Yesterday I rode my cross bike twice on the Lemond trainer, watching movies.  I rode once early, then went to Keith and Catherine’s house to have 2nd Thanksgiving dinner, came home and decided to ride another hour at 9:30pm.

My cross bike has my power meter on it, so the numbers should be the same as riding outside, right?  It is a bunch different than riding outside.  It is smoother, much less effort to increase rpm’s.  But the pressure on the pedals seems pretty right.

I wasn’t doing any structured workout.  I was just trying to put in the time.  Saying that, I still couldn’t help myself and not check out the wattage time to time.

My two observations.  Starting, the wattage seem pretty low and I seem to be “off”.  But after about 10 minutes, the watts went up about 50 and the effort seemed easier.  I guess that is why you need to warm up some before hard efforts.

My 2nd observation is a little unproven, but right now seems perplexing.  I played around, just for a couple minutes, with pedalling one leg at a time.  I’ve seen guys warming up at races doing this and was curious about what that was for.

So I pedaled with my right leg first and then the left.  What was weird is that it seemed pretty easy to ride about 175 watts with either leg individually.  It seemed like it was easier with my left leg, which is “my bad” leg.  I’m pretty sure that my left leg is stronger than my right, which is counter intuitive.

Anyway, it seems like if I can ride 175 watts with each leg it seems reasonable that it would be just as easy to ride 350 watts with both legs.  But that isn’t the case.  Riding 350 watts is much harder than riding 175 watts on each leg.

I do understand that it takes close to twice as much oxygen for both legs going around than each individual leg, which makes sense.  But I’m not sure it is the oxygen that is the limiting factor.  I can ride at 350 watts continuously, but it takes pretty much concentration and isn’t easy.

I’m sure I’ll be able to answer all of this, probably relatively soon.  It iced again last night and looks like it is going to be trainer weather thru the weekend.  I wish I had my shit together and could take off for a week and go somewhere warm to ride, but alas, I don’t, so I’m here for the duration.

Back to the sweaty pool training.  Think I’m going to do it twice again today.  A little over an hour at a time is all I can stand as of now.

You might notice that I still have my light on my handlebars, just incase a night ride presents itself.

We never get weather like this.  It has been constantly raining, plus ice, the past 3 days.  That is so unlike Kansas weather.  It hardly ever rains all day like Seattle in the winter.  Plus it is hovering just around freezing, so it is changing from wet to ice and back constantly.  Half the time the roads are slick, then useable again, then bad.  Not good conditions for outside bike riding.

But, on the upside, tomorrow  is supposed to be the last day of this.  I’ve been doing inside stuff, which isn’t stuff I like to do, but it is necessary.  Just paid by car tags and have been catching up on bills, etc.  Plus, bike work.

I still don’t have my cross bikes like I’d like them, but unless I feel like I’m a full time cyclo-x racer, they are fine.  I glued a couple new tires on last night.

I’m thinking it is going to be pretty muddy up in Jingle Cross.  It seems like everyone is going with less and less tread nowadays.  I’ve never been upset with having a lot of tread.  But there are so many choices.  I still have a bunch of good tires left over from 3 seasons ago, so I’m using them now.  They are 32 mm, not 33, but they are fine for now.

The “problem” with cross tires now is that there are so many choices.  Too many.  When is that a problem?  Only when you’re not familiar with all the different tires and compounds, thus don’t know which to ride.  It’s not like riding clinchers, where you’re changing them back and forth all the time.  Once you glue on a tire, you’re not too big on tearing it off to try another one.

I guess the best option is having a good mud set on one bike and then a faster setup on your spare bike.  But, I think I’ll just leave mud tires on all my wheels and make due for now.

Okay, back to the trainer again.

These are both FMB tires. The left is their mud tread and the right is some Michelin Mud tread I sent to FMB and were made custom. I have a few more of these and they work about as good as any tires I’ve ridden.