I wasn't sure whether to upload this one or not: training was only one of the two things I hoped to accomplish with this ride, and the other thing slowed me down a lot. In the end, I decided to put it down as "mountain biking" so it doesn't affect my speed stats. It seemed appropriate.Thursday wasn't a complete write-off, but it was raining, so I decided to stay in the gym and work a bit on tempo, and try to correct some of my asymmetry. Despite a reasonable stretching session, though, my calves were still tight this evening.
With that in mind, I chose to ride out to the Tak-ma-doon road at a leisurely rate, and just attack the hills with gusto on my way to Earlsburn wind farm, where I planned to take a few pictures for a school visit in about a week. (NB - the picture isn't actually of Earlsburn, but the farm next door).
I managed to do so fairly well, keeping my heart-rate waaay down before being overtaken by a Ribble on the way to Torrance. I accepted the tow at 34 for about an eighth of a mile thinking all the while "well, if we're going to do this, let's do it properly" before taking my turn and bringing the speed up to 40. By the time I looked back, he was nowhere to be seen. Well, his loss.
Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against Ribble owners, or MAMILy in general (the "y" to distinguish "Lycra" from "Leather"). They're probably the reason why I can afford to ride, and it's fair to say that I ride an unashamedly MAMILy bike myself - an '09 Allez with a head-tube like a piece of scaffold pole. This guy only looked in his thirties anyway. I genuinely wasn't trying to be mean to the guy. I was just surprised at how easy it was to thoroughly drop him. It was at most a 60% effort.
The Tak-ma-doon road was a beast as always - I keep forgetting how long the false starts are - but I steadfastly refused to drop into my lowest gear. There's no getting around it, though - I still need a compact for climbs steeper than 7%. At least I was cheered up by news that Contador was trying out a 34x32 for the giro: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-scarponi-and-sastre-fear-giro-ditalia-mountain-finishes. Not that he'll actually use it, I don't suppose - and even if he did, he'd be spinning at twice my rate. But still.
I spent a lot of time on my approach to the wind farm stopping to take pictures, and when the turn-off finally came, it was far rougher than I had anticipated. Probably no worse than some of the dirt roads on the Giro, but I don't have a team car following me, and I certainly wasn't set up for that sort of riding. Creeping along at 10kph, I gave up at the first reservoir as spots of rain began to hit. The lighting wasn't playing fair, anyway.
The ride back was medium-effort, medium-speed. Even the climb up the Crow Road, I can't really claim to have been going all-out. I was struck by a thought that had never really sunk in before, though, as I ascended in 34x23:
This will never get easier. I will always have to put at least this amount of force in, in this gear, whether I go faster or not.
I don't know why it's taken me so long to realise that fully. It's the nature of climbing. It doesn't matter how fast I spin - I'm always going to have to put in the same amount of energy, the same force over the same distance. Unless I lose some significant weight (like, say, a leg), I'm always going to have to be at least as strong as I am now to climb at the same speed.
It really, genuinely, will never get any easier.
Scary thought.
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