The snow has continued recently. But the end is in sight. I’m definitely going to get a spare set of wheels over the summer. The idea would be to play around with 27.5+ on dry trails and to have an option for an almost fat bike for the winter. The weather has been warming lately so hopefully the trails will soon be dry again.
I’ve been continuing with my training on Zwift. I have been working on the 12 week FTP builder and things have been going well for me. I have been getting stronger and I have raised the FTP bias up 10% on the recent workouts. My plan is to complete another FTP test either this week or next week to reset my level. I’m almost halfway through the program so it seems like a good idea. Hopefully my FTP shows some improvement.
Never break the chain
I broke another Shimano chain this week. It was the chain on my turbo bike, which was a Sora chain. It’s a low end groupset so I’m not totally surprised. But I’ve only ever broken Shimano chains. When I was using KMC chains they would give me shifting issues before snapping. And it seemed to take longer for issues to develop with my KMC chains. Even riding in wet conditions. My turbo bike now has a 9 speed KMC chain so I’ll see how long it lasts. I’ll try and keep better track of the mileage for this chain.
Hurry up and weight
When I started writing this blog I had said about how I wanted to lose weight. I was overweight and I was drinking more beer than I should have. I decided to stop drinking last summer and ride more. My aim was, and still is, to get down to around 170 lbs and I started from around 206 lbs. Although there were times when I was getting above 210 lbs. Approaching this with my usual ill thought out plan meant I hadn’t taken note of my weight when I started. I decided to call my starting weight 205 lbs. That was probably lower than the true starting weight but would have been close. I’ve lost 25 lbs so far.
I have continued to not drink alcohol which has been a positive thing. Along with the weight loss I am better focused on exercise as something to do when I am bored and away for work. I have started to wonder more about my fat loss. Whether I am developing more muscle and that is part of the weight I have now. I’m assuming that I am, but I don’t have any metric for it other than feel. I’m going to have to take more waist measurements and maybe get some fat calipers. My clothes are definitely feeling a bit larger.
The weight I have lost is not far off the weight of my Cotic so I’m looking forward to getting back out onto the trails soon to see if I’m faster up the hills.
Frontwards
My weight loss has been moving along without a massive change to my diet. In fact my diet may have got slightly worse after stopping drinking. I’d read that when you stop drinking you can develop increased sugar cravings. I have been experiencing this. For a long time before mini-CoHTR was born my wife and I had quit sugar. I think this stood me in good stead. I’d slipped back into eating some occasional cookies before I stopped drinking but my sugar consumption was very low. When I stopped drinking the sugar cravings grew, but my sugar consumption after quitting drinking is probably lower than it was 10 years ago.
In the next few months I want to get rid of the sugar from my diet and start a better eating plan. I’m trying not to become obsessed with weight loss and rather focus on being able to ride my bike further. I don’t want to lose power and weight. I do have to focus on the amount of protein I am getting. It’s very easy for me to eat a relatively low quantity of protein each day. I eat fish occasionally but I don’t eat any other meat.