And then there were two...

Waking up this morning was a little delayed, as was getting ready to head out. Debated on taking the cx bike with the road wheels, but once you get a feel for an actual road bike there is no going back until November.

I finally met up with the St.CCC crew at the Tim's in Smithville as they were heading out. The plan was to get in 3-4hrs before the big Club Champlain beer league championship hockey game at 3. On the way out of Smithville Noah and I had a discussion about why I don't use a HR Monitor, PowerTap or even a simple bike computer, it's not that I don't like technology, there's more than one reason for this. I'm defenitely not saying that all that stuff is useless, there are many guys much faster than I am that gauge their fitness by numbers, but this is just my opinion.

One is that people spend way too much time looking at their numbers on a ride and this takes away from the whole experience of a ride. You don't want to be looking at a computer screen like you would be doing at home, it's a time to get away from all that. Two is that I feel that your body will tell you everything you need to know, this is where Noah told me that is how the Belgians do it as well. You don't need a heart rate reading to tell you that you are feeling tired or pushing too hard. You don't need a PowerTap reading to show you (in Watts) that you are putting the hammer down and you don't need an average speed to tell you that you rode fast.

I used to use a CatEye to gauge how long/far I rode but I often found myself looking at the screen every 3 seconds to see how much distance I've gained or hoping to see a higher current speed displayed then the last time I looked. I use my cell phone now, check it when I leave the house and everytime I stop I check it to substract the time I stopped for from the total ride time.

Again, this is just my opinion. Whatever works for you, go for it. There is no right or wrong way to do things so long as you get out there and RIDE. Since getting rid of a computer I've started to enjoy my rides more, some people get too caught up in the numbers and forget to just enjoy the ride. That is why we get out on our bikes in the first place, because we enjoy it; the pain, the suffering, the scenery, the wind, the speed, the adrenaline rush you get when ripping down your favorite descent. You don't need numbers to tell you that you've had one hell of a ride.

The discussion sort of led in to figuring out a way home since I had followed the group that lives the furthest away from me. We ended up in Port Dalhousie so Noah led the way to the locks climb where we parted ways halfway up, he had already ridden 150km. I picked it up to tempo pace for the rest of the climb and through the headwind on the way home to make sure I wouldn't be late for the big game. Got home with 4hrs of riding and I was pretty cooked, hockey was tough but the massive amount of food I ate afterwards at the end of the year party made up for it.

Tomorow is the last day of my Base 1 block before a rest week/taper for the Good Friday RR. It is also the day where I mount my tubulars after a three-day process. Mountain biking is out, maybe a NOTL ride.