Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-L3HgyDRPg

Ride your bike more?

Pumping is definitely not free. Try back to back laps on a pump track and see how you feel. It's hard work.

This in spades, I've been going to the pump track and if I do back-to-back laps I'm totally fucked after 30 minutes.

I agree that this is a skills challenge, but you need fitness to be able to use your skills for the whole descent - if you're gassed at the halfway point you're a passenger for the rest of the section.

Bear in mind that for Enduro you also need to ride between the stages, so whilst that isn't timed you do need to complete it within a time, and then have enough left to ride the stage.

Did anyone mention training specificity yet?

It's quite important

Also, I like the word specificity

I think this segment is probably a good example of the type of thing I'm thinking of using for training - https://www.strava.com/activities/6534516506/segments/2917852660332870934

Getting to the 4:30 - 5:00 would be useful as a target as it's around the right length and elevation change, and of course you have to ride back up to the top.

Anyone able to report on how boggy Surrey is at the moment? Best to stick to Swinley?

I had 2 great rides in Surrey this weekend. One was a ride from Guildford to Epsom which took in bits of the North Downs Way with a stop in Dorking. Another was the G!ro belgie 'gravel' loop. There is mud but I did it with 3 mates on gravel bikes with like 40mm small knob gravel king tyres and they were OK.

Worth the trip I think.

On the training thing, I try to strengthen wrists/do yoga for them on top of the general muscle stuff I do.
It's the bodypart that suffers the most going downhill. But then I am on a rigid bike.
Even made myself one of those bar push up things with an old riser. And have a wide wooden stick with bartape and a weight on it.

You must be new around here.

You mean I should buy a suspension fork?

Or maybe actually ride bikes outside my apartment.

Wrist strength training ftw 🤛

Sorry to bang on but this is why training for MTB is so far outside my experience - here's the section I linked to above, average power of 57 watts but an average HR of 162.

I'm making an effort - but it's (almost) all about moving the bike around rather than pedalling it.

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Too rich for my blood, but Kingdom have a couple of ex-demo frames for sale here;

https://kingdombike.com/products/ex-demo-jan-sale

Lusting after the El Pugliest

Compare with this fairly mild spin on Zwift earlier today:

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Strava estimated power is useless in my experience. It's even worse on descents and on mtbs. Apparently I can do over 1000 watts, but generally average power reads really low compared to a power meter.

How was it so warm!?

Garmin watch inside my sleeve answers that one. I was wondering about the estimated power - and agree it's likely total bollocks. If you're familiar with that trail there are punchy ups, but I wasn't pedalling for the vast majority of it.

What I'm more interested in is the HR - as a proxy for work done, really.

Had a Vendetta for a bit. Such a lovely thing.

It had to make way for a new road bike as it was the most indulgent of the bikes I had at that time as I have an Enduro bike and live in Scotland.

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For me HR offroad doesn’t appear to correlate at all with road or turbo. I think there is a load of elevation that is also exacerbated by the levels of excitement/fear/adrenalin.

Also I have power cranks on the Mtb and my heart rate is way higher off road for the same power output. Again I put this down to the fun/excitement. I can sustain a higher HR outdoors offroad than on turbo or road.

Same with running - when your arms and core are involved there's a lot more load on the system than when it's only your legs.

Especially true on a mountain bike where you are pushing the front wheel into the ground to find grip.

Normalised power would be an interesting metric, but I can see how it would decrease as you got faster

Isn't mountain biking meant to be fun?

But how can you quantify 'fun'?

(I do agree)

I was having a lot of fun over the weekend, if that helps?

But how can you quantify 'fun'?

https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=LnMrHIIquc8loZMhtxZ0i7