Road racing is an entirely different animal than mountain biking. For fu*k’s sake (my favorite British expression – so much more animated than “lovely”, “brilliant” or “cheers”) it’s about power to weight ratio (ultra lightweight bikes and skinny/strong bodies), matching kits/clothing, there’s a ton of rules about etiquette and safety riding in a group, and road riders love stats….time/distance/average speeds/cadence/wattage, along with the various heart rate monitor readouts that tell you if you’re in your “zone” or not. Road riding is also all about efficiency. Efficiency in your pedal stroke and shifting can make those riders who don’t ‘get it’ look like idiots – especially once you hit the 50 mile mark
Most of the fast ‘roadies’ I know are incredibly detailed; in their preparation, the way they ride, and how they recover and train again the next day. This is hard for me to understand because at heart I’m a hammerhead mountain biker that appreciates no gears, difficult trails that do not foster efficiency, and no end of ride stats other than a subjective analysis of how I feel physically and mentally. In short, I despise details and that translates to my broad-scope preparation and training for any effort.
Every now and then I see the light, and focus on the details even though it hurts my frontal lobe to do so. Yesterday I rode with D out to our local hill climb. I rested the day before and D treated me to some trigger point therapy for my tight muscles which felt great. I woke up ready to give it all I had – mentally I was set. A smaller than usual breakfast was the choice in anticipation of riding with digested food before a hard effort – what a concept! I warmed up at a reasonable pace, hydrated before and during, and while on the climb I shifted properly, kept a consistent high cadence on the steeps, stood and hammered on the false flats, and came across the line for a personal best time that would put me near the back of the local race scene peloton if we raced up as a group. Who cares – it’s the best I have ever done. I’d give you the stats, but I forgot the details about how to save them in my cyclo computer and erased them. Guess I'll have to do it again, a bit faster this time? For f*ck's sake, that means I'll have to prepare.....
Details shmetails!
ReplyDeleteI am with you, Shek-- Details and instructions both make me snore. I like being a more "flying by the seat of my pants/ happy accidents" type. There seems to be magic if things are left to chance---thing you could never have planned had you tried to iron out details.
Though, as I've discovered by being married to a detail-maniac Virgo for the past 13 years, sometimes details can be important---if you're building an engine, or plotting a roadtrip, or trying to chart any kind of improvements, as minimal as they may seem at the time-- the details add up.
Good work on your improvements, pallie!
You starting to worry me. We are the same...
ReplyDeleteSomedays we ride. Somedays we ride really hard and it feels slow. Somedays we ride really hard and it feels fast. Somedays we suffer more and it is fast. Somedays we feel fast and it feels like we suffered uphill both ways. It just always feel good no matter what the body or the computer says. It feels good in the head.
It is like this... I dont like my peanut butter and jelly samies with the perfect amount of equally smoothed out product on each half. I like it uneven so i can take a bite and it is different each time.
The fun is the difference each time without a plan.
But a plan does help, I wont argue that.
Details? You mean like finishing the work on your ride before going out rather than showing up at Beechwood and having to still run two derailleur cables? That would have meant more time in the basement and less sleep the night before. Details have their place, but overdone can kill those around you.
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