Saturday, October 22, 2011

Bike ride and saddle talk

I just finished my 3h trainer bike ride and honestly, just the thought of doing it again tomorrow makes me want to cry.

The reason is: I doubt I will be able to sit on that saddle tomorrow again.

It was not too too bad but there is a huge difference between riding for 3 hours outside and riding inside.
I had no problem riding on a trainer 3h last weekend, almost the whole time in aero. Today, I lasted hardly 90min and I changed shorts mid-ride hoping it would help. No.

I think that one of the reasons is that I was fiddling with the saddle height and position on Tuesday and it does not fit me as well as it did before.
Although, I am sure that that's not main reason. It is Fizi:k Arione Tri2 and it is made for men, not for women. If only I were more experienced with this I would have asked for a different saddle when I was buying the bike.
Now I have to spend a lot of extra money on a new saddle and I will be stuck with two of them. Although I will try to sell the old one on Amazon or somewhere but I doubt it will go.
But it needs to be done. Why suffer, right? And it will not get better, only worse.

My birthday is coming up and I have $50 gift certificate to a bike shop so I will buy myself a new one as a present. Not sure which one though. I will try to ask my friend whether he can take me to a bike shop today (I am babysitting his kids overnight so he is picking me up to get me to his house) and I will ask them whether they can lend me a saddle for a week. Because how am I supposed to know what fits me?

Other than that ride was ok although I went through a little crisis at 1h40-2h. I have decided to try it with a movie and/or music. I started browsing movies but dee inside I knew it will only annoy me. So I dacided for music and that lasted only 40min, then it started to annoy me. Sometimes I can ride with music but most of the time I prefer riding in quiet concentrating and staring at my powermeter/HRM. I do not know what I am thinking about while doing it though.
And I think that I need to tightned right pedal or crank arm or something because it start to make clicking noises when I push down. Very annoying.

3h (technically 2h50min, because I spend last 10min doing 1 leg drills)
Avg power: 171
Avg HR: 167
For 2h50min.

You see, according to different calculations and estimates and HR theories, I was supposed to be able to do hold 170-180 watts with 145-155HR. But there is no way I can do it. I know that there are people who will blow out if they go over 150. But I can hold 165 whole day. Seriously.
I can hold 175 whole day while running.

But if I continue doing these rides, I should see that my avg HR goes down while holding the same power. At least that's the theory.

1 comment:

  1. You need to do that by first lowering power and riding by HR... developing yourself aerobically first... trust me on that one. :) Ride by HR @155ish and see what power is.. then watch avg power go up at that same HR.

    And I have that same fizik saddle on my new P3... wasn't sure if I would like it but used chamois cream and did Kona on it and never thought twice about it. Make sure it's level or pointing down just slightly- during my retul fit Andrew moved it to point down 4 degrees and that was perfect.

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