At this time last year, I summarized my first winter using a smart trainer and Zwift to maintain fitness. Now this year's spring blogpost is due, even though the Corona virus and shelter-in-place orders will extend the indoor riding season into April, and May, and June, and...

But let’s start with the good news and winter happenings before turning ( Read more... )

… come and join the Zwifting party!

So four months after buying a new indoor trainer, how did my winter training go?

It went well, according to my stats in Zwift. I rose from Level 0 to Level 20, completing the California and Everest Challenges, earning 32 out of 40 achievement badges. I finished the 9-stage Tour de Zwift, and 5 monthly fondo ( Read more... )

From start to finish, 2018 was a disappointment.

After the extreme effort to conquer the 2017 Dirty Dozen ( blogpost) and my 250,000-foot climbing goal ( blogpost), I fell into an enduring malaise and lack of motivation that lasted all of 2018. On top of that, three long trips-smack in the middle of training season-ensured I couldn’t get back into ( Read more... )

Obsessive-compulsive here has been logging his blood pressure weekly since 2014. That’s enough data points to provide a reliable test for the conventional belief that regular exercise lowers blood pressure.

An online search yields a common assertion that daily exercise can lower one’s blood pressure by 4-9 mmHg, although references are ( Read more... )

With my recent purchase of a thermal jacket and awesome thermal bib tights from Craft, I’ve become a lot more comfortable riding in colder temperatures. Matched with a balaclava and either thermal gloves or lobster mitts, I’m able to ride comfortably for hours at 20-40°.

( Read more... )

My second year riding in Pittsburgh somehow felt both pleasantly normal as well as superlative and memorable in so many ways. Overall, I rode a ton, befriended some good folks, grew more familiar with my new hometown, set some new records, met all my goals, vanquished Pittsburgh’s hardest challenge, and had a blast doing so. Here’s my year in ( Read more... )

I’ve been logging my weight every week since 2011, and the primitive data always left me with the impression that I put a little weight on in the off-season, then trimmed down to “race weight” during the summer. But I wasn’t really sure…

So I did what any OCPD data junkie would do and made a pivot table to average those six years worth of body ( Read more... )

Coming back from four and a half months of forced inactivity is decidedly *not fun*. And I know from not fun.

Back on October 2nd of last year, I rode the first of this year’s Dirty Dozen group training rides. Then my mother got sick, and I had to go to Maine to care for her. Over the following 19 weeks I only managed one trivial ride, while my ( Read more... )

I toatally forgot to mention an important development in my 2016 season summary post! The evolution of my annual rides list!

Every winter, when there’s lots of desire to ride but little-to-no riding happening, one of the things that helps me cope is planning-or is it fantasizing?-about the season ahead: where I’ll ride, how far I’ll ride, and-most ( Read more... )

I know a lot of cyclists here in New England whose idea of paradise is living in a place where one can ride year-round, where training rides and centuries aren’t stopped cold by winter’s ice and snow 1.

Sure, it would be nice to have the choice of riding anytime one wants, but there are also advantages to having a limited riding season.

The ( Read more... )