Hey everyone, time to talk about cycling again since my last post was 16 days ago, since then I did just over 200 kilometer in four rides plus a bit of walking together with my daughter. 😃
Learning as I go
Last Sunday I had my first really wet ride, I just bought a new rain jacket from Decathlon so it was great timing to put it to the test, but I made the mistake of dressing too warm so the outside was wet with rain while I was soaked from the inside from transpiration and probably some rain as well since this jacket isn't entirely waterproof, I don't want to get boiled by my own heat because a completely waterproof jacket doesn't let out any heat.
Thanks to @beaker007 I discovered the Dutch cycling podcast 'Beter Worden' which means 'Getting Better' and every episode they cover a different topic, it's so informative and I'm learning a lot, since I'm a facts and numbers nerd I really enjoy these kind of things.
Getting wet wasn't a problem since I wasn't getting cold while the temperature was 'only' 8 degrees, the strong wind at 30 km/h made me work hard to get some speed out of my effort, the Garmin Connect site and app are great for analyzing rides, and the speed indicated by color shows perfectly where the wind was coming from 😄
I deliberately didn't go as far as I usually do because of the wind that day, it was also the first test for my Rogelli Artic winter shoes, I can say they are waterproof but my long pants are most definitely not, last week I got a really nice €50 tip from a happy customer so I decided I need a water repellent pants to keep me warm and dry when it's getting colder, I'm not going to stop cycling this winter. 😆
It's really like cyclists say: 'Bad weather doesn't exist, only bad gear'.
Of course I rather go out on a sunny spring morning around 15 degrees without a lot of wind but hey, I'm living in The Netherlands so that's not going to happen any time soon.
This newfound hobby of mine is getting quite expensive now, more reason to never stop with it again and every time I think I'm done completing my gear, something new comes up like... did you know helmets have an expiration date ranging from 3 to 5 years from when they're manufactured? The materials used degrade slowly and thus the protection degrades as well so I also needed a new helmet as the one I was using was still from my inline skating.
Now, I 'think' I only need waterproof or water repellent gloves to keep my hands from getting cold, I can imagine when it's raining when it's even colder they WILL get wet and cold - for now I will just use plastic covers the gas stations provide to keep my winter gloves dry when it rains again.
Hopefully one of you more experienced cyclists can give me some advice on this matter since I have seen neoprene gloves but most of them let water through.
The rabbit hole of science behind cycling
It's really interesting to learn how our bodies work at different heart rate zones, the aerobic energy system that's using oxygen and fats to provide energy while on a higher heart rate the anaerobic system provides energy by using glucose (sugar). Both are important but knowing this, it's important to don't ride full speed all the time so now with my heart rate monitor I'm doing 'low' heart rate rides, which according to Fitbit, 70% of my maximum heart rate is 124 bpm, the top of zone 2.
I kinda question this number because my resting heart rate is very very low, genetics plus training does that - when I'm in bed it's somewhere in the low 40's and sometimes the high 30's even, so knowing that I wonder whether my zone 2 is lower as well but if that's true I need to go even slower plus the only way to know for sure is undergoing a sports medical test.
About half an hour from home I'm putting more energy in my ride but on my last zone 2 training on Thursday I learned something new...
You can't do longer rides on drinking alone!
So the almost two hours of zone 2 training emptied my carbohydrate supply, and as soon as I went faster I could feel that...
I'm taking two 650 ml. drinking bottles with me, one with water - one with lemonade to provide some carbs but almost as soon as I went all out and my heart rate increased I felt I was out of energy.. I just didn't have any more to put in to my legs so the last twenty minutes home wasn't very comfortable. 😏
Hypotonic, Isotonic and Hypertonic
More science! This is geek stuff but quite interesting...
So in my first months of training I was only drinking water, and that's perfectly fine when your rides are one hour or less, the body has enough energy (carbohydrates) stored in the muscles to last an hour, 90 minutes maximum.
Water is a hypotonic fluid, meaning it has LESS sugar and salts as the human body, drinking it will of course hydrate the body with because of the difference in sugars and salts it's not as quickly absorbed in the body plus it doesn't add any energy - in fact it dilutes the electrolytes in our body even more, so today I walked to the city center to get isotonic powder to better refeul...
Isotonic means it has the SAME amount of sugars and salts as our body, so absorbing this will be faster and it provides the much needed carbs (30 grams per bottle) and salts to replenish what I've lost.
Good to know is the body can only absorb 60 grams per hour of glucose, and another 30 grams of fructose - both are sugars but processed differently in the body.
So 30 grams by drinking (which is a combination of glucose and fructose) means I can't do without eating which I don't really like but I guess it's something I have to get used to.
Later I will buy some energy bars to test out, for now I will start with taking currant buns or banana's with me, which both have about 30 grams each as well.
So, to the more experienced riders out there: What do you eat and drink on longer rides?
Last category is hypertonic which means MORE sugars and salts as our body, this is good for extra energy but it's a lot slower to absorb and could give some stomach and intestinal complaints so not the best idea during a training... BUT it's good to drink when we get home, another thing I've learned from the 'Fiets' podcast, chocolate milk is the perfect recovery drink (and this is indeed a hypertonic drink) because it contains a lot of carbs and proteins to help our body recover.
Today is cycling day
Building new routes on the Garmin Connect websites is easy and fun to do, depending on the wind direction and speed I'm planning a route the day before cycling.
Today the weather is pretty good, not too cold and dry and the wind isn't too strong, half of what it was on Thursday.
This will be a 58 kilometer ride that will take about 2 hours and 15 minutes, depending how this goes with some added feul. 😆
That's it for this post, thanks for stopping by!
It's interesting that you wrote about science behind cycling, since perhaps I've never searched it myself haha so thank you so much!