbaks and breaking vertebre... you actually meet some one who's done it. Not trying to sound like a badass... but I do at least 1-2 rides a week where I am 2-4 hours walk to my car and a minimum of 1-2 hours away from being rescued if **** went down. This isn't road biking where you have support just a quick 911 away... this is man **** and you best be prepared. That is unless... you plan on riding around in 4-7 mile circles with all of the mtb racing bro's that never take their panties off long enough to do a back country ride.
I pledged on this kick starter you bro's might be interested in. I'm going to turn this into a bike packing, gravel grinder, beach cruiser type of thing. There is a frame only option for $155 that is enticing to throw in the garage and build up slowly.
Took 8th in the 4/5 CX race on a UCI course today which was ******* gnarly. I was the final call-up, started dead last and made it to 8th. I may drive 2 hours each way to race in Waco next weekend.
I think my highlight of the weekend was heckling with a pointing finger, "You like Nickelback!", and some Dutch or Belgian racer has no idea what is going on while the American pros were clearly laughing.
Took 8th in the 4/5 CX race on a UCI course today which was ******* gnarly. I was the final call-up, started dead last and made it to 8th. I may drive 2 hours each way to race in Waco next weekend.
Nice work... You ever run into Alex Morgan at these TX CX races?
Nice work... You ever run into Alex Morgan at these TX CX races?
Nope but probably will this weekend at the last TX race of the season and a super-duper memorial party for a local deceased CX rider. It's going to be wild, burning a giant paper machet goat, 90's rap, etc.
Nope but probably will this weekend at the last TX race of the season and a super-duper memorial party for a local deceased CX rider. It's going to be wild, burning a giant paper machet goat, 90's rap, etc.
I was once a pretty well known individual in the Texas Mountain bike CX scene, Worked at Bikes Inc. in Bedford. frequented the top 10 in the pro-expert sr Men races, won occasionally. even dominated at few venues in the DFW area like Lb-Huston in Dallas. I even had my own team in the late 80's as a frame builder. left Texas at the end of 97.
Been thinking more about building another fixed gear. I kind of miss the choreographed insanity. I don't miss the awful brakes and ultra-aggressive position of my last one, though, so I was looking for something with a sportive/cross geometry and drilled for brakes front and back.
Then I came across this. Hydro disc, TA, clearance for big tires. Be still my heart:
12-05-2016, 12:43 PM
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