My training life in Colorado. Constant headwind and uphill in all directions. made a climber out of me.
Group rides start again for the first time this year today. Since the crew put it away last year I've been hard at it all winter, but here's the catch. I had a vasectomy last week :eek1 I'm skeered of my saddle.
Take it easy, for as long as possible. Going back at it, too quickly, seems to have long-term effects. Myself and two friends all went right back to work and all have intermittent pain. One's junk actually swelled to the size of nectarines. We were all in the construction industry, at the time. YMMV.
Very good advice. Today is eight days post snip and I'm feeling pretty good. My brother is a urologist and a very keen cyclist, he's been keeping tabs on my progress and says it's not a bad thing to do given the circumstances. I'm going to take it pretty easy today as a test run.
77.5 mi. and 6,400 ft. of climbing in 4:36 out to Platina and back today. It got up to the low 70s without a cloud in the sky. Yay for climate change!
Gila River Valley 200k done. Quite windy today - flags were on edge and road signs were vibrating. It's great when the wind has your back, not so good into the teeth of the wind. 126 miles in just over 8 hours. I would have finished in well under 8 hrs but my riding buddy had to stop twice for... uh.... GI issues and was dog-ass-slow for the last 25 miles. I do not leave anyone behind when they're not feeling well. I am whipped - did I mention that the wind was brutal? We had it all day and at one point, were riding directly into it. 11 mph was damn near impossible.
Oh, you were riding with my father-in-law? (j/k, but every damn ride of 60+ miles that he leads, we seem to follow a headwind. I think he's just rubbing his fitness at 65y.o. into our snot-nosed, whipper-snapper butts. It took 5 years of chasing him, but I've finally earned the right/ability to break the wind for him.)
Your wind yesterday must be my wind today. Its blowing pretty hard around here. Not gale force, but windy. Today's ride kicked my butt. AKA I brought a knife to a gun fight. Today was the Haymarket Winter Bike League #2. Normally, these roads are a mixed surface affair with plenty of gravel. Today? 2 stretches of gravel and the other 44-45mi of pavement. I rode the FTB with 32c semi-slicks and got my rear end handed to me. Almost everyone else was on road bikes. :eek1 Since this is an unofficial 'race' the fast guys went from the gun. I don't do so well going hard from the minute I get on the saddle and was red-lining quickly and dropped within the first 15min. Luckily there were buddies to ride with that wanted to do the 'old guys that get fat in the winter' pace. It still wasn't easy 'cause if we weren't going up, we were going down. Very little flat in this ride. I kept up all right till my legs had decided they'd had enough at about the 2.5hr mark. Then hills were a real struggle. Too bad I had an hour or so left to ride! Backing up to the beginning of the ride: it was sunny and cold. Like 32deg cold. I got to thinking about the last one of these I did last year where it was a hair warmer and rain/snowing on us. I turned to the guy parked next to me and said 'well, at least it ain't snowing!' Guess what it started to do. It was only a little flurry but still. I'm home. Chipotle for lunch. ...and I hear the couch monster calling my name. M