Pursuit for Pleasure

Another great cyclocross ride today with stevo.

The best feeling I get from riding a bike is the feeling or sensation you get from the surface your riding on. From your body to the ground you are connected by your bike, and it is your bike that transmits the feeling of what your riding on.

I find when i'm road riding I become somewhat of a pessimist and a snob. By this i mean that when im road riding i prefer smooth fresh ashphalt at all times and will go out of my way to avoid blemished, bumpy roads. I accept them as part of the ride but deep down I loath that section on Wallace drive that makes my butt hurt. On a route i know i'll sometimes dread the bad sections. "Oh just get it over with" i tell myself and then we (my bike and I ) can get back to our "high society" smooth sections.

With cyclocross though it is a sensory overload of pleasing surfaces. Every ride you'll discover what it feels like to ride on that surface, or that one. You can begin to decipher the slight differences between the surfaces too, like...oh that one feels like it has more pine needles mixed in with it, or...those pebbles are slighty smaller than the ones we rode on two minutes ago. Cornering on different surfaces is the best. You have to handle the bike differently in the corner for each and shift your weight accordingly. The off-road surfaces are also temperature dependent so the same surfaces can feel different from one day to the next. THis morning for instance the usual muddy sections had a slight crust to them, almost like a creme brulee.

Everyones favourite was out today as well.....ice puddles..its gotta stem from our nature as kids to break things that makes this surface so pleasing and fun to ride over.

With the temperature drop making things crisper and crunchier i found you have to be more subtle with handling the bike. This morning, not long into our ride we were riding on a mix of mud and mulch. Coming into a tightish corner i could feel i was on top of the crust so i moved my weight forward on the front wheel. THis combine with the braking however caused me to break thru the crust and then suddenly i was swimming in the mush beneath. With too much pressure on the front wheel and the braking i was sent right over the handlebars as the bike lurched to a hault.



To finish off the day of swim bike running the group met at elk lake for just over an hour of running. Todays workout was one i'm a firm believer in. After doing a shortish race that wasn't too taxing a part from leg stiffness, i find and think it is more beneficial to incorporate some steady effort, not strenuous, but moderate effort on the system instead of just a recovery run. The body is recovering from the race, but you stress it just enough to produce more gains in fitness. This hunch has no research to back it up but its just a gut feeling. This is exactly what PK had planned for us. 20' easy, 20'base, 20' steady state, 15' WD followed by drills and strides. Great run!