Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here.
Not my ideal week this week, but nevertheless not a bad one all the same. I had a new chain fitted which has made the bike feel super smooth and I am looking forward to some further hardware changes which should make things feel even better. If I could have had one extra ride in there this week, I’d have been more than happy.
This week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – Active Discovery (Indoors / Zwift)
- Friday – Mostly Smooth (Indoors / Zwift)
- Saturday – Norseman Workout #5: Imingfjell (Indoors / Zwift)
- Sunday – Workout Of The Week – Ham Sandwich (Indoors / Zwift)
Things started off on Tuesday on a bit of a downer. Due to some technical issues I ended up with an injured right knee, so was still taking it easy as we went into the first ride of the week.
Partly due to the technical issues – but mostly due to my requirement to fix my puncture – I finally managed to book the mobile bike mechanic and get my bike fixed up. It needed some TLC in the form of a puncture repair, a replacement chain and a new cassette.
Tuesday was my last ride with my old chain. Man alive, that thing must have been absolutely thrashed. Rusty. Super worn. And super squeeky. It served me well, and I am frankly amazed it never gave up and snapped on me. Maybe that says something about the amount of power I am (un)able to put out 🙂
With the bike repaired on Wednesday dinner time, I thought I might get in a session that evening after work.
Alas, no.
What I had neglected to remember was that because I had swapped from a Sunrace to a Shimano cassette, the indexing would be sufficiently wrong as to be unusable if I kept the Sunrace cassette on the turbo. Whoops. That meant a quick order to Amazon, who thankfully had an identical one in stock that could be delivered next day 🙌
Even so, that delivery only arrived late in the evening on Thursday, and whilst I had time to quickly fit and test it, I wasn’t able to do a proper ride until Friday.
Fitting the new chain and cassette flagged up that I need a new chain ring. See the write up for the post by clicking the image above for more on that.
And unfortunately I have a gash in the tyre itself that means even though the inner tube was replaced, I still need a new tyre before I can confidently head back outdoors.
Sigh.
Fortunately both are fairly cheap to fix. I need to get the bike booked back in to resolve both issues.
However, even with just the new chain and cassette, it feels so much better. Shifting is silky smooth and that chain… wow. It’s incredible how much difference that’s made. I’ve not yet worked out if it’s translated to free extra watts, but I’d be amazed if it hasn’t. It’s night and day different.
Whilst I didn’t get in 5 rides this week, I feel the two workouts I did were solidly beneficial. Not quite my usual stuff, but somewhat interesting variations on the SST theme.
There’s only one last workout remaining in The Norseman series which I hope to get done this week. I think I said I was aiming to have all of them done by Christmas… I’ve enjoyed that series, repeating a few of them already. It will be nice to switch up to something new though.
I think I’ve resigned to the fact that Wahoo SYSTM and others just won’t work for me. You can read the technical details in this post, if you are at all interested. If you’re a Tacx NEO owner, that post may be more interesting to you than others.
I’m still feeling really thrashed after yesterday’s Ham Sandwich and possibly-last-time-before-lockdown-6-point-oh-family-christmas-pizza-get-together. I’d love to be able to do some of the Wahoo SYSTM workouts, if only for a bit of variety. I suspect many are available under different names via WhatsOnZwift. It’s not quite the same though.
Anyway, for the week ahead, it’s all about finishing The Norseman ride, and – all being well – taking a slightly easier ride before doing a pre-Christmas ramp test. I do need to do a proper FTP test, and I feel the 4DP approach is the best way to do that. But that seems unlikely right now, so I’ll settle for the Zwift version. Interesting the Zwift Academy video series were not relying on the FTP test:
So yeah, all round a good week, and with Christmas Day and Boxing Day over next weekend, I’m not quite sure the week ahead will be any better. I very much doubt I’ll do a Christmas Day ride – I’m not that committed, but Boxing Day should be a go-er.
I’d absolutely love to get out for one final outdoor ride before Christmas, but is it worth the risk? Or the cold? Who knows.
Here’s to a fun, festive week ahead.