What an awesome start to the day today if I do say so myself! I got my sluggish ass out of the bed by 5:30 AM, had some coffee and a nice big bowl of blueberry and nut mix oatmeal with a couple packets of agave to sweeten the deal, oh and a quick splash of maple syrup; low-cal and glycemic of course to make sure I am not defeating my ride.
Passing The LadY Stone - Damestenen (the 'woman' stone)
This was my route today, 'Passing The LadY Stone' and it was a blast to ride. No that is not a typo with the uppercase 'Y'. I don't think that there is any reason for it, or is there? But because that is the name of the route I am naming any reference to it the same on my end of things as well just to stay in tune with it. According to everything that I have read (honestly not that much but my curiosity was peaked after the ride as to the meaning of it, if any) it's actually better known as 'the woman stone' so this must simply be the way the cyclist named it either for fun, or maybe they don't call it by the proper name - dunno, does not matter really.
The Video, The Ride
The video was actually very well done, a little more shaky than some but I think that was because they were filming from a mountain bike.Anytime that I have filmed from my mountain bike it has been the same, I think when riding them there is more of a tendency to move the bike left to right, especially if standing. The amount of movement and shaking in no-way affects the over-all quality of the video or the ride though.
The ride did have some short intense appearing climbs although they were not as bad as the preview on the side-view, left to right reference map made them out to be. I'm fairly certain that the most incline I hit was 5 or 6% which is not bad at all considering the route that I did last weekend in Croatia was averaging 2 to 5% if I was lucky and climbed all the way up to I think 16% or more, averaging out around 8% more times than not - it hurt and I was sweating like crazy!
I have a hunch that many of the routes were either done with less expensive equipment and the data is not accurate or the cyclist does not go in and smooth them out or, heck I don't know really? Maybe I need to make one this summer and figured out the reason behind it for myself - could be fun! Although according to the site that I subscribe to, the data is pulled not off the individuals GPS or phone, rather Google maps data I think.
If that is in-fact the case, there is definitely discrepancies with the data and it does need to be smoothed out if possible before users upload it. I thought I came across a tool to do this within this application last weekend while messing around attempting to re-create one of my local routes that I enjoy riding almost daily. I do mix it up a little, but for the most part the main roads and areas are identical each time. Mostly depends on if I want to climb more, get more miles or a combination of all of those things.
Anyway, back to the incline oddities. If they have the ability to smooth out the ups and downs a little and make the ride a bit more realistic they really should. Otherwise while training the cyclist, myself in this case, ends up with a ride that has so many ups and downs that I have very little, to no-time to prepare for the next climb, or on the flip-side if I am able to prepare or 'dig in' for it, it changes so quickly right under me that it was not worth the effort or preparation.
Looking at it from a wear and tear on equipment standpoint, if I had to shift gears as much as I do on some of the virtual routes I have ridden to date in real life 'on location' I would go through front gears, rear cassettes, cables and chains like crazy from all the shifting!
CycleOps Virtual Training
All this said, don't let me paint a bad picture of the subscription service that I am using. The rides are awesome and help to make the indoor training 100x more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Heck on Sunday while it was snowing outside, I was in my 'pain cave' sweating like I was in full-on winter gear in the heat of the desert. Nope, I was just in my cave cycling Croatia.
Although my neighbors if they ever hear me probably wonder why I am in the garage doing something that is causing me to generate this pedaling and a sort of light whining sound from the trainer while they hear me swearing off/on "c'mon you bastard, c'mon, just a little more and you will be there, c'mon, focus - don't be a pussy!" ha ha, yea and that is on a mellow ride.
So yea the trainer and the subscription that I am with along with a few others are great and very much appreciated to have. For example; today while everyone was asleep at the 'troublebaker household' or maybe neighbors or co-workers were just getting ready for their day here I was riding the hills and streets in Denmark heading for my end-of-the route destination, the ocean.
Trainer Road
I signed up for one other indoor training subscription service as well, Trainer Road although it's much different than the virtual training one that I have been using so far. I actually wanted to get this one for that exact reason as well, so yes it was intended and not a surprise. Although I will say that the virtual trainer does allow you to do many of the same things as well as create your own workouts. There is even an option to simply free-ride and adjust the tension as you see fit or are in the mood for on that particular day.
Anyway, Trainer Road is more focused around levels of training to increase your performance over time, or over the winter in my case as well as most others that sign up for it would be my guess. Well that-is unless they are simply doing extra workouts to get ahead or to train for particular events. Maybe the weather is just crappy in their area so they choose to not chance it and instead bunker down on the trainer - cant blame them, plus no traffic to deal with.
I went to their Twitter feed and I think they are actually a local company based on their location. That is really cool! I tried to dig a little and get more information on them but was unable to. So I slapped down my $99 and called it a day. I have yet to use the application and will either start this week or maybe this weekend - I look forward to it that's for sure. Although I think I will regret that once I start getting my ass kicked.
The Video, The Ride
The video was actually very well done, a little more shaky than some but I think that was because they were filming from a mountain bike.Anytime that I have filmed from my mountain bike it has been the same, I think when riding them there is more of a tendency to move the bike left to right, especially if standing. The amount of movement and shaking in no-way affects the over-all quality of the video or the ride though.
The ride did have some short intense appearing climbs although they were not as bad as the preview on the side-view, left to right reference map made them out to be. I'm fairly certain that the most incline I hit was 5 or 6% which is not bad at all considering the route that I did last weekend in Croatia was averaging 2 to 5% if I was lucky and climbed all the way up to I think 16% or more, averaging out around 8% more times than not - it hurt and I was sweating like crazy!
I have a hunch that many of the routes were either done with less expensive equipment and the data is not accurate or the cyclist does not go in and smooth them out or, heck I don't know really? Maybe I need to make one this summer and figured out the reason behind it for myself - could be fun! Although according to the site that I subscribe to, the data is pulled not off the individuals GPS or phone, rather Google maps data I think.
If that is in-fact the case, there is definitely discrepancies with the data and it does need to be smoothed out if possible before users upload it. I thought I came across a tool to do this within this application last weekend while messing around attempting to re-create one of my local routes that I enjoy riding almost daily. I do mix it up a little, but for the most part the main roads and areas are identical each time. Mostly depends on if I want to climb more, get more miles or a combination of all of those things.
Anyway, back to the incline oddities. If they have the ability to smooth out the ups and downs a little and make the ride a bit more realistic they really should. Otherwise while training the cyclist, myself in this case, ends up with a ride that has so many ups and downs that I have very little, to no-time to prepare for the next climb, or on the flip-side if I am able to prepare or 'dig in' for it, it changes so quickly right under me that it was not worth the effort or preparation.
Looking at it from a wear and tear on equipment standpoint, if I had to shift gears as much as I do on some of the virtual routes I have ridden to date in real life 'on location' I would go through front gears, rear cassettes, cables and chains like crazy from all the shifting!
CycleOps Virtual Training
All this said, don't let me paint a bad picture of the subscription service that I am using. The rides are awesome and help to make the indoor training 100x more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Heck on Sunday while it was snowing outside, I was in my 'pain cave' sweating like I was in full-on winter gear in the heat of the desert. Nope, I was just in my cave cycling Croatia.
Although my neighbors if they ever hear me probably wonder why I am in the garage doing something that is causing me to generate this pedaling and a sort of light whining sound from the trainer while they hear me swearing off/on "c'mon you bastard, c'mon, just a little more and you will be there, c'mon, focus - don't be a pussy!" ha ha, yea and that is on a mellow ride.
So yea the trainer and the subscription that I am with along with a few others are great and very much appreciated to have. For example; today while everyone was asleep at the 'troublebaker household' or maybe neighbors or co-workers were just getting ready for their day here I was riding the hills and streets in Denmark heading for my end-of-the route destination, the ocean.
Trainer Road
I signed up for one other indoor training subscription service as well, Trainer Road although it's much different than the virtual training one that I have been using so far. I actually wanted to get this one for that exact reason as well, so yes it was intended and not a surprise. Although I will say that the virtual trainer does allow you to do many of the same things as well as create your own workouts. There is even an option to simply free-ride and adjust the tension as you see fit or are in the mood for on that particular day.
Anyway, Trainer Road is more focused around levels of training to increase your performance over time, or over the winter in my case as well as most others that sign up for it would be my guess. Well that-is unless they are simply doing extra workouts to get ahead or to train for particular events. Maybe the weather is just crappy in their area so they choose to not chance it and instead bunker down on the trainer - cant blame them, plus no traffic to deal with.
I went to their Twitter feed and I think they are actually a local company based on their location. That is really cool! I tried to dig a little and get more information on them but was unable to. So I slapped down my $99 and called it a day. I have yet to use the application and will either start this week or maybe this weekend - I look forward to it that's for sure. Although I think I will regret that once I start getting my ass kicked.
Town Hall, Leadership, Planning
Today was nothing more than a day of meetings from the minute I got here until the second I am typing this part of the entry. Sitting in a town hall meeting right now, then off to one more meeting and yep you guessed it then one more.
At least on the bright side I am getting little to nothing done so I will have things too do tomorrow and the next day and the next right!
Until tomorrow....
Photo: This mornings route. Ended up being a really nice one, not 'extremely' difficult but challenging and fun. Grand total it was a tad under 11 miles.
Photo: This is the stone that is referred to in the name of the ride. There is a wealth of information surrounding it on the web, well Wiki. I read a little about it, but am no expert.
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