MATT FILE: Yoga, Back Country Snowboarding and a New Bike . . .

So the common consensus on flexibility from what I’ve read is that being flexible is good, but being extremely flexible results in a loss of power for on the bike. Now I’m not sure exactly what qualifies as “extremely” flexible but I doubt being able to touch ones toes does, and I’m… well… well short of that. So in light of this I’ve done something I’ve been meaning to do for far too long without actually doing and actually started to take Beginner Yoga. Hopefully it works, seems like it should.

Winter has been hanging on pretty good around here so to break up the monotony of the trainer rides I let a co worker drag me out for a couple after work back country snowboard sessions. Working up in pass it’s right there and the snowshoe up is great fitness. Plus we hit probably the sickest pillow line I’ve ever done this past week, untracked, fresh powder with nice drops for pretty much the full run, so that was cool to say the least.

So onto the more cycling relevant part of the last little bit for me. Team bikes showed up a couple weeks ago in Vancouver so I ran down that weekend and picked it up. It looked pretty sweet, unfortunately the weather here was anything but cycling friendly, see the above snowboarding comment, so it’s been not too much more than an attractive room decoration. . . .

(White bikes are best. . . . agree with the 'attractive room decoration comment. . . what's with the steerer sticking out? - ed)

 

Spring seems to have finally started to show here so I finished building it up other then chopping the steer tube and took it out for a short spin last Friday to get it fully dialed in, weather was less than stellar so it really wasn’t very long. Sun came out to play on Saturday so I took the bike out on a 'stock' out and back training ride for around here down to a ferry landing, round trip about 115k from where I’m staying.

One would think since I did pretty much the same kind of duration ride my first ride in Victoria in January and have not done anything over an hour and half on the trainer since I got back that I’d have know what to expect. Very much not the case, I bonked, and there was no convenience store with a chocolate bar this time either. So yeah, last 20min or so was pretty much done at a painful crawl.

On occasion I do actually learn from my mistakes so the next day I had significantly more food on hand for the same ride and even felt good enough to tack on a little extra distance. VERY NICE to be outside on the bike again I must say.

In response to Thomas’s questions:

Thanks. Training since I got back from Victoria has been pretty consistently 4 trainer rides a week generally in blocks of 3-4 days consecutively. Rides generally consisting of about 5-7min warm up, about an hour at a high but sub TT pace then a cool down of about 5min. And yes, Giro or Tour DVD’s and Mp3 player make this possible. Now that it’s actually ride able outside, but still not a lot of available daylight after work I will see what I can fit in and take it from there as I’m pretty well burnt out of trainer riding. My nutritional plan is a little laughable, I try not to pig out or under eat too often, it’s pretty high carb and fairly minimal in actual junk food (I will admit to mild chocolate addictions from time to time though, but dark chocolate is supposed to be healthy right?).