The Frenemy

I've long claimed that I don't train. I ride my bike to hang out with friends at good cafés, after taking in all the magnificent scenery on the way. I don't use a heart rate monitor. I don't do intervals. I don't race. I just ride my bike.

But the reality is that all that riding can have the side benefit of increased fitness. And sometimes I do seek out hills and make an effort to get up them in short order. But still this is not training, not in any structured way, not in any way that a coach would call training.

Not a Recovery Ride! Hair of the Dog

Fear Rothar teases me about my choice of routes for the day after various Big Event™ rides. He likes to call them Recovery Rides - with a big dose of sarcasm. I prefer to think of them more as Hair of the Dog that Bit Ya. In reality, I am just taking advantage of the great terrain in whatever place we happen to be. Since most of our Big Event™ rides take in lots of climbing and dirt roads, most of our day-after-the-day-before rides tend to do the same. Recovery rides do not happen on weekends!

When Roxbury Gap Is the Bailout...

This is what every week has been like for me this summer...
Monday - unpack, do laundry, recover from weekend. Figure out what Big Event is next.
Tuesday - 100ish km social ride from Ride Studio Cafe
Wednesday and Thursday - Various appointments with doctors and physical therapist
Friday - Pack and load up for weekend. Drive to Big Event
Saturday - Big Event
Sunday - so-called recovery ride, then drive home
Wash, Rinse, Repeat...

I'm not looking for sympathy. Really. It's a pretty sweet life. It's just my excuse for why I am months behind on any ride reports! We are so busy creating content that we just have no time to post it. I'm hoping to open the floodgates with a few posts soon, but will not make any more promises.

One ride report at a time.

We'd heard about the Irreverent Road Ride last year, and it made it's way onto our short list for this year. The words irreverent and road were combined to convey the fact that the word road might be a generous description for some of the route. A large part of the route was on lovely scenic quiet dirt roads, quite rideable on a road bike with reasonable tires. But there were some sections connecting these roads that would be a proper challenge, both physically and technically difficult. This sounded very appealing to us.