Santa Barbara Training Camp

 

The rest of the photos from day one are here.

 

Man was it great...

 

I raised my own bar too:

 

 

 

Day1

 

We rode in sunshine around the polo fields, up foothill and then the Gibraltar.  This mother just kept on coming.  Not the hardest climb I have ever done, but MAN, when does it end?  The bad pavement at the top didn't help.

 

Then down from the top to painted cave, dropping down to the 154 and Old San Marco on beautiful smooth brand new pavement.  If I had ridden this before, man, would I have been going scary fast down that thing... actually, I think I might have scared a few of the TX boys as I passed them coming down several of the climbs this day.

 

Ran into LA and the disco boys at the shop where was  "not a good time"

 

ride time: 4:34

TSS:  378

Pnorm: 237

 

Day2

 

Rain and more of it.  Have the TX crowd wussed out, but David and Troy were up.  Rode the flats in Lompoc and cruised the gravel covered farm fields.  Very Flanders.  Legs were ass, but the riding company was great.

 

ride time: 2:25

TSS: 232

Pnorm: 244

 

Day3

 

More of the shite weather with rain at the start and a small group, but we added Nathan to the ride, loosing Thomas.

 

The plan: UP Old San Marcos, Painted Cave, drop down and then back up Stagecoach then back down PC and OSM.

 

I felt my climbing legs that day and was feeling strong on OSM.  When we hit PC, in the steep section I just went standing on the 34/23 and chasing David to within ~45s.  When the pavement went south, Nathan caught up to me and about 500m before we stopped for water on PC, Troy caught me.  If I had remembered how close to the stop we were, I would have fought to not let him pass me (as if it were a race).

 

We lost Nathan to a return flight (and the associated drive to LAX) and continued on to Stagecoach.

 

By the top of SC, J was done on the climbing and I was done with the cold so down the 154 to OSM and home.

 

The TX boys were convinced to climb some more since they can't at home and went up to the top of Gibraltar to descend it... running into a buttload of disco refuse on the road (gel wrappers, bar wrappers and discarded waterbottles littering the road - as if it were a euro road race and they could litter at will).

 

They ended up freezing themselves off the mountain and calling us for reinforcements as we were headed for burritos.

 

We eventually made the burritos with Troy and David in tow and man were they good...

 

ride time: 3:19

TSS: 330

Pnorm: 253

 

Also of note:  Arigato Sushi - excellent - the crowd dropped a $500 bill there Saturday night...probably ran a few of the locals out - sorry about that.

-G

This evenings post brought to you by

Free Sager   

 

 

thanks for the bands and getting them to me before Cali - I will share my thought on USAC soon...

 

-G

Ugh....

Illness isn't good for training... and illness in the family is about the same as having it yourself...

 

Our littlest has it worse than I would wish it on Evil.

 

Two and a half days off for me - changing diapers ever 15minutes.

 

I tried to ride yesterday but in the afternoon I drop a ~20lb computer on my big toe.

Today I lanced it and did a solid 1:30 on the CT (Np210, TSS110) and felt good doing it.

 

Onward and downward (to sea level that is)...

 

-G

Going back to Cali...

Yeah, that is loaded into the shuffle... as well as most of the Cali songs I can find in the 16k on my media server....

 

Here is the forecast in SLC:

 

and in SB:

 

You decide.

 

Anyway, here is my PMC from today:

 

 

and here is where I will be after next weekend:

 

 

looks like fun :D

 

-G

Why I didn't race last year

or, at least not very much and not very well...

 
1.1.2006-12.31.2006

TSS: 13855
IF: .81
hrs: 199
kj: 118235
Pave: 169
MaxCTL: 85
MaxATL: 104.6
minTSB: -52.4
but I wasn't very diligent this year and raced ~6d

 

-G

Since the last...

two times I rode outside with Kevin didn't go so well because my 12 year old NR setup was dying a painful death.  NR generally sucks in that they weren't willing to help with the old system and weren't really that helpful in upgrading to a new system either.

 

You would think that someone that was an early adopter, who purchased TWO systems back in the day when they were probably happy to sell ONE, that they would take care of that person who helped solidify their business at an important time in their lifecycle, but NOOOO...

 

So that got me starting into either hacking the lights into something workable (ala MAKE).

 

But Dave has been busy researching and playing with alternatives.

 

To paraphrase Mark...

 

I'll take two Dave.

 

On a side note, my indoor setup is nearing completion.  Found a desktop mount for the touchscreen: Sanus

 

Now I just need a desk!

 

Here is the chairtop version:

 

 

here is the SRMonline screen:

 

 

FWIW, I guess if you have a big enough graphics card, dual monitors DO work with the computrainer...

 

-G

Now this makes indoor riding...

(yup, still on that horse - 21 days and no outside riding) .. bearable.

 

I got it hung last night and for the first time in a long time on the CT, didn't want a DVD/cycling video/music

 

 

thanks again to my lovely wife for getting this for me for xmas...

 

thing of beauty...

 

-g

More detail on "training camp" in SB

I am so excited about this one...

 

It quote Jason:

 

"

In summary:
Day 1 - 14K ft gain @ 66mi, (Gibraltar Rd., Andy Hampsten's favorite US road climb)
Day 2 - 17K ft gain @ 94mi, ( Hwy 101 & Figueroa Mtn, Discovery's "hardest valley ride")
Day 3 - 15K ft gain @ 47mi, (The TjK special. San Marcos & Painted Cave & Stage Coach & Le Cumbre, if you have any climbing legs left, this will break them)

"

and the elevations:

 

Yeah buddy.  Sea level mountains... I love the idea.  Any guesses on TSS/d for the three days?  I am hoping to hit 250-300 but based on the group going, could be closer to 400.

 

-g

Here I come...

With Valley coming up, I wish I were going but we have a conflict with Lori's work.  So I am parlaying that trip into the training "camp" weekend at the Osbornes...

 

I haven't seen anything this nice in a while:

 

man, I am getting excited about this.

 

-g

new blogger migration...

hope this works...

 

-g

I think I am going to rename the blog...

to "confessions of an indoor cyclist"

 

I haven't ridden outside since xmas vacation in TX (and it makes me miss two hour rides in the rain @ 70 degrees!).

 

Tonight - quasiSST:

 

 

And with an invite to Cali, that is going to be hard to pass up.  Hason has been talking about Gibralter for as long as he has been living there, and despite several trips into his hood, not one of them did I have a bike with me.  Mr. Brown and his boys will be out there and I haven't seen him since he became the first of us to have critters.  I believe day two is planned for 85k with 10k vertical... sounds good... hmmm gotta get out the sea level calculator...

 

I also have the opportunity to go into thetubee if I go, so perhaps that makes it doubley worth it... especially since "our" governing body can't make up it's friggin mind if the hooker is legal or not.

More skating, more soreness, rollers and fun...

Skated with good Jess today.  kicked my butt...

 

 

those aren't recoveries... those are our lessons. Then an hour on the rollers later this evening...

 

leaves me @ 50.0 CTL and upward sloping...

 

 

Followed by some late night coaching.

 

As an aside, I have been using the Tacx indoor training tires (since for the last three months baring the xmas rides I have been inside) and they rule...I have over 30 trainer hours on them and I could conceivably return them as new.  Now I know Tacx is the copycat of the bike industry, but the Conti yellow tires just would look like ass....

 

-greg

Upward...

and on the continuing path

definitely the right direction.

 

Reminds me of Road to Paris quote...to paraphrase

"the hardest part isn't pushing the envelope, it is just getting back to where you were before"

So true as 250w last night could have been 500w.  And in the past, I have done 300 and felt great.

Clearly for me it is time to get to CS work.  I am having difficulty making it work in 3d mode (although the new scenery helps tons)...A little more structure and some force time in the SweetSpot.

 

-greg

p.s. trying out a new font on the sig - see if windowsLiveWriter handles it well.....

Clients left to their own devices...

Always good to see what a client will do when given the opportunity to plan their own workout...

 

Here is an example.  Client "A" was left with a day or two without workouts planned, primarily to see what he would do with the time.  His CTL is hovering in the 77-82 range and still ramping up towards his first "A" race in Feb.

 

He reads Uhl's post here and is inspired to try the same thing to see what he can do...

 

Here is what he can do (please click to see the full size animated image):

 

 

As the image is titled... WOW.

 

g

Updates...

Let's see...

 

Without metabloic testing... Powerpedals.  Don't feel anything - never feel the clutch engaging, can't even make it engage if trying.  myabe I spin circles or something but man, I can't get these to "work".

 

Side Mount Pedals - they are on the trainer bike right now (Thanks Steve @ SMp).  Excellent build quality, interesting idea.  I am undecided as of yet (and do plan to cart these pedals).  More to follow.

 

TX was good for the CTL and now hovering well above 50 and headed up... still work to do for VOS thought.

 

Sunday was XC Ski (skate) day with Marco.  Wow, three little tips and I have "form"!  I floundered for days last season and didn't skate too much because, well, I sucked at it.

 

Think I will be skiing more in the coming months... something to get off the trainer.