Group Ride

Today is Thursday August 14 2025 and yesterday i did the group bike ride.

It was my best performance yet!

i still got dropped but it happened 5 to 10 minutes further into the ride than it normally does. Looking at the photographic evidence below i see i lasted 48 minutes. Although to be fair it felt like we went a bit slower than usual plus it was the largest group i've seen, meaning there were more wheels to grab onto when the going got tough. 

BK even made an appearance this week!

There's no question that i'm faster today then when i first did this ride seven weeks ago so that's encouraging. 

Since Gravel Worlds is a week from Saturday i'll probably skip this ride next week but then hopefully i can consistently do it through September. That would be six more times. If i can do that plus a few other quality rides every week then the shape should be decent for the Little Sugar mountain bike race in October.

Bicycle races!

Three Bike Rides

Today is August 11 2025 and i rode my bike last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Friday - Short indoor trainer ride, watched part of a movie, post stretch with the cat. Can you identify the movie?

Saturday - Short road ride on the mountain bike. 

Sunday - long road ride on the mountain bike. Usually Saturday mornings are my long ride window however on this occasion we had a prior social engagement, but since my wife is the best she allowed a long ride on Sunday afternoon. This will probably be my last long ride before Gravel Worlds on August 23rd. 

Fridays Ride...

Saturdays Ride...

Sundays Ride...

Group Ride

Today is Thursday August 7 2025 and last night i did the Wednesday Group Ride.

It was my best performance yet but i still got dropped less than halfway in.

i consulted some friends and they confirmed that this group ride is indeed a fast group ride. So that makes me feel a little better. Yesterday was my 6th time doing this ride going back to June 26th and after that initial attempt i though i'd improve quickly but that hasn't been the case. i have improved but i'm still getting destroyed each week. 

But that's ok. 

This week Kevin gave me the nice tip of going to the front prior to the climb that always gets me, good advice but i was hesitant so i probably started 2/3 of the way back. We had a big group this week, maybe over 20. After getting dropped i found a guy to ride with, Rick, and we rode at a steady tempo pretty much the rest of the way, i think i did pretty much the full route, with Rick, for the first time.  

i'd like to keep doing this ride through September but after that our household will be fully into school mode (the little man is starting 5th grade on Monday) so taking off each Wednesday evening gets harder. 

If that works out i have 7 more opportunities to do the ride, maybe just maybe i can stay with the group all the way to the end on one of those rides. But thats a big maybe.

Bicycles!

Also, i saw a Lamborghini on my ride home.

52 Miles & 36 miles

Today is Monday August 4th 2025 and i rode my bike last Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday i intended to ride around 75 miles but that was probably unrealistic given my limited ride window so i ended up doing 52 miles.

On Sunday i lucked into a decent ride window in the afternoon and decided to take the Road Bike on the Rocky Route (midtown, downtown, east bottoms, cliff drive, train tracks, broken glass... old school Rocky I Eye of the Tiger training. Yes i know Eye of the Tiger didn't appear until Rocky III. i make the rules here).

Saturday i felt pretty crappy.

Sunday i felt pretty great.

On Sunday's ride i felt like i might have leveled up in fitness. To put that in racing terms i may have advanced to an average cat 5. Sundays ride was also energizing because of the route. i prefer urban riding. Case in point, i rode by Knuckle Heads yesterday around 4 pm and there was a bad a*s blues band rocking out with a guy in the middle of a sick harmonica solo.

You don't get that when you're out at 233rd and Cleveland Ave!

One final note, i plan to make more of an effort to ride clean bicycles. Specifically the drive train. lately i've been thinking about how much harder i'm having to work because my chain and cassette are super dirty. 

Anyway...

Gravel Worlds is in less than 3 weeks!

Saturdays Ride...

Sundays Ride...

Group Ride

Today is Thursday July 31 2025 and yesterday i did a group bike ride.

I blew up 15 minutes in.

Boy howdy was it a hard. Last week i did this ride on tired legs and got dropped a little sooner than expected so this week i made the effort to show up with fresh legs. Maybe too fresh. Doing this group ride for the past 6 weeks is like a crash course it what it takes to pedal hard. The most obvious part is you need to ride your bike a lot at a hard pace so that you get good at riding your bike at a hard pace. But there's also a bit of an art to showing up to a specific ride primed and ready to go. For instance, did you ride hard the day before? Did you not ride at all the previous 3 days? Did you do a good warm up prior to the event?

Yesterday i failed all of those tests and more.  

But also i think yesterdays ride was just faster than all the others. 

10 minutes in and were going 27 mph on a longish flat road. That's fast for me. 

But... i want to be able to handle that so i'll keep working. Doing this ride has been a great reality check about my fitness and what it takes to pedal hard.

i plan to be back next week but after that it gets tricky because school starts for the little man.

55 Miles (What's the Frequency, Kenneth)

Today is Saturday July 26 2025 and today i pedaled my Cyclo Cross bike for 55 miles.

I felt just ok.

Also... should i be concerned that the bike i'll be racing Gravel Worlds on is a 'Cyclo Cross Bike' and not a 'Gravel Bike'? I'm not concerned, but should i be? i acknowledge that its probably not the fastest choice and i'm fine with that, but just how much slower will i be because I'm not on the proper bike?

Anyway... today i rode for about 4 hours and 15 minute and covered about 55 miles. Maybe 40% of it was gravel. This route, including Kenneth Road, has become enjoyable.

i wore my new hydration pack, which i just got. It's amazing. So comfortable. i'll defiantly be wearing it during Gravel Worlds.

These long Saturday morning rides are the time to mimic race day and find out what works and what doesn't. Today, for example, breakfast wasn't good so i was pretty hungry all ride. Also, after about a 45 minute warm up i forced myself to ride hard for what turned out to be the next 50 minutes. Because i assume the start of the race will be fast and if i can hang on to a good group maybe it will settle down in the middle of the race and we can really make some time.

Hopefully i can find time for 2 or 3 more big rides in before the race.

Bicycles!

Group Ride

Today is Friday July 2025 and two days ago on Wednesday i did the group bike ride.

Lots of suffering was had.

i was late which means i had to chase a bit which means i was on the back foot most of the ride which means when they hit the big hill where the pace always seems to tick up a few notches i sat up almost immediately. It felt a little like that time i did the Cat 4 Lawrence, KS road bike circuit race and Micah G hammered at the front seemingly all day. i lined up in the back of what was a pretty technical course and i was accelerating out of corners and closing small gaps all day. ultimately i got dropped. So this was kind of like that, a little. Only back then i was in much much much better shape. Honestly that race is a big what if. i was fit but lining up at the back had me working seemingly twice as hard just to keep up.

Actually, i don't think Wednesdays group ride was very similar to that Lawrence, KS circuit race. i think i just wanted to talk about it.

i make the rules here.

Glory days!

Anyway...

So i got dropped at the group ride, no worries, i still rode hard for about 38 minutes so that counts as something.

It might be time to tweak my weekly workout routine. More pedaling, more core, less weights.

Maybe next week i'll see if i can do this ride on fresher legs.

Goals!

65 Miles

Today is Monday July 21 2025 and last Saturday i rode my cyclo cross bike 65 miles.

It was a good ride.

i started at 6:10 am which means i avoided the heat of the day. But it was still hot. As the 75 mile Gravel Worlds race in Lincoln Nebraska approaches i'm putting a lot of thought into how to adequately fuel for an effort like that. A big part of it will be salt. 

i tend to cramp. Probably for two main reasons. i don't train well enough so therefore my body isn't use to the big efforts required in a race and also i'm not getting enough salt during the effort. Or is it sodium i need? Are those the same thing? Anyway... what i am pretty confident about is that salt stick fast chews work very well for me.

On this most recent ride, which was very humid, i ate a ton of them and i didn't cramp. Pedaling for 65 sweaty miles and not cramping is a big win for me.

So that has me feeling good.

i do need to work on my neck and shoulders because they are getting very fatigued on these long rides. stay tuned on that issue.

Looking at the calendar i can probably get in 3 more big rides before i take it easy for a week or two pre race. This most recent ride was only about 25% gravel so that's not ideal. i would love to get in a solid 65 mile all gravel ride prior the race. 

What are my goals for this race? i'm not really sure. Gravel Worlds is really a race just to force me to get into good shape prior to the Little Sugar Mountain Bike race in Bentonvill in October. That's the race i'm most excited about. But i still want to ride well and enjoy myself over 75 miles of gravel.

i did Gravel Worlds (75 miles) once before, in 2023, and it took me 8 hours and 2 minutes but that included a long muddy walking section. Everybody was slow that year. The winner that year only averaged 16.4 mph but last year the winning mph was over 20.

Can i average 15 mph for 75 miles of gravel? Maybe. So that's a loose goal. Finish in 5 hours. i'll have to find a good group to ride with to make that happen. Getting more specific with my goals i'd like to line up towards the front. Which i don't like. i was always a back of the bus, back of the classroom type of guy and that trend continues when i line up for a race. But this time i'll try to force myself to get their early enough so i can line up in the top 50. Then i figure i should be prepared for a fast first hour and i'd like to be able to weather that storm and then keep pushing hard for the remainder of the race.

Bicycles!