SBR "U" (Page 73)

My dad took this picture June 7th.

(SnowInJune-s.jpg)

You just described the vacation we've been saying we want to do for the last few years!

While we were at our B&B in Sonoma we talked to a couple that had used VBT for tours in France and said it was awesome.  I'm not sure they fit the spirited pace part though, I haven't really looked at what they offer yet.

So why use a guide-type service? Is it just a little too daunting thinking of the logistics or is there some other advantage?

You could do it relatively inexpensively if self-guided. And then you have a ton of flexibility and adventure. But perhaps there is a piece of this I don't know about. 

Yeah, just the logistics of it and not having to worry about any of it.  Show up and ride, someone else moves my stuff from place to place.  I'm not at all against self guided, that's essentially what we did last week in Sonoma and actually now that we've done that I'm much more open to it.  I'd be more inclined to do something like that in France where I speak the language.  

I have thought about self-guided, but this would be a solo adventure, and I'm not sure I'd feel entirely comfortable riding around an area with a culture I don't know and a language I don't speak.  

Nicole - what a great opportunity to be able to put together such a trip! I have never done an organized tour like you are describing, but I have lots of friends that have done various types. The version that sounds the most appealing to me is one that some avid travel-cycling friends of ours have done a couple of times in different locations in Europe. They are basically week-long cruises on luxury river barges that have 4~8 staterooms, so typically 8~16 passengers - basically a floating B&B. As you probably know most of "Old Europe" has an extensive network of waterways that was developed before the advent of the steam locomotive, and most of which is still navigable. I may not have it quite right but I think my friends did on trip that went from Paris to Amsterdam and traveled through Belgium with stops in Bruges, Antwerp, and Gent. With lots of other stops along the way. The Barge has a schedule of stops and utilizing their bikes they would get off and ride as much or as little as they wanted each day catching back up with the barge along the way. They could eat aboard, or while they were out and about. It sounded to me like a very, very cool way to spend a sort of semi-structured week traveling. All of your stuff basically floats along and meets up with you wherever you decide along the route. I think they also did it one time for a week in Italy traveling through the Po valley on the way to Venice, but I am guessing there are various options of such a thing all over the UK and around Europe.

Maybe it is something with the group, but count me in as well. I started the early part of the year out well with a couple of very good running performances, but since then I have had a race canceled because of weather, missed one due to illness, one because of a death in the family, crashed out of my most recent one, and now swapped to a relay in my upcoming race, due to those injuries and not really sure when I will be able to run again. And my elbow thing seems to be wanting to flare back up again as well. I am signed up for 4 more triathlons this season, including AG OLY Nationals and Draft-Legal Sprint Nationals. Both of those would require A LOT of swimming work, and I have not ben able to put in the pool time I need due to the elbow, and now due to the crash. So really on the fence about should I try to salvage the season or should I pivot my attention. My cycling is actually coming along well and I am enjoying it quite a bit, so I am contemplating just focusing on that and trying to have a solid fall cycling season.

That is the way it goes of course, and sometimes more often than not. The tough part is that last year I had one of those EXTREMELY rare seasons that was just the opposite where everything hit just right. I hit every workout for months on end without complication or disruption, and executed every race just about as well as I could expect, winding up on the top of the podium (except at nationals of course) but even there I had a break-out performance for me, and ended the year making the all-american roster. This season just does not seem like it is ever going to get going for me, but that is just part of the long, long game we are playing I suppose.

Welp, there are no peaks without valleys, right? I'd take that topography any day over a  plateau

That sounds awesome!!!!! 

I am overwhelmed by my desire for adventure and there seems to not be enough time in the world to accomplish my to do list. Now I've got another thing to add to my list. Thanks Rusty.

Amen, Sister. That is the gospel truth!

Here is a screen grab from my Garmin toward the end of my recovery ride earlier today. I saw very little snow.

Yeah, yeah....rub it in :P

You guys are killing me.  A European riverboat tour is also very high on our list.  Combine that with bikes??  Mind.Blown.  

Any idea what company they went with Rusty?

Good grief.  It was 101 the day we arrived in Sonoma and I barely made it from the car to our room.

No, but I will call 'em up and find out. From the time they were telling us about it over dinner we were hooked. They had road bikes with them (and evidently all of the riverboats have bikes on board for the passengers to use) but as they were describing it I actually wondered if cross/gravel bikes would be better. The boat will evidently stop wherever you want and let you off/pick you up. If you are not in town there is always a tow path on both sides of the river/canal. Both times they also rented a car for a day in town and drove around - they basically just used the barge as a floating B&B but they never had to pack up and vacate each day. Sounded brilliant to me as well.

You all aren't paying attention.  It's Rusty's backdoor brag that his FTP is 400 and 2:20 recovery rides are normally done at 55% (220 watts), but because it was 103 degrees, he had to do it at 48% of FTP.

Boom. Caught. Out.

Ha-Ha - yeah, it was a little longer than it was supposed to be (i'll be in trouble for that tomorrow), but VERY easy. Tested LTHR is 180 on the bike - that over-all effort is right at the tippy-top of my recovery effort. The heat did have my HR spike a bit in the last 30 minutes, so HR is a bit overstated from effort. I really shoulda had more than two bottles with me, but didn't really plan to ride that long. It was just such a nice day and work was not bothering.

Jason does touch on an interesting thing that often goes over looked though: I don't  think "% of power = effort" scales in a simple linear fashion between us little under-powered folks and FTP monsters like Ben, et. al. At some point you just gotta get over the hills, and there is just a floor to do so. Unless of course you want to get off and push.

*edited: said % of HR when I meant to say % of power.

2 questions:

1) How bad was the humidity? 

2) If 103 is a "nice day", what is a hot day? I rode through the woods tonight in 90*/90% and was whipped by the end of the hour.

Curious what has you thinking it's different for various FTPs? Our Threshold HR is very similar and the average HR is saying much the same thing. I do agree that there is a point on the hills that one may need to decide on having to get off the bike or ride harder, but such a decision may change the nature of the ride depending on how much harder and how much longer one is pushing longer. 

I don't know that it's necessarily a big sticking point here as I'm not looking at a larger part of the plan. Just the conflation of "recovery" and "easy" efforts has become a bit of a peeve. I think the group here generally gets the difference, but many others do not. Often fully equating the terms. Had a similar discussion with my brother recently where he called his ride mostly recovery with an ave HR of 144 and peak of 174 (also similar THR HR). Per something like the TP power and HR zones, recovery is <55% FTP and <68% HR, or <122 bpm. I think like 2/3 of his ride was actually above 135. It wasn't a big ride, maybe an hour, so not a lot of stress built up and entirely possible to recovery from quite easily. Just didn't fit into what I would call a recovery ride as there was enough effort in there to add to the aerobic stress load. I do get into Z2 in the recovery rides (for a minute or two at times), and they seem to have a better effect when I do, but the overall averages were still safely in Z1. Like ave HR of 117 or IF of 0.48.

This is why I run a 12-32 cassette in training (52/36 up front).  A lot of people crack jokes at me but I can easily spin up 6-7% grades at 170-180 watts at a comfortable cadence.  If grades get closer to 10%, I can still keep my power down, but the cadence drops below 70 and it just feels better to put out a little more power.

During hard training rides I'll almost never use the 32 unless things get really steep...but it's just nice to have it there so I can stay in my desired zones and not feel like walking my bike.  

That's another reason I've left the 11-28 on all the time (besides simply not wanting to change it out every other week!). I don't *need* the -28 to get up any hill around here (or bump, for Rusty), but it is nicer to spin a little more on rides where the goal is to keep it down lower, even though this hasn't been a recovery ride for me. Riding 60-70% for a few hours has been. The length of the hills is really short here, but another way to look at it is taking away surges out numerous "corners" as they're not much longer than that. 

And Finally got something in. Just a recreational ride, but it was an organized event and I paid for it. Been watching more of the stats from the power data now. 4,719 kJ on this one. TSS of 340. And it actually doesn't feel too bad. Has me wondering about some others I've done in the past.

ETA: It's the KJ that has been getting my attention more recently. Why do we eat so much? 1kJ=1kcal=1Cal. Takes a fair amount of food to get to that.

Ha! Did our conversation inspire you???

That's great. So glad to hear you are jumping back in some events.