Matt's Bike Thoughts

Weekly progress reports seem a bit noisy, so I'm going to keep them private. Monthly writeups still seem useful, though, as a summary. All told, I'm pretty happy with my bodyweight for the month. I thought I didn't make any progress, but the moving averages are looking better than I thought. I started the month with a 7 day average of 200.31lb and a month average of 201.84lb, and I've ended with 199.93 and 198.47lbs. So I'm down a little over 3lbs on the month trendline, even though I'm weighing in the same mid 190s that I did at the beginning of the month. So, let's check a projection. In my  original fitness plan post , I said that success on my goal would be 192-194 on December 1st. I did not succeed on my goal - I weighed in at 196.8lb, and the lowest weight I recorded was 194.8 on the 2nd and 3rd. Extrapolating on my original plan, I should have been at 185-187lb at this point, which I'm very clearly not. What happened? Well, looking at the...

Who expected good adherence on diet through December? Lol. I weighed in at 202.6 on Monday 23rd. Personal issues came up this weekend so I binged more than I should. Stress eating is bad and I should find better avenues for stress relief, like, uh, riding my bike? I did a shitload of riding that week. 159.7 miles total, finished the week with an 87 fitness and an 805 'relative effort' score. So if I'm not losing weight, at least I'm recovering from exercise? I don't know.

Y'all, I can't stop thinking about gears, cogs, chainrings, and shifters. I'm building up a Salsa Cutthroat for a Tour Divide attempt in 2021. I've got the bike and it's got the stock SRAM Apex components, which I'm not a fan of. Swapping the FD to a Shimano XT made a huge immediate improvement, so I'm excited to see how the bike feels with all Shimano kit. But what Shimano kit? There are so many options! Shimano Road 2x GRX just came out, and the 2x rear derailleur (reportedly) handles 11-40 stock, and would work decently well with the 2x 28-42 chainrings I've got now. This gives me a gear range of 0.70-3.82, or 545% range. This is basically exactly what I have now, which I know that I like. It would be running the GRX out of spec, but only a little, and I've done this with a Tiagra 4700 rear derailleur that handles it fine. Of course, the Ultegra RX8000 rear derailleur is basically the same thing, but very slightly different - the GRX...

I got some Supacaz bar tape on the recommendation of a local bike shop. The first time I didn't bother to look at the price, because pretty much all bar tape is like $15-25 right? Wrong. This stuff is like $40. So I've got some high expectations for how it'll perform. I got the blue kush stuff. It's good. A little softer than Lizard Skins, a bit easier to work with. Nice and comfortable. Not worth $40. Not more comfortable than Lizard Skins, as they make a thicker tape that makes the tape comfier overall. It's a pass, but in the "don't buy this" sense, not the "replace it immediately" sense. At $30 it'd be competing with Lizard Skins, but at $40 it's just.. kinda stupid. Oh well. I was blinging out my commuter bike, because why not? I had some oil slick bolts I wanted to use, and when I was thinking about bar tape, the LBS suggested Supacaz Bling Tape in oil slick, along with an oil slick top bolt. Cool. I had them install ...

This week I was in LA for a work trip, so I didn't ride at all. Finished the weeek at 200lbs, partially due to eating out a lot on the trip and partially due to stress eating a pizza and ice cream. Oof. That's a backslide. Fortunately I'm already down to 196.8, so it's coming off quick, but I would really like to finish this week at 194. Cycling fitness obviously dropped. Finished the week at 76, well under my desired range. Next work trip I will 100% be bringing (or renting) a bike, and I'm going to squeeze a bike tour in beforehand (or maybe after?). I'm 200 miles away from 4,000 miles for the year, and I'm 14 days away - that's 14 miles per day, every day, to make it work. I can do this.

Bodyweight is doing well. The commitment to keto is.. shaky, but it's providing pretty promising results. My weight dropped to 194.8 by the 3rd, but it went back up as I got some carbs and assorted overeating during the week. Saturday had a big ride and great carb/calorie compliance, and I finished the week at 196.4 lbs. Cycling fitness is doing well. I finished the week with a fitness of 90, and touched 92 briefly. Got 104.2 miles in, with a few 10-15 mile rides, a longer 44mi ride, and a hill climbing session that wrecked me a bit. Gonna have to get more hill climbing rides in, that was an awesome training session and very time efficient. This week is on track! Next week, I'll be in LA for a work trip, and I will not have a bike to ride. We'll see how that puts me back.