For March, I rode the first four days on the indoor trainer, then began outdoor riding. In total I rode or worked out on the trainer twenty five of the thirty one days. I managed to log fifty eight hours of cycling adding up to fourteen hundred and fifty kilometers of riding. That includes those first four days on the trainer. Outdoors I managed to begin climbing and feel the benefits of having trained indoors. I’m certain, if I’d been more rigorous in that indoor training, such as adopting an actual plan, I’d see an even greater improvement.
The month started out cool to cold, getting me wearing nearly every warm piece of kit I have pieced together over the years. As the month ended we got a couple of days of 80°F weather to push all the cold weather kit to the back of the closet. By the last day of March I was in my lightest kit and ordering more from Voler.
The bar tape I chose and installed a year ago, was preserved during the lockdown and indoor training thanks to a sweat guard and an extra towel always trapped across the bars. One month of outdoor riding has worn through the grip. The Arundel was not the great value at $20 per wrap.
I’ll be trying something else next. I have been pointed to GUEE Sio Dura Silicon bar tape. But, I have two rolls of some other tape to use up first.
The Garmin Vector 2 power meters adapted to my Shimano Ultegra pedals work well, but seem to be using the CR2032 batteries at a high rate. Granted the batteries I have are a batch leftover from some LED votive candles, so might not be the best quality or age. And Since Garmin have brought out a new pedal-based power meter I expect support for the Vector 2 to eventually stop. I’ll switch to a Stages at that point. But, swapping to a double from a triple is big money and I’m unwilling to do that with this bike. The whole bike is long in the tooth, having nearly 40,000 km now, I expect springs and bearings in the front and rear derailleurs to fail at some point or the shifters. The whole bike is from twelve years ago and technology has moved ahead a good deal.
My Wahoo Elemnt Bolt is working very well. The battery life is good for three or four rides, depending on how long I ride. I’m very happy with the performance of this unit and the ease of use. I’ve customized the Workout and climbing pages to my liking. Though I rarely change from the workout. It would be nice if Strava transferred the left/right data as well as the six minute power for use in calculating VO2Max.
I can see from the metrics my fitness is ahead of where I was even two years ago. I’m very happy with that. I plan on integrating an FTP test into my monthly workouts and rides. FTP was much easier with Kinomap since that application performs a calculation each session. Without that I’ll have to use the Wahoo FTP test in the Elemnt structured workouts.
Along The Way 