The challenge is being gradual enough to react to the lag in power reading. A few training sessions ago I tried pedalling hard, overshooting the watts required but found that it was hard to catch the momentum just right. I then tried the opposite. I tried pedalling faster, to get to the desired wattage and then changing gear and keeping the wheel going at that momentum. This worked for a period.
Today I hit the wall. The methods that I mention above work well on rested legs but because I have been playing with Zwift frequently, including fun rides after the training sessions I have fatigued my legs. They are unable to hold the gradual effort changes that are required by the training courses.
As I saw that I couldn’t maintain the required effort for the required time I aborted the effort in the hope of trying again in two or three days, when I recover.
It is frustrating and the natural thing would be to blame the tools and buy a smart home trainer with erg mode to do the mental maths for me. The second option would be to buy pedals with power metres. I am not going to do either of these things. I am going to rest my legs by going for easier rides for a day or two and, then, when my legs have recovered I will start playing again.
My average time riding a bike over the last four weeks was seven and a half hours per week. When I’m not riding the bike I’m usually using the scooter but that’s mainly because I don’t want to leave the bike unattended. It is for this reason that I’ve been looking for cheap alternatives. I’ve looked at folding bikes but they cost as much as a scooter and I’ve been looking at electric bikes but they also cost as much as a scooter.
Aside from the issue of price folding bikes weigh from 17 to 23kg or more. For a bike that is meant to be portable it is grossly overweight. Can you imagine riding that around a mountaineous country like switzerland? I did see a cheap folding bike for about 169 CHF. It would be nice to keep in the car. You could park in an area where it’s free and then explore towns and cities without the hindrance of public transport.
Yesterday I rode to Geneva on the bike and an e-bike limited to 45km/h overtook me and I did enjoy sprinting after it and trying to catch up with it. I matched the speed for a little bit and then turned onto another street. E-bikes that go at 45 kilometres per hour are meant to follow the same rules as motorbikes and scooters so they’re less interesting than those limited to 25 kilometres per hour. Those limited to 25 kilometres per hour are no longer interesting because I can cycle at an average speed of 21-24 kilometres per hour on three to five hour rides.
I also looked at mountain bikes, trekking bikes and other options. The issue with these is that the affordable ones are heavy and the fun ones are expensive. I finally found an option that would be fine in a flat country like Belgium or Holland but could be regretted in Switzerland. A single speed bike, or a fixie.
My logic in this choice is that it’s apparently easy to maintain, it costs little and it’s probably easy to place in the back of a car without making a mess. The one I was tempted by has a belt rather than a chain. The version with a chain is cheaper but it’s around two kg heavier. The fixie with a belt weighs around 11kg, the same as the road bike I use.
Yesterday I tried cycling to the Vallée de Joux and succeeded. A few weeks ago I cycled up to St George and I saw a sign that said that the Col De Marchairuz was less than 6km away so I decided to try it. When I succeeded that I saw that getting to the Vallée de Joux would be possible.
On Sunday due to the weather I thought that I would go for a small 30km loop to avoid the bad weather and rain. I felt fresh when I got back to Nyon so I decided to go further and I headed towards the Col De Mollendruz but took a wrong turn and arrived in Bière. As I felt tired I changed course and headed back for home.
The Col du Mollendruz variant
Yesterday I went for the Col De Mollendruz. I headed from Nyon to Rolle and from Rolle headed up to Perroy before heading across to Aubonne. From Aubonne I headed up towards Ballens and then east towards Mont-La-Ville. This route is nice because you climb more gradually than if you do the Col De Marchairuz or go via St Cergue. A gentler gradient makes it accessible to less experienced cyclists. Mont-La-Ville is the start of the Strava segment to get to the Col De Mollendruz. From this col there is an easy descent to the Vallée de Joux.
From Le Pont du La Cure the gradient is slightly positive for about 30 kilometres. You then cross back in to Switzerland and head for St Cergue and back down to the plains. The circuit is about 104 km.
If you’re looking for a variant of this you could choose to go from St Cergue to Arzier and back down and if you still feel full of energy you could head towards La Faucille and head back down from there.
A ride to revisit when the leaves turn
This bike ride would be nice to do when the leaves are turning because you pass by the vineyards and ride through forests. It is also interesting because by taking the bike you are going slower than by car. You notice that some buildings are from the 1700s, you see that others are from the 1800s. You also see that there are long stretches of road with very few cars.
Cycling from Arnex to the Signal de Bougy and back is a nice ride that takes you along the lake through the lower part of Nyon, Gland towards Rolle, and from Rolle up towards Perroy, Aubonne, Pizy, The Signal de bougy and back down on the other side.
This route can be ridden both ways. The direction I suggest is easier because the climbing, although physical from Rolle to Perroy levels off, The next challenge is up from Aubonne to the Signal De Bougy. This climb is physical, and you are exposed to cars.
When you’re at the top you pass by two large car parks, and you could stop and go into the Signal but I have never tried, after a bike ride, so I do not know where you could leave your bikes. I instead continue along the park, pass the golf course and then when I get to the end of the road I usually turn left and enjoy the downhill through the forest for one bit, and then the vineyards for the other.
The advantage of this route direction is that it’s downhill from the Signal De Bougy, almost all the way back to Nyon, or wherever you start this journey.
If you try the reverse route you will be climbing from Nyon to the Signal de Bougy on a road that can be quite busy and you will feel more fatigued. The part from Tartegnin up to the Signal De Bougy is physical so you need to have endurance.
If you try this route and you find that you have spare energy left over you can then continue towards Bière and either go up the Col De Marchairuz or the other col, cycle around the Vallée de Joux, and then come back down via St Cergue. That’s a 90 kilometre loop.
For three years I did not cycle. For one year it was because I broke my arm while cycling, The second year it was because we were in the first wave of this never-ending pandemic so I preferred not to stray too far from home. The third year it was because the pandemic was still not over, but it felt as if we had a chance. This year is different. This year we know that the Swiss government doesn’t care either way. For the Swiss the pandemic is over, whether that is true, or false.
In light of this we could continue to self-isolate and to avoid doing anything away from home but cycling is one of the rare things that we can do that doesn’t A) Require a car and B) Doesn’t require being indoors with others. For both of these reasons cycling is a good sport to practice when Covid denialism is government policy.
For this bike ride I intentionally went into France, to explore a little. Usually I forget the passport or other documents but not this time. It feels good to explore the old places, once more. Despite the never-ending pandemic, at least solitary cycling can range further afield.
My mental health would do a lot better if I knew that various European countries were working towards Covid-Zero, but as has become the tradition now, European countries are pretending the pandemic is over, so that there is another Autumn and Winter wave. This has become the new normal. The new normal is not moral. There is little we can do about this as private individuals except self-isolate.
Over the last day or two I have taken a break from JavaScript to look at Ruby. It feels like a very different type of language so it’s good to see how things work in another programming language. So far I am struggling with transposing the knowledge with some things, but others are clear. I decided to write the JS equivalent name in my notes, to help with comparing the two. I might continue in this line for the weekend, and resume my regular studying on Monday.
This summer I climbed over 8848 metres in a single month and now I have just completed the Zwift Everest challenge as well. This challenge, on Zwift, is much easier than in the real world because you are not carrying water, the weight of your bike, dealing with keeping yourself balanced on your bike or traffic.
Using a Fluid Trainer.
I don’t use a smart trainer. I use an Elite Qubo Fluid trainer and to climb I use information on speed to decide how hard to work. If I feel lazy I can pedal at 100 watts for a long period of time to get to the top but that isn’t in my nature. I like to push myself. I push until I get tired and then I recover, and then I push again. I also loe to sprint to the end and try to beat my previous time. Yesterday I rode up at a relatively lazy pace. When I got to within 1.5 kilometres of the top I really put out a lot of energy and when I reached the summit I was spent.
I put out an average power of 291 watts for an effort of 2 minutes 29 with a peak at 612 watts and a cadence of between 100 and 121 pedal strokes a minute. It might seem strange to put out such a lot of energy on a bike indoors but the feeling of accomplishment is the same as if you had done it in the real world.
I like climbing challenges because I live in a mountaineous landscape therefore reaching long ride distances is more challenging. It’s not that I don’t have the ability to ride for four or five hours but that if I ride four to five hours I travel one hundred kilometres because I have to climb cols if I want an interesting GPS track.
Stamina and technique
Stamina and technique do improve as you get used to climbing. You might be in the easiest gear going just above “stalling” speed but you endure up that hill until you get to the top. On Zwift you ride your bike in the physical world but a top of the range frame and wheels in the virtual realm. This means that you’re achieving times that you could never reach in the physical world with your current bike setup.
With a dumb trainer like mine, in contrast to a smart trainer with force feedback, you only see that you’re climbing because A) your speed decreases and B)The gradient indicator tells you that you’re on a hill. With a smart trainer it does get harder and you may want to switch to an easier gear Some people even add a gradient machine at the front to tilt the bike.
With what I describe above there are two things that you do not get with virtual climbing. The first of these is a sensation of altitude as the air gets thinner and colder and secondly you do not get that fantastic ride down. On an indoor trainer whether you’re going up or down you still need to keep pedalling. In the real world when you’re going downhill you rest and recover unless you’re one of the top descenders of the Tour De France or other cycling races.
Conclusion
I haven’t tried a smart trainer so my experiences and opinions on virtual climbing are based on theory rather than practice. I have used recumbent bikes but they give you a power to achieve rather than a sensation of climbing. Virtual climbing, as I have experienced it, is easier than climbing in the real world because if you go to slowly you don’t fall, and you don’t have the sudden very steep gradients that you sometimes experience in the physical world. Most indoor trainers are blocked at 12 percent if my memory serves me well. In the real world they can reach 23 percent or more.
I have logged 799 activities with my Suunto devices. This includes hikes, via ferrata, climbing, swimming and scuba diving. I like Suunto devices because their battery life is good enough to last through entire days of hiking and the battery lasts for weeks between charges when used as a simple watch.
I like to track my heart rate but I often feel self conscious about putting the heart rate monitor belt on. With the latest Spartan watch I no longer need to worry about the belt. At the same time as I start the activity I will be able to keep track of the heart rate. This is especially good for group activities when you do not want to keep people waiting and in winter when you’re wearing layers of clothing.
I like that devices like the Fitbit Charge 2 can be worn at almost all times and track heart rate effortlessly when at the climbing gym and during other activities. I look forward to the same simplicity with a Suunto device. I especially like that Suunto devices survive swims and showers.
I like that the Suunto Ambit 3 tracks how many steps I take during the day. It’s a shame that the step count is not logged and visible on Movescount. I like to see how energetic or lazy I have been on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. It’s not unusual for me to go from a 21,000 step day to a 6000 step day. It depends on weather, work and other factors. If you go for a bike ride your step count will not be high.
I will wait to see whether they apply this technology to the Suunto Ambit watch collection. If they come out with the Suunto Ambit 4 Wrist HR then I will be tempted to upgrade. With 799 tracked activities I believe Suunto devices have demonstrated that they are reliable.
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