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Today - May 2012

joewein

Maximum Pace
Oct 25, 2011
3,532
3,693
Less than 19 days to go until my 300 km brevet. Raised my handle bar after having raised my seat.

Before I had just raised my seat because it felt too close to the pedals and ended up with neck pain from bending forward too much. Then I lowered the seat again but it wasn't so comfortable for my legs.

With both raised I now feel closer to my ideal position. I can't mess with my position too close to the long ride, so I better figure this out now :)

April was my first month over a 1000 km since I got my bike last autumn. My wife and I averaged 220 km a month by car since last summer. We only buy fuel about every three months :) I have already done more than twice as many km on the Bike Friday since October than the Toyota has done since July.
 
April was my first full month of pain free riding, (except the good kind:D)

I managed to ride 950km as a result. Still my longest ride is 110km so it was lots of short intense riding.

looking forward to May!:bike::bike::bike:
 
Nice commute to work and a big improvement on last week. Now only 2 minutes behind the average time it usually takes. 1 hour 2 minutes today....

On the way home I diverted (in some light rain). Around Tega numa, up to Tone Unga, then through to Edogawa. Just took it easy on the way back... a bit of out of alignment hip pain...possibly been playing too much golf. (had my best score last Friday :cool: Since I was in my 20s at least ).
 
120km today race training - roads and cycle roads were empty and was able to go hell for leather along the roads that run beside the Tamagawa.

Light rain was wonderful - perfect training conditions!
 
Today was my first proper ride in the rain. I wasn't expecting such a downpour, I was ready for some light drizzle, but a couple of rain sessions were interesting. Was on Edogawa, went out to the castle and back for 101km, had that lovely headwind all the way back which was the rainy bit. The second rain session was pretty hard, it hurt.... !! Still need to dry things out.

Thankfully I wasn't wearing my fancy new white Fizik shoes.... more on that later.

:cool:
 
Busy day for me. I did 18Km of deliveries today, climbing was 198m and 72 min of trailer tugging.

Heaviest load of the day was 125Kg plus 33Kg for the trailer so 158Kg or 348lbs! My actual avg speed for the day was 15.1 Km/h, not bad for Tokyo traffic hauling a trailer :D

Good workout for sure!:bike:
 
Last weekend saw my teams training camp

Day 1
I placed 3rd overall out of the 15 participants.

Individual TT flat 10.5 km in 14:06 (winner 12:57 Oishisan)

Individual TT mountain 8.5 km in 24:58 (winner 21:20 Mogisan)

I was happy with my result and racing at Gunma the week earlier definitly helped. I knocked 52 seconds off of my flat TT and a wopping 3:07 off my mountain TT from last year!

Day 2

168 KM
The Mountains around Azumino and Hakuba
All climbing and decending
Took a wrong turn and think I did closer to 200 km
7:29
Awesome ride though! I hung with Oishisan until the last 60 km and almost threw up on myself on several occasions. Never pushed so hard on that long of a distance and definitely added a notch on my belt. I think the last 40km took longer than the earlier portion.

The fastest rider was Oishisan in 5:29!
 
To the Setagaya ward office for segregation issues (in full kit), I started my ride from there after a painful long wait, but with my passport and visa. This proved useful over the course of the day, looking for the fabled country of Togestan, with slippery downhills and endless climbs in minus ions.
I got my share for the day: Yabitsu to Doshi to Wada to the golf courses to the tunnels and because I ran out of time, back to Itsukaichi and train home (Where I met Sergey, sorry mate, you surely must have wanted to change places with me today).

Compared to yesterday and the day before the deserted streets were surreal, I saw six cyclists on Yabitsu and then nothing. Never got rained on once, perfect timing of stops and the misty air and steaming roads made for perfect training.

First time using a heartbeat sensor, definitely a better tool than cadence. That I not once got my heartbeat to 170 seems peculiar though (I'm 31). Certainly not overtrained, admittedly 10kg overweight, I still set a PB on Yabitsu in the Top10 (watch out Alan:cool:). My avg hr is 159 over grueling 37mins, that's like 10-20 clicks lower than everybody else:confused:
 
Yesterday, had to pick up my mama-chariot from where the wife left it when she borrowed it, so threw in some hill repeats on the way back. Today, after commuting and erranding on the road bike, had to pick up the wife`s hybrid from where she left that, so got to go for a jaunt on that. As much as I love the CAAD 9, it`s nice to have some variety.
 
Rain now, but I squeaked in a short ride this a.m. (a few sprinkles)

Rain tomorrow, too, :mad: so probably some pool time.
 
Light rain was wonderful - perfect training conditions!

I second that! I feel that yesterday's weather was also ideal for training, and managed to sneak in a quick 50km on an extended lunch break.
 
Rode to work, and then home in the rain, just after I had got my bike really clean.

Oh well.
 
In April I got some new Fizik R3 Shoes.


I rode a couple short rides with them. They are all right, not as comfortable as my existing Specialized somethingoranother. But to be fair, I didn't buy them cuz they were more comfy than the Sidi's at the shop.

Still, they look the business, which is important, of course... :cool:

So went back to the shop and went through a few different insole options. The much more expensive R1 shoes come with Sidas "comfort" insoles. those are for sale as well for 7-8000 yen or so. For basically the same cost, i went for Sidas Bike+, Custom 3D ready insoles. Fitting took about a half hour, 1500 yen or so.

Due to imminent rain, I didn't wear these out yesterday, so haven't tried the new insoles, but really looking forward to them, they feel pretty good in the shoes.

The Nalsima staff's comment on the stock insoles was "cheap".... !

Original insole on the right, fancy new one on the left.

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As expected, it rained hard on my commute back from work last night.
Disc brakes are godsent:) The rims stay clean.
 
No rain came, so out for a couple hours this a.m.

[on edit: link corrected]
 
20 kms of rainy MTB with the 9yr old son. He did good, no walking up the hills and now he is thinking about Mt Iwaki hill climb. 10 kms of slow spinning, hmm.
 
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