When I heard that Zwift would allow us to ride our bikes through a virtual New York I joked that I would use my singlespeed and I hoped that I could ride through the streets. Unfortunately you get to ride through the New York countryside, otherwise known as Central Park. Imagine riding through the Autumnal Hamptons at this time of year. I have ridden three or four times in virtual New York, once for pleasure and two or three times for training.
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.
Komoot is an app based on socialising through sports. The sports are cycling, mountain biking, bike touring, hiking and running. It integrates well with Garmin and allows you to track activities from your mobile phone or import GPX, Fit and other files from other brands. It also allows you to create your own tracks ahead of an activity as well as plan it for a specific day and time. Sports Running and hiking are two distinct categories with no differentiating between hiking, walking, nordic or rambling.
Yesterday I was stung by a wasp while cycling and when I tried to remove the stinger I couldn’t. I was in pain and almost stopped cycling. I was in distress as a bus passed on a main road. I was on an agricultural path by some apple orchards. I stopped where the agricultural road reached the main road. It’s almost twenty four hours later and my lower lip and one of my cheeks have swelled up.
Yesterday I rode an e-bike over 5km and played with the eco, touring, sport and turbo modes. I experimented with the gears and I experimented with a variety of gradients and surfaces. Through this trial I got to understand how e-bikes work. Gaining momentum E-bikes are great for helping you get up to 25 kilometres an hour and after that, if you have the strength then you can ride the bike at over 25 kilometres per hour for as long as you last.
Assembly It took me one hour this morning to assemble a single beltdrive bike. It was relatively simple, unbox it, assemble the saddle, add the handlebars, add the pedals, add the front wheel, inflate the tires and I think that was it. The part that took me longer was finding where the front wheel bolts were. They were in the plastic inserts to stabilise the bike in the box.
First test run I then went for a bike ride on a variety of gradients to assess how it felt on each.
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.
Two days ago I started playing/training with Zwift. I tested it on my phone, the ipad and the laptop and it worked with each. Pairing both the apple watch with the iOS app on mobile phone and ipad worked well. Pairing between the bluetooth cadence and speed sensor as well as the suunto movesense heartrate monitor worked well with the laptop.
A set time or distance limit When you are riding loops in the real world it’s easy to plan on a one hour ride and end up taking two hours as you add additional segments because you feel good.
I have been thinking of replacing the scooter with an electric bike for a while now. I am discouraged by the cost of electric bikes. Electric bikes range in price from one thousand to four thousand francs or more and their range is from fourty to one hundred and eighty kilometres. They are also limited to 25 kilometres per hour if you want to preserve the right to use cycling paths in Switzerland.
This summer I was thinking of buying a car until I found out that my contract break was for six months rather than three. As a result of this my ability to buy my own car vanished. I used the scooter, my feet and eventually the bike to travel thousands of kilometres. I rode the scooter for at least four thousand kilometres and I cycled for around 1000km. I also hiked Self powered Break this year This year I have logged 121hrs of moves over 1500 km and 19395 metres in vertical movement.