Back on the bike today…went with my green Raleigh Willard gravel bike. My fitness is horrible. 230 lbs last night…where the hell did that come from?? 
Miraculously made it up Mont Galilee Rd…lol…
Bike needs to go to the shop though. Back wheel is way out of true after that Pitt-DC ride…she needs some professional TLC, brakes adjusted, and general tune up…
I’ve often thought about getting one of these. In an effort to social distance…
I have this theory that something, or someone, messed with gravity…
Got out to do some gravel riding with the boys. I was a bit surprised they actually out grinded me on some of the steeper uphills. Well…not all that surprised given the excess dead weight I’m dragging around… 
My little corner of New Jersey and NY is a beautiful and very popular place to ride. For reasons I can’t explain even to myself, I stopped riding. I run a bunch. But the bike stays up here in my computer/workout room/daughter’s chem lab.
So my rides look like this:
Way safer to be honest. I hate being on roads. I do it sometimes…but man I hate it…
This is why I stick to trails as much as possible in my AO. It’s a college town plus a military town, which equals lots of irresponsible younger folks on the roads. Add in all the usual distracted drivers and it gets dangerous real quick.
I really enjoy it in a group, but having lost a riding friend to a drunk driver, not to mention all of the distracted drivers on roads today, I don’t road ride solo often. Maybe that explains gravel bike’s popularity.
Do you have some sort of smart trainer?
Nope. Just my Fuji Roubaix on a standard flywheel trainer and Wahoo speed and cadence sensor which communicate with the app. (The cadence battery had died in the screenshot.) The app then figures a power meter figure which I believe is pretty close most of the time.
Heard a cool story today from one of my old roadie buddies back in the ATL yesterday. We have a mutual friend who we’ve ridden 20 years with, who in his 50s could hang with the front group in any group ride. He road his bike 250 miles a week, and became somewhat of The Godfather of Atlanta road cycling during the last few decades. He also planned and led a number of trips to France to follow the Tour during the Lance years. I had the pleasure of going on a couple of those.
In recent years, even though he has kept up his riding days, in his mid 60s the wheels did indeed begin coming off. With 3 young kids at home, I had to drop out of the group rides, but since the Weds and Sat rides went by our street, I’d always look to see if he could still hang with the front group. We lived at the top of a steep hill, which is 45 mins into both rides, and basically where the sword fighting began. The group would often split on this this hill, especially if the the young guns in the group were feeling frisky. Sadly, for about the last five years, on a hill that Don ruled for decades, he no longer made the cut. He was relegated to the back group and some days the Lantern Rouge. It hurt to watch.
If I saw him on the way home from work, I’d put the window down and yell, “Venga venga venga!”, which would produce a smile, but his legs would not turn any quicker.
Yesterday, I was shocked to hear that Don, now in his early 70s, has battled his way back into the peloton. “No way!”, says I, but my friend Mark says yes, and that at he can’t hang with him either. Incredulous, I said that I’d really love to know his secret. Mark says that he knows the secret and is sending it to me.
71 Year Old Man Crushes Group Ride
Edit: and yes, even though I heard the story yesterday, the group rides are on hold until COVID-19 is vanquished.
Good for him! You can’t bring the money with you. That’s the beauty of cycling. I was once riding far behind a rider with a really classic physique. The closer I got the more lean and chiseled he looked. Eventually I passed and looked over as I saluted and noticed he was easily in his late 70’s. I knew then that this was a sport for life.
Hmmm. I’m wondering now if you ever rode with my godparents, though from what I understand there’s a HUGE cycling community in Atlanta. Did you know the Birdsongs?
I didn’t Navynuke99, but will ask the next time I talk to Don. Yeah, there are multiple rides every day of the week. There is a Thursday night ride in Buckhead that regularly had 150 people. Atlanta is hilly as a biotch too. You’re either going up a hill or down a hill most of the time, unless you are on the Silver Comet Trail.
So I just finished watching the 21 stages of the 2019 Vuelta. I actually started watching it on NBC-SN Cycling Pass a few months ago and it has become my morning ritual of watching an hour or so each day while making breakfast. Good value for an event - 21 stages - four or five hours per stage divided by an hour or so a day provides for a long, long period of entertainment!
Please don’t post any spoilers for any other events that occurred over the winter or spring, as I’ll be watching those too! If you want to discuss results, please put them under a spoiler tag.
Discussion of 2019 Vuelta below:
— Begin Vuelta 2019 spoilers —
The Vuelta was fantastic. The NBC feed borrows from a Eurosport channel or something - I think they are an Australian commentator (or Kiwi?) and not sure of where the other commentator is from. They have a great banter and lots of insight though.
The countryside was, as usual, gorgeous. No, it’s not the Tour, but the Spanish podium girls are hot as all get out (un PC comment I know…but man I love a girl in green!). Quite the interesting event as some of the big contenders crashed out in the first few stages. Jumbo Visma’s Primoz Roglic did a great ride. I was actually rooting for the old man Valverde (sorry if I’m misspelling some of these…I don’t Google them since I don’t want to see news or results) and a 2nd place finish at age 39 is awesome. Quintana, as usual, just seemed to not have it in this event. I wouldn’t be surprised if that torch gets passed to Soler in the future…that dude is strong.
One of the stages was super steep…I think stage 15 or 16…what a brutal climb. Anyway. Fantastic race. Fantastic commentary. Nice touches of drama and a nice win for Roglic.
— END VUELTA 2019 spoilers —
Now that I have the 2019 Vuelta out of the viewing queue, I’m scrolling through the Cycling Gold Pass app (the app is pretty good by the way - I think it is $39 a year for the Cycling Pass and it has the full length broadcasts with no commercials, and for some events like the Tour de France it has both the full length broadcasts and the truncated prime time broadcasts) and it looks like a bunch of track cycling broadcasts and cyclo-cross events (not too much interested in those I don’t think - even though I think some great contenders like Peter Sagan came up through those offroad specialties).
Looks like the next event was the January Tour Down Under six stage race followed by Paris-Nice Stages 1-7. Don’t say anything if you know what happened in Paris-Nice because that looks like it concluded on March 14…probably as this pandemic was starting to really bloom. I’ll start the Tour Down Under tomorrow.
If I had to guess, I’m assuming the Giro d’Italia will either be cancelled or significantly delayed this year. I can’t imagine anyone having the resources or will to want to put on that event this spring (I have not Googled it - if anyone wants to let me know the dates or if it has been delayed, feel free to post it). Same with the Tour de France - my yearly binge watching event. I’ll be sad to miss that not only for the Tour (if it does indeed get cancelled) but also the lack of The Move podcasts that come along with it. Love him or hate him, I enjoy listening to Lance and his guests talk freely about the drama of the peloton.
Tour de France rescheduled for 29th August to 20th September.
The week before will be the National Championships. Following Le Tour will be the World Championships.
Not confirmed yet but Giro and Vuelta will be in October along with Tour de Flandres and Paris - Roubaix
Not necessary a spoiler, but if memory serves, they concluded the race one day early due to the pandemic. Otherwise, it was racing as usual.
It was postponed officially and we were supposed to get more news on 3 April. But that date has passed and nothing new.
http://www.giroditalia.it/eng/news-list/
As of yesterday, Le Tour is supposed to begin 29 August.
Thanks for the info @Camembert - that saves me from Googling and finding out results from other events. Delayed viewing of sporting events is always a gamble…LOL…
What time of the year is Paris - Roubaix normally? I didn’t see that on my Gold Pass lineup… The cobbles are awesome…
Cool…I’ll commence to watching. Did the racers know that Day 6 was going to be the final day…? That would significantly alter tactics…
I remember that they were aware going into day 6. But that’s my middle-aged memory and you not knowing is probably better 
Paris - Roubaix was due to be on the 12th April I think.
With regards Paris - Nice and hopefully no spoilers, it was run under the constant threat of cancellation, lots of people said it should never have even taken place at all but it did, the last day was eventually cancelled. The last stage became a hill top finish instead of the usual sprint in Nice.
