I slap the bacon out ya mouth, dance upon ya sarnie

[Alistar]

Have you tried that Hammer perpeteum stuff? Like a slightly diluted soy milkshake Seems pretty easy on the stomach in my experience as long as you don't stuff twice as much as recommended in your bottle, thinking it'll make it twice as betterer.
Whatever you do don't drink gatorade (not that any self respecting cyclist would). Left my perpeteum stuff up in New Plymouth so did that hard mtb race on some Gatorade I found in the cupboard that someone gave my partner at work. Better than nothing right? Absolute crap and started feeling naseous after 2hrs. Sickness in a bottle...

[bob_summers]

Haven't seen hammer stuff sold here, I might try and get hold of some to try before the season starts. Agree re. Gatorade... I have been caught out a few times and had to stop at a garage to buy something sweet. That stuff has usually made matters worse! Aquarius goes down better, even though it's part of the Coca Cola axis of evil...

Fri 17/2
Deskarga OnB
4h50 @ 26kmh

Long, steady flat ride. A bit too steady looking at the avg
Had actually planned to go a bit further (160km) but in the end it came down to fading light. Hopefully not too many of these rides left.

Sun 19/2
MTB Andatza
5h

Went with a mate, heavy rain all morning so we delayed until it stopped at 12. Splashed around on the mountain a bit, fell off a lot, came home. Some of the descents were running rivers, no grip and they're hard even in the dry.

Woke up with a sore bum, in the right glute. Not sure if I fell on it or it's the piriformis. Will try stretching it out a bit and see if it calms down.

[bob_summers]

I think the sore bum is a bruise, it didn't go away after stretching. Fortunately the saddle doesn't aggravate it. The new perch is feeling better too, after half a dozen rides. Must have been a case of having to get un-used to the old shape.

Tues 21/2
Basa Kabi loop

Another tiny step in the right direction, I *felt* better today, but posted exactly the same time to Basa Kabi (2h02) as my previous best, set a month ago. Confusing. So, digging around in the GPS trace, I found some more info. Today I lost time on the flat (slight HW today), and was a minute or so faster from Elduain to Basa Kabi (the biggest climb). My HRavg was 10bpm lower today, which seems like good news.
Compared to race pace (this route is the first race of the season on May 6th)...over that section of climb, I'm only about 4m down on my time in 2010. Over the last 20km or so, I'm about 5kmh down which isn't bad for riding solo.

All this is relevant because my first goal of the season is to go sub 3hrs in that race. I've got more miles in the legs this year, but I'm starting to think that was a very good time I did in '10, I'll have to be very canny to beat it.

[Alistar]

So did you get the Ronin saddle in the end or something different?

Seems like you're definitely on track. Always good to peg some time back on the hills. 10 bpms Av? drop is pretty significant though.

[bob_summers]

Yeah, I went for the Romin as it's a similar shape to my beloved Toupes but with a broader nose for when you're over the front, and it's slightly less flat, there's more of a curve in the profile. It has carbon rails which I thought would make for a slightly smoother ride but I'm fucked if I can tell the difference! Shoulda gone for Ti rails and spent the 30€ on a few tubs of chammy cream.
Very comfy now though, after a couple of weeks.

Thurs 23/2
ARRANGOITZE via CORNICHE
3h50 @ 29kmh

Not a bad time, perfect conditions for it, cold and clear but with the sun warming things up before my fingers really started to complain. Payback time for all that snow.
Worked with a French lad on the valley road to Senpere to keep the speed high, then an altercation with a big truck gave me a Strava KOM up the short climb from the village, as I tried to catch the trucker and do very unbuddhist things to him
Put the power down on the final stretch to try and make my 2pm class, but legs a bit tired from Tuesday. Made it home in time, inhaled some food, then got an SMS telling me the class was cancelled

[bob_summers]

Fri 24/2
LEKEITIO OnB via MENDEXA
5h20 @ 28kmh

Supposed to be long, steady and flat but the coast road is anything but flat. No big climbs, but constantly up and down, you can't get into a rhythm. Had a bit of an energy slump around half way, couldn't get the HR up. But recovered enough to drag a couple of riders from Zumaia-Zarautz at almost 40kmh, came close to blowing up and it was a long lonely ride home from there. Funny how there are tons of riders around until all you want to do is suck a wheel home, and they have all disappeared
Weather awesome BTW. Was forecast to hover around 10º and sunny all day, but I saw almost 20º passing through some towns, making me completely overdressed but I'll take the hit for some warm rays! Glad of the jacket when the sun started to dip though.
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/521347

[Alistar]

Hey awesome ride Bob! Damn, wish I had the time to do a ride like that today! Just what I know I need. Sounds like our (crap) Summer this year in terms of temp at least in the middle of the day, but with added Sun!
Imagine its similar to our road to Lyttelton but with slightly bigger bumps

I always get annoyed when I run into other cyclists esp. if they're of similar ability. Means I have to either kill myself to drop them destroying my rythym, or hang back 0.5kph slower than I was going, and hope they turn off. Lucky the 3 I passed today going up Gebbs and the Bastard were like me a few months back, so had no chance of even attempting to get on my wheel . Luckily not many cyclists ride on Sunday avo here, so you mostly have the roads to yourself. Those 3 were the only cyclists I saw going the same way except for a few commuters.

Yeah I had my eye on the Romin before going the toupe so good to hear some good feedback. Hmmm...don't know if I trust carbon rails tho on a saddle...How many grams did you save for the pleasure?

[Mr. Cleetus]

Nice ride. It looks like it must be a lovely one.

[bob_summers]

Cheers guys. Al, the Romin is probably about 3g lighter with the carbon rails, and I doubt will last +/- 7yrs of being swapped between bikes like my Toupes did!

Sun 26/2
MTB Lesaka-Pagolleta-Bianditz-Aritxulegi-Domiko-Agiña-Lesaka
5hrs 40km

Great ride out with a mate, I've done this route a few times and the missing piece of the puzzle has been finding a way to avoid the 30mins bouldering/hike a bike to get up to the Bianditz ridge. Nice when you're walking, but not with 12kg of Yeti on the shoulder.
So we found a way around it, taking a technical contour singletrack and rejoining the Bianditz descent a little lower than usual. Really happy with the route now, there's nothing super techy but it's got everything else.

Tues 28/2
Zumarraga (almost) OnB
3h55, 115km @ 29kmh

Dull as ditchwater flat easy ride, straight up the valley on the main road, then straight back down again.
Marginally faster than last time I rode it is the only positive I can take from it!

So I started the morning on top of the STW Endomondo February km challenge, thinking it was in the bag with 100km in hand, but it seems someone has uploaded all their Feb rides today, the penultimate day of the month! So I'm now 2nd with only a day to do anything about it!
There's a lesson in there somewhere!

[Mr. Cleetus]

You know what you have to do: No! Sleep! Till! Thursday!

[bob_summers]

Hahah thanks for the encouragement MrC, I did consider pulling a sickie today at work to do it but it's probably better to just try again next month (and dump all my KMs on the 30th )

[Alistar]

Cool to sort out that mtb route.
Seems you got some of your own back from your tricky bulk weekly uploads on bikejournal

Wonder how many people cheat on those sites...? You don't even need to take drugs to win!

[bob_summers]

I think Strava has the most scope for creative cheating. If you live at the top of a hill, you can set a KOM challenge which ends in your house, so noone can beat you! Or drive up the Tourmalet at 20kmh with your bike (and GPS) on the roof rack!

Incidentally, just noticed I'm 19th/159 to Col du Tourmalet through La Mongie! That's not so bad considering I remember being pretty munted by that stage of the day... dropped to 50th by the time I got to Col du Aspin haha

[bob_summers]

Thu 1/3
Arrangoitze via Corniche (Bidart first)
3h44 @ 30kmh

Same 'p' shaped route as last Thursday, but in the other direction. Finished around 4mins faster, but maybe the route's more agreeable that way around, don't know. Main climb is a longer, shallower gradient this way, big ring. Anyway, *felt* better today, had more left for the undulating coast road on the way back - sometimes this bit is a slog - even had a little race with a rider from the HTE For comic effect, he was on his immaculate, obviously race day Cervelo with deep section rims etc, and I was twanging my gear cable to change up as the housings are full of a winter's worth of salt and crud, crank creaking, rear blinkie....

SO, adding some mountains in March, first race on the 18th (went well in it last year).
With February done, here's the stats so far:

January 2012 1,177.0 km 48:56:27 +17,375 m
February 2012 1,456.9 km 58:25:50 +18,818 m

[Alistar]

Nice work and impressive training k's and climbing in both Jan/Feb Funny that now you say it's time to add in some mountains

Is that the 100k race first up?

HTE? Its always important to give these guys a bit of a scare to motivate them for the coming season