Back on my bike again

After eight consecutive rest days I was finally back in the saddle today! I expected to be out of shape but it actually was a nice ride. When I got home I had been out for three hours and fifteen minutes with an average speed of 25 km/h and a average heart rate of 149. It was -10C at the start of the ride and -4C when I got home, but 30 kilometers north of Falun, where I live, it was as cold as -14.5C ( that is 5.9F ). We had to increase the intensity so that we wouldn't become ice scupltures and after a while we got to some climbes that lowered the speed and got our heart rates up a bit. When we got to the top it was only -10C and from then on it got warmer. Because of all the rest days I had planned to be wheel sucking all day long but after about an hour, when it got that cold, my legs where going numb so I had to go to the front to get that heart rate up.
If we ignore that it was so cold today, it actually was a beautiful day! I took some pictures for you:

I really love this proper Swedish winter, it's so beautiful. I feel really blessed to live in a place where we have  these seasons that differ so greatly.

Rapha Festive 500 - day 9

I did it!

All 500 of them. Thanks to the 6 hours in the saddle this friday I only had to do 70.63 kilometers on New Year's Eve to complete the Rapha Festive 500. I decided on a route with mostly gravel roads to have a really nice ending to this challenge. No traffic, beautiful scenery and just enjoy the accomplishment. That what was my plan anyway..

When I planned this I was thinking frozen gravel roads with a surface like sandpaper but I ended up with pure ice. In the beginning the ice was smooth and everything was going great. It was -5 C outside giving the surroundings a frozen look.

After a while the ice got all rough on me and my fender mount. This part was good balance training but not really the enjoyable ride I had planned on. Having promised my wife that I was going to complete the ride in less then three hours this was destroying that plan. 

During the first 45 minutes of the ride I had spent 35 of them on pure ice and it was therefore nice to get back out on more attackable roads where I could pick up some speed again. The ice on the lakes looked great for ice skating and a lot of people was enjoying this winter day out on the ice.

After a few kilometers I suddely found a winter landscape, this is how it should look this time of the year. It was very beautiful and it gave me some extra energy.

Here I am climbing one of the two longer climbs of the day, gaining about 150 meters of altitude. Up on the top I saw a moose! I tried to take a picture of it but with my smart phone in a plastic bag in my back pocket and with a vest over my jersey it took to long and the moose was in the forest before I could press the shutter button. In 2010 I was a bit faster with the camera and took this picture of a moose.

More icy roads, but smooth ice this time

One week ago the storm Dagmar passed Sweden and there is still about 1000 people that had to celebrate New Years Eve without electricity. 

Todays numbers. Complete Garmin data for day 9 is here and below is my data for this Rapha Festive 500:

Thank you Rapha for this challenge! I started after eleven days of resting due to a cold and didn't know how my body would respond but it has gone great and I am now much stronger. This has been good for me and given me a good foundation for a great 2012. I had a goal of making this without using valuable family time and it was actually only this last ride that effected the family. But on the other hand I had a planned ride today wich I am not attending. So I think it breaks even.. 

I hope you all have a Happy New Year! 

Sunday ride - a walk in the snow

It's official, we now have snow here in Falun!
For all the Sunday rides this winter I have decided where to go, today I didn't. It turned out to be a great adventure and for some of us a lot of walking in the snow...

12 riders started todays Sunday ride, that is a new season best!

Nice roads in the beginning of the ride

Great balance-traning..

There were some crashes also...

The sign says: Bad road All traffic is at your own risk

The tracks from cars ended and we where "forced" to ride in the snow. With the easiest gear on my cyclocross it was actually a lot easier than trying to ride car tracks that my friends had ridden in before me.

One of the guys promised ice cream for those who could ride their bikes up this little climb. I was the only one that made it all the way up!

After an hour and a half fighting the snow we came out on plowed roads again and everybody was happy again! I got 3 hours and 18 minutes of active riding today and afterwards we all are probabrly happy with the ride today. Next sunday we might just go for a ride with some more biking and less walking...

Sundays are my favourite day of the week

Sundays = long ride with company!
Today it was pouring rain so It was only one guy who showed up at the gathering place, Gamla Postenparkeringen. Considering it is November it was very warm with nine degrees Celcius. I had planned a route about 90 km long with about 50-55 km of gravel roads. Those gravel roads was very soft today due to the heavy rain, so it was hard work all the day. My friend didn't have his best day and was suffering for the plus four hours he was in the saddle today. Unfortunatly I forgot my smart phone at home so no pictures from todays ride, but here are two pics from when I had arrived home.

It felt good most of the time today and I'm happy that my winter training has started so well. It's only november but it feels like I'm getting stronger and I also think that I have more in my legs to bring out in spring. I will try to do these long rides on sundays, combine them with some bike commuting and hard sessions on the Monark. Consistency is the key for a great 2012. I ended my elite-ambitions at the end of 2009 but it's allways nice to feel strong, and great fun to race!

That's me on the all new Monark LC7. Thanks to my cooperation with Monark/Bianchi here in Sweden I got the chance to be model for a day. This picture is now traveling around the world on the LC7-folder.

Todays Garmin-data:

I'm famous!

My latest video was mentioned on Bikerumor.com yesterday!

You can watch it here:

As I wrote in my previous post I was out for a ride on a snowmobile trail with Jens Westergren (representing Sweden in the cyclocross world championships 2011 and ex. swedish champion in MTB XCO, MTB Marathon and Cyclocross and overall winner of the MTB marathon series), Fredrik Ericsson (captain of the national MTB-team, former swedish time trial champion, 2:nd place at the swedish road race championships and former overall winner of the national MTB Marathon series) and Jonas Djurback (multiple swedish triathlon champion, 20:th at the 2010 triathlon world championships half ironman distance and fourth at the 2010 triathlon world championships long distance). I had my GoPro on my helmet and made this video with the filmed material from that day. 10 cm of fresh snow, +1 degree and a light rain made the ride a bit slow...

Snowmobile trail and icy roads

Studded vs. normal tires on Swedish roads...

This sunday I was out with three of my friends for a ride on some snowmobile trails. It was a bit to warm and fresh snow made it tough. But we where tougher!

I'm the guy with a camera on my head... Photo: Jens Westergren

Really nice and hard ride. Need more of those! The last two days I have been getting up at 5:30 a.m. just to get some training done on the Monark before work. Feeling a bit to tired today so I will skip that tomorrow and maybe go for some skiing in the evening.