I rarely chose to do climbing rides when I’m left to my own devices. Usually I’ll opt for structured workouts so it doesn’t really matter what the terrain is showing on screen, I just pootle along at the target wattage as instructed.
During these Tour of Whatever rides though, I seem to find myself going uphill far more frequently. Why, it was only on Saturday that we were plodding our way up the Volcano KOM.
This time around, however, I didn’t already have several previous climbs in the legs.
What I did have though, was a 5 minute on / 5 minute off approach that, up until the summit of the Volcano KOM, seemed to be working well enough.
My plan was to treat this ride as something of a Sweet Spot session. Aiming for 250w (or 3.7w/kg) for the on-blocks, and 220w (or 3.1w/kg) for the off-blocks.
As I say, I feel this went well enough. I found a decent group that these two paces were compatible with, and whilst I had to occasionally ‘top up’ the pace on the off-blocks, the general strategy seemed to work well.
I was a little cautious heading into the bottom of the Volcano KOM, as I’d just come down from one of my on-blocks and so was fully expecting to get dropped at the bottom as the herd ploughed on.
That didn’t quite happen, but keeping my own pace was more challenging when factoring in the gradient, and the innate desire to chase.
One thing of note on this ride is you do get three feather power-ups at the various Tour-only virtual banners on the climb. I almost messed up and didn’t use my first one, so if you’re doing that then do be careful and make sure to maximise their usefulness.
It was during the latter part of the climb that my on-block had resumed, and I went over the 5 minute marker, and quite a bit into the red to push over the top.
From then on, I struggled to find any kind of form.
My legs felt tired today, not helped by the race yesterday I’m sure, nor by the big ride over last weekend. I need to take it easier tomorrow – aiming for a 30 minute session of low intensity, before a big rest up ahead of Saturday’s mammoth Stage 3 Longer Ride.
Fun times so far though. Enjoying my riding very much as of late.
