40min

You become good at the things you train on. I’m not good at riding fast for a short period of time, a.k.a. intervals. When everyone is away on vacation I changed my riding plans and joined CK Valhall for their training today. The plan was to ride around Ingarö which felt in the right direction and not so far home if I got dropped.

Last time I rode to Ingarö with Valhall was on a Sunday ride and I got dropped 3(!) times before we reached Ingarö. No success.

Today I started with hitting a rock and puncture before we even left Sickla… Fixed that and the group was going again, was in front for some strange reason a bit. At Lännersta it started to go fast and I tried just to hang on. Went alright when the speed was even but the thing with standing up and cover a small gap wasn’t my cup of tea. Could manage the speed much better than before but without any bigger efforts. After Gustavsberg up to Värmdö Köpcentrum it felt like the speed went up and it became some gaps.

Dropped one wheel, the last group got passed and I couldn’t make the effort to hang on. Dropped…

Gave up and turned around, took a couple of pictures in Gustavsberg and rode home

So not so fast but it went better than last time I rode with Valhall to Ingarö 😉

Map and stats: Strava

Lanterne Rouge in sun

When I woke up this morning at 5.05 to ride Le Peloton it was snowing. Got back in bed and even slept when my alarm rang at 7 to do a detour to work.

So plans got changed to ride Lanterne Rouge after work with some friends instead. A long time since last time and when I quit work it was all sunny and perfect for riding 🙂 Not the right clothing today but okay and was really fun to get some unpretentious riding again with some good attacks up some climbs and on a couple of flat sections.

After I got a massage yesterday my legs felt much better too 🙂 I can recommend a massage at Access Rehab if you are in Stockholm.

Friends:

Not a ride to brag about but was fun and that’s the most important with riding 🙂

Map and stats: Strava

Pictures by Rille, Petra, me and Peter 🙂

Lanterne Rouge, winter edition

Same roads but in different conditions makes the ride different. Last time I rode this route it was a nice autumn evening and we rode roadbikes and felt fast. Today it was white, slower and the sun was shining like never before.

So cold me and Hagen took a shortcut on a lake:

The snow made it possible to ride, was hard for Hagen going in the ice skatetracks 😉

En Värdig Omväg was even more beautiful than summertime today with the snowy road:

After not riding yesterday as it was too cold it was great to come out today and enjoy. It’s magic that makes the Swedish seasons so good compared to just ”summer” all year around. Let’s hope the weather stays cold, dry and sunny until the Basemile Snowdown event next weekend. Would be awesome 🙂

As usual we ended our ride together at bikecafé Le Mond  for a warm coffee and meeting great people 🙂

Map and stats: Strava

Seek and enjoy

Sometimes things just feels great. Good friends, good coffee, good weather and nice roads is good recipe for it and that I had today. Started at biekcafé Le Mond where Braver than the elements also started, Rapha groupride for girls wintertime:

We started just after them and did a little longer ride with more gravel (and singletrack. Here’s a photogallery from the ride taken by me, Kalle and Rille:

Map and stats from the ride: Strava

So great with my Diverge that felt totaly right today and I really like riding on gravelroads 🙂 preferably tight ones

Lanterne Rouge with Power and Stix

Cycling after work yesterday with a great bunch of friends going hard, and not so hard. Felt better yesterday than usual as I didn’t ride hard this morning and while not being in such shape as Emil it felt good. And I got a bad picture of me, Emil and Isa a.k.a Team Le Mond:

here a picture from Jimmie of us in front:

It was pure fun and while not feeling that I had any power in my legs Strava showed others. My plan to get my own KOM and not share it with some others up Skurubacken felt like a mistake. Planned how to ride, when to press and which gear I should use to not change gear more than needed and loose time. I had to gear down one time too much as my legs stiffened when the climb got steeper.

But still got the KOM and a PR by 2sec 🙂 My Allez is fast.

First Lanterne Rouge with the talk and show of lights too:

I borrowed a Specialized Stix Comp headlight from work. It’s small, waterproof and chargeable through USB, awesome light:

Also trying Specialized Power saddle a bit, CX before and now on my Allez. Feels much better then I first thought. Looks short and it is but you don’t think about on a roadbike:

Map and stats if you want to give me kudos 🙂 Strava

Le Peloton #45 and the legkill

Started the day with meeting the Pro Sara Penton for a ride to Le Peloton, there we met a former World Champion and a lot of others:

Rode around, maybe not as fast as it could be but was hard for me so great training. Here in Fisksätra at the easy part:

Then we had an awesome breakfast at Le Mond:

Longest breakfast in a while and it ended with a projectplan for me. More on that later. I’ve got a dream.

Like last wednesday I met up with some other people after work to totally empty me legs. cafériding it’s said but it can go pretty fast 😉

People ride with aero helmets, Lightweight wheelsets and class is important but everyone are welcome. Great group of great people which always make it fun. To fun to not join I think even if me legs usually needs some rest instead of sprinting up climbs and doing team time trial.

Instamoment:

And of course we ride with girls. Good ones:

Hard to have a better after work ride. And today I felt better than last week, maybe because of the ice cream I ate before 😉

Map and stats: Le Peloton, Lanterne Rouge

Tomorrow will be a resting day so maybe I will blog a long post from Eurobike instead of cycling 🙂 Many new things coming up for us.

Le Peloton #43 and Lanterne Rouge

A lot of people this morning with the same goal: Ride fast to get breakfast at café Le Mond.

One Pro, One elite, some strong guys and then people like me 😉 Like usual it feels to hard and felt that I couldn’t hang on as I used to do up the climbs to Fisksätra. But managed to stay in the first group all the way and was up in the front and did some work when I could, or almost could if you ask Sara 😉

And then breakfast:

and we got some nice company by Nicolas who is the man behind all of this Le Peloton:

A great guy training so much more than just cycling.

Map and stats: Strava

Then after a wash of me and my bike and a day of work it was time for the days second ride. Lanterne Rouge with cafecycling Le Mond group. Met up with them close to work and rode the regular route to Gustavsberg. Got company by another guy for a while before he continued with his intervals. My body felt tired as understandable but also I got a bit to little food this afternoon so was hungry in the beginning. Never a good sign and the last part was hard in many ways and my heart rate was real low.

But riding in the sunset is awesome 😀

Le Peloton #41 and more

The Peloton this morning went pretty okey. Did all I could and was really tired afterwards, hard to do more:

Me and Rille was the last pelotoners out from café Le Mond as usual:

Map and stats from that: Strava

Today it was good weather and I had to ride home. So I did the best of the situation and joined Le Mond for a ride to Gustavsberg after work. Heavy legs deluxe so no real attacks today, got dropped some times too. Rille who said he was tired too was strong and fast and kept the pace up. He also took the picture of the evening:

And a couple of pictures by Ena: