Recap

I’m alive, still even without any blogposts. And missed Le Peloton this week both cause I have had a cold and I been doing rehab those days. Just commuting to work and it’s not so much to write about.

Except Tuesday-Wednesday when I borrowed a new Specialized Turbo Vado 6. An e-bike hybrid with 350Watt and 90Nm up to 45km/h. Going uphill in over 30 without any effort was really nice 😉 Was a bit slow getting back on my S-Works Diverge for double the price making 8km/h less in average on my commute.

No matter which bike I used I enjoyed the new cycling path from Ektorp 🙂 Nice to get some space and not have to share space with cars or pedestrians.

Now this weekday it’s time to ride my bikes for real again, more on that after the rides 🙂 Hope you all had a better ridingweek 🙂

2 years of Le Peloton

Thanks to this guy I started with Le Peloton 2 years ago:

• 58 rides 1st year
• 60 rides 2nd year

Could have been more rides this last year if I didn’t slept so long and rode Le Snooze instead 😉

I’m not a guy that loves to do intervals on a trainer. I can’t push myself really hard riding alone and I found it boring to ride alone. I like to ride with good people. And I like a good breakfast. I don’t have any problems going up early. And I like routines.

So it has been awesome meeting a lot of riders in the mornings for a ride that helps me improve my bike skills in different ways:

Even when it’s cold and we aren’t so many but sometime happier riders that do the cx loop:

I like to optimize, I want to go faster and get faster gear. Like speedsuit, aero shoes, helmet and an awesome fast bike:

And the big city life with a great breakfast with great friends in the city centre at Le Mond:

I’ve done Le Peloton with 7 different bikes this year but mostly these two:

Le Peloton is like a race with redlights. Sometimes you make it but if you have a bad day you get dropped and everyone rides in the same class. Some people wants everyone to help, some people just want to make it around, I don’t want to get dropped before Hellas.

On Wednesday I start my 3rd Le Peloton year. I want to improve and I want to ride harder, better and maybe I will get dropped too early. I will never be the best and I will never be in the centre but I will be a hangaround with class.

16″ powpow

16″ snow has it come in Stockholm today, total chaos and all busses cancelled. My plan was to ride my Sequoia to work and change wheels/tires for my new ones. A lot of snow made it a challenge but was fun without stress and swinged by Le Mond for a Le Peloton breakfast. Quiet a group of riders in the snow today.

At work with me Sequoia:

Patrik arrived later with his Enduro claiming it was better for this weather:

But 38mm vs 2,3″? In this weather only one bike is good, fatbike. We had an instashoot with a nice Fatboy Trail, perfect bike for this weather:

First time for me riding with googles, is pretty cool and really liked the colour of the Oakleys we used 😀 The Fatboy won easily over my Sequoia and Patrik’s Enduro.

Red Hook Crit Milano No. 7 Part 3/3

I travelled to Milano alone but once I came to the racecourse in Bovisa, Milano I called Rickard who was very keen that I came down. Met up with Håkan and a bit later Therese.

It may not look so serious with tattooed people riding around on fixies and look cool. But never seen so many people on rollers and never seen a women’s race go so hard. Serious racing with high fashion.

The people and fashion is  a bit fun with my friend Therese who got style mixed of the clean well dressed Stockholmstyle with some bikehipster attributes 🙂 And she knows a lot of people. She was the one introduced me to the cool girl Keira:

And to the Critleader Ash:

And some other. The atmosphere was relaxed but still very serious and skinsuits a must. No loose jerseys or women with jerseys sliding up far over the hips. And riders where hard, hitting the barriers and just walking from the crash bleeding like the Stockholms fastest, Jacob:

Was great to meet Erik Nohlin, the man behind the Specialized Sequoia too. We may not have the same visions but he is the guy making me interested of riding further and too people that thinks Specialized is the bad giant to be good. A normal person that is changing the world of cycling through one of the biggest companies.

Should mention Lian too, a dutch women I met in Dalsland that take great photos and seems like a normal person just liking cycling. Doesn’t have to be more advanced than that 🙂

I love friends, cycling and style. Red Hook Crit Milano had it all 😀 Thank you who made this trip unforgettable 🙂

Wintertime

Not so much riding anymore, will do a break after this week and gather motivation. Seems like a good thing when the weather is just cold and boring. Will do Le Peloton tomorrow as the last hard ride and a beautiful longer ride this weekend I plan. So not so much ride reports here, but probably a bit other things. Inspiration, Project16 and light parts is my plan. Maybe about some weekend plans for next year too. Looking forward to enjoy new places, new roads with awesome people.

For now you can enjoy this beautifully Slovenian Berk bike. Custom high end quality built light:

Worthless

My favourite summerbibs. Perfect fit and comfort. Now they are just worthless 😦

My 4h sunday ride changed after just 3,5km and extremely icy corner. Starting to get tired of crashing on my hips. Turn back home and felt sorry for myself instead of riding awesome gravel roads with nice people. What a waste.

Went to work and switched to winterwheels and studded tires that made my bike go over 10kg (10,14). And then I walked to bikecafé Le Mond and drank my sorrow with coffee and spending time with some friends.

Let’s hope next week will be a lot better and happier…

She Rides weekend

You know when you have a weekend with a lot of biking planned and you start to loose the grip on a slippery grass corner and get a bit less skin on your hip? Then it’s good to not be alone and just feel sorry for yourself and instead enjoying to ride a bike with a beautiful girl like this:

and as a tribute to the day before I had Le Mond kit and we ended the ride with a coffee at bikecafé Le Mond:

Then we left for Rönneberga on Lidingö for a weekend planning the bright future of She Rides which is a great community for women cyclists in Sweden. Rode some mtb together too:

 

had a nice view:

and I used my new cool shoes I got from David, Patrik and Lisa in birthday present 🙂

After a nice sleep and some good breakfast and to learn about Prehab and Rehab from Access Rehab it was time for riding again. Today I got a bike in my size and a full suspension, Scott Spark 27,5″:

Fun to try and haven’t ridden 27,5″ all year, felt small. Met the big guys (Johnnie and Andreas) and I got to try a 29+ Trek Stache a little, that’s big:

Great weekend with great people and a lot of fun 🙂 Specially to Jessica and Jaime:

Went back to Stockholm and packed and changed clothes to get the best end of the weekend. Was out with some friends and ate dinner together, Niklas missing in this blurry picture but thanks to Rille, Camilla and Linda and Niklas 🙂

friends + Le Mond = win

I’m not a big fan of big parties but I’m a big fan of class. This evening I celebrated my 30th birthday at Bikecafé Le Mond with some great friends here in Stockholm. Feels really blessed to have such good friends to celebrate at such a great place 😀

Have had a great evening with great food and cake. And on top of all I got some really nice presents. A lot more than I could imagined before. Thanks to all for this:

Can recommend bikecafé Le Mond if you want to have an event in Stockholm 🙂

the Mechanics

In Etixx-Quick Step in Tour de France:

and me at the Nationals 😉

Le Peloton #33 and Kessiakoff

First things first. Today in beautiful weather and first morning in short-short kit for me on Le Peloton. A big group:

Including Johan who took a picture from above:

Big 1st group but was okay to Fisksätra. A bit stiff legs up the last climb there. But on the way back it happened. The front of about 8 riders got away and was a bit lucky with the redlights and we who got dropped wasn’t as lucky. Was around 25 riders that worked pretty good together and in one way it got better. Now the fastest was alone and instead of having a long tail we (the tail) got to work together. Was really hard but was up in front some times until Flaten where I got dropped at 52km/h. Got up at a turn and passed some guys on the last straight 😉 Super hard, super fun, super good training.

And full house at bikecafé Le Mond:

At work we had a bookrelease for Fredrik Kessiakoff’s My Own Race with some cycling as a start. A fun time in the forest with the guy who indirect got me interested in Cannondale, in Pro XC Racing and in lightweight parts:

Talked, answered questions and signed his book. All after some food from a food truck and great talking at Specialized Concept Store Stockholm 🙂

A long but fun day.

Map and stats of Le Peloton: Movescount