Big Bikes

Bike Games That Schools Have Not Bloat

Yup, that would be another bizarre key word search which brought some weird, weird person to Big Bikes. Having trouble putting two words together tonight. Must have ridden my bike properly today or maybe I just didn't eat enough while I was doing it.

I went with an alternative interval system today, entirely music based. I've never understood why intervals are done in such arbitrary, unimaginative blocks. I guess that's why I was always partial to workouts like "The Pyramid". Much more organic...or something. During a race do you go Hard for exactly five minutes at a time, then at a Middle Effort for ten minutes, and then 20 minutes at a Light Effort? Do the guys you're racing against respect the fact that you are accustomed to hurting in a very specific way for a very specific amount of time?

Racing is chaos, so too should your workouts be.

What I wanted to achieve today were some good blocks of Tempo with smaller blocks of recovery in-between. As I said, music based. Here's my very organized workout.

Artist followed by Rough Estimation of combined Duration of Songs:

Red = Effort
Blue = Recovery/Warm Up/Cool Down

• Air - 20 Minutes (Thanks Uri)
  
• Thievery Corporation - 15 Minutes
• Led Zeppelin - 15 Minutes
• Neil Young - 10 Minutes
• Van Halen - 15 Minutes
• Iron & Wine - 10 Minutes
• Run D.M.C. - 15 Minutes
• Talking Heads - 10 Minutes
• Misfits - 10 Minutes
• Fu Manchu - 10 Minutes
• Iron Maiden - 15 Minutes
• Motorhead - 15 Minutes
• Bon Iver - 20 Minutes

You don't need any type of bio-monitoring device to know you're riding at a solid Tempo-Pace while listening to Achilles Last Stand. Riding hard to Neil Young or Iron & Wine would probably cause an aneurysm. And note how it ramps up to Motorhead- the pinnacle of motivational music for getting your legs moving in circles really fast. People would pay good money for the coaching advice I am dishing out here. Lucky you.

The new Tifosi glasses were just thing for this sunny/gray day. They've got that crazy Fototec technology so they change tint as you go. I wore them until just before sunset (My ride went a little over). See How serious I look. This was a very serious workout today.

The UD!

Since I've been riding the Fix-ed gear and the single speed so much, when I get on the road bike I try to keep my cadence very consistent. Sitting and spinning up hills instead of mashing, standing and lurching up them. I also try to concentrate more on the scenery and the music, not on the miserable act of riding a road bike. By rides end, I am still out of my god damn gourd no matter what.

I was really hoping to get out on another ride on the Superfly but after we got buried with snow again, that option was out. We got so much snow that a Sunday Otis ride is probably out as well. With the road conditions the way they are around these parts, riding on the road isn't that different from mountain biking right now anyway. But somehow not anywhere near as fun as actual mountain biking. Strange. I guess it's like going out to the woods on your mountain bike, only to find that the woods have been paved. Because that would suck.

If you have to ride a road bike, Water Row Road in Sudbury (?) is as nice a place to do it as any