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Today October 2020!

Today while getting ready for a ride I put my Smith glasses on my seat with an arm through the seat slot. I rode my one hour plus loop and noticed I wasn't wearing my glasses. Jumped in the car and found them at the first incline I stood on the pedals at, still in one piece and with no scratches. I was almost not going to look as; they would be broken under my fat ass, they would be scratched or run over, some one would have picked them up.
feeling very lucky.
 
Yesterday I overdid it...
I do Alp Du Zwift on occassion.
I do 4 hour rides on occassion.
I make grocery runs, etc on occassion.
I have even done over a dozen costco rides...

But yesterday I did a costco ride and bought over 20,000yen worth of groceries. Loaded up my bike and started home.
My Krampus is my most burly built bike. It felt a little bit like a noodle with the weight. Not a biggie, low cadence high power and just stay smooth...
(also ignoring the fact I had my trail wheels on it with bit 29x3" knobbie tires)

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Around the 9km mark, I realized I had made a mistake. :D
At the 11.5km mark, I considered pushing the bike vs riding - but no.... I cranked up the hill.
I got home in 1 piece and put all the groceries away. I had a falafel salad for dinner and then kiddo time.
Walking up the steps for bed, I felt the first twinges of cramps.... and I knew it was a mistake....

This morning I work up for my workout. I rolled out of bed and my legs showed some revolt.
Skipped the workout. I am planning to commute to work - but that might be all the biking I do today.

I had a small cooler with Chicken, Ground beef, strawberries,etc and all 4 panniers full.
I am guesstimating the bike was over 50kg for the ride home.
 
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Hahaha.
That counts as workout, too. So, all good.
This summer had a similar situation. Two loaded panniers, 2x10l cases of water and a 10kg bag of rice on my steel monster. The bike's weight is already 18kg. But I only had half of the distance and next to no elevation gain. The only thing that messed things up was a waterfall like down pour 1km from home. I quickly wrapped my rain jacket around the bag of rice and went on. I still don't know why I had my rain jacket with me on that day, since it was actually a perfectly blue sky with no rain on the forecast.
Anyway, hope you legs are alright.
 
I think my grocery runs max out at around 12-15 kg, with most of it in my backpack and the lighter, more delicate items (e.g. bread, eggs) in the front bag. Usually I buy rice only in 5 kg bags, not 10 kg because of my limited carrying capacity. And luckily my shopping route is pretty flat, despite living in a place whose name translates to "cherry blossom hill" :D

I never buy bottled water. Tokyo is not Flint, Michigan. It has perfectly safe and tasty tap water, delivered with minimal carbon footprint :) The less water in plastic bottles is trucked around the country, the better for the planet. I guess if you want carbonated water, that's a bit different (I don't).
 
...living in a place whose name translates to "cherry blossom hill" :D...
I have no idea what it is about the road to my house... I climb taller stuff often. I climb steeper stuff often.
But my hill - with all the curves and pitching between 6-9% - I just get annoyed/defeated sometimes. Maybe because it is at the end of my rides when I go up it, but it is in my head. I actually have that little feeling of anxiety before I even start it. There are 4 roads up to my neighborhood. The one I ride most often that is most convenient is probably the 3rd easiest. I climb the others at times and I never get that same feeling.

It really is the mental game I am failing.
 
I never buy bottled water. Tokyo is not Flint, Michigan. It has perfectly safe and tasty tap water, delivered with minimal carbon footprint :) The less water in plastic bottles is trucked around the country, the better for the planet. I guess if you want carbonated water, that's a bit different (I don't).
I totally agree. This is our point of "plastic etc. shaming" (and the reason for my reply to this) in our carless and basically organic, mostly vegetarian and non-processed local (if available) foods and so on life style.
Here our tap water is perfectly safe, too. And we're using it in 95% (or more EDIT: I got out of the shower walking by the toilet bottled water must be a way lower fraction than my initial guess) of the cases when water is involved. We basically use bottled water for certain drinks only, since our tap water contains lots of calcium and iron and at times has a little muddy taste to it. Besides that we're keeping some for times when water supply is cut because of broken pipes or construction work. Unfortunately both cases happen here without any previous announcement and at least once or twice a year. And that's the German capital. But also it's the place where building an airport takes over a decade (It finally opens in a couple of days from now. At a time when travelling is close to zero. That's part of the story, I guess.).
So, yes - go for tap water and bikes.
 
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FWIW, I get like that with every hill (and it certainly doesn't need to be 6-9%).
I do think some of my issue is climbing it with so many different bikes. Pedaling up it with one of my 2 road bikes or gravel bikes and it is relatively quick. But then I have all the MTB options... it is laborsome and boring. I will never match my road bike speed - ever on any of them - yet it is my prefered bike and the style I ride most often. I am almost a full minute faster on the road bike than my MTBs. Then I look at the leaderboard of my friends and I see some ridiculousness..... ie, a buddy on his SS MTB is within seconds of my Road bike time, yet I kill him on every MTB ride... even SS when we ride together. I am just beaten before I start.

Hills are stupid.
 
I would choose hills over a flat course with headwind any day. At least with a hill you're likely to get a view and a chance to enjoy descending. Hills are the simplest path to becoming a stronger cyclist: Just need to ride them regularly. Once you improve, ride a course with even more hills or ride it faster!

After wearing out the last remainder of rear brake pads last weekend, I ordered two sets of pads and two sets of rotors, just in case. They arrived this morning, so late in the afternoon I headed over to Tim at GS Astuto for him to work his magic, including some brake bleeding.

Turns out both rotors had already worn below the minimum thickness (1.5 mm as specified by Shimano and printed on the rotor). The front pads theoretically had just a tiny bit of life left but I decided to swap them too so the whole bike will be good to go for at least 6 months again (probably more since I probably will be riding less hilly courses during Dec-Feb to avoid snow and ice).

With October almost over, I'm at over 1100 km and just a couple of hours tomorrow would crack the 1200. For me that's the most in a month since April 2016, mainly due to the 403 km Fleche ride two weeks ago and a few Century rides. During the week I tend to ride almost nothing these days, except for the odd 5 km grocery shopping ride (the minimum distance I bother to record) as I don't have a commute.
 
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nice going there @joewein . I last saw such monthly distances at the top of my riding game, around 2016-2017, albeit with rides of under 200km only. I can also fully agree about preferring to climb over battling into a headwind on the flat
 
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