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Race The Training Thread

Yeah, same here, especially offroad I want to enjoy nature and not music. Bear bells are common in some areas with hikers (including here in Tohoku), so they belong to the sound scape.
 
Yeah, same here, especially offroad I want to enjoy nature and not music. Bear bells are common in some areas with hikers (including here in Tohoku), so they belong to the sound scape.
I really need to remember to take one with me while mountain biking. Riding gravel roads in the middle of nowhere alone makes me nervous. Haha.
 
I really need to remember to take one with me while mountain biking. Riding gravel roads in the middle of nowhere alone makes me nervous. Haha.
The Tim Bar Bell is very good, although it isn't as loud as a bigger bear bell. I also use it when I commute (I just do not lock it) to let my surroundings know I'm here.
 
Bear bells are common in some areas with
...primary school children walking home from school. Especially mountain-wards from where we are, but there's even the odd kid with a bell passing in front of our place who is on the way home from the local school.
 
Last week's training was pretty good with the exception of Friday. Friday just wasn't my day. Bad dreams, failed the workout and was 30 minutes late for my talk for the first time ever, I think.

So I went offroading, and it really took my mind off things. Did three laps of a loop I created. The consistency was very good, and I had my fastest time on the climb on my last attempt. I'll try to improve my handling skills a little over the next few weeks.

Yesterday was my day off, and because the weather was beautiful, my family and I went to the city to have some craft beer and good food.
 
I skipped last month's Azuma Skyline HC, since I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to even match last year's time. I went and helped plant some rice fields instead.

This month, I have four races and race-adjacent events this month.
A BBQ and beer gravel event (with TT segments) I will do on my hardtail, two criteriums, and a three hour MTB marathon race.

Next month I have at the regular Miyagi Criterium, which is a TT and a crit with one hill.
I hope to see @OreoCookie there again, though I hope the weather is a bit more reasonable this year. Hopefully I won't need to douse myself in two liters of water before the race as a heat sink.

I also would like to see @andywood dust off his TT bike and put a beat-down on the usual fast men before showing the current and future pros in the "Champion" class who is boss. Hehehe.

This will be the first time I do the TT with a full array of TT equipment.... deep dish wheels, aero bars, and TT helmet. The strong winds the other day made riding my new 58 mm wheels down a mountain absolutely piss-your-bibs terrifying.
 
I skipped last month's Azuma Skyline HC, since I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to even match last year's time. I went and helped plant some rice fields instead.

This month, I have four races and race-adjacent events this month.
A BBQ and beer gravel event (with TT segments) I will do on my hardtail, two criteriums, and a three hour MTB marathon race.

Next month I have at the regular Miyagi Criterium, which is a TT and a crit with one hill.
I hope to see @OreoCookie there again, though I hope the weather is a bit more reasonable this year. Hopefully I won't need to douse myself in two liters of water before the race as a heat sink.

I also would like to see @andywood dust off his TT bike and put a beat-down on the usual fast men before showing the current and future pros in the "Champion" class who is boss. Hehehe.

This will be the first time I do the TT with a full array of TT equipment.... deep dish wheels, aero bars, and TT helmet. The strong winds the other day made riding my new 58 mm wheels down a mountain absolutely piss-your-bibs terrifying.

Would love too. But a TT bike is like a race horse. You can't unbolt the stable door, jump on her back and hope for her to go fast. You have to break her in. Then tease her up to speed!

To win a TT, training and preparation has to be meticulous.

For a gravel race you just need big balls!

Andy
 
Was a pretty good week in terms of training. I'm padding my workouts with endurance work, so let's see how this goes. The month off really cost me in terms of endurance, not so much in terms of power.

Yesterday, I couldn't do my offroad loops, because the owner of my LBS eagle eyed a crack in my handlebars on my mountain bike. Even though the handlebars had 6 Nm as the max torque printed on them and I used a torque wrench at 4 or 5 (don't remember), it was apparently still too much. Bummer. But as long as I learn from my mistake … so I put in an order for a new Shimano carbon handlebar, a slightly longer one since the current one is a bit short for my liking.

I was there to get a new saddle (the old one consistently gave me saddle sores in the same two spots) and order the new brakes and a larger rotor in the front. I settled for XT brakes in the end, because they were available "the quickest" (August). SRAM brakes? "Winter." Magura brakes? "Muzukashii." That seems to be the name of the game: see what you can get, not get what you want necessarily. (For the record, my last mountain bike had XT brakes, and they were perfect. Apart from regular maintenance, zero failures in 9.5 years.)
 
That last paragraph--I've been thinking I don't need the third bike, so maybe I could sell it as parts...?!? :) Not new bits, but for some, maybe that wouldn't matter. (and they'd be cheaper)
 
Worth a thought. A team mate also bought a used mountain bike. Availability was definitely a factor for him, too.
 
Somehow I got 5th overall on a local two-stage gravel event I rode on my mountain bike.

Though it was only out of 25 riders or so, and I was minutes behind the guy in first (who I think was a C1-level cyclocrosser). It was super fun to sprint past a rival as we crested the double track climb and then drop him on the descent. I knew I had him as soon as I saw the opening.
 
It is a rest week, so I have dropped off my road bike in the shop for its yearly check-up. I also heard that all the parts for my mountain bike have been delivered, including the new brakes that weren't supposed to be available until August.

Next Sunday, I'll take my mountain bike up and return with my road bike. I'm glad that then my mountain bike will be feature complete: new saddle, new brakes, new rotors front and rear, new handlebars and new grips. I'll have them check out the bike for good measure. It's a pity I couldn't really ride my mountain bike last weekend, the weather was spectacular (with cracked handlebars, I don't want to really ride it). After all these upgrades, the bike will truly be mine :love:

One thing is kinda funny and weird: I want the shop to replace a bunch of corroded/rusted screws with stainless steel ones. Puh, the cost for those puppies really adds up.
 
Oh boy, I have been sweating buckets during this morning's workout. It is the time of year where I better take a spare shirt with me to work and only wear pants once before washing them.

My road bike came back from its service. I had a lot of bolts replaced with stainless steel ones, because quite a few had rusted. Even the battery cap of my Quarq power meter was seized, and I didn't have a rubber clamp at home. Apart from a new chain, nothing else had to be changed. (Oh, and I found out that the shop forgot to set up my tires as tubeless when I bought the bike …)

When I picked up my road bike, I immediately dropped off my mountain bike. It'll get a service, too, as well as new brakes, a few new bolts, new handlebars and new grips. By "accident" I was browsing Rotor's website for chainrings and realized that their XTR M9000-series oval chainrings were on sale for 28 € and change (about 4,000 ¥). So I ordered one. Shipping was almost as expensive as the chainring. The only slight bummer is that it has 34 teeth, so perhaps a bit too sporty. But I'll see. At least here, there are very few sustained climbs, and I do spin out frequently.
 
Did a criterium yesterday. My plan was to sit in, be efficient, and then go for the sprint.
Instead, I attacked from the gun, went solo for seven minutes, was caught, and then eventually drifted of the back about halfway through the race.
Also, I got a severe sunburn.
I shouldn't have taken so many days off before a race without doing any hard efforts. And I should have definitely had more to eat after doing a 50-km ride before the race. Also, stick to the plan next time...
 
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On another note, I just did my first Zwift race, but I accidentally entered the wrong category... that said, I still managed to finish ahead of all the people in the category I meant to enter.
 
It was indeed... by several percent. But a factory spindown seems to have fixed this.
 
And she's back. My mountain bike is now exactly as I wanted it, sans power meter (which was doa, unfortunately). It got new Shimano Pro bars in exactly the right length, XT brakes (I'm home!) and has new 180 mm rotors front and rear. She also got a new stem: the bike shop messed up when they ordered the bars and the bars have a larger diameter than the previous ones. So I now have a new Pro stem, which is damn sexy. Now all that remains is to put on the Rotor oval chainring and hope that either I have enough fitness for 34 teeth rather than 30 or that ovality beats basic principles of physics and makes it feel like a 32-tooth chainring ;) Plus, she lost some weight despite larger rotors, 9.8 kg, baby!

The only bummer is that I won't have any hobby spending money for a while 😅
 
I finally finished my mountain bike. It is just missing a power meter (I ordered a used one in January, but it died within two weeks).

Now it has:
- XT M8100 brakes with 180 mm rotors front and rear.
- 720 mm Shimano carbon handlebars
- boxy Shimano stem (which looks damn sexy)
- a Fizik saddle (I think a Terra Argo X5)
- Rotor oval 34-tooth chainrings (they had XTR M9000-series chainrings on sale for about 3,000 ¥, so I couldn't say no)
- Ortlieb 1.6 l saddlebag (I love this thing, it not only fits my pump, but also expands as necessary and can fit a whole bunch of stuff).

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