“It’s got a cop motor”
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The Knight Rides! To Get Over It (on La Reine)
I think I need not only training for the time crunched “athlete” (with huge ironic ““), but also setting up rides for the time crunched organizer as well.
Please feel cordially invited to join on a Not-too-hard but Not-too-easy trip through a green France. With some luck we can also check how the Lasergoat winterfur is coming along which will be used for the new National Kit as I heard.
There will be more elaborate invitations again (hopefully). But we will simply making it up by having lots of fun anyway. Join us for the french l’art de vivre (Sufferlandrian translation: How to survive in France) HERE.
Everyone’s welcome, Knights and Citizens. Even if you don’t speak French and already have enough Lasergoat-wool for your jersey.
Guaranteed 100% GvA approved and Couchlandrian free.
This Knight Ride is brought to you by the Sufferlandrian Ministry of Foreign Relations.
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So, how many laps are we doing? 3? 4?.. 10? 
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It depends how much wool we get from the Lasergoats on the first Lap
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I sooooo thought it was simply a short 20km mostly flat ride with the Petite KOM at the end that would last maybe 20 minutes. I did NOT expect it to be a ride up to the Chalet just 6km short of Ven-top! I was obviously not paying attention. 
Was a fun ride with good company and lots of great chatter.
I’m still recovering from a month off for the holidays and being sick, so fitness is still on the low side. I did an hour warm-up expecting the, uhm, much shorter ride. 
So I came in a bit more fatigued than I would like for this type of ride.
And was also under-fueled. Added a couple more to my drawer of gel wrappers that I haven’t emptied out since my KOS. I really need to dump that out this weekend!
I’ll need to pay better attention this week. 
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Holy cow, Sir E! That is funny in a GvA, Sufferlandrian sense. I, on the other hand, knew that La Reine was most of the way up, and used the idea of the coming grind as an excuse to skip Tuesday through Friday’s workouts and rest up for the coming challenge. I was unfortunately caught and cited by the Ministry of Suffering. They assigned me to ride to the top as penance, and seek the mystic Mists of Misery. You can see them creeping up the mountain here, although they never truly embraced me. It was a great ride today. Thanks to everyone.
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Good job making it to the top. I considered it but found my motivation to be lacking (as well as having a cramp in my left inner quad). I might have gone a little hard earlier in the ride.
With my poor showing on the original sprint (@1032 watts), I was unable to refill my empty water bottle with the tears of the vanquished. I was going to ‘coffee break’ but that option wasn’t available (@blackwater can that be toggled on?). So I jumped off, got some water and a snacky snack and decided to take a bathroom break too.
Returning to my Kickr Bike, I found myself 2 minutes behind. After watching Sir Alan @montgoma last year, I decided it was ITT time…at 4.5-5 w/kg to catch the group at the base of the climb (believe me that chase was all out). After that it was LT2 over/unders to the finish, where CoS Blackwater took that sprint.
It was interesting to find out that you can see the HUD (and metrics) of a rider by ‘watching’ them.
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Ouch. @Chris_Wright that is burning lots of matches! The catch would have wrecked me. I can ride near threshold for a long time, but doing a high speed catch and then turning uphill would break me. I know your answer to the question, “Have you suffered today?”
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Sorry, there is no option I know of. I think of it as a bug as I never could figure out if it is possible or not. Z really limits what you can configure.
Your sprint after those efforts and the usual strong riding was really something. If you would have been only a tad more fresh, no way I could have gotten it. I was totally at my limit in that one as well, just hoping for the line to come.
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The Knight Rides! The Cure (on Double Parked)
Having the winter blues? Experiencing couchlandrian tendencies? Feel like you lost your vowels?
We have The Cure for you! Let’s head to the park!
In the lush and sunny green, in the best company on a Saturday, there is laughter and no bit of winter blues. Roaring 4 Sprints and a hilly KOM-Sprint will cure you of any couchlandrian tendencies you might experience. And if you do that right, the vowels will last you for the rest of the season.
We ride banded, so we can enjoy this ride together!
Join The Knight Ride! The Cure HERE!
Everyone’s welcome, Knights and Citizens. Even if you forget your empty SUF-Bucket and just join for the ride.
Every vowel not needed will be collected and donated to the Company. It seems to be in need of new ones again.
Guaranteed 100% GvA approved and Couchlandrian free.
Every Saturday until the Spring sets in.
This episode of Knight Rides is sponsored by The Nine Hammers Tavern.
It was not a walk in the Park we head in mind when assembling to our excursion. This week it was a bit smaller group than the big numbers in the weeks before. Still we started out with 12 strong individuals in need for The Cure.
(Not all are here yet, but already a great group to ride with!)
There was no sign of any winter in the lush green park we started out. With only some warm up it was soon enough time to tackle the first of quite a number of sprints that were on the menu. If we weren’t warmed up, after that one we were.
(Quite different weather in the paincaves all around the world, get your updates every Saturday on the Knight Rides!)
It was a pleasant day out, in great company. Even if the bike advice for Steve (one of our newer regular additions) was a bit content scarce.
The mini-Hill-Kom was of course concluded with another hard sprint. Every line today was contested to the last Watt. So much fun! We soon enough found a number of good vowels to stock up again.
(Ouch my legs! Lots of PRs on this tough hilly sprint, great efforts all around.)
Luckily after severe troubles with his ISP finally Chris @Chris_Wright made it into the ride in the last minute of the late join period. Still in his slippers he had a crushing 2 minutes gap onto the rest of the group. With a splendid ITT he made it to us in no time. With Sir Alan @montgoma still recovering, it seems that Chris has at least temporary taken over the duty of doing awesome ITTs. And he definitely does so in style.
(Chris made it! At least almost. Still more than 3 minutes until his ISP recovers. Go Chris!)
(Here he is in his killer wasp jersey! Back in the pack. And already eyeing the front.)
The Minions were not too friendly though today. Tom (BBC) just recovered from a dropped chain and back in the pack had to drop out for good, as he had a flat.
(Lost Tom (BBC). But here we go still strong, deep in the ride now.)
Luckily the downhills were short, so we managed well even without Sir Rich @rrutis who had Chores to do, instead the The Cure we were seeking.
(Not a sign of winter blues, just lush green. Even we are not yet in the red.)
After some more hard sprints we started to set the time to reach the final line. In the absence of Sir Ruben @Medina81, he had other duties today as well, we still celebrated The Sip™ properly at 1:10 hours in the ride.
(Discussing vowels after sprints. Sir Alexander @wmalexmann saying what I wanted to express. Check the last spike on the power profile…)
Sir Jacob @JacobPilgaaard was using our ride today for some hard sub threshold training. A great and very much proven way to use The Knight Rides to get in those sessions you need some company to make them go faster. He was just in time finished to help out in the last big push.
With only one last sprint on the top of a hill we got ready to ramp up the pace for the finale.
(Getting heated! Note, this is not a power profile but still the walls.)
It was not a big surprise, that Chris took the hill sprint with ease. I think he might even got his shoes by then.
But the real challenge started on the line. Right out of the Sprint it was TT-Time. With some 5k to the line this was a serious effort. Even with the powerhouse Sir Paul Monk missing, we did a great job ramping it up and bringing it home in style - all the way to the line.
(It is done. So are my legs.)
We made it just on time, I think it was most close to Sir Alexander’s @wmalexmann guess. Whoever won the Lasergoatwool-jersey congratulations! Go and get the wool from the Lasergoats!
A strong shout out goes to Sir Andrew @aksibe, who even from his holiday resort found the time to join in on the fun!
Thank you all for this great ride, with quite the tough edge to it. My legs inform me quite knowingly today, that it truly was not a walk in the park.
If you like to bring a ride home with burning legs and a happy smile, you found the place! There are still a number of rides in this season left if you missed out on this one.
I hope to see you all soon and ride with you when it is yet again time for The Knight Rides!
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What is a Knight Ride without an epic episode of The Chase®?
With my cable internet being out, I stopped by the start line via cellular hotspot to wish everyone well then settled into a second breakfast of coffee and a cinnamon roll. Ha GvA, No Cure For ME Today, I thought.
Alas, GvA’s minions and the Laser Goats wanted a second chance for me (having missed a couple of weeks ago when CoS Blackwater @Blackwater got zapped from the ride). My ISP came back on line at 8:28 local time, giving me <2 minutes to connect up and try to make the ride…. Zwift connected and gave me 10 seconds to start pedaling as I still sat at my kitchen table comfy in my jammies and slippers. So that’s the game, GvA, a Le Mans style start???
A sprint to the Wahoo Kickr Bike and I’m rolling, still in jammies and slippers AND teleporting to the group. Hmm, can I do this ride dressed like this and NO bidon for the commemorative SIP™ ? Oh look, the Coffee Stop IS available today (which only gave me 30 seconds as an option). I hit that, jumped off the bike and ran into Transition 1 (for all you non-triatletes that is the swim to bike changeover).
Returning to the bike with shorts on, shoes in hand, heart rate strap in hand and a water bottle, I found that I was about 2 minutes behind (apparently Coffee Stop didn’t keep me with the group long).
Then The Chase® began. Cheering from the band of merry riders inspired me to give it 110% (of MAP). Solidly in the AC zone of the pain cave…nothing like Zero to AC without a warmup and with a second breakfast in the belly. I’ve been here before (like last week…) with a lung searing pain, copper tasting mouth and a dull ache in my chest…and the group in sight. Of course Sir Evan (@emacdoug) comment about ‘turning on the heat’ when I was 25 seconds out did not go unnoticed. Luckily it was only luke warm as I coasted up to the group.
The rest of the ride was spent recovering from The Chase®, listening to the banter between the group members as well as the prediction of finish time. Lacking Sirs Ruben and McFly, I moved towards the front to add some watts to the overall group average. Uphill sprint over the bridge…one of my fortes (no Laser Goats for me) even with loose shoes.
To celebrate finishing The Cure ride, I celebrated with a PPL FRTTR.
Not as fancy as Sir Azrine (@Azrine) swim eat (um, meet) feasts but tasty even with a side of lactic acid. Maybe I need to do The Cure again?
Thanks to all who cheered (and jeered) me on as well as CoS Blackwater for organizing!
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I was duly impressed watching your w/kg and how quickly you closed down that gap. 
Kudos to you for putting out that much sustained power all while digesting both your second breakfast and a massive pain shake!
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Well, one of my goals this year is to improve my 5 minute power output. I didn’t plan on working on it every Saturday morning though!
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