{"id":13775,"date":"2025-07-17T12:20:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=13775"},"modified":"2025-07-17T12:20:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T10:20:50","slug":"the-nyon-lecercle-ride-with-thirty-two-achievements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/the-nyon-lecercle-ride-with-thirty-two-achievements\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nyon LeCercle Ride with Thirty Two Achievements"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Yesterday I went with a morning ride with TDC, which felt relaxed, before going for a ride with LeCercle<\/a> in the evening. This group has a high level with many of the cyclists riding thousands of kilometres per year.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I wrote about how groups that are large enough can cater to fast, and slow people. LeCercle feels like a smaller group of highly engaged cyclists who ride regularly.<\/p>\n

Until Genolier I was able to stay with the group comfortably. It’s when we hit the climbs that I lost a lot of time. I’m riding with a bike that is heavier, and I have a casesette that is more suited to London than mountains. Having said this, with other groups I climb faster than others so I am not using equipment as an excuse.<\/p>\n

If you ride with people who ride regularly, then it makes sense that they are fast. I ride a steel 10 kg bike and many of them ride a 6-8kg carbon bike with aero wheels. They’re also younger. This helps but it’s the time that they spend on their bikes that makes a huge difference.<\/p>\n

On one climb they were three minutes faster, and on the second they were six minutes faster. On downhill segments they were two minutes faster according to the flyby data.<\/p>\n

The Role of Fatigue<\/h2>\n

Aside from a different in fitness, equipment and age another factor that you can’t see is fatigue. I was awake at 5am for a 06:30 bike ride with a group of people with a similar level to me. I was in the middle of the group, rather than the slowest.<\/p>\n

With the morning ride I felt comfortable the entire time, which is why I seriously considered the evening ride. If there had been less climbing I would have coped more easily. I climbed around 300m in the morning, and 962m more in the evening.<\/p>\n

Group Fitness<\/h2>\n

I have been on relaxed, or recovery rides where we were going at 30km\/h on the flat because the group could go at that speed. I have been on a ride where we were at 40km\/h on the flat after climbing up the Jura, heading to the next climb.<\/p>\n

In my experience there is confirmation bias within cycling groups. If a group rides hard, and fast, it attracts people that ride hard and fast. Conversely a group that rides slow and steady will attract people that are slow and steady.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was the slowest, especially after two others gave up after the first climb. It’s easy, as the slowest to think "I should ride with an easier group" and many do.<\/p>\n

That’s why a group with fast riders gets faster and less accessible.<\/p>\n

When I listened to the conversation I got the impression that they want more riders, they want riders who are not as fast to join. They want the group to grow.<\/p>\n

Drafting<\/h2>\n

Yesterday more than once one person frm LeCercle slowed down, and provided me with the experience of riding behind someone and drafting. I could keep up but I often had to slow down as we were riding fast on downhill segments. For safety reasons I didn’t hold the wheel too closely in bends.<\/p>\n

It’s because of fatigue that I couldn’t keep up with the group. I am sure that if I skipped the morning ride next week, that I would keep up better with this group.<\/p>\n

Endurance<\/h2>\n

In hiking and cycling you can go fast and hard, but eventually you learn that it is better to find a slower, sustainable pace. When you do you might be slower, but you don’t need to stop, and you can go for longer.<\/p>\n

And Finally<\/h2>\n

Yesterday’s group ride was good, and for the first part, until the first climb I felt strong. On the downhills I was slow but I am not sure whether it is because of fatigue, or because of equipment. I suspect fatigue.<\/p>\n

By the time I got back to the LeCercle bike shop my legs were tired. I had given everything I could yesterday. I like the image of being in "limp mode" on the way home. By this I mean that you have little power left.<\/p>\n

When I ride with LeCercle again, on an upcoming Wednesday I will make sure that I am well rested.<\/p>\n

Today I might ride with Group 3, on the TDC ride, to give myself time to recover, if there is a group 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>Yesterday I went with a morning ride with TDC, which felt relaxed, before going for a ride with LeCercle in the evening. This group has a high level with many of the cyclists riding thousands of kilometres per year. Yesterday I wrote about how groups that are large enough can cater to fast, and slow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[255],"tags":[733,6645,6941,195,6603],"class_list":["post-13775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swiss-walks","tag-cycling","tag-group","tag-lecercle","tag-nyon","tag-ride"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13776,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions\/13776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}