The 2020 Tour de France

A great race concluded today in Paris. The 2020 Tour de France was an absolute triumph, especially against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tadej Pogačar got the better of fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič in yesterday’s individual time trial, elevating the 21-year-old to first place overall. (Pogačar will turn 22 tomorrow. How good will that birthday celebration feel?) And today on the Champs-Élysées the green jersey wearer, Sam Bennett, proved again that he was this year’s best sprinter. The Tour’s 21 stages gave us a little bit of everything, including victories by riders from whom we didn’t expect results. This was a real race with real drama, not some watered-down version conducted in isolation to the accompaniment of pre-recorded crowd noise. This was the Tour we all needed: a continuation of a great tradition at a time when almost nothing else seems normal. Chapeau!

New Look From Garmin Connect

Well, that’s neat. When I uploaded today’s ride data to Garmin Connect, I got a colorful map to show where I was faster or slower. That’s a new feature from Garmin Connect, but it’s not a new idea. Back in 2016 during a Garmin Connect outage, I discovered FitTrackView, and in this post you can see that same color-coded speed indicator. I don’t know whether Garmin bought the idea, stole the idea, or serendipitously hit on the idea, and I don’t care. It’s neat. I’ll take it.

Surpassing 4,000 Miles In 2020

Today's ride on my cyclocross bike: mostly Eisenbahn State Trail with a couple of on-road loops.

Bad weather kept me off the bike for most of the last week, but today I did a 63-mile ride to surpass 4,000 miles, year-to-date. I rode only 3 times in the last 7 days for a total of 126 miles, my lowest total since May 11-17. What can I tell you? All-day rains, high winds, and temperatures that were as much as 20° below normal had a depressing effect on my statistics and on me. The forecast for the week to come shows—at least for now—temperatures that are closer to historical averages and almost no chance of rain. I need to take advantage of that. I’m certainly not overtrained now! I will try to ride every day to make a big dent in the 967 miles I still need to reach 5,000. Today’s ride was my 4th metric century of 2020 and 91st all-time. Looks like I’m not going to reach 100 this year as I had hoped, but maybe I can get a little closer next week.

Today also was notable for a brutal Tour de France stage that removed defending champion Egan Bernal and perennial “next year” man Nairo Quintana from any further consideration as challengers for this year’s title. This has been a good Tour so far, a legitimate competition altered only cosmetically and not substantially by COVID-19, but now it’s down to a two-man race. Pick your Slovenian: current leader Primož Roglič or mountain climber supreme Tadej Pogačar. Roglič has a 40-second lead and the stronger team. It’s his race to lose.

Finally, today was the start of the elite cyclocross season. I watched the EKZ CrossTour series race from Baden, Switzerland, and it made me a little sad that there won’t be any cyclocross in Wisconsin this year. Europe will hold more than 100 elite events this season, many of which will be televised/streamed (what’s the difference?). I’ll watch as many as I can and try to stay close to the sport … in spirit, anyway. Both the men’s and women’s races were mostly Swiss affairs today, with a number of pro mountain bikers using the event as training for the upcoming and condensed UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season. I’m looking forward to that too, but I’m really looking forward to the first cyclocross event with all of the top contenders: the Telenet Superprestige series race from Gieten, Netherlands, on October 11.

Summer’s Almost Gone

Looking forward to Tuesday and Wednesday especially!

Summer is supposed to last until September 22, but the weather forecast for the upcoming week is anything but summer-like. We’re going to struggle just to get to 60° and we’ll have plenty of rain and wind from the northeast to add to the misery. I’m already wondering whether I will look back on it as the week my quest for 5,000 miles suffered a blow from which it could not recover. I need 1,093 more miles to reach 5,000 this season. It’s not guaranteed.

Today was nice: a little bit above the 75° historical average for this date. But I feel the changing of the seasons acutely. The easy life of warm days and late sunsets is fast becoming a struggle to get motivated and to find a good window of time in which to ride. I want to be done. I want to have ridden 5,000 miles this year. There are other things I want to do this fall, especially at home. I live a very Spartan lifestyle, but I do have some nesting instincts. I have a To Do list of home and garden projects that will be a great source of satisfaction once I get off the bike.

I admitted to myself today that I am not going to take my bikes anywhere by car for the rest of the year, so I removed my trailer hitch rack and placed it in storage for the winter. The rack worked beautifully when my son and I took our bikes to Pennsylvania at the end of June, but I haven’t used it since. I left it in place for as long as I could hope there would be a cyclocross season or some gravel event. Those hopes are all gone now. Hell, I even laundered my balaclavas and long-finger gloves this weekend; I kid you not.

August 2020: A Mileage PR

This month I rode 835 miles to set a new personal record for August, beating the 827 miles I rode in August 2018. June 2020 was a record month too, and hopefully September 2020 will be. These are nice little goals in a season without racing.

My record for September is 800 miles, set in 2009. It’s the oldest of my monthly records, so it’s a good target for an upgrade. In subsequent Septembers I haven’t come close to 800 miles:

Throw out 2013. I spent most of that September recovering from a badly fractured collarbone. My average in the remaining nine Septembers was 590 miles. I never got within 100 miles of a new record. But I think I can this season, because there’s nothing to distract me. In 2011 I started racing cyclocross, and that led to a lot of low-mileage weekends. Two fairly ordinary weekends are the difference between a 590-mile September and an 800-mile September, so I like my chances.

A Million Feet Of Climbing

Early in the 2013 season I switched from a traditional cycling computer to a Garmin GPS device. In the 7½ years since, I have logged some pretty big numbers. Garmin has given me a way to track a huge variety of statistics that were unavailable on my old cycling computer. But actually I don’t even scratch the surface. On most rides I’m interested only in time, speed, and distance.

I am sort of interested in elevation gain, though Garmin has given me reason to suspect inaccuracies in those calculations. But there’s a threshold above which the raw numbers are so big that a couple of percentage points of miscalculation become meaningless. So, today I celebrate the completion of 1,000,000 feet of climbing since deploying my first Garmin device. That’s more than 189 miles, more than 34 times the elevation change between sea level and the summit of Mt. Everest.

Not bad for a cyclist whose rides are almost exclusively confined to the relatively flat Midwest, right? Well, this is just another Fun With Statistics moment; there’s no polka dot jersey for me. I spread those 1,000,000 feet of climbing over a total distance of 39,448 miles—208,285,440 feet—making my average gradient a very manageable one half of one percent!

It sure felt steeper.

Meeting My 2020 Mileage Goal

On today’s ride—the loop displayed above, completed counter-clockwise—I surpassed my primary mileage goal for 2020. And based on my recent history, there was little doubt that I would surpass 3,530 miles. Nevertheless, that was the goal because that was the number I needed to hit for 75,000 lifetime miles, and I like my round numbers. Next year’s goal will be whatever I still need for 80,000 as I continue to work on the longer-term goal of 100,000 by the time I turn 60 in June 2025.

Reaching this year’s goal with so many good weeks of riding still to come, I’m pushing on for 5,000 miles and I think I’ll get there before the end of October. But another target of opportunity has appeared: a personal record for the month of August. I’m now 215 miles away with 9 days to go and, at least for now, a very favorable weather forecast. It’s almost a moral imperative to chase that record. With no races or special events this year, my only competition is my past performance.

Never Will I Ever, Vol. 1

Cycling is not the same thing for everyone. I know mountain bikers with zero interest in any other kind of riding. I know roadies whose tires will never touch dirt, grass, or gravel. I know commuters who can’t understand what all the sweating, heavy breathing, power meters, and Strava segments are supposed to prove. For this blog I try to be open to almost everything that can be called cycling, even if I don’t find it especially appealing. In my life as a cyclist I am fortunate that I can enjoy more than just one discipline. I’ve done traditional road races, time trials, cross country mountain bike races, gravel races … even BMX if I can count my childhood in the 1970s. And outside of competition I do really enjoy simply riding around, on country roads and rec trails most particularly.

But I have my likes and dislikes, my preferences and prejudices. Some things in the cycling universe are so distasteful to me that Never Will I Ever associate myself with them. Submitted for your consideration are these five pieces of the ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle we call cycling, and I’m labeling them Vol. 1 because I fully expect to find more things to hate in the not-too-distant future.

e-Bikes

If I were riding for transportation, then an e-bike might be a good choice. But I ride for fitness and competition. I want to get stronger and faster. If I can’t do it under my own power, then I can’t do it.

Recumbents

They’re just too dorky. Sorry. As with e-bikes, if I ever get to the point where I can’t ride a proper bicycle, then I’m done being a cyclist.

Specialized

Like any brand, Specialized has supporters and detractors who argue the merits of its product line. I don’t have a problem with Specialized’s technical specifications—its stuff is almost indistinguishable from that of Trek, Cannondale, Giant, etc.—but I do have a problem with Specialized’s business practices, and for that reason I refuse to patronize the company. Get out your Google if you don’t understand my objections; I’m probably leaving myself open to a lawsuit if I enumerate them here. Goodness knows, Specialized has lawyers.

Rapha

Fine products, no doubt, but worth the high price tag? I can’t be convinced. Short-sleeve jerseys at $195, bib shorts at $270, sunglasses at $180, shoes at $355, socks at $30 a pair … you must be out of your mind. I’m going to keep outfitting myself with Aero Tech Designs, Louis Garneau, and one or two other high-quality, high-value brands. That may hurt my chances of being invited to tea at Buckingham Palace, but at least I won’t lose $1,000 of kit in my next crash.

Earbuds

Preventing crashes should be a high priority for any cyclist, so why do so many shut out the sounds that could warn them of danger? Earbuds have no place in cycling. If you’re that bored, then maybe you should find something else to do. And I don’t care where you’re riding. Even on a rec trail, earbuds are a bad idea. You may not have motor vehicles to worry about, but can you hear another rider coming up from behind? Can you hear that rustling in the weeds that could be an animal ready to dart across your path?

There! That’s better. Good to get it off my chest.

Double Take

Once in a while a pro cyclist hits a hot streak and it seems like he or she can do no wrong. Consider the defending UCI world champion, Annemiek van Vleuten, who so far this season has won everything worth winning in women’s road racing: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Emakumeen Nafarroako Klasikoa, Clasica Femenina Navarra, Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, and last weekend’s Strade Bianche. You’d be crazy to bet against her right now, in a one-day race, in a stage race, or in a time trial.

Then there’s Wout van Aert, who yesterday completed an amazing Strade Bianche / Milano-Sanremo double, winning very different races by employing very different tactics. It’s to Van Aert that I owe today’s headline. Sure, “Double Take” could simply refer to his pair of victories, but I literally did a double take when I noted in Sunday’s race summary that he’s still only 25 years old! It doesn’t seem possible. Cyclocross fan that I am, I’ve been watching Van Aert for years. He was world champion in 2016, 2017, and 2018 … not as a U23 racer, but at the elite level! You wonder how far he can go. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that he will get at least one good shot at becoming the world champion on the road someday.

It’s great to have racing again, and there’s more in the week to come. The Critérium du Dauphiné, probably the most important tuneup for the Tour de France, starts on Wednesday. All five stages will be broadcast live on NBC Sports Gold, so I know what I’ll be having with my breakfast. Il Lombardia will run on Saturday, and that’s a great one-day race but I doubt I’ll be able to find a stream I can watch here in the States.

Speaking of streaming coverage … USA Cycling’s decision on August 6 to move cyclocross nationals from suburban Chicago to Iowa City means I won’t be attending the championships in person, so I hope USA Cycling streams the event as it has in recent years. But really I don’t expect the championships to occur at all. COVID-19 is still an ugly reality, and the fact that Iowa has fewer public health restrictions than Illinois doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to hold the races. It would be mighty strange to have national championships for a sport that didn’t have a regular season, and one wonders about the legitimacy of the competition when so many of the best racers will skip the event due to the risk of infection. Keep your fingers crossed for a widely-available vaccine before December.

3 Down, 2 To Go?

Here I am at the conclusion of another 200-mile week. Today I reached 3,000 miles, year-to-date, and I really want to reach 5,000 miles before I call an end to my 2020 season. At this rate I should have everything wrapped up on Sunday, October 11. Then I can get into some cross-training activities, stop obsessing over the weather forecast, and relax a little. So, all I need is 10 more 200-mile weeks … consecutively. No problem, right?