Category: Ride

Once again the a couple of loops of Koru, Magic Carpet, Big Tom’s Wheelie, and Lazy Fern. I hadn’t really eaten enough, so the first loop up was good, but I felt I was struggling a little on the second loop up.

I still managed a faster time on the second way up, even though I cruised behind some slower folks for a while, around 13 minutes to the top of Koru.

There were some interesting personalities on the trial, some friendly, and some very gruff and terse – what is it with some 50-60 year old men on flash bikes that makes them so miserable and unfriendly?

It was a fun ride overall, I noticed my cornering on the way down was much improved, although I am still extremely tense on some of the corners.

A quick Koru/Magic Carpet/Lazy Fern loop. It was my fastest time down the Lazy Fern, and I was starting to manage the corners a lot better. There is still one, the biggest and widest one, that I am still really struggling with.

A great ride!

After a hiatus and lots of working from home it was fabulous to ride down to work today.

I needed to get home before lunch and riding up in the midday traffic was lovely as it was so much quieter than the late afternoon traffic.

It was so great to be back on the trail today. After a break for to a wicked head cold it was surprising how easy it was too get back into it.

The first ride up felt super. I realized I wasn’t looking far enough ahead, and worked on it. It made a big difference and helped my performance dramatically.

I had a fun although relatively slow ride down the hill this morning.

On the way up I pushed myself a little again, and to my surprise my time was 9.20. I didn’t dream of that, and I now think that a sub-nine minute time is possible for me.

It’s been great getting away a little earlier and not really needing the lights to see in the morning. It was a fast and fun zip down the hill.

Coming up was great too, my fastest time by a couple of seconds. There was a rider ahead of me that I used to attempt to focus on, and it did push a little harder. The first part of the hill was slower than usual, but the top half was a lot faster. Nice ride!

Fantastic ride for 2.5 hours. I had a VERY sore butt by the end.

I got unlucky with the wind, I rode into it in both directions. I got to a point close to the end where I was getting concerned I was going to run out of energy and be unable to finish. It worked out just fine though, and I felt pretty good.

The other lessons were:

15 minutes further equals 30 mins in total. I knew it but it threw me.

I am still not confident. More riding required.

Apparently I got up to 58km/hr on the way down the hill, I find that quite hard to believe. Nothing very notable though.

The way up was OK, the speedo again proving very helpful. Just over 10 minutes up the hill which I was pretty happy with.

Ripped down the hill in the morning – great fun. I got the speed wobbles on one of the corners I took without braking, I didn’t feel out of control but was unsure how close to the losing it I was.

The way up was OK. The speedo helps a great deal, and I managed 10.07 for the climb up the hill. I am keen to get consistently below 10 minutes, but am reasonably happy with today’s time.

It was a chilly old morning, but clear and crisp. I raced down the hill with one of my fastest times – I was bring pretty careful given the temperature and the chance of icy patches. It sounds silly, but I once again was in my work clothes – something I’ll do all the time unless it’s wet.

On the way up I used the Cateye Quick to monitor my time up the hill, it was immensely helpful. I followed the advice to work my cardio system rather than my leg muscles and was in a pretty low gear but pedaling fast (well, by my standards that is). It resulted in my fastest time up the hill so far, sub-ten minutes. To be fair, conditions were perfect, so I don’t expect to see that sort of time all the time. It could also be the start of more consistent times, but we’ll see. Anyhoo, I was pleased with the initial return on my investment in the Cateye Quick.