RedBud Ride

The first event, “The Redbud Ride” in London, KY is in the books. It was a 72 mile ride through London, Ky and surrounding counties in and around London. It was a windy day but it was in the mid 70 degrees with mostly sunny skies. It was a good ride.

I started around 7am and was there early. I learned from last year’s event, the Licking Valley ride where I was almost 45 minutes later than the rest of the riders causing me to ride by myself, solo. I got lost on that ride and I learned it the hard way.

This ride was very well organized with the course marked out throughout with posters and painted arrows on the ground. It was for the most part, fairly normal hills with exception of 4 climbs where 2 of them were rated with category 4 climbs with average of 5% grade throughout the climb.

Climbs aren’t my specialty as they once was last year. I have gained about 15 pounds since I was hitting those 11% grade climbs with no issues at all. This weight gain has made the climbs more difficult. The first climb, I was able to do tackle it with no issues but raising my heart rate to my max. The second climb was a challenge as the total climb was almost 2 miles long, with a starting grade of 9% to 11% and then it sloped out to about a 4% grade and then boom, turned a right and faced “The Tussey Hill” which was a whopping 19% grade hill. Tussey Hill was a short climb in theory but extremely steep. A person was taking pictures in the middle of the climb, I am assuming to see the struggle in most faces.

My thought before this ride is that I wasn’t ready. I didn’t train as I normally do with this sort of ride, or at least I thought I didn’t. The rides through the wintertime on the smart trainer with Zwift helped my power outputs and I did try and be consistent on riding. I stayed normally running zone 2 but then spread out some Tempo rides and FTP rides in the mix.

I decided about a month ago to get rid of the power meter from my bike and upgraded my crankset along with my front derailleur (the previous front derailleur was for a 10 speed and I have a 11 speed cassette which is the reason it didn’t work). I did away with the spider power meter didn’t fit the new Ultegra crankset so I sold it. I no longer am tracking my power on the bike any longer as I had become too fixated on watt numbers throughout the ride.

FTP isn’t a thing in my book as it doesn’t gauge what I ultimately look for in a ride. I look for the pure enjoyment of riding for a distance of time. I am not looking for speed or racing so I personally felt no need to track my FTP. I do track my zones for heart rate as the secondary goal is set to keep aerobic so it’s important for me to track where I am in my zones for training to get stronger with cardiovascular purposes.

Not watching the power constantly has allowed me to really enjoy my ride and pay attention to all the surrounds me when I do ride. I also appreciate what my body is doing and going through in the process. I feel more in tune to the bike and just enjoy my rides more without watching power.