Fast Ride BHP tomorrow

Fast Group Ride at BHP starting at noon. Meet at Chickadee ready to ride by noon... if you are late go counterclockwise and meet up. Looks like a large fast group coming out. Brain buckets MANDATORY! No helmet, no ride with group.

Oh this doesn't look good... but lets see how wrong they are!

I hope in typical fashion the weathernetwork is WRONG in their forecasts.. but lately they've been more accurate than Environment Canada... I am going to update this everyday for the next week just to see how close they are and what it actually does.. Just because I am bored :)

Forecast for Saturday the 25th, posted on Saturday April 18

Wet Snow, High +5, Wind North @ 30kmh, 10+ cm of snow, less than 1mm of rain

My Predicted forecast: +7 Light NE winds, partly cloudy... on a sidenote.. theweathernetwork.com shows for Friday Cloudy with +7 for a high and -3 for a low.. while Environment Canada shows a high of +14 and a low of +2 ... hmmm only a 12F split... yuh huh..

And from the farmers alamanac...
16th-19th Very cold air Saskatchewan
and Manitoba, bringing frost and freeze conditions. 20th-23rd A swath of rain and snow sweeps east through the Rockies and Prairies. 24th-27th Rain showers. 28th-30th A big Rocky Mountain storm brings severe weather to the Prairies. The cold air that sweeps in behind it brings freeze conditions.

Gravel Race Cancelled

Highway 247 is flooded so no race this weekend.... UNLESS..... you join us at Birds Hill Park at noon on Saturday and Sunday where training rides always turn into a "race"

Wednesday Night Jam

Its time... 18 degrees.. now to FINALLY let loose with warm temps... no more freezing.. well for today and tomorrow anyways... 20 degrees tomorrow as well.. unfortuneatly.. the gravel race Sunday is only calling for a high of +12... and showers/rain for the previous 3 days.. looks like it could be a mud bath ala Classic Paris Roubaix... Im using my crossbike with a few mods...

Weekend rides...

Thanks go out to the hardcore crazies for coming out this weekend.... good riding! I managed to squeek in 270km over the long weekend with some hard hills and wind sections... I have to admit I will be happy to go back on the trainer tomorrow evening with the erg set @ 150 watts MAX!! LOL 1 HR 15 mins of doing SFA will be NICE... the temperature here is killing me... Tshirt, long sleeve jersey and thermal winter jacket today and the wind was going right through me...
First race is a week today... plan on using the cross bike..

Another afterburner ride...

I dont think I need to say anything else.. 90km today... wind was sure cold though.. sure made +9 feel like -1 or so when your going 40kmh...

Hammmmmmmer time....

Thats whats yesterday was... I really wasn't expecting it to be *THAT* fast.. but it was all good... Ended up doing 9 laps of BHP... 2 of those laps were slacking around... and the average was 35kmh for 103km.. average power was 209 watts... when I selected the 7 laps of fury on the powertap... 37.2kmh avg, and 230 watts avg... pretty damn good for 4 degrees out... Good strong ride... hopefully the weather coopereates for the rest of the weekend.. apparently +17 on Tuesday and Wednesday... may have to goto work a little earlier so I can get out to the park after work before the temp plummets on those days...

Sanctions against Lance??

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/apr09/apr09news3

OK this is getting really ridiculous already in my opinion... using evidence in Italy against Valverde from the TdF against a case in Spain.. now this stuff... I releize doping is a problem in our sport.. but some of the tactics being pulled are getting a little stupid in my opinion...

Todays ride...

Another day in the basement... Today I did 4X20 minutes @ 260 watts.. some nice tempo intervals with 5 mins break between each effort... Last year I estimated my threshold to be what my tempo wattage is now... I could really feel the difference in Hawaii... especially on the hills where I was using bigger gears with less effort it seemed... Now the trick is to build on this throughout the year... GULP!!

Computrainer Hill Intervals

Well instead of riding outside... sorry guys.. its still too cold for me, in a few days this subzero crap will all become normal and all too familair again... I elected to do some ergvideo hill intervals.. Is et my threshold @ 300 watts, and it controls the rest.. keep pushing or ye shall stop dead.. its in erg mode.. you can't make the watts.. its GAME OVER.... The workout consisted of 6X6 minutes at approximately 110% of threshold.. each interval worked out in the 325 watt average range.. well except that last one where I was caught off guard and it ramped up to 360 watts and I started to bog.. Iquickly lowered my threshold to 280 watts and completed that one with about a 290 watt average.. not bad considering before I went to Hawaii after the 3rd one of these I was ready to barf.. sooo I gained some pretty decent power there... Id hope I would anyways seeing you couldnt turn anywhere without getting shot up into the sky... which brings me to next year.. getting ready to book already March 12-April 4... cant book the return yet though because you cant book that far in advance... Below is the image of my power profile for todays hill (hell) fest...

Post Maui Depression

Thats what it is... what a depressing place Winnipeg is after getting back from Hawaii... Especially with all this f***king snow all over the place... and the fact that it keeps on doing it... what happened "April showers" there will be no May flowers because the ground is still going to be frozen solid!!! Maui is a different place... there are actually people outside jogging, and cycling, and WANTING to be fit.. then I got home to porky mainland....

Well between a few Computrainer rides, stripping my bike down and rebuilding it, and work.. and losing my precious Hawaiian suntan.... I cant wait to get back outside.. Its nice to see a long weekend coming up.. and forecast highs of 8 to 10 degrees the whole time... NICE... that equates to about 300km outside easily in my books... so only 6 more Computrainer rides which Ill be sure to pick the hardest ones in the program to do.. I shouldn't really complain about that Computrainer.. I could probably ride it all summer and be in better shape than riding outdoors.. I like the idea of being able to control the workout on the trainer... Like really... if you are scheduled to do an ultra easy 140 watt average recovery ride... how do you do that here when in one direction you are fighting normally a 30kmh+ headwind... even going 25kmh into that wind you would be generating over 200 watts at that point... I also like the idea on the Computrainer of being able to set the interval at 300 watts, and maintain that solid 300 watts... changes in the road, wind, draft etc all effect the interval..

Anyways, time to finish rebuilding the Hawaii bike, installing Super Record 11s on my Prince, and then to ride... may even take a drive out to BHP later to check on the road conditions..

To put it politely... WTF!!

So I knew I was coming home to some snow.. but wasn't expecting this... WTF!!
Anyways, Maui went great... 20 rides and 2000km, and probably in the vicinity of 50,000 vertical in climbing... Maui is very up and down, inside of 20km you could climb over 1000 feet easily.. A nice loop I made had roughly 800 vertical, doing it 5 times gives you a nice 3+ hour ride and some nice climbing.. Im feeling like a bit of a mountain goat right at a feathery 158 pounds... unfortunealty my plans to get out and ride as soon as I got home dont look too be cooperating at all... anyone up for skiing this weekend??

I would also like to take this opportunity to slam Air Canada to the ground.... I will NEVER use them again on a paid vacation again... It started in Winnipeg with them now suddenly wanting to weigh my bike case and make me remove 5 pounds... hmm funny thing is same case, same stuff in the case, and lighter bike all the time suddenly is a problem after 8 years.. interesting how it works... and then they failed to load the bike on the plane in Vancouver coming home... although I did get it back later that evening, it was nothing but a headache... WestJet just got themselves a new customer every year for Maui... In Maui I never had a single piece of luggage weighed, but almost everyone else at the counter did... strange how airport security and screening works...

So the weather does not look good for the next little while... and even if you laugh at the farmers almanac... Its actually pretty close.. unfortunealty, April does not look so good..

April 2009
1st-3rd Brief clearing, then clouds arrive. Turning colder.
4th-7th Chilly air spills into the Rockies from the west.
8th-11th Generally dry and cool.
12th-15th Increasing rain and thunderstorm activity spreads east from the lee slopes of the Rockies.
16th-19th Very cold air Saskatchewan and Manitoba, bringing frost and freeze conditions.
20th-23rd A swath of rain and snow sweeps east through the Rockies and Prairies.
24th-27th Rain showers.
28th-30th A big Rocky Mountain storm brings severe weather to the Prairies. The cold air that sweeps in behind it brings freeze conditions.