New Bike has Arrived!

After almost 3 months of waiting for a bike that has been on back-order, it finally came in yesterday. (on my rest day of all days) The bike is a 2012 Specialzed Venge Expert, the aero road bike of the Specialized line up. This bike sacrifices a little bit of weight in favour of better airflow. Where a Tarmac is all about the power to weight ratio for the long climbs, the Venge is all about maximum wattage. It's ideal for me in Southern Ontario because there aren't any extended climbs and I do the vast majority of my riding solo, so the reduced drag on the bike is a big plus.

The unboxing!

I picked it up at the shop but took it home for building. Before I left though I grabbed a couple of bottle cages and pedals.

Onto the stand

All done!

Build was very straight forward, even the internal housing was a piece of cake to put it all together. Two black Specialized bottle cages and Shimano Ultegra carbon pedals to top it all off. Of course seeing as I had never used proper road pedals before, I needed some new shoes to go with it....

Some new Pro Road shoes to go with it. The red makes me faster :D

I've only taken it for a short test ride because I don't want to kill myself on a designated rest day. First impression - This bike is FAST. I mean even when I'm just standing on it I feel fast - it's very responsive to putting the hammer down and it just slices through the wind. Having said that though I hope I never have the deal with any strong crosswinds. The downtube on this bike is almost as narrow as the tire but if you look at it from the side, you can see just how much of a blade this bike looks like. It's definitely a looker too, just on my little jaunt around the block I was getting more than a few stares (although that may have more to do with the ridiculously bright red shoes.

Today's workout is just active recovery so I'll only be riding for around an hour. Unfortunately I'll also be doing it on my old shit road bike because it's raining out and I don't want to have my first ride on the new one in muck.

Make up your damn mind, Weather

We had such a terrible tease in March. The mercury was hitting mid twenties for an extended period and I had some beautiful rides. Didn't need any base layers and it's easy to push hard when your body isn't trying to keep itself warm on top of everything.

Then of course we have to go back to winter. SO many training rides becoming miserable simply because it's 5 degrees and wet. No matter how many layers you wear, there's very little to keep out the chill when you're doing 30km/h + and the sun is down. I had a late training ride earlier in the week and the whole time I was out the radar looked something like this...

This weekend's race at Mansfield is calling for a high of 10 - I don't care so long as it's dry, racing in the wet has been forever ruined for me after the "12/24 hour" Summer Solstice race a few years back.

In other news, I've enlisted the help of Adam Morka from Trek Canada to help me with some training. With his guidance my drive has gone way up and I'm looking forward to learning as much as possible from him. Currently he's got me taking it a bit easier in prep for the first OCup.

Bugs EVERYWHERE

Often times when you're riding close to water you'll run into some bugs. It might be a couple that splatter onto your glasses or just one that goes right into your mouth just as you take in a gulp of air. The worst though are the thick clouds that assault your nostrils and populate whatever hair is exposed on your body. Sometimes it's over in seconds but other times it forces you to reroute. Today was the latter kind. I was traveling along the Lakeshore trail on a easy 90km route. I had already dealt with some bug along the way but nothing had prepared me for this. This was a tempest of bugs all right in the middle of my path and invisible until I'm already surrounded.

After clearing the storm

I'm really surprised to run into so many too and this early. I guess it's just something else to chalk up to the mild winter we had. This was similar to a time last year when I was training in Tommy Thompson Park.. 

Damn bugs are everywhere

 And no matter how thorough you think you are at wiping them all away, you'll inevitably find some more in your hair once you get home.

T-minus 18 days until OCup number one at Mansfield!

Easter time riding

Good Friday I drove North to Albion Hills for some simple riding. No intervals, no sprints, just riding. That day also happened to be Albion's official opening day for spring and seeing as the weather was perfect, I knew I wouldn't be the only one in attendance. So I got my season's pass at the gate and then proceeded to the parking lot by the chalet - It was almost full, bike racks and colourful outfits everywhere.

As I was 5 seconds out of the parking lot, I ran into a teammate from UofT. Rode with him for about an hour and then proceeded to ride on my own. All in all I did 2 complete laps of the trail system. Turns out there are a couple of new trails in there that make the flow in between singletrack much smoother and easier to follow. Trails were dry but not dusty dry so you couldn't ask for better conditions.

Saturday was a busy one in the shop so I decided to take the rest of the day off for some r'n'r.

I'm told by the Specialized rep that the new road bike is "on the water" and provided I have high enough priority, one will be here for me in about a week's time.

This week's training will be slightly wetter if the forecast is to be believed - 3/7 days are calling for rain :(

Training Update

Thank god for long weekends. Training this past week has been super difficult as I'm coming off a 7 day straight work binge and the weekend is a much needed time to do even more riding :D

I had one workout in the Don Valley a couple of days ago and I felt really good. It was between 10:30 and 12:30 at night so it was done with my full light setup and in total seclusion on the trail, definitely one of my favourite times to ride. With the first OCup only 3 weeks away I decided to put in some race pace efforts. When it was all said and done, I felt really quick. Unfortunately I didn't feel like I had the staying power necessary for a full Expert Cat race, which worries me quite a bit. I've been so focused on developing my power for shorter bursts (through short intervals on the trainer) that I've seemingly neglected my endurance. To remedy the situation I'll be cutting back a wee bit on the short burst stuff and focus on the long/easy side for awhile.

And first ride with that in mind was a little jaunt along the Lakeshore.

It was a beautiful day, strong tailwind to start (foreboding I should say...) and I had no work obligations all day. Somehow though, the ride went horribly wrong - I came pretty close to bonking hard. So bad in fact that before even halfway into the ride I did an about-face and headed home. I made it as far as the next Subway restaurant where I wolfed down a 6incher in about 10 seconds. And of course this whole time I'm trying to get home there's a cross wind that's trying to knock me off my bike and impede my refueling. Once I got home I had to restrain myself from tearing through everything edible in sight. But I have to ask myself, what went wrong? I've never had nutrition problems on such a short ride before - My lunch before the ride was a serving of pasta, cliff bar and a bottle of water but I burned through it like it was nothing.

My guess is that the training load I was putting on myself demanded more intake. Cue more food time and bigger grocery bill....

Training also continues off the bike in the weight room. I'll do any kind of circuit workout that swaps between muscle groups each exercise (ie legs, core, legs again, shoulders, legs yet again, chest etc.) Each exercise is done with moderate weight and moderate reps (15-20) but everything is performed explosively. For the most part, racing in Ontario is short bursts throughout the course - there aren't any real extended efforts like big climbs. It's more like short, steep ups then flat or down for a bit and then repeated over and over.

So -----------------> this weekend will be more time spent on long and slow road rides and making sure that I've eaten enough. I've heard that Albion will be open this weekend too so maybe I'll do the long and easy on dirt instead, just no hard extended efforts


Also still waiting on my new road bike to come in... starting to get annoyed....