July. The middle month of winter for us in the deep South. July has been a “lower volume, higher intensity” month and combined with feeling a little under the weather these last few days, my overall distance has suffered. That’s fine though, it is the depths of winter after all. Luckily I managed to get my monthly metric century ride in the books before I had to ease off.

My “training” went well for the first three weeks. I’ve been on a steady diet of V02 max intervals and threshold work, really pushing my limits. It’s been mostly on the turbo but I’ve thrown in some “race pace” style road efforts.

This has resulted in me snagging some Strava KOMs in the process. One of those was the Dodges Bakery loop. After 380+ laps in the past few years around that segment, I finally snagged the top spot! Yes, I used a time trial bike. Yes, I still had to put out a power PB to do it. If all goes to plan, I’ll go even faster in the summer.

Oh boy would you just look at all those exposed cables! The awful shaped tubes and non-integrated, totally un-aero parts on that thing. Luckily something else is in the works for later this year… 😉

Speaking of, how good was the Olympic Games cycling road race and time trial? Both the Men’s and Women’s events were well worth watching, with some interesting tactics in the road races netting Gold from the break.

I know to many people, time trials are pretty boring to watch, but I love them. The tech, the pacing, the fact that it all comes down to how well you pull it all together on the day. Primož Roglič rode to absolute perfection to put a minute into his closest competitor, with Bronze and Silver separated by about 2 seconds! I wish I looked this aero…

I’m going to spend the next couple of days finishing up my recovery from illness, then hopefully get back at it with another few weeks of solid training on the turbo. Before I know it, it’ll be springtime in Tasmania!