What You Missed This Afternoon

Saturday February 7th, 2010 CX Ride GPS Data

Part 1
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24100181

Part 2
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24100174

It is now February and I’ve already managed to derail my annual training plan….but not in a negative way…I just happen to be riding way more than I thought I would be during the colder months. So anyways, fellow DG Stappy sends out an e-mail Friday to see who wants to do a 100km (metric century) ‘cross bike ride on Saturday. He says it will be moderately paced and mostly on gravel back roads. Now this may come as a surprise to some people but I’ve never done more than 80km on a ride and prior to my last ride had never done more than 40km in January/February.

For me this was like a mid-term bike test, I wanted to see if my base had in fact remained mostly intact from last year along with all the cross training I’ve been doing for the last few weeks. Not only would it test my endurance but my recovery and power output trying to keep up with someone like Stappy for whom this will probably be a roll in the park. I met up with Craig and Thomas at the coffee shop and after drinking our coffees and chatting a bit about the planned route we set out for another long distance adventure on a moderately cold Saturday morning.

The ride started out much like our last ride. We did the same single-track sections up into the Tuscany area (including the 12 mile coulee trail). The single track was in really good condition although the creek crossings were really icy but I somehow managed to make it up without bailing this time…on my ‘cross bike. When we got to the top we proceeded north to ride on some gravel back roads. The sky was clear and the sun was out, so it made for a really nice ride loaded with views. It was pretty cool for me because we could ride side-by-side and chat which was a great opportunity for me to take in some tips and hear about some unique race experiences.

After hooking up onto a main highway we rode towards Cochrane then did a really cool descent into the Cochrane area. After the second descent, Craig led us down into a park where we did a really neat little single track into town. In town we stopped for a coffee shop for a bit of a break. 65km in and I still felt pretty good though I was beginning to get a little tired. It seemed that there was a bit of a change of plan. Craig wanted to make a loop out of the ride so instead of riding back to Calgary on the 2A we were going to do some more gravel roads to the west of Calgary and go back by the Springbank Airport.

I still had a quite a bit of energy and was glad we were over the halfway mark so we set out on the 22 on the way back to Calgary. Craig didn’t want ride on the 22 for too long because the shoulder is pretty narrow so we were going to do some more gravel road and go around. Suddenly we were riding to the west…away from Calgary. Now I was beginning to worry about what I got myself into as Thomas asked if we had to do the “big hill” and Craig laughed a little.

About 85km in I was having trouble staying with Thomas and Craig. Thomas made an awesome recovery after the big hill and was sticking to Craig’s wheel really well. I started falling back and just rode within myself as I knew there was still one big climb coming up and I was starting to get really tired. After the climb we went towards the COP switchback descent which is usually really fun but my hands were getting numb from braking with freezing levers.

When I got back to my car and checked my bike computer it looked like we had done about 108km. Awesome. I had just completed my longest ride ever…in February. Even though I started fading during the last 20km, it was pretty good indicator where I was for fitness levels and endurance. With the exception of the very last climb, I was sticking with the guys on the climbs though I fell back on most of the descents mainly due to my confidence levels with handling on the snow and ice sections. It was a pretty hilly ride so it seems all my cross-training has really helped me become a better cyclist. It was a really good group to be riding with although I do feel a little guilty about not being able to do any pulls for any significant amount of time…though I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I can.

P.S. My Garmin went kinda wonky when we stopped for coffee so the ride data is split into two parts as I had to reset it. Probably due to the firmware update I did a few weeks ago.