After a busy weekend with some missed opportunities to ride, I have been due to get back on the bike. I finally did last night. But why did I have another gap in riding....well....
Dance Comp. My daughter teaches at a dance studio she used to dance at herself. She teaches my step-daughter. The last competition of 2025 (for our team) was this past weekend. Friday was a full evening, so I wasn't able to get out for a ride. Saturday we did our normal grocery shopping before heading back to GR for day 2 of the comp. Sunday I was determined to ride.
I loaded up and headed down to Three Rivers to ride Meyer-broadway park. All was good until I pulled my valve core out when taking the cap off. Instant flat. No worries, just put it back in and snug it down. A guy in the lot had a pair of pliers, so I was able to get it tightened back in. But.....in the midst of that process the inner stem of the core disassembled itself. I went to leave the lot and the tire was flat again. Realizing the issue, I loaded back up and simply came home. Wasted 2 hours in the car and the gas to miss a ride. Mood wasn't great. We headed to the rest of the dance comp and that was my weekend.
Monday I intended to ride but my mood wasn't great, and I skipped it altogether.
Tuesday is rained. :(
Wednesday it rained again.
But, I knew it had been a week since I was on a bike, so I headed to the basement to get the legs moving. Strava had an apparent event on the Big Flat 8 course, so I just joined in there. Just over 18 miles with a little over 300 feet of climbing. Good to just spin and remind my body what it feels like to ride. I started off and was cruising along minding my own business. Then a massive group caught me. It was one of the robo pacer groups, but there had to be 300 people.
The pacer was CoCo....who runs at 2.6 w/kg....which is pretty stout for me unless I am powering down. While my ride was pretty calm and I was comfortable.....I knew if I could hang with this group that the miles would start to pass quicker. Thankfully it was a flat route. I started pushing to hang onto the group, which was cruising at 25mph. That is flying for me, but I was holding my own. Eventually the group split off the route that I was on and I was alone again. Or so I thought....
I crested the biggest hill on the route and was feeling pretty good about my burn with the big group. A couple of guys must have done the same because we found ourselves in a new group of 3 riders. We held a pretty solid clip for pretty much the rest of the ride. Towards the end there is a drawn out low grade climb and I got separated from them. We were about 3 miles from the end, so I was disappointed that they had gapped me. I could still see them, but they had some space.
I pressed on and eventually caught them with about 2 miles to go. It felt like they lifted the pace a bit because I was struggling to keep up. I was watching the distance tick down when we reached the final sprint. When we hit .2 miles to go I put everything I had left into the pedals. At first I didn't even generate a gap. Then all of a sudden I had a gap and broke the draft line. I didn't put much distance into them, but it was enough for me to finish the route in front of both of them. I don't know if they were in the same frame of mind as me or not, but that isn't the point. I beat them. lol.
I took some time to soft pedal and cool down. Overall just over 19 miles in about 55 minutes. Yes it was flat. Yes it was Zwift. But I still averaged just under 21 miles per hour after taking a week off. It was good to be pedaling again, even if it was the basement.
Training is what you make of it. I remember the days of the wind trainers, then mag trainers, and then fluid trainers long before smart trainers were a thing. With my old fluid trainer I could make the ride as easy or as hard as I wanted, depending on what I would do. The evolution of smart trainers has been a game changer for me. With simulated hills (both up and down) it gives a much more real feel to a ride. I was glad to be able to ride and burn off some lingering stress.
With the holiday weekend I plan to ride a bit. Planning on Luton tomorrow. Hoping to sneak out a bit early and get some good distance in. Taking Saturday off to recover. Then the plan will be to head to Owasippe for a few laps. Might even do another ride on Monday since its the holiday. We shall see what happens!
Have a good Holiday weekend everyone.
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