214W, as measured on Zwift.
I've started an FTP builder training program, so it will be be interesting to see how that changes. FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power. FTP is the average number of watts that a rider can sustain in an hour, and acts as a measure of fitness.
The heat has arrived early here in North Queensland. Given the winters here are so damn warm (I think I wore arm warmers on one ride over "winter"), and no-one locally is excited by the arrival of hot water.
What actually does hot mean? Well this week ahead is forecast as a solid week of 32 & 32 °C maximum temperatures (that's 90 fahrenheit for you metric challenged types). The real killers though are the minimum temperatures and the humidity. It's only dropping to 24 °C at night. And the humidity is bloody high. The upshot being an hour after dawn it can be close to 30 °C with 80% humidity. Ugh.
You do get a break from the heat & humidity when it rains, but when it rains it tends to be biblical rather than the odd splash of rain.
Not exactly conducive to riding long & hard. Which is what I need.
The good news I have a cunning plan.
Well to be fair it's not overly cunning - I'm planning to use Zwift lots over summer. I've got a smart trainer, and it's set up in a nicely air conditioned room.
Now if those two sentences made no sense, Zwift is an app you run on your laptop or table which is designed to give you a fun virtual riding experience (it looks a bit like you are riding through a video game). Zwift then connects with your smart trainer to which you attached your bike. The Smart Trainer and the Zwift app not only record your riding metrics, but the two also combine to give you a real world riding experience. So if you're going uphill on Zwift, the resistance on the smart trainer gets harder, and it feels just like you are going uphill. Same goes for downhill. And the system is rather clever - it not only adjusts the resistance according to how steep the road is, but it also changes very quickly. Here's a good intro vid if you'd like to learn more.
There's all sorts of rides & routes that have been set up in the Zwift world, ranging from easy flat rides through to brutal climbs like the Alpe Du Swift (a clone of the iconic Alpe D'Huez climb). Here's actually a vid comparing how good a job Zwift does of matching the real world experience (based around said climb).
I really like riding outdoor with mates, but there's a lot to love about Zwift:
There's even a number of training programs you can follow that are part of the app. And I think I'm going to start off with one of the plans.
Now it's not like Zwift is only known to people who know the secret handshake - it's widely known as used in the cycling community. Hardly uber-cunning. I do though think many people use it as a way to compliment their outdoor riding rather than their training foudation. Let's see how it works out.
So on Saturday I gave mountain biking a crack.
There's a pretty big mountain biking scene here in Townsville, but up until Saturday I'd stuck to the road. Not really sure why I've only been a roadie up until now. I did fall in love with cycling watching the Tour de France, so maybe that flavored my cycling efforts.
I had two good friends, Sue and Lee, who were keen to take me out and show me the trails. So I blagged a hardtail MTB off another mate, and set sail to Pallaranda, a semi-isolated suburb of Townsville wedged between the ocean, the mangroves, the wetlands and the bush. Pallaranda is fertile mountain biking country - a web of trails has been established across the local escarpments, and there's everything from beginners trails through to quite technical terrain.
Sue and Lee are regulars on the trails, but they took it easy on me and we kept to the beginner friendly terrain. That said, there was no shortage of rocks, gravel and sand, so I got something of a feel for what mountain biking is about.
The bike was pretty easy to come to terms with. It was running 3x8 Shimano XT gearing. It had a set of decent shocks on the fork. I was running 2 inch tyres, 26 inch wheels. Old school MTB though.
Newer bikes, like Lee and Sue's duel suspension bikes, run larger wheels and much wider tyres (2.4 inch width, Lee's 27.5 inch diameter, Sue's 29 inch). New school gives you a more comfy, smooth and grippy setup. The duel suspension also means you soak up the lumps a bit more nicely.
Even so, I was quite amazed at what my old school MTB coped and coped
well with. There were a couple of gravely bits and rocky patches that I
was quite nervous pedalling into, but the MTB just sailed thru. I was
still riding like I was on a roadie.
Lee & Sue also ran 1x12 gearing, which makes loads of sense. When you're dealing with rough terrain, you need your shifts to be crisp and smooth. Not exactly the strength of the front derailleur. I spend the whole trip in the middle ring as I had zero confidence in front derailleur shifting. It just screamed dropped chain.
About halfway through the ride I stopped being quite so worried about the gravely bits and rocky patches, trusted the bike and started enjoying where I was riding. We went from beaches to mangrove swamps to wetlands. Bird life was plentiful. It was, in a word, beautiful. Sue was able to pick out a rather cool Frogmouth when we were rolling through a lightly wooded area toward the end of the ride. All very cool.
I'd racked up about 22km when we got back to the cars. Mountain Biking (IMO) isn't though about epic kilometers or building your FTP. For me is was about transplanting something I really love into a super enjoyable setting. In this case with two great friends.
I see more mountain biking in my future.
