Over 10k visitors and a long ride

Wow - today the blog went over the 10,000 visitors milestone - I must say I am a little amazed!! Okay some of them will be from accidental clicks/webots but a lot of them are repeat offenders - if you are one of them - THANKS!

So "a long ride"....as I had a few mins waiting fro a Kwik-Fit man to turn up to sort the tyres on Liz's Volvo I thought I would put a few notes down on my longest (outdoor) ride this year. On Sunday I went out and did what seems to me a slow 50km/2hr ride. It did however include a number of local hills (some of which might almost be called climbs...) hence the low speed - also I was doing a set program of:

30min W/U Easy

5min easy effort (RPE 11)
5min tempo effort (RPE 13)
5 min overgearing (RPE 17+)

The full route can be seen here:



But I thought I would focus on a few of the best bits (hills). The first 30mins is a gentle climb to the A505 and then the ride properly starts with a steady climb to Barley (the first hill of the day). This begins easily and winds up in the last 200m or so:

Once into Barley the route takes a left and heads for the only windmill for miles - obviously at the top of a hill!

This is a simple steady hill which is just long enough to make you puff if you are in the wrong gear - as I was!!

However it is at this point the toughest hill of the day appears - just down hill a little and then up to the infamous Passo d'GranChisell

The last 100m of this is deceptive - all in all a good climb. After this it is a relatively simple bike route which zips down some good descents (ruined yesterday for me as someone had smashed a glass on the road so a few bunny hops saved me...) and skirts along beside a river (where I saw a family of hares - very cool and fast!), before going up again to Wendons Ambo, a really short climb hidden round a corner:

 

After this it is a simple run back to home via some fast main roads - including my favourite stretch between Littlebury and Great Chesterford - great tarmac quality and lots of false flats. The data showed some good efforts on the hills - I use a CycleOps PowerCal HR strap (Powercal at Wiggle) - I was seriously sceptical about it (There is a great review here) but I have to say I am constantly amazed how it computes an extimate of power - I have checked against my calibrated turbo and RPE and it all seems pretty much bang on - seriously impressed!

Anyhow - back to reality, today was a hard run (see below) - nothing in the legs - probably as I worked hard yesterday but at least tomorrow is a core set (and I have a couple of days off to spend time with the girls - they are on school holiday) :-)



Thanks for reading.