Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had fun this weekend. Did you get any bike rides in?
Since its monday that means I am doing strength training. I have to admit that today I was feeling about as excited as Dazey and Enzo are in the featured image for strength training. That is to say, not at all.
In this current training program the strength training is more focused on movement and repetitions over getting buff. So high reps and low sets is the prescription.
There is also a lot of core workouts cause you gotta use your guts on the bike a lot.
Anyway I really wasn’t feeling super energized about today’s workout but the good news is that Audible has Core and Yoga courses included with a subscription for free. I used a few of them to put together about an hour of workout and felt pretty good about it.
A few nights ago I got bored with the short form Youtube videos and fired up Amazon to see what they might have for Cycling documentaries. They did not disappoint with Inspired to Ride which tells the story of the inaugural 2014 Trans Am Bike Race.
In the movie Mike Hall is featured as the race favorite who goes on to win by a considerable margin. I was taken back by how soft spoken and friendly he is in the film. Most competitive bike racers tend to have a cockiness about them that makes me not necessarily want to know or meet them. With Hall I was interested in getting to know more about the man.
When I woke up this morning I got my oatmeal and sat down to start googling and learning more about this endurance athlete. Unfortunately I quickly learned that Mike Hall passed away in 2017 after being struck by a car while riding in an endurance race in Australia. I was pretty crushed and watched a few videos put up shortly after the accident.
Turns out Mike was 5 years younger than me and had accomplished quite a lot in his short life. You can learn more about him on his Wikipedia page here.
In a few religions Sunday is a day of rest. In the world of Roger’s cycling training Sunday is a big day of riding. While we aren’t going for crazy hard efforts like in intervals we are riding the longest and biggest ride of the week.
There are a few reasons for this: 1) Its Sunday so I don’t have anything else to do besides some chores and 2) I gotta get in my long rides sometime during the week. Kinda the same thing but I needed a list in this paragraph for SEO.
Since we have been parked in Tubac for about 5 weeks now there has been a pretty consistent use of heading south on the I-19 frontage road to start a ride off. This is because the wind is generally southerly and the road does not dead end at a US Border Patrol station.
For today’s ride I need a 30 minute warm up before I climb for 2 sets of 15 minutes. It just so happens that about 30 minutes south of Tubac there is an exit for the I-19 that has a dirt road which climbs to the west of the interstate. This is perfect for our needs.
The climb ranges from 5˚ to 12˚ grade and gets pretty scrappy at points with large loose rocks. Staying in an L2 to L3 heart rate zone is a challenge but that fits well with the slow RPM’s around 50 to 60.
I did well on both climbs and managed to keep my heart rate from getting too high. The view from the top was pretty awesome:
Time for an apple flavored power bar.
Once the climbs were done I returned to the Frontage road and kept riding south for another hour and 20 minutes. Then I headed home and ended up with 35 miles of riding and just over 1300 feet of climbing.
I felt better after today’s ride and attribute that to eating more while on the ride. I had 2 apples and a bag of dates with peanuts. I also added some powdered Gatorade to my second water bottle.
Next week is a recovery week so the overall time on bike will be shorter allowing my body to recover to the work the last 2 weeks have done.
I am near the end of my second week of the Masters 40+ Mountain Bike Base Mountain Bike Training Plan. The Saturday rides are called Tech skills refined: Observe, visualize, ride, rest, refine, repeat and for a good portion of the ride you are supposed to ride a challenging portion of a mountain bike trail and practice riding smoothly. Then you ride in your heart rate level 2 for the rest of the ride.
Whoa there feller! Slow down!
Since we are currently in a pandemic so I am trying to practice smart riding. Which means I am not currently riding on dirt trails or minimizing it to only essential trails. So the optional version of this ride is to go for a longer road ride and then practice some skills like figure 8’s, track stands, and anything else you want to work on.
Today that equated to a 2 hour and 30 minute ride. 😎
Ride Summary/Notes:
Some local stores along the way.
Nice ride from RV park in Tubac south towards Rio Rico and surrounding area. Headwind going south so hitting L2 was pretty easy going out. Went further than I have gone down this road before. Crossed the valley at second Interstate exit and continued south on the road across the valley there. There is a path but it ends after no very long so just stayed on road going out and back. Coming back had tailwind and went too quickly even though I was still L2. Had to go past turnoff and then get some more headwind to get the time in. Listened to The Great Influenza and learning more about viruses and how the US in 1918 was in perfect shape for the pandemic. Many ties to today with Wilson and Trump. Propaganda for the war and censorship of any dissenting voices. We really do not learn. For the last 40 minutes of the ride my butt was pretty tired of being in the saddle. I had an apple and a banana and 2 bottles of water.
Testing out the new banana flavored powerbar. Organic and the packaging is 100% recyclable.Apple flavored powerbar. Also organic and 100% recyclable.
Classic documentary of the Paris-Roubaix professional road bike race from 1976 (the year I was born). Pretty sure this is the first time I have watched it. Fun movie considering how old it is. I think they only have 50mm or larger lenses back then, almost claustrophobic to watch at times.
Its crazy how many cars and motorcycles were in front of the cyclists. What an absolute nightmare to ride through and then dealing with the cobblestones on top of that! Ugh.
It sounds like they had a orchestra make a ‘Paris-Roubaix` theme song with overly dramatic vocals and all. Would love to see more production quality like this today.
Today was the first ride of week 2 of the 40+ 12 week base mountain bike training program that I started last week. The plan today was what the plan refers to as a force reps workout. Basically the workout is focused around 10 reps of maximum effort for 10 pedal strokes. Then rest for 3 minutes before the next rep.
Overall the workout was hard but enjoyable. It started off with a 20 minute warm up that builds into a level 3 heart rate effort. Thanks s part of the ride was good but I did find that I had to try pretty hard to get into my level 2 heart rate which starts at 122 bpm. Then further into level 3 which starts at 137 bpm and goes up to 142 bpm.
After the warm up I cooled down for 3 minutes before a 1 minute max effort trying to get into level 5 heart rate zone which for me starts at 153 bpm and goes up to whatever I can do. Then I rest for 3 minutes before starting the workout.
The workout requires slowing to a walking speed of 2 to 3 mph and shifting into a big gear. Then you press as hard as you can for 10 full revolutions. Once you hit 10 you shift down and rest at a level 1 heart rate zone which for me is under 122 bpm. The idea is to do these on flat ground to a slight climb.
Overall it was a great workout and was over within an hour.
Welcome to Roger Bikes where you can learn all about Roger biking. This site is very serious about being serious so if you aren’t taking this serious then you might want to reconsider your seriousness.
In all seriousness though I created this site as part of a 100 days of blogging challenge that I set for myself in April of 2020. The idea is to post everyday from May 1st to August 9th of 2020 as part of a way to distract myself from the COVID-19 pandemic.
I hope you enjoy reading my posts here and feel free to leave a comment.
