The shape isn’t coming, the beautiful rides with great people aren’t coming to you. You have to get it yourself and get in the right groups knowing the right people and knowing the right roads.
I joined a cafécycling ride from Le Mond today with Emil and some other fast cyclists. Me and Emil have been riding lots of times together, last time he dragged me around Race Across Skåne. I’m used to be in the front of these rides and can attack Emil on uphills and downhills if I want.
Today I started with cake at Le Mond to be extra fast downhill:
We had the best autumn weather there is, love Sweden:
And sure I was in the front a bit but mostly like this:
The feeling when you try to push on but it doesn’t work, or when you attack on a climb and the heart rate goes like a rocket and you drop again. Emil says he doesn’t got any top but sure his tempo is hard enough to just hang on to. 😉
Except I’m in bad shape and not used to being the one sitting at the back trying to hold on sometimes it was a magic ride. Mostly asphalt but some nice gravel too, and some tricky:
And I’m still taking it a bit easy and not want to crash again so soon. Takes time to be able to ride as fast as the bike can go in a group, on gravel or in the descents.
It’s all a mindgame riding a bike. To dare go fast, to be able to get a bit loose on gravel or on a singletrack. And not giving up. To think you’re good enough to ride with the fast people and to think that the suffering ends just when you get home again.
To help my mindgame today I had great friends (new and old), favorite weather and cool socks (cool but warm as they are merino):
If you think text doesn’t mean anything without numbers, here is the numbers: Strava
