2022 Mountain Biking

[scott43]

OMG! Never saw those!

Contractor dude up north told me about them.. I was like..for real? Apparently so..

 

[firebanex]

Wife and I took a week long trip and spent most of our time out of cell range and rode our bikes a bunch. Grabbed a couple of pictures that kinda highlighted our entire last week of mostly mountain biking and a bit of gravel.

First great ride of the week was the Eklutna Lake trail. (@Philpug and @Tricia next time you are visiting your friends or family in Wasilla.. if you haven't been to Eklutna Lake yet, you need to go there. It's gorgeous) It was a great 20 mile ride along the singletrack lake side trail, nothing really technical except the sections that had washed out and had to hike-a-bike across. We ate lunch on the shore at the turn around of our out and back. Perfect day for it, we spent just about the entire trip getting so lucky with the weather and not getting rained on.

We had a couple of things to do in Anchorage including riding the "Moose Head" route again on our road/gravel bikes and also hit up the new bike park at Hilltop ski area. Only 3.5 runs/trails are available but each is about a half mile long and has a clearly designed set of progressive features to level your skills up. My wife was absolutely stoked to ride the entire green and have fun doing it. Massive improvement over last year, she actually is having fun on her bike!

Spent a couple days staying in our favorite campground in the Portage Valley, it has a very mellow trail that is just a blast to ride a gravel bike on. Views and interesting things to see on every part of the trail

We ended our trip visiting some friends in Girdwood, we rode the local singletrack on one evening and then hit up Alyeska bike park the next day. If you think that's a tough mountain to ski, just try to ride a bike down it. This is one of the few pictures I took.. it's a very techy trail that is just about to the limit of my skills and my Fuel Ex. Renting a DH bike is what we had done in previous years but there is something to be said for confidence and familiarity of riding your own bike. It let me really practice riding some pretty serious terrain on the bike I actually own. It also helped validate bumping the fork from 140 to 150 travel a couple weeks back, it really helped me.

We had plans to ride some stuff up in Turnagain Pass, but the weather finally caught up with us and we meandered back north and checked out a few places for future adventures on our way back home in Fairbanks.

 

[Tom K.]

For me, this shorter ride, higher intensity approach for older riders is garbage.

It may very well be the best approach to racing performance -- at the expense of everything other aspect of cycling enjoyment -- but it's just no fun, and at this stage in life, I want all the fun I can get.

Occasional road biking gives me the steady stuff, and then fast, fun mtb rides gives me what I'll call random, natural intervals. I'm never doing another structured interval workout again in my life.

 

[robertc3]

...but it does concern me that my HR gets up as high as it does despite my overall cardio fitness level being pretty good.

This gets into some medical stuff that could be personal and in which I am not an expert, but I thought I would share an anecdote about a woman in her 50s who had high-cholesterol. Her HR would spike on the climbs to 180-190. She started on a cholesterol lowering medication and now her heart rate on the same climbs only gets into the 150s. I have no idea if that is due to changes in her blood composition or a side effect of the medication, but it showed there was more to her HR spikes than met the eye. She is riding just as fast, it is just at a lower heart rate. A doctor could potentially tell you more about what may be going on in your circulatory system.

 

[AmyPJ]

This gets into some medical stuff that could be personal and in which I am not an expert, but I thought I would share an anecdote about a woman in her 50s who had high-cholesterol. Her HR would spike on the climbs to 180-190. She started on a cholesterol lowering medication and now her heart rate on the same climbs only gets into the 150s. I have no idea if that is due to changes in her blood composition or a side effect of the medication, but it showed there was more to her HR spikes than met the eye. She is riding just as fast, it is just at a lower heart rate. A doctor could potentially tell you more about what may be going on in your circulatory system.

Yes, I am pondering what type of specialist to see. I get regular bloodwork and have excellent cholesterol levels across the board, great BP, overall great health. I'm slightly suspicious of diminished lung capacity from a bad case of chronic bronchitis in my 20s that I did not get treated for for a couple months. Lived in horrible air quality in LA at the time and did not know better than to not go outside and exercise. My lungs have never been the same since.

 

[Tony S]

Yes, I am pondering what type of specialist to see. I get regular bloodwork and have excellent cholesterol levels across the board, great BP, overall great health. I'm slightly suspicious of diminished lung capacity from a bad case of chronic bronchitis in my 20s that I did not get treated for for a couple months. Lived in horrible air quality in LA at the time and did not know better than to not go outside and exercise. My lungs have never been the same since.

I think it's safe for me to say, even though I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, that there is one obvious and primary danger here. The obvious and primary danger is that you're going to approach your physiological cycling functions with the same degree of tweezery hypercritical analysis and scrutiny that you apply to your bike and ski gear. The inevitable result is that you will decide to trade yourself in for a better model. I submit that that would be a bad decision, and that your friends and family would agree.

If your body has a leaky brake line, by all means, take it to the shop. If the tread pattern on your tires is slightly out of alignment, or your rims are 3mm narrower than all your friends' rims, then ... those are just things that everyone loves about you, and that you should love about yourself.

 

[nay]

El Doce completed yesterday. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and holy SMOKES I’m slow AF in a crowd of hundreds of competitive racers. I feel like there’s really no place in this world of MTB racing for someone like me. Not sure it’s a big deal but having goals is motivating.

With all that being said, I’m beginning to worry that I push myself too hard on most of my rides and not by choice. We climb here—it’s the nature of the terrain. And we climb at altitude.

This was my HR data from yesterday. Zone 4 and I wasn’t going all-out except on some of the climbs where I was in zone 5. I think a road bike is in order so I can train distances in zones 2 and 3. Because doing this several days per week cannot be healthy long-term at my age.

View attachment 173540

I’m seeing estimated zones - have you taken an FTP test? If that’s just estimated based on weight and other general factors I’d disregard it entirely.

You also wouldn’t want to train in estimated zones because your targets might be significantly off.

 

[Primoz]

El Doce completed yesterday. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and holy SMOKES I’m slow AF in a crowd of hundreds of competitive racers. I feel like there’s really no place in this world of MTB racing for someone like me. Not sure it’s a big deal but having goals is motivating.

With all that being said, I’m beginning to worry that I push myself too hard on most of my rides and not by choice. We climb here—it’s the nature of the terrain. And we climb at altitude.

This was my HR data from yesterday. Zone 4 and I wasn’t going all-out except on some of the climbs where I was in zone 5. I think a road bike is in order so I can train distances in zones 2 and 3. Because doing this several days per week cannot be healthy long-term at my age.

View attachment 173540

First of all, these zones are wrong, and with that, you also get very wrong data. For endurance sport, it's pretty well agreed that in 5 zones system (more or less standard thing even though some rare people use 6 or even 7 zones), things are calculated following way:

Z1 - 55% - 72%
Z2 - 72% - 82%
Z3 - 82% - 87%
Z4 - 87% - 92%
Z5 - 92% - 100%

With my max HR rate of 176 (real not calculated), which is similar to your (175, no idea if real or calculated... more on that a bit later), my zones are then:

Z1 96-126
Z2 127-144
Z3 145-153
Z4 154-162
Z5 163-176

With one exception, that my Z5 starts at real anaerobic limit and not calculated one. Everything under Z5 is aerobic, while Z5 is then in anaerobic range, and getting this anaerobic range is fairly simple with test. But it's pretty close to calculated one anyway (163 vs 161).
So when you enter your zones properly, end result will most likely be much much more realistic... and less scary. I have no idea why, but pretty much all HRMs and application go "easy" and dead wrong way with these zones. Each zone is normally 10%, so Z5 is 90-100%, Z4 is 80-90%, Z3 is 70-80% etc.

As for previously mentioned max HR. Best option is to have real max HR measured during test, but one problem is, that 90% of people will never be mentally prepared to get anywhere near their max HR (it hurts really really bad being there, and most of people are not ready to go that far), so for huge majority it's simply impossible to measure max HR, so they need to rely on calculated one. It's still not all that bad, and for majority it will be in sort of right range (that's what average is afterall ), but for some it might be totally off. Now if you are one of those where average works fine, if not, then try to adjust it a bit based on your experiences.

 

[AmyPJ]

First of all, these zones are wrong, and with that, you also get very wrong data. For endurance sport, it's pretty well agreed that in 5 zones system (more or less standard thing even though some rare people use 6 or even 7 zones), things are calculated following way:

Z1 - 55% - 72%
Z2 - 72% - 82%
Z3 - 82% - 87%
Z4 - 87% - 92%
Z5 - 92% - 100%

With my max HR rate of 176 (real not calculated), which is similar to your (175, no idea if real or calculated... more on that a bit later), my zones are then:

Z1 96-126
Z2 127-144
Z3 145-153
Z4 154-162
Z5 163-176

With one exception, that my Z5 starts at real anaerobic limit and not calculated one. Everything under Z5 is aerobic, while Z5 is then in anaerobic range, and getting this anaerobic range is fairly simple with test. But it's pretty close to calculated one anyway (163 vs 161).
So when you enter your zones properly, end result will most likely be much much more realistic... and less scary. I have no idea why, but pretty much all HRMs and application go "easy" and dead wrong way with these zones. Each zone is normally 10%, so Z5 is 90-100%, Z4 is 80-90%, Z3 is 70-80% etc.

As for previously mentioned max HR. Best option is to have real max HR measured during test, but one problem is, that 90% of people will never be mentally prepared to get anywhere near their max HR (it hurts really really bad being there, and most of people are not ready to go that far), so for huge majority it's simply impossible to measure max HR, so they need to rely on calculated one. It's still not all that bad, and for majority it will be in sort of right range (that's what average is afterall ), but for some it might be totally off. Now if you are one of those where average works fine, if not, then try to adjust it a bit based on your experiences.

So my BS is in Kinesiology. Yes, it's been a long time, but between that and my once-upon-a-time experience as a personal fitness trainer and instructor, I have learned to go by how I feel in addition to what the HR data says. Z4 is aerobic threshold, meaning you can't really talk and as you push into 5, can't maintain it, and yes, that's where I am. On a lot of group rides, while everyone is chatting away, I'm nowhere near able to talk. And that alone concerns me. These aren't fellow riders (with a few exceptions) who are much more fit than me. Or younger.

While in college, we did max HR testing and VO2 max testing, lung capacity, etc. My current HR data shows that when I reach 173 or so (with an age-predicted max of 167, which I know is a bit "random") I feel like I'm going to throw up. I guess what I'm trying to say is I have a better understanding than many of not only the numbers but also the physiological feeling of the different zones, and I'm hitting my max then holding my threshold between aerobic and anaerobic for a long time, and it's HARD. When I entered my max HR into my fitness app, I adjusted it upwards of my age-predicted.

One thing that makes me not as concerned is that I don't feel light-headed or have any other scary symptoms. But I definitely seem to hit that threshold more easily than most others and am riding at a higher threshold on the same terrain as other riders of similar fitness (and who are often older than I am.) So it makes me wonder if I'm not getting optimal oxygen intake. And if that's the case, am I doing myself more harm than good riding at such thresholds?

Didn't mean to thread hijack. Hopefully the race organizers will have pictures soon that I can share. It was a really cool event! I've spent most of this week resting, with just one ride so far that was short and easier than most.

 

[AmyPJ]

I’m seeing estimated zones - have you taken an FTP test? If that’s just estimated based on weight and other general factors I’d disregard it entirely.

You also wouldn’t want to train in estimated zones because your targets might be significantly off.

No, but as I've stated above, I have used my own personal knowledge of the "feelings" in the zones and adjusted my predicted max upward as a result. Definitely considering having some testing done as I'm suspicious of my lung capacity.

 

[Primoz]

@AmyPJ it can be anything and everything, but few (wild) guesses anyway. One thing is, that with not enough basic endurance training, it's super super hard to maintain low HR, as soon as it gets slightly harder. That's what long low intensity trainings are for. Another thing is long years of (proper) endurance training vs. becoming recreational athlete later on (no idea where do you fit in this). With long years of training your heart changes, and with that your HR changes, but you know this probably better then I do (no medical education at all from my side). If someone starts doing sport when 30, there's no way same things will happen. And related to this, there's one thing that doesn't really help when it comes to recreational sport. Back in my racing days, I put HRM on, set max HR that I had for that training and I went for ski, running, roller skiing or cycling session, and no matter what I didn't go over that limit. If this meant, I was walking uphill, I was walking uphills. Today, when I go out for fun, I have HRM on, as I somehow feel naked, and not too comfortable without it, but I don't have plan. I go for mtb ride. I say I will go nice and easy, but then it feels good, and I'm going flat out for 2 hours. Same goes for you... when group goes their tempo, it's obviously too fast for you, and you should slow down and go by HRM. You never do this, and neither would I nowadays. But that just means, your long, low intensity training, that would improve your ability to ride at lower HR is not that, and no changes happen.
PS: Races are not really right thing to make conclusions on that. You are racing once a week or less often, so there's plenty of time to recover, and keeping it low enough so you can ride again tomorrow is not priority. On my first, only and last mtb marathon after I quit racing, I spend majority of time in Z5. Here's statistics from that day:
Z5: 1:14:01 40%
Z4: 1:00:33 33%
Z3: 0:13:44 7%
Z2: 0:33:23 18%
Z1: 0:02:29 1%
How it's possible? It is, but I was dead for almost a week after that. For normal every day rides, things are different. You should keep it way lower, and for most of rides, you should stay in Z2. Top xc skiers do about 80% of training in Z1 and Z2. This should tell something too. So my solution for all this... I ride alone. This way I go my tempo without need to adapt to someone... either someone too fast or someone too slow Maybe try this from time to time, and really go based on your HRM not your feeling. Not as easy as someone might think, but it brings whole bunch of benefits.

 

[Wilhelmson]

your long, low intensity training, that would improve your ability to ride at lower HR is not that, and no changes happen.

That’s a good reminder for this hot humid weather we can go out for a moderate long ride an take it easy. When it’s this hot out I am just happy to get outside and mix some singletrack and fire roads. Of course it is hard not to push up the big hills.

 

[scott43]

@AmyPJ it can be anything and everything, but few (wild) guesses anyway. One thing is, that with not enough basic endurance training, it's super super hard to maintain low HR, as soon as it gets slightly harder. That's what long low intensity trainings are for. Another thing is long years of (proper) endurance training vs. becoming recreational athlete later on (no idea where do you fit in this). With long years of training your heart changes, and with that your HR changes, but you know this probably better then I do (no medical education at all from my side). If someone starts doing sport when 30, there's no way same things will happen. And related to this, there's one thing that doesn't really help when it comes to recreational sport. Back in my racing days, I put HRM on, set max HR that I had for that training and I went for ski, running, roller skiing or cycling session, and no matter what I didn't go over that limit. If this meant, I was walking uphill, I was walking uphills. Today, when I go out for fun, I have HRM on, as I somehow feel naked, and not too comfortable without it, but I don't have plan. I go for mtb ride. I say I will go nice and easy, but then it feels good, and I'm going flat out for 2 hours. Same goes for you... when group goes their tempo, it's obviously too fast for you, and you should slow down and go by HRM. You never do this, and neither would I nowadays. But that just means, your long, low intensity training, that would improve your ability to ride at lower HR is not that, and no changes happen.
PS: Races are not really right thing to make conclusions on that. You are racing once a week or less often, so there's plenty of time to recover, and keeping it low enough so you can ride again tomorrow is not priority. On my first, only and last mtb marathon after I quit racing, I spend majority of time in Z5. Here's statistics from that day:
Z5: 1:14:01 40%
Z4: 1:00:33 33%
Z3: 0:13:44 7%
Z2: 0:33:23 18%
Z1: 0:02:29 1%
How it's possible? It is, but I was dead for almost a week after that. For normal every day rides, things are different. You should keep it way lower, and for most of rides, you should stay in Z2. Top xc skiers do about 80% of training in Z1 and Z2. This should tell something too. So my solution for all this... I ride alone. This way I go my tempo without need to adapt to someone... either someone too fast or someone too slow Maybe try this from time to time, and really go based on your HRM not your feeling. Not as easy as someone might think, but it brings whole bunch of benefits.

EDIT: I just read yoru previous post AmyPJ, I think you know more about this than me! Take the below with a grain of salt!

Similar..all my knowledge of training is really second-hand. But the folks I know, on hard days, they go hard. On easy days I can easily outride them. Literally their easy days are like a brisk walk, if that. Back in the day my brother was overtranining, resting HR was like 35 or 38, he would stand up and pass out. And he never won anything. A more structured plan with some discipline and he started to do better and eventually won a hill-climb TT in Bavaria.

But..their easy days are 2, 3, 4 hours in the saddle. The hard days are short and gruelling. The rut is when you start doing "hard" 2 hour rides. Where you're in Z3 or Z4 for most of the ride..these are the garbage miles I get ridiculed for. However..I'm so far from race-fitness that I personally don't think it matters for me. I have the opposite issue..I can't get my HR into Z5 very often. Have to work at it. Honestly, @AmyPJ , you sound fit enough and good enough that you could use a proper coach and a little training plan that fits into what you want to do. I know that it is really hard to slow down to go faster..it's a mental thing.

 

[Primoz]

That’s a good reminder for this hot humid weather we can go out for a moderate long ride an take it easy. When it’s this hot out I am just happy to get outside and mix some singletrack and fire roads. Of course it is hard not to push up the big hills.

It was +34c when I started my mtb ride.... as I'm not made for Africa, but for snow, ice and cold, you can imagine how great it felt when I stepped out... and I was stupid enough to go around 4pm So really easy ride (I'm not 20 anymore either, even though I still feel like ), taking a bit more care to go easy on climbs, so about 35km with 700m of ascend and 18km/h average, and my today's HR statistics was 52min in Z1 (42&), 55:23 in Z2 (44%), 17:12min in Z3 (14%) and nothing in Z4 and Z5. Those few minuets in Z3 were because sometimes you simply can't stay on bike without pushing a bit harder in those steep climbs full of rocks and roots.

 

[Tony S]

sometimes you simply can't stay on bike without pushing a bit harder in those steep climbs full of rocks and roots.

no kidding

 

[AmyPJ]

@AmyPJ it can be anything and everything, but few (wild) guesses anyway. One thing is, that with not enough basic endurance training, it's super super hard to maintain low HR, as soon as it gets slightly harder. That's what long low intensity trainings are for. Another thing is long years of (proper) endurance training vs. becoming recreational athlete later on (no idea where do you fit in this). With long years of training your heart changes, and with that your HR changes, but you know this probably better then I do (no medical education at all from my side). If someone starts doing sport when 30, there's no way same things will happen. And related to this, there's one thing that doesn't really help when it comes to recreational sport. Back in my racing days, I put HRM on, set max HR that I had for that training and I went for ski, running, roller skiing or cycling session, and no matter what I didn't go over that limit. If this meant, I was walking uphill, I was walking uphills. Today, when I go out for fun, I have HRM on, as I somehow feel naked, and not too comfortable without it, but I don't have plan. I go for mtb ride. I say I will go nice and easy, but then it feels good, and I'm going flat out for 2 hours. Same goes for you... when group goes their tempo, it's obviously too fast for you, and you should slow down and go by HRM. You never do this, and neither would I nowadays. But that just means, your long, low intensity training, that would improve your ability to ride at lower HR is not that, and no changes happen.
PS: Races are not really right thing to make conclusions on that. You are racing once a week or less often, so there's plenty of time to recover, and keeping it low enough so you can ride again tomorrow is not priority. On my first, only and last mtb marathon after I quit racing, I spend majority of time in Z5. Here's statistics from that day:
Z5: 1:14:01 40%
Z4: 1:00:33 33%
Z3: 0:13:44 7%
Z2: 0:33:23 18%
Z1: 0:02:29 1%
How it's possible? It is, but I was dead for almost a week after that. For normal every day rides, things are different. You should keep it way lower, and for most of rides, you should stay in Z2. Top xc skiers do about 80% of training in Z1 and Z2. This should tell something too. So my solution for all this... I ride alone. This way I go my tempo without need to adapt to someone... either someone too fast or someone too slow Maybe try this from time to time, and really go based on your HRM not your feeling. Not as easy as someone might think, but it brings whole bunch of benefits.

EDIT: I just read yoru previous post AmyPJ, I think you know more about this than me! Take the below with a grain of salt!

Similar..all my knowledge of training is really second-hand. But the folks I know, on hard days, they go hard. On easy days I can easily outride them. Literally their easy days are like a brisk walk, if that. Back in the day my brother was overtranining, resting HR was like 35 or 38, he would stand up and pass out. And he never won anything. A more structured plan with some discipline and he started to do better and eventually won a hill-climb TT in Bavaria.

But..their easy days are 2, 3, 4 hours in the saddle. The hard days are short and gruelling. The rut is when you start doing "hard" 2 hour rides. Where you're in Z3 or Z4 for most of the ride..these are the garbage miles I get ridiculed for. However..I'm so far from race-fitness that I personally don't think it matters for me. I have the opposite issue..I can't get my HR into Z5 very often. Have to work at it. Honestly, @AmyPJ , you sound fit enough and good enough that you could use a proper coach and a little training plan that fits into what you want to do. I know that it is really hard to slow down to go faster..it's a mental thing.

Both of your responses reaffirm that I would do well with a gravel bike to ride a lot of zone 2 days if I want to improve on the days I'm pushing max HR. I mean, I can ride my MTB on flat paved stuff but blech! There are some amazing backcountry paved roads not far from me that I could ride for days on with little traffic. I also live right next to the river trail that I can hop on easily. Lots of gravel/dirt roads not too far, too.

 

[Andy Mink]

All this makes me glad I'm not competitive. It doesn't sound fun in any manner! Ride for fun, when you want.

 

[wooglin]

Been all groadie/roadie lately, but switched it back up today.

 

[scott43]

All this makes me glad I'm not competitive. It doesn't sound fun in any manner! Ride for fun, when you want.

Yeah some people just aren't like that. A guy used to try to get me to play golf with him. Had to put money on every hole. Played once never again. Just couldn't help himself.

 

[Tom K.]

Started the last race day of my life pulling THIS out of my rear tire, and quickly installing the spare rear wheel.

A bent up hex wrench I picked up somewhere.

Yikes!