Got the Alpe du Zwift climb tomorrow on Stage 2 of the Tour de Zwift, so figured today would be an easy one. All things being equal, I would have stayed indoors and done a gentle turbo session. But the weather being nice enough, and me wanting to test out my new gilet, I decided why not do the ride outdoors instead?
And so off I went.
Have to say – super toasty in that extra layer. Certainly at the start of the ride I really felt the extra warmth. Bearing in mind this one was a recovery effort – sticking at or around 160w / 2.2w/kg, I definitely wasn’t sweating out there in the 6c heat.
For the first ten to twenty minutes I was absolutely fine. Long sleeve base layer, long sleeve jersey, gilet, and commuter jacket. Four layers, including gloves, thermal bib tights, and shoe covers. Was still a little nippy on the fingers, but that somehow improved as I got into the ride.
Anyway, whilst this one was intended to be recovery, the route I’d chosen did have a couple of little climbs in. One was big enough to display on the climb pro, but I was sensible enough and remained steadfast around the 160w mark and at a high-ish cadence.
On the prolonged climb I did find myself getting overly hot. There’s definitely no way I could do an actual intentional climb in that gilet. It locks in the heat, and when I was generating extra I was really starting to cook. Pros and cons to that, and for a certain type of ride it would be a real God-send, but I think a pit stop would be required on an ‘effort’ ride, in order to take it off once the real work started.
So, all good on the gilet. Glad I got it, glad I didn’t pay full price, and we’ll see how much use I get out of it.
Where things went a bit wrong on this ride was that I did some Man-based navigating. You know the kind: where you just blindly trust your own directional abilities, and then get lost.
Well, I didn’t get lost, as such.
I just went right when I should have gone left, and ended up adding on 30 minutes to my ride, along with having to come back via a dodgy road I try to avoid as it’s full of fast cars (think 50mph+) on a fairly narrow stretch. Sticking close to the curb is pothole central, but you can’t get further out as the motorists are a little kill-happy.
In going wrong I found myself in two unexpected situations.
The first was in a rapid descent, whereby I couldn’t tell whether I was going left or right at the bottom and so had to break hard and ended up skidding big time. The photo above shows the way I’d just come on the right, and the way I should have gone to the left. Instead I slipped off into the dirt track area… hairy.
And then secondly as a result of this unplanned detour, I found myself on an unexpected climb. I meandered up that one, easiest gear, again forcing myself to 160w where possible. Bit of a slog. Glacial, in fact. But I didn’t overheat, and I – hopefully – didn’t burn out my legs for tomorrow.
Hopefully I’ve not overcooked myself today. I don’t think I have, but 45 minutes into the AdZ and my thoughts go to dark places. No doubt I’ll be ruing that extra bike time today at some point up the hill.
Anyway, it’s better than sitting on the sofa.
