85km and crash

As usual I was going out early in the morning for my long ride. Today the plan was to ride from Vågsbotn, over Gullbotn to Os and back to Vågsbotn together with Terje.

The ride is 108km and the plan was for us to do most of the ride in pulse zone 1. I knew I would go into zone 3 in the climbs in order to try to keep a good average speed for the ride. However, I forgot to put on the HR strap before leaving home so I do not have a record of HR for the ride :(

Starting out it was quite cold. Temperature showed 1 degree Celsius in the car just before we started out from Vågsbotn at 06:15 and I did not really get warm until we started the climb up to Gullbotn. As we got to the top the sun was finally starting to warm two cold riders :).

The climb up Gullboten went well and we did it at an average speed of 7.8 kph which was ok for the purpose of the ride. I hope to go a bit quicker when we get to Bergen - Voss in June and hopefully the Tuesday sessions climbing Gullbotten 2-3 times will help :).

As we started the decent down towards Samnager and the junction where we would take off towards Rolvsvåg and Os, I heard a bad ticking noise from my rear wheel. We stopped and I found that one of the spokes had broken. Bending it back and forth for a while, I managed to remove the broken spoke. However, as we continued I was a bit more careful in the descents because I was worried that my back wheel would collapse.

At the beautiful seaside at Os

Going through Rolvsvåg was fantastic, the sun was up and there was hardly any wind to speak of.
We kept a nice and steady pace until we got to the climb up Hegglandalsvegen. The climb was harder then I thought it would be and I also started out to hard. I am glad Terje told me to calm down and go a bit slower as he had climbed this part the previous Sunday and knew how long it was.

We stopped at Os for 5 - 10 minutes, where Terje took a nice picture of me at the seaside, before continuing towards Nesttun climbing over Vallaheiane.

Rear tire in bad shape after the crash :(

As I was crossing the old rail-rode a car was taking more then his share of the road forcing me to take a shortcut and by doing so hitting a hole hard with my rear tire, causing me to crash. I as the picture shows my back tire was in a bad shape and it was not possible for me to continue.

As Terje was slightly ahead of me he missed my crash and called me after 4-5 minutes as he did not see me following him anymore. When he heard what happened he offered to come back to pick me up after finishing the ride back at Vågsbotn, which was very nice of him considering he still had 20km back to the car! As Janicke was home alone with 4 kids she was not able to pick me up so I ended up sitting at the side of the road for about 75 minutes until Terje picked me up. Thank you for coming back!!

Hopefully it will be possible to get my rear tire fixed or changed and I need to contact  Sykkelsenteret tomorrow to get it done.

Despite the crash shortening the ride it was at least good to get 85km and the longest ride of the season :)

Statistics of the ride can be seen here at Strava

50+ km ride - "the right way"

Sunday I did the 53km ride around Bøvågen and I had one of my best days on the bike.

Preparations for the ride started Saturday evening. I collected all my biking gear and placed it all on the bathroom counter-top so that I did not have to go around looking for everything in the morning (everybody who knows me would agree this was a vice decision). Finally I prepared a pasta dish with sautéed mushrooms, carrots, onions, and source cream, which I placed in the fridge.

When we went to bed I put my alarm on at 05:00 in the morning.

I did indeed get up at 05:00, heated the pasta slightly in the microwave before eating. At 05:20 I was back in bed with the alarm reset for 06:15, and managed to get a bit more sleep before getting up again at 06:15. I got dressed as quietly as I could in order not to wake the kids, and was out the door at 06:45, starting the ride riding at 06:55.

It was a much better feeling starting this morning as I knew I had a good meal beforehand, in addition to bringing 2 bananas and some raisins to eat during the ride, so I was quite sure I would not run low on energy this time.

As this was the first longer ride after I got the Garmin Edge 500  the plan was to concentrate on keeping the HR in zone 1 as much as possible during the ride. Therefor, I had the Edge 500 set to show current HR, HR-zone, and climb grade only. I deliberately did not display any speed information as I knew that might trigger me to push harder then I should if I for example noticed my average speed being low.

As the below elevation profile of the ride shows, there are a couple of short climbs during the ride. In these climbs I am not able to stay in HR zone 1 (unless I get off the bike and start walking). Therefore, in these climbs I concentrated on keeping a steady pace instead of worrying to much about the HR.

Using the climb up "Bossrenneri" as an example the climb is 1 km at an average grade of 5.1%, I had an average HR of 168 and an average speed of 9.6km/h according to the statistics gather at app.strava.com after the ride.

When arriving at Manger after 36km I was 10 minutes behind compared to my previous ride around Bøvågen, however, my legs felt much better. It now became quite obvious that I had done things better this time around, as when I got home I was 1 minute ahead of my previous ride. So during the last 17km from Manger and home I was going 11 minutes quicker.

After a  warm shower, I could enjoy a good breakfast that Janicke had prepared for me, finishing of a perfect morning on the bike :)

Nice breakfast prepared with love :)

Statistics from the ride can be seen at app.strava.com

Trying to do things right

After the terrible feeling after my 50+km ride Hilland - Lindås - Hilland a week and a half ago I decided to take my workouts more serious and do a bit of research about how to do my workouts "correctly". Using Google there is an wast amount of information and opinions about how to get the best out of your workouts. For me it is important to be critical to the sources and then choose a training program that I know I can follow through, if not I will end up finding excuses NOT to follow the "program".

However, it quickly became quite clear that the majority of the information points towards 3 different sessions I should do:

1. Hill intervals
2. Long steady rides (LSR)
3. Tempo sessions

So here is my plan:

1. Hill intervals:

I will do two different hill interval sessions

A) 4x4 min interval session in the short climb up towards Sæbø
B) 3x15-20 min session in the climb from Trengereid to Gullfjell

Both session should put my HR way into zone 3

2. LSR:

For my long steady rides I will continue with my ride from home and around Bøvågen. What is important is to keep the HR in zone 1 as much as possible. I am not able to do it for the entire ride as my HR goes up into zone 3 during some of the climbs. These rides are important to improve endurance and to make my body used to being on the bike for hours at the time.

3. Tempo sessions:


A good tempo workout should, as all workouts, consist of a 10 to 20 minute warm.

For the tempo workout I will do 3 sessions 10 minutes long. After each 10-minute session I will pedal at an easy pace for 3 minutes. It is important to keep a high cadence throughout the 10 minute tempo sessions. I guess I need to buy a cadence sensor that I can attach to my Garmin Edge 500 to keep track of my performance in terms of cadence.

HR should be between 75%-85% of maxHR during the 10 minute sessions.

I will then finish with a cool down period of 15 - 20 minutes.

2.5 times up to Gullbotn

Today the plan was for Terje and myself to do an interval session in the climb up to Falkanger in Åsane. However Terje suggested we drove to Takvam and did our interval session in the climb from Trengereid up to Gullbotn instead.

We started out at a very slow and controlled pace in order to keep the HR in zone 1 until we got to Trengereid which is a ride of about 7km.

The plan was to do 3 hard intervals of 15 minutes up the climb towards Gullbotn. However in the first interval we were so close to the top after 15 minutes that we decided to go all the way and stop at the top instead of limiting it to 15 minutes.

We did the the first interval in 18min 44s and the second interval in 19min 15s

When starting the 3rd interval it had turned late so we decided to do a "sprint" up to the roundabout halfway to the top instead. Of coarse being competitive we both started out to fast and my legs was all out of juice long before we reached the roundabout so the last couple of hundred meters was hard!

Terje beat me by 50-100 meters to the top on each of the 3 intervals, however I am much closer to keeping his speed now then I have been earlier. I think I am seeing some effect from my 4x4 interval sessions in the shorter hill up to Sæbø :)

Todays session felt extremely good and it was an energy boost to know I had climbed Gullbotn 2.5 times. Now, the plan is to do this interval session every Tuesday, however, we will start a bit earlier so that we can finish 3 intervals to the top without it getting to late.

Back at the car the SportsTrackLive app showed we had been riding 27.6 km  in about 1h 45min.

http://www.sportstracklive.com/track/detail/BigManChanging/Cycling/bakke-trengereid/574449

There is no doubt this was my best day on the bike, at least this season. Already looking forward to next Tuesday :)

First time riding in a Paceline

Today I was going out with the group that Terje has been riding with a couple of times, and I was looking forward to trying out riding in a paceline for the first time. However, first everything went south for me as I forgot my helmet at home. So while the others started from Vågsbotn I went to MX Sport and bought a new helmet. I needed one anyway as the paddings and straps on my old helmet was very loose, however, the timing was not good, but typical for me my wife would say :)

Once I had the new helmet I drove to Arna and parked there. As I expected, the group had already passed Arna so I got on the bike and started riding on my own towards Trengereid. Just before I got to the decent down to Trengereid I meet Terje and the rest of the group coming back.

I managed to turn around and get into the Paceline as they slowed down a bit waiting for me.

Getting into the Paceline at the back I was in the fast lane first and I had a bit of problem getting close enough to the rider in front of to take advantage of the drag, so I struggled quite a bit until I was finally at front. At the front did one of the many rookie mistakes, as soon as the guy in front of me switch to the slow lane I pressed down hard on the pedals and accelerated and stayed in front for to long. However, the other riders in the Paceline gave me constant hints to help me get the hang of it and finally I felt like I was doing ok and contributing to keep the rotation going.

This group is a group with a goal of 5h 30min for Bergen-Voss, and they are all in much better shape then both Terje and myself. The Paceline was doing 30-35kph on the flats and slightly slower in the small "hills", and according to SportsTrackLive statistics of the ride we had an average of 30.3kph over a distance of 10km which is impossible for me to do alone. Even though you save a lot of energy in a Paceline, going at 30-35kph and sometimes 40kph is to fast for me and I would not have been able to keep up with them for to long.

As I said this group of riders will do Bergen-Voss in 5h 30min and, therefore, in the first short real climb I was dropped and so I finished the ride back to Arna alone.

During the ride back to the car I realized that riding alone and riding in a group, that can for example do a double Pacline like we did, is incomparable and in two different worlds. I also realized that if I am to get a good finishing time in the Bergen-Voss race I need to sit in a group, especially riding through Hardanger. Therefor, I need to do more of these sessions to get used to it.

However, I do not think I will join this group again this season as they are going at a speed that is to hard for me to keep up with over time. Hopefully I can find group with a goal of finishing Bergen-Voss in between 6h 30min and 7h.

All in all this was good fun and a great experience, and I got myself a new helmet ;)

Back after Easter

So, Easter is over and I did not do any rides during the holidays. We have been busy refurbishing the house and I have not had the energy to go out on the bike as well.

However, today I got back out on the bike and I did a 4x4 hill interval session in the hill up towards Sæbø.

During today's ride I held a 1.5kph higher speed compared to my last interval session before Easter. I will try to set up a way in which I can compare each hi-intensity interval in order to compare from ride to ride to see how I improve. So far it does not look like SportsTrackLive have good features to do this sort of comparisons.

Tomorrow I am going on a longer ride, about 55km, with a group of riders that Terje has introduced me to.

Looking forward to it :)