The available hours of sunlight are starting to change and fall is here. This means a reduced schedule of rides for the club throughout the remaining months of the year.
We will have several upcoming touring rides: Martha’s Vineyard, Plymouth & the Canal, and Westport.
Regular Saturday rides continue through November. Every other Sunday the Halifax ride will run through November.
Liz
Great ride with a brunch after the ride at Pati Kent’s. Great conversation. Fantastic group.
Paul L
Rides for 8/29 are cancelled. We will have an extra Marion ride on 8/30 at 7 AM and the Marshfield ride at 8 AM.
Next week the start time for the rides will advance to 8 AM. The A group will be riding a 42 mile course at 8AM. The route of the day will alternate between the Duxbury, Coastal alternative, or the cranberry loop. The B group will follow the Coastal 37 mile loop.
When using Strava via the mobile app, if you click on the third tab for the club the feed displays. However, if you click on the button with the actual name of the club, then you will see the rides listed on Strava. You can register for rides on the mobile app. On the web version, you can click onto the route page from the event page and star the route. When you star the route, then it automatically synchronizes to your Garmin or Wahoo device.
The Martha’s Vineyard Tour will be in September. Please register at https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/634866
Tues 9/1
630AM 30 GZ https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760
Fri 9/4
630AM 20 FF https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/757834
Sat 9/5
8AM 42 Hanover https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/782661
8AM 37 Hanover https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/785319
Sat 9/6
8AM 50 Halifax https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/785320
The club’s annual ride to Provincetown. We ride through the Cape and the take ferry back to Plymouth. Parking is at the Jenny Grist Mill parking lot. This ride is for all abilities. You must be able to reach Provincetown by 4PM. We will ride in groups, together.
There will be a SAG.
Ride starts promptly at 7 AM. Please be in the parking lot by 6:45am. You need to have your bag in the SAG car. You will get your bag at the beach at the end of the ride. We ride past Ptown to the end of the land. We will reach the beach. The swim is worth it. Watch for sharks !!
Vito lead the fast group ( 19mph ).
Bill lead the 2nd group (16 – 18 ).
Liz lead the third group.
For our route we will use the service road. We will take the new extension to the rail trail. The GPS file will go to the end of the cape at Herring Cove beach. The annual tradition as started by the V is to make a swim in the water. There are free showers at the beach.
The SAG wagon will transport 1 SMALL bag for each rider. You can have a change of clothes and a towel.
The return ferry is at McMillian Pier.
You must purchase your own ticket from Cap. John’s Boats for the return ferry trip. You must register for the event prior to the ride at https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/634869
Liz
We had a great club during the other week. The 48 mile route is working well. Now, we have 3 separate route options available from the Hanover start location. We had the Quabbin Tour on last Saturday.
Please note: due to COVID the planned Blue Hills workout ride was canceled.
See ride events for details and registration. Please register. This is how we gauge interest. If you don’t register and intend to show, then you might be discovered that the ride was cancelled due to “lack of interest.”
The Halifax ride in two Sundays will be a great ride for newer members to try more mileage. We will ride 50 miles on a relatively flat route. This features long segments without much traffic and goes through the beautiful bits of Plymouth Co. There will be a few farms and plenty of cranberry bogs. There is plenty of parking at the Cumberland Farms in Halifax. You can also park at the Walmart. The Cumberland Farms is located at the intersection of Route 58 and Route 106 in Halifax.
Don’t forget the P2P is in August [8-22-20]. This is a great tour. The club runs a SAG which brings your clothing to Provincetown. We ride to the beach in Provincetown and take the ferry back to Plymouth. You buy your own ticket for the boat. The Club provides the SAG free to members. This is a great ride!!
Upcoming rides
P2P https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/634869
MV https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/634866
July Century https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/744067
Regular and recurring rides
Whit. 32 G.Z. https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/740781
Hanover 37 https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/743323
Hanover 48 https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/634876
Mrshfld 32 https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/743322
Halifax 50 https://www.strava.com/clubs/186760/group_events/744072
We will start having scheduled rides. The schedule has changed for the summer due to COVID compliance.
Saturdays starting 6/13/2020
Hanover 8 AM – 37/39 mile
Hanover 7 AM – 48 mile faster group
Every Sunday – Marshfield 32
Every other Sunday starting on 6/28/2020
Halifax 7 AM – 50 mile
Liz
In compliance with the Governor’s directive, rides starting in April have been canceled.
We will start weekly rides in May.
Liz Malone-O’Hara
Often, we get into a rut during the winter training cycle. How many of you stay on the same cadence throughout the winter? When you go to the training center, then they set the power via ERG mode. You leave your bicycle in the same gear during the entire workout. The power varies when the ERG mode changes its set level.
You do need other things to be a well rounded cyclist.
Working on cadence drills is just one form of neuro-muscular drill. On the road, you can work on following the white line. This helps to improve your eye coordination and its synchronization with your cycling muscles. It also helps to improve your balance.
The weekly rides will return in 2020. At the membership meeting on 1/4/2020, we planned the following rides. The start date for the Marshfield ride has not been set, yet.
The Blue Hills ride will be focused more on hill workouts. The first ride will be on 4-15-2020. The meeting spot will be the free public parking lot at Houghton’s Pond on Hillside street in Milton. Workouts will include the option of the classic loop, repeats on the access road, and repeats on Chickatabot road in Quincy.
The Hanover ride will start from Route 53 by the BikeWay. The first rides will be on 4-18-2020. The first group will leave at 7AM. The Women’s group and the moderate pace group will roll at 8 AM. The front group will use the 50 mile route starting on 6-2-2020. The standard 37 mile route will on 4-18-2020.
The Halifax ride will start from Route 58 and Route 106 in Halifax. Park at the Cumberland Farms. The first ride will be on 4-19-2020. We will run this ride every other Sunday. The standard route to Marion will be used.
The Thursday Time Trials will start on 5-14-20 from Halifax. A route map is being made by Mr. Chris Corbin. Mr. Corbin will be the time trial manager.
Suggestions for alternative ride starts should be sent to Mrs. Liz Malone-O’Hara or Mrs. Wendy Torkelson. The alternative rides will allow members to showcase different routes or for the club to participate in rides with other clubs.
Many ask about using the polarized method of training. This methodology is recommended by Dr. Seiler. Most of the fitness podcasts and magazines analyze his system. The benefits of this system are as follows.
In these discussions, training volume or experience is not mentioned. With the case of the athletes that benefited from the polarized system, they were on the bike for 30 hours during the week. They also made sure to limit inflammation. They also completed yoga, stretching, and weight work in the gym. Can you afford all of this time?
In order to be a well rounded person, you should focus on improving all functional strengths. You want to be able to walk up the stairs briskly. You don’t want to complete a training workout on the bicycle and be unable to use any stairs for 5 days. You need to assess your goals and your personal time constrains. Don’t compare yourself to others. Do you really know how someone trains when you only see them on the bike for 1.5 hours each week?
Using a Polarized system is likely to reduce the amount of training injuries. The required amounts of high intensity and frequency of such are amounts are less than the requirements of a more traditional plan. You build the engine by riding many hours. Those hours often have less intensity. The muscle fibers don’t like the long hard hours at high intensity. Your heart will not have to run at 165 bpm indefinitely.
In a sweet spot typical plan provided by many of the coaches, you ride near your maximum sustainable heart rate for an hour or two. You come home tired. The next day, you might elect to skip training. Remember, you want to be able to walk up those stairs? So, you decide not to ride on the following day. You need time to recover. In the sweet spot plan, you accumulate TSS rapidly. You are earning those points.
In the polarized plan, you might find yourself holding out through the day’s workout and saying that you can repeat this, again, tomorrow. This is good. In the polarized method, you would repeat the same intensity, often. You might be able to actually ride more days in the week, consecutively. In the sweet spot training plan, you might need to take a lot of days to recover.
The polarized method might help to improve lactate clearance more than a more traditional approach for the typical American amateur athletes. The author of the cycling bible, Mr. Joel Friel, wrote a piece about polarized training. He referenced a study. You have to realize that the study was about elite champion athletes. Those athletes already have improved lactate clearance. Their Vo2Max numbers are in the 50s.
Is your typical new cyclist starting at a Vo2Max of 30? Mr. Friel dismisses the polarized method, which is contrary to his years of publications. His method pushes many complicated interval plans. Does your body really distinguish between all of these intervals?
Some of those intervals are really designed to make you think that the coach is spending a lot of time working on your plan, when they are not. They simply pull the workouts from a library. The library automatically updates the numbers within the workout based on your 20 minute endurance. Can you really rely on this method?
Go polarized. For your high intensity sessions just use the following intervals
