The new year is upon us and as things pick up business-wise, I am being forced to figure out how best to get rides in during my days. And when I do ride, what kind of rides should I be doing?
I don't race. I ride. I ride far, sometimes really far. It's a great feeling getting on your bike and slogging through 200 miles. Okay...it's a great feeling when you finish riding the 200 miles. The process has it's ups and downs sometimes, but it's always great to finish.
I want to be stronger on my bike this year. I want to be able to enjoy the time during the ride a lot more this year. For me, that means getting better at something that is not always a strong point-climbing. I've always found that the better I climb, the better I feel during long rides.
I have a hypothesis that time lost while climbing gets progressively more difficult to make up as a ride gets longer. Say you climb a big hill with someone and the other person can climb that hill 2 minutes faster than you, but you can descend faster than that person. In your mind, you think you'd come out even, right? Wrong! If you think about it, that 2 minutes to the top means that the stronger climber can descend 1 mile at 30 mph while you are still climbing. So, when you reach the top, you put your superior descending techniques to work and you descend that same mile at 35 mph. You've made up some ground, but while you were descending, the other person has been continuing onward and is still out in front of you. Maybe, if you're strong enough on the flats, you start making up some ground....until the next hill, where you start the hill just 10 seconds behind. But the strong climber can get to the top faster again, and at the top, you are now 2 minutes,10 seconds behind. Then you go through the same process as before, but you are tiring, so you don't make up quite as much time as you did before. Then the next hill comes....
You see where I'm going with this right? The stronger you are on the hills, the better off you are. Even if you aren't quite as fast descending or on the flats, you still make it more difficult for a slower climber to catch you.
This just leads me to my resolution for the upcoming year. I may not be able to ride the same mileage as I have in the past, but I want the mileage to do good things for me. For that reason, when I can't get out and do longer miles, I will concentrate on shorter miles with some hills mixed in. If I only have 1.5 hours of free time, it's not that difficult to get in 20 miles with a few thousand feet of climbing, but it's not so easy to get in 35-40 miles no matter how flat the ride or how favorable the wind.
Hopefully, business will pick up and keep me climbing!
0 comments:
Post a Comment