Sunday 5 June 2011

1 hour ride to burn off the cobwebs

It isn't ideal living in the city itself for doing short fast rides, as you have to get out of the city first before you can build up decent speed without having to stop for traffic lights or pedestrian crossings.  I thought of a route where I can get out of the city within 15 minutes or so, and I took this way.  The first part is uphill and then afterwards it is fairly flat.  There are some cycle paths but often as soon as you are on them they are finishing, and are not really meant for cyclists doing 30km/h +.

The best route for doing really decent speeds is along the lake, but it takes a while to get there through the traffic and pedestrians down by the lake side.  Once you are on the lake road though, you can pretty much go as fast as you want until Rapperswil down the one side or Pfaffikon down the other side.

My route today was quite random,  starting off towards Hongg and then heading towards Milchbruck and then up towards the zoo, from the zoo towards Wikitkon and then a fast descent from there to the lake and back.

What I noticed was that due to my lack of short fast rides this year, I don't have that much power in my legs for fast sprints.  I am only used to going at a slow sustained climbing speed.  This is in complete contrast to how I used to be when I could sprint like crazy, and cover 25 miles (approx. 40km) in 1 hour and 2 minutes.  I might try a couple more 1 hour rides this week either before or after work.  One hour rides are really easy to fit in to my daily routine and I feel great after huffing and puffing for an hour.  There is a nice flat road near work which is closed to general traffic and used pretty much only by hikers, cyclists and rollerbladers.  That will be a good one to use.  The only traffic you do see there is the occasional army Landrover or tank.

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