Bouncing Back From Last Week’s Performance

Today's ride with "El Contador" was executed counter-clockwise.

This week was a return to form: 214 miles and 13 hours in the saddle. Throw in a 2-hour Ice Age Trail hike on Monday, the “rest” day, and I was very active! I rode on each of the last 6 days but my streak may come to an end tomorrow due to rain. That’s fine; I have several household chores to complete before my new work week begins on Monday night. I need 227 more miles to reach my goal of 5,000 this season, but I don’t expect much from the week to come. The weather forecast isn’t lining up for me. I’ll probably spend more time on lawn & garden tasks and on cross-training than I spend on the bike.

I watched a lot of racing this weekend, starting with the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships on Saturday. That was cross-country; downhill was today but I didn’t watch too much of it. Downhill doesn’t appeal to me very much, and the slow, muddy conditions today made the race even less exciting. This morning began with the Paris-Tours road race and ended with Superprestige cyclocross. If you were lucky you also could find coverage of Gent-Wevelgem and the 9th stage of the Giro d’Italia, but I couldn’t watch everything, so I took a pass on those. I think I can look forward to Scheldeprijs and the Ronde van Vlaanderen in the week to come, but unfortunately COVID-19 cases are rising again in Europe. Paris-Roubaix already has been cancelled for October 25.

By the way, there were no North Americans today in either the men’s or women’s elite Superprestige races at Gieten, Netherlands. I don’t know whether we should expect that to change as the season progresses. Americans and Canadians have always been on the back foot in European cyclocross. This year could leave us ever farther behind.