Beat-down riding? None fun...

Last year about this time I strung together three long rides in three consecutive days every week for a couple of months, trying to go as fast as possible.

It was a tough task, to say the least.

On each ride, I vowed to push it hard all the way. I peeked at the Garmin regularly so I knew when I was slowing down and needed to whip the horse to pick up the pace.

While pretty tough duty, it did bring results. I got consistently fast times.

However, all that work and no play made it a huge buzz kill when I got out on the bike. It turned it into work, a job, something that wasn’t much fun at all. Since I did it for several weeks running, it became nothing but long sessions of grueling labor. It was harder and harder to get motivated for three-hours of regular hammering. I’d get back home ready to take a nap.

So, you may ask, why did I do that? I wasn’t training for a race. What was the deal?

Well, I was just curious.

It can be fun to test our speed capabilities on a bike, just to know ourselves better as a rider. So that’s what I did.

But hey, I learned it’s also good not to get hung up on hammering all the time to spike up average speed. It can become a ridiculous and excessive self beat-down. Pros probably do it every day. But me? Who needs it?

So this year, I’ve taken a different approach.  And guess what? It has made saddle time fun again.

I now ride for a comfortably fast rhythm, but not one that feels too hard to maintain. I guess you’d call it spinning in a moderately high gear that doesn’t have too much resistance. The gear is not high enough to regularly slow down the cadence, and require a burst of energy to get back up to speed. So the ride is not a stress-test.

And, no doubt, my ride times are a lot slower compared to a year ago.

But an interesting thing has happened. My times and average mph, while oscillating down and up from very slow days to semi-fast days, are producing a slow but steady trend of improvement in average speed.

It’s like laying down a foundation and building on it. It’s a nice even application of leg power, a more patient approach at building speed. And because it’s free of constant bursts of hammering, aside from a few interval sprints, I look forward to getting on the bike. No more dread.

So hey, fun to go as fast as we can, maybe beat ourselves up a bit while doing it, just to see what we can do. But for me it works better to ride within myself and push just enough for a workout. No need to continually surge for speed.

If you feel burned out from pushing yourself too much on the bike, give it a shot. Your average speeds will dip at first, but over time, they’ll start moving north. You just won’t be crushing yourself while doing it.

Sleepy rider

I went out on the trail a couple times last week, tired from having worked a 5:30 to 9:30 a.m. shift. The rough part is this shift requires getting out of bed at just before 4 a.m. The nice part is that I’m home and ready to go on a ride at 11 a.m.

But doing that a couple days in a row, I was sleepy at the beginning of the ride. That’s a weird feeling, if you haven’t experienced it. Here you are riding along, legs moving well, but you feel your gaze start to lock up as the sleep zone creeps in, even as you pedal on subconsciously.

I’ve ridden for fairly long stretches in a drowsy state. I’ve watched the trail unfold ahead, while some far-away music played in my head. These stretches have been sublime and flowing, a pleasantly sedated dreamlike experience that thankfully has never turned into actual sleepriding! At least as far as I know…

I once downed a Coke to fend off sleepiness, and it perked me up a little, but my system felt slightly off the whole ride. It was probably due to empty calories that brought no sustained energy.

But last week I managed to get past the early ride sleepiness, and was happy I could. Because falling asleep while riding a road bike fairly fast, just like in a car, can be bad news. Don’t really relish suddenly waking up while rolling into the soft dirt on side of the asphalt trail, then jerking an overcorrection to get back on track… Crash! Uh, no thanks.

If sleep had come on strong, I like to think I’d be aware enough to stop, pour some water over my head and snap out of it. It’s definitely a weird semi-conscious state to avoid on the bike.

Til next time, remember to strap on a helmet every time you get on the bike. Then, keep the rubber side down, ride safely, and most importantly, have a blast.

-- Mark Eric Larson