The Loop

The Southbrook Loop Ride

After being sick for weeks now with a bad sinus infection I finally went to the doctor yesterday and got some antibiotics. Deciding that they should work whether or not I do some exercise I decided to go out riding anyway, and head out towards Southbrook and do the loop I created some time ago in Strava. I knew I'd be fatigued and tired from being sick, but I thought I'd be OK since it was only 70k or so.

That was a big mistake in my thinking! It turned into a really hard ride, with an average heart rate of 153, but I’d imagine once I put it into Strava it’ll show as “Epic” as my HR alarm spent a fair bit of time beeping cause I’d hit the upper limit and I couldn't get it down despite slowing and "relaxing". 

How it panned out

Things started out ok but by the half way mark I was dead with fatigue (no doubt from being sick for weeks). Figured rather than go back the way I’d come (which had some pretty decent hills thanks to the "heavy" bitumen) I’d keep going in the hope that there’d be no more of them. After swinging south from Southbrook I then had to negotiate 20k’s+ of badly corrugated dirt roads with hills! That slowed things up considerably, spending half the time going back and forth across the road avoiding potholes, water and corrugations, and by the time I hit bitumen again I was shattered and had nothing left in the tank. Crawled home at a snail’s pace totally dead with fatigue. The "wall" never looked so big when you're an hour or so away from your bed! It was a tough ride back and it was a case of just turning the pedals and ignoring the constant thoughts of stopping and walking.

Cobbled Classics bike

The Pulsium more than earned it’s stripes last night. Despite the terrible road it was still smooth, quiet, and pretty fuss free. I was hoping against hope I wouldn’t get a puncture! And I woke up this morning without a sore backside too! I couldn't imagine taking my TCR down that road. Those wavy forks certainly do suck up the worst the road has to offer. Seems every time I ride that bike it reaffirms my decision to buy it instead of an Emonda or Domane.

On the bright side, the countryside was gorgeous. Never seen it in the half-light before since I do almost all my riding in the middle of the night, and it was really great. Amazing what you miss in the dark. I did have some rabid cattle dog come at me too, but I yelled at the mongrel and the owners came out and called it back (thank God! It was foaming at the mouth!). 

Joys of cycling…

Stay right side up and stay safe.

Step Ladder to a Grey Jersey

An "Everest" (and that bloody grey jersey I want so badly!) is still at the foremost of my mind, despite the distinct lack of riding I've been able to do while based up here in Toowoomba.  

It's certainly going to be a difficult adventure and, as usual, done on the least amount of riding and training. I have no choice as this is "life as we know it Jim" and "it is what it is". I don't have the luxury anymore of riding every morning etc. On the weekends I prefer to spend my time with my wife and kids as I don't see them for days at a time and I value that family time more than riding. I'll still try and get out when I can, but with football, house and garden duties, cleaning etc it all adds up time wise.

So my main objective is to try and get in quality over quantity rides while I'm up here during the week, and definitely no junk miles. Every ride has to have a purpose and an outcome of some sort, be it climbing repeats, or a distance ride to some out of the way place in the middle of the night.

This week, my objective was to do hill repeats up to 3000m (1 ride) in elevation (or roughly 120k's) on the hill I intend to Everest. I see this as a stepping stone to my future endeavours and it'd be a good indicator of how I'm going, and where I'm at physically. 

I got halfway into it when my Garmin decided it'd had enough and let me know it was out of charge. Bummer. It's an older unit and I had (mistakenly) thought would have lasted the distance (pun intended). It was almost fully charged (I thought!) so I was a bit peeved when I got the warning message after only 1500m, or about 65k's into my ride. It has always lasted far longer (6hrs at a minimum) so it was definitely an unwelcome surprise.

Never mind thought I, I'll just swap over to my phone and finish the ride that way using the Strava app! Of course Murphy's Law prevailed and it too said it was out of power. At this stage there were several expletives uttered and I decided that was the end of that for the night. Not happy at all.

I hadn't brought up any spare battery packs this week as I hadn't thought I'd need them. Lesson learnt once more - have a backup plan for every issue that could crop up.

So, the plan for the rest of August is to ensure I get a 3000m climb in, followed next month by a 5000m climb and then the following month, the Full Monty.

I felt really good the entire ride, and spent most of it working on finding a good and easy pace in which to do the full ride in the future. So I varied things from reasonable to slow (I don't have a "fast" at all).

I'll upload the garmin data shortly as I don't have access here in Toowoomba.