Addendum

Bicycling, music, beer, reading, games...you might ask, Nod, are you avoiding talking about ICE and Minneapolis and LA?  Yes, yes I am.  Because I'm likely to swear and post memes and my doomscrolling is sufficient that cycling is a chance to put down the phone / social media.  Music, I put the phone down most of the time, but not always.  So I'm going to talk about things that aren't politics, although you can read all my posts knowing that under the covers there's a constant thread of burning anger.

Hastings Ride - x2

These aren't in order, but that's ok.  You can wander around freely in my bike rides.  Ironically, I was talking earlier about so many things going on I can't entirely keep up, and then I decided to post this instead of the music in a yard gig I was at last night.  Guess that'll have to be a tomorrow thing, although I'm going to Mae West tomorrow, so I'm already adding more to my queue.  I ponder frequently how I had time to post so many things 20 years ago.  Just a more consistent habit, I guess.

Larry, Ming, and I took the trail system from Inver Grove Heights down to Hastings for lunch two weekends ago.  About 45 miles.  I repeated the ride this last weekend, although I headed to the trail connection over by the trash mountains and processing plant via Eagan, which wasn't quite as nice.  But, I did it early in the morning so a. it was cooler and b. there was breakfast.  Turns out Ze's isn't too far off the trail - just a few miles and one really steep hill.  Although you don't get too much scenic going to Ze's.  It stays away from the waterfront and takes you past the court building.

Still....worth it, despite bonking my head on the sign I locked my bicycle to hard enough that the cut on my head bled for a few days and still hurts over four days later.

And a bonus of going in the morning....bison. We didn't get to see them the first time.  As I was headed to Hastings they were in the back pen and just coming out, but by the time I came back they were lounging in the sunshine.

This gal was also hanging out near them.  I also saw snakes [two kinds - one baby, one very large], turkeys including one trying to coast airborne, deer, bald eagle, and more.  Nice trail for some nature.

The turn to go to Ze's or go into downtown/riverfront Hastings is right after this sculpture garden.  I've got a few more below.  It's not in the foreground, but that Wright Flyer in the back left is pretty cool.

There is one sizeable hill on the way to Hastings [and back, but not as much] and you can get a nice scenic view.  I was disappointed the second time I wasn't there to get the sunrise bouncing off the water.

If you go into the riverfront area of Hastings you can go to the far end of the artsy part of town and catch another trail that takes you to Vermillion Falls.  There's a bridge over the water and it has become an area for folks to put love locks on. I know it looks like Ming and Larry might be up to putting a love lock in the collection, but they did not.

Here's the outflow of the falls from the locks bridge.

And here are the falls up close.  It's cool the mechanisms for the water power machinery are still attached to that building, even if they're not in use.

Headed back, the sculpture garden...

The sculpture likes his animals...

On a stop on the way back, we ran into the Society for Creative Anachronism.  Ming talked to them for a while about axe throwing.  That looked fine, but that woman in the background is throwing knives and that looked damn near impossible.  I'm not sure if Ming is going to join and try to get elected royalty.  His kid is out of the house, so anything's possible.

Come and See

Sunday afternoon, Kyle, Lisa, Pooteewheet, and I went to the Trylon to see the movie Come and See.  It's a pleasant romp through the Belarus countryside in 1943 by a playful tween boy, Florian.  At least until the stacks of dead bodies.  And burning people alive.  And gang rape.  And...and...and....holy ^^^^ did that ever live up to the Bleak Week: Series of Despair category.  Anti-war, anti-German...it didn't pull any punches.  2.5 hours that flew by as it threw atrocity after atrocity at you.  By the time you get to the end, there's a German who knows he's going to die, maybe burnt alive, still saying, "Some nations just shouldn't exist."  At which point the ending is German war footage and footage of Hitler rolling in reverse, almost Wizards-esque, until we get to Hitler as a child, highlighting both the allegation by that same German that "it starts with the children" [he told the adults they could leave the building before they burned it with them in it if they left the children behind] and that some nations shouldn't exist.  

I like the part on Wikipedia that says, "Roger Ebert posted a review of Come and See as part of his "Great Movies" series, describing it as "one of the most devastating films ever about anything, and in it, the survivors must envy the dead."  That's damn accurate.

Pooteewheet didn't get to see it because her ulcers kicked in so she went home in case they got worse, but came back to pick me up later at Arbeiter Brewing.  I took an hour to slough off the despair by picking up my four pack on my Arbeiter beer sub and a buy one get one free Stonewall beer. [wheat, fruited]. A very good beer.  They're having their release party for it tomorrow.    I gave away 3/4 of my four pack to my brother, who showed up because he was just down the street at Venn, my neighbor, and the host of the yard parties we go to, and it was still a really good subscription deal just for me.  I recommend Arbeiter highly.

Here's a nice phot of a bird that seemed to want my beer, or something I had, and a cyclist to wash away the despair.  If you ever get a chance to see Come and See, maybe don't.  Or do like we did and watch it with a large group so you have some ambient social support.

Too Much

I have officially run into the season where there are more things I want to do than I have time to do them.  There's the movie I want to see at the Trylon. The Eggroll festival.  Emmy.  The DJ Dance Party [cycling].  Edina Art Fair.  Sarah Morris AT the Edina Art Fair.  Bike rides to various places that are not any of those places.  KevFest to celebrate Kevin the Squirrel [seriously].  Farmer's markets.  Chalkfest.

We live in a hell of an area.  I know Eagan isn't officially the city, but I'm glad I live close enough to almost everything Minneapolis/St. Paul and first-tier burbs to be overwhelmed with choice.

I recommend a subscription to The Racket.  Their Freeloader Friday / Weekend list is off the hook.  https://racketmn.com/freeloader-friday-104-free-things-to-do-this-weekend-3

Board Gaming on Board Game Arena

I've been playing a lot of board games on Board Game Arena lately with some friends - and old boss - from the UK.  We are currently playing Agricola, which may be one of the oldest games on my shelf.  I think the last time I played it was gaming with Sean before either of us had kids.  Kids who are now in college.  My current strategy involves eating everyone's sheep.  You can't really win by having storehouses of food, but it does make it easier not to worry about starving with the extra family members.

We played Beyond the Sun, which I played with Klund IRL once.  I'd pretty much completely forgotten how to play.  The first round I lost because I didn't start fiddling with the ships/colonies until too late.  In the second game, pictured below, I had a nice early colonization and heavy on the tech tree which left others having to catch up by chasing further afield colonies and jockeying against each other while I relaxed and aimed for that fourth tech which really gave me a bump.

We played a couple games of Ark Nova, which I've generally avoided IRL because the setup looks exhausting.  I took second both times but really enjoyed it.  Since then, I've probably played 100 solo games treating it like solitaire.  I win more than I lose, so my strategy isn't too bad.  The expansion involves fish and some modifications to the core cards, but doesn't change things too much.  This win, below, was peculiar because I went so light on conservation points and made most of my points with a ton of sponsors and research icons/victory. Very little of the zoo built up - but I talked a good gam to investors.

I should add, I got a lot of value for their annual BGA fee.  I think a copy of Ark Nova would run me sixty dollars or so, so I pretty much bought a game I play semi-obsessively without having to keep it on my shelf.

And speaking of solitaire, I enjoy the solo variation of Bonsai, a game I played at Con of the North.  It's not particularly complicated.  You're crafting your bonsai tree via tiles and a combination of resource + play, play, extra resource, extra capacity, bonus, and victory cards with only a certain number of turns at your disposal.

I have to say, the bonsai you cultivate is not always very pretty.

This might be the ugliest one I've grown.  I don't think this  would be a good look if you had professional bonsai visitors.

Wow....so much...

Didn't I post yesterday? OH, I did not. I updated the munchies post.  I have like a million cycling and music posts to add.  I think going to something or riding something every damn day really makes it difficult to keep up.  I'll start making the effort...with, um, 67 photos I just uploaded that don't include the music event I was at tonight.

Something not to lose...amount of sealant for tubeless tires

Got a flat today.  The flat sort of sealed, but I really should have had a spring top off, because it wasn't a full seal and the tire stayed mushy.  So my wife picked me up at St. Peter's church and I hauled the bike home to try my first ever tubeless tire goo addition.

Item one: per this chart, I need 3 oz per tire.  My kit had a total of 4 oz.  So I'll need to get more.

Item two: don't try to just spritz new goo in there through the valve stem.  That's a mess.  The caps for the valves double as tools to remove the valve cores.

Item three: you still have to haul along a pump or CO2 [this I knew].

Item four: if you flip your bike over and the leak is at 12 o'clock, then all your goo will be down on the bottom at 6 o'clock and it won't seal.  You need to rotate that side of the tire downward [which it would do many many times if you're actually riding] so it sprays sealant out and gets a good seal that will allow appropriate air pressure.

Item five: not new, just a reminder, Minneapolis/St. Paul streets are littered with pointy bits this early in the season.  An absolute freaking mess.  I think I get a flat in April every year.

Item six: at least I found the hub-mounted hex wrench for the bike I gave my brother while I was looking for other bike bits.

Item seven: at least now that the bike is inside and resting, I can give it a good cleaning.

Item eight: at least I got 20 miles in before it went mushy and I've got a back up and the Zwift should I prove challenged at getting more goo in the tire soon [someone on line said "I like to hear it slosh" which is probably valid advice...it needs enough in there to spray and still have a lot left].

Item nine: I did feel VERY good riding into Minneapolis and back.  I keep thinking outside is way different than the Zwift.  And it is.  But when I remind myself to increase my cadence and that the hills are only a fraction of what I do on the Zwift, I barely feel 20 miles and 417 feet even stomping it a bit.

Some Generic Things I've Read and Am Reading... [articles, not books]

Needed a list because they're sort of all over the place.  And it includes some watching.

• https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/when-dietrich-bonhoeffer-a-german-pastor-theorized-how-stupidity-enabled-the-rise-of-the-nazis-1942.html
• https://www.youtube.com/@IBMTechnology/videos
• Watching the latest ones on RAG, CAG, etc
• https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-dependence-addiction
• https://racketmn.com/inside-cafe-yoto-the-north-loops-hot-new-japanese-fast-casual-spot
• https://zwiftinsider.com/bike-upgrade-details/#Distance-Based_Upgrading
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-fatal-genai-mistakes-could-destroy-your-business-2025-bernard-marr-qocee/
• https://machinelearningmastery.com/the-roadmap-for-mastering-language-models-in-2025/
• https://sourcegraph.com/blog/revenge-of-the-junior-developer [via Rob]
• https://jsdev.space/howto/mastering-js-closures/
• https://python.plainenglish.io/10-essential-python-concepts-you-need-to-know-in-10-minutes-2c5bee3a2412
• https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python [this is a HUGE list of Python-related assets]
• https://lornajane.net/posts/2025/better-rest-before-graphql
• https://www.fastcompany.com/91269286/data-science-most-innovative-companies-2025
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/202503/ai-and-the-three-stages-of-cognitive-collapse
• https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/openai-just-launched-a-free-chatgpt-bible-that-will-help-you-master-the-ai-chatbot-and-sora

Zwift Month Four

I did some big climbs this month, although I'm still 60000' from finishing up that climb challenge and getting access to the Tron bike.  I did finish all the rides for the [Ultimate] Tour de Zwift.  That was rough.  Not quite 500 miles a month, but close. And almost exactly one day per month.

Also did a full race set [Shimano: Find Your Fast] of four races and placed twice: gold and bronze.  I should have done better on the last one.  I definitely wasn't pushing as hard as I could.  That FTP at / above / below seemed to give me some extra strength, so maybe by next week I'll try working that one in once a week.

Before I sign off for the spring summer fall, I have some goals:

• Climb Alpe du Zwift
• Do the 25 loops around the lava loop - I think that 62.5 miles in one go.
• Zwift Games
• Zwift Big Spin - both are pretty much March 3 to end of March.

My avatar on his Aeroad 2024 and Zipp /Super 9 Wheels.  I also tend to ride the Specialized Aethos S-Works and Scott Addict RC.  I like that last one.  Sort of karma.

And finally the little graphic that shows I am no where close to complete on the climbing challenge.  Oof.  I've done some big, big hills.  That one is some effort.

 

Con of the North 2025

Con of the North 2025.  This is the third year Aeryn and I have been to this board gaming convention.  Given I missed most of Gameholecon in Madison, WI, this year due to my wife's heart attack, this was a welcome three days of gaming.  Lots of gaming.  Noon to ten, ten to ten, ten to six.  Roughly 30 hours with a single session gap after I realized, unlike almost every other game at the con, one game I signed up for required intimate knowledge of the game.  In case you think that's an oversight on my part, my table before and after both thought that was a mighty unusual move on the part of the host.  Generated a lot of discussion.

We did most of our eating before and after the day. Although I managed to sneak in some food from the concession stand [think hangry avoiding sustenance only], but more commonly found a beer at the bar to tide me over.  Fortunately on that second 10 p.m. day there was a Perkin's in close proximity for some late night pancakes.

We have a habit of hitting The Original Pancake House our first day.  The counter as usual, because the Eden Prairie OPH is a nightmare for getting a booth. I like their logo because from afar it looks like an Eagle Scout badge.  Given the number of pancakes I cooked in Scouts, it always amuses me.

My first game of the con was one I hosted, Roam, a Ryan Laukat, Red Raven, game.  I've hosted it before.  It's a light game that has a tetris vibe because the placement of your tiles is based on your orientation to the land cards.  When you claim a card, it becomes a character in your tableau that has a different tile placement configuration.  Add in some magic items that allow you to spin, claim a coin, bump another player's tile or move a tile, and there's a lot of thinking for such a simple premise.  Particularly when you realize your move might result in a fresh card full of coin options for the next player, or your claimed card makes you that much further from ever using your favorite cards [cycle time increases].

We were supposed to have a table of four, but only two showed up [it was snowy].  So I played a third spot.  My angle was the tough one because with a long table instead of a card table, one player has to sort of tilt their perspective to play their angle.  Usually the first game is learning and the second is strategy, but they both picked up the strategy immediately.  One player played when I hosted last year.  The other, Val, was sitting at a table next to me and my wife at a local music/brunch for Leslie Vincent at the Icehouse and talking about games with her husband when we started chatting and realized her first game of the con would be with me.  Minneapolis can be tiny.

Game two, day one.  El Grande. Despite being a bit of a classic, I'd never played it before.  There's a wooden piece [yes, that looks like a wooden marital aide] that represents the king.  Wherever the king is is locked down tight.  The players big on their turn order which leverages meeple placement against order.  Priority order gives a better choice of cards that trigger actions/scoring.  So you're trying to get your meeples into as many first/second/third positions in the highest scoring areas as possible.  That blue castle in the jail and you can dump meeples in there [count announced] and every three turns they spill out of the jail into a single province. If you pay attention, you know what's coming your way.  If you don't, it's difficult to adjust for the influx.

Creature Caravan, another Ryan Laukat game, which I own but hadn't played yet.  I liked this one a lot, although the simultaneous nature of play makes it INCREDIBLY difficult to figure out what the other players are up to as they try to create combos / sets.

Example.  I had no idea what was going on at that end of the table.  You get points for camping.  You get points for collecting treasure if there's treasure where you camp.  You get cards, you get bread, you get purses, and then you play your card combinations to place your dice to trigger market events, movement events, zombie fighting events, and more.  All of it leads to points.  I made a HUGE mistake and thought the blank space next to a sword meant I got one extra pip to fight.  Instead, it was all of the pips on the die and an extra.  By the time I figured it out, the rest of the table had all fought high point value zombies that closed out before I changed tactics.

Last game of the first day, Isle of Skye.  Think Carcassonne, but with a tile bidding mechanism and a solo tableau, more like Alhambra.  I did well at this game, but primarily because I was paying enough attention to be able to shut other players out of points.

Why yes.  That's me and Nicholas Cage, pondering the next board game we're going to play.

Day two.  I ended up playing my first game of the day with the same host that I had finished up playing with the night before at ten p.m.  Different game though.  This is Bonsai.  Someone at work asked me about "cozy" games.  This is a cozy game.  Collect flowers, wood, leaves, fruit, and build your bonsai using a combination of tools and master gardening techniques.  Bonus points for leaning left, right, under, most flowers, most fruit, on certain sides.  One tactic is to pass on points to score the higher scoring tiles.  I simply used the strategy of taking all the lowest point tiles.  It was a sound strategy.

Ponzi Scheme.  I borrowed this from Ming so I could host it.  I loved it the one time our group played and I wanted to see it go down with strangers.  Amusingly, Ming signed up to play at my table. Two people had to bail, but that still left us three, even without me, so I could help coordinate [I prefer that to playing - makes for a more seamless experience for the players if someone is watching and correcting missteps].  

This is brilliant little game in my opinion.  Everyone knows someone or someones, maybe everyone at the table, is going to go broke.  It's in the title.  You're taking cards, collecting money, but taking on debt at various levels that end up on a wheel.  As the turns progress, the wheel turns a sixth of a rotation, sometimes twice, and your debts come due.  Then the cards STAY on the wheel, not earning you more money, but going back to the number on the wheel corresponding to their debt load and often stacking up / compounding.

Additionally, there's a set system of four sets, and the number of the tiles in your set is where you have to take a debt card from [low, medium, high] and the sets are the only thing that matter for winning [a few points for remaining cash], the more the better.  But to get more than three in a set, you have to offer someone money for their matching tile. There's a nice little leather wallet. You slide your money in, as Ming is doing here and make an offer.  The other player can take the offer and give you their tile.  Or they can match your offer and take your tile.  Given how tight trying not to crash your Ponzi scheme can be, those offers can be really tempting and a way to overextended someone.

It's a great game for being able to talk and have fun while playing because you can see the looming, impending, doom of a huge payout in advance for other players.  You just can't see the money they're hiding.

Here to Slay.  My LEAST favorite game of the con.  Despite enjoying Bunny Kingdom, I have a love/hate relationship with bunny themed games, if you leave out the word love.  It did not help that the table host didn't seem to know the rules.  I looked up a PDF quick so that someone at the table knew the details, but I think that only made me a target because it because obvious I was threat because I'd read the rules.  There were a number of times I was a target when I was obviously the least powerful bunny tableau at the table.  Additionally, we were at a big table, so you couldn't see what almost anyone else was playing.  There's a challenge mechanism and you HAVE to know what they're playing to decide whether to challenge.  I asked them to tell me what they'd played a few times.  I tried to be a good model by announcing the details of my cards as I played them.  But no one else would really announce anything before  moving on to attacks, and I think I again became a target because my cards were the only ones being announced.  

Lot of luck involved in my opinion.

Amun Re.  I really enjoyed this one after I figured out the strategies.  You're claiming territories on the Nile and every three turns it restarts except for the pyramids  So you're trying to leverage a mixture of pyramids, mines, farmers, event cards for various stages, and winning favor so you get bonuses, additional placements.  All of it driven by money cards and purchases that follow the usual gaming set mechanics [as in the second item is more expensive, the third more than that, etc]. Pretty game as well.

I tend to find one four hour game to play during each con.  That's a lot of potential unhappiness if you get a bad game or bad group.  Fortunately neither was true and everyone was even cheerful at 6-10 p.m. Gaia Project is a lot like Terra Mystica, and there are a bunch of ways to eek out points.  Tech, planets, types of planets, specialty tiles, number of sectors, federations of buildings, et al.  You need range, which requires tech or a special token.  You require money.  Ore.  Mental power.  Terraformers.  All of it gives potential ways to score a few winning points.

I was the bird race.  It was a good choice because it leaned heavily into cash so toward the end I was able to just buy every gap I had in tech or buildings or range, and even spent half of the allowable balance of money to grab 12 victory points as a cash exchange.  Those were the 12 points that scored me second place [the host crushed us, but we still had fun].

Verdant.  I've played games like this before. It definitely fits the cozy vibe.  You're alternating rooms and plants, and certain plants need certain amounts of light, and the sides of room cards have differing amounts of light.  Throw in some tools and a token set system [kitties, vases, furniture]  to decorate your house and encourage your plants to grow, and you're trying to make the best scoring 3x5 grid possible.  I won Verdant, focusing on making sure almost all my plant[s were potted.

I've talked about this one on the blog before.  Leviathan Wilds.  It's a 2024 coop game where you're not trying to defeat the leviathans/kaiju, you're trying to clean the nasty crystals off them so they're healthy.  But it's not safe, and they roar and ooze and don't realize you're trying to help.  So you climb and jump and glide removing regular and toxic crystals and trying to work together by exchanging health and special actions for character/role pairs [think healer/support, sprinter, heavy muscle].  The leviathans get harder [this one is number two] and have special rules, and certain characters and roles can be more or less complex.

Originally, I got there early enough to set it up for the two people registered and then another appeared.  And another.  I knew which characters/roles to give players for a two player game as I'd preplayed it a bunch with multiple roles, but figuring out two more players was a bit tricky for a second [we went with the easier combos, but I don't think they used their specials as much for those easier characters, which was my experience as well].  Regardless, they all had a great time and pretty much cut it to the last moment as a player crossed health and toxins taking out the last blue die and the rest finished up within the last turn allowed after a player had to retire [they don't die].

Battle Masters. 1992. This one is old school.  I gave Kyle my copy and I think he has one more.  This is three sets end to end so six people could play at once.  Super simple game.  Flip a shared deck of cards and the image on the card determines which characters move.  Mounted characters will see more cards.  There's a mighty ogre who gets three moves and three attacks, but randomized, so it might not move at all.  And there's a mighty cannon that can take out any other unit in one hit if the tiles fall right. Or itself, if the tiles fall wrong.  Which is what I did, but only after I shot the mighty ogre.

I hear they're re-released it, or are planning to, but smaller scale.  The big scale makes it really enjoyable.

My crossbowmen backing up my knights.  Or hiding behind them.  Take your pick.  This game gives me flashbacks to my college years on University Avenue drinking with Kyle and Justinian [and by 1992 I'd met my wife and was living with her, so she has good memories of Battle Masters as well.  Or maybe just memories of being young].

Last game of the Con, Lagoon: Land of Druids.  This was hosted by the same person I played my last game with last year, a tech manager from St. Louis who ran Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig [Verdant reminded me of a lighter version of that game].  This was a kickstarter, and he hadn't played it in a while, and never with a live group.  There were just the three of us and, at first, we didn't understand why you could take certain actions [like moving land tiles or even removing them].  But as we played, it became very obvious moving land tiles meant they couldn't be removed if it would isolate them, and removing them meant the balance of power shifted toward a particular mana type which drove the end score.  At that point it became a lot more interesting and you could see all of us jockeying for our particular strategy.  Solid game to end on and a fun group.

All in all, a definite success.  Aeryn had a good time and some good stories and hosted a number of games as well, including Wingspan and Flamme Rouge.  I've recently backed two other cycling-related games. It might be fun next year to host all bicycling-themed games.

Zwift: First Race

I tried my first race on Zwift.  Because it's my first, and maybe because I'm old, I was in Cat E, lowest of the categories.  It's hard to be proud of taking first place in my cat when Strider, who took third, is in his 70s.  Matthew is in his 30s though, and he was pushing hard in spurts.  When someone is doing that 5.1+ watts/kg for a sprint randomly, you suspect they're a bit younger.  I pushed a little harder than I should have because, a. it's a race, and b. it felt like the other three at the front with me were pushing really hard to keep up, standing on hills [virtually, but standing implies a big effort], sprinting to get back in the group, and pushing their watts/kg higher than their cruising speed to keep up.  I'm 100% sure it won't work in other cats, but it felt like I could try to wear people down by the end by forcing the pace.

Anyway - bumped up a bit, not much.  I'll still be in the lowest category, but close to moving into the next cat.  Unfortunately, when I look at the zwiftpower profiles [not everyone who raced uses zwift power, so the placings are different; at least I think that's how it works], D cat has a very clear/clean demarcation between those who push more the 3.0 watts/kg and those who are in the 2.5 range.  I'll need to prune weight to deal with breaking 3.0.  I registered as a tie for heaviest person in the race and that's after losing weight.  That guy one ahead of me in the second photo, Miho ^ 2....he weighs half what I do.  Literally.  The watts difference is amusing to push along our respective weights.

This is the bottom of the zwift power site connected to Zwift.  So not everyone in the race is over here and, I suspect fewer in the lowest categories who aren't racing consistently, otherwise you'd see a bunch more Es.  But it highlights I can keep up with the back end of the Ds.  I might not have to take last place in a race a cat up [as long as it's like 14.1 miles and 600 feet of climb.  I know they get longer and sprint-ier than that].

Definitely a fun adventure after 3 months of Zwift and I fully expected I'd finish almost last.  I feel great today, even after a 35 minute sprinting workout, so that's a sign that some of the gains are starting to bake in.

 

January 2025 Reading

A little bit of cheating here.  I had a lot of books "in motion" end of December that I just carried through to January.  That Rhythm of War one in particular - like 1300 pages.  18 books, 5469 pages, although a lot of it is graphic novels.  Still - won't be reading 2500 pages a month for a while.  That's not sustainable, particularly if I have to do Udemy training [and I do].

Body Shocks was an ok collection.  There were a few standouts.  How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive was good fun about a cursed camera.  Darryl - I think you'd have to read this one yourself to have an opinion.  Short version, it's about a guy trying to understand his sexuality on a continuum in an ecosystem where everyone else is almost as confused, or pretending not to be confused. You get dumped in the deep end of the questioning my sexuality through sex end of the pool, so it's definitely not for everyone.

Photo courtesy of https://app.thestorygraph.com/.

Zwift: the Third Month [with a lot of companion sites]

Third month on Zwift.  Amusingly, I have a lot more climb in the week after I grabbed this because I was finishing off some Tour de Zwift hill climbing challenges called the Summit Seeker challenges.  I've been trying to do all the challenges each week - three.  The extended ones can be a bit heavy hitting with over 1000 calories of burn.  The big hill climbing ride was La Reine.  Only 14.2 miles, but 3875 feet.  The hill extended further upward, so I climbed to 4000 and then shot all the way back down the mountain for the mileage credit.  That seems like a gimme and you can just coast, but I often pedal rather than just bail on the exercise.

Taking a quick look, the last 7 days was 132 miles and 8579 feet.  So despite feeling like I'm slowing down, I'm just going more "up".

Some observations.

• My [right] hip was hurting with sort of an ache across my lower back.  I was paranoid it was some nerve issue.  But putting the seat down a notch made it pretty much go away.  So I put the seat back up [on 2/4] because I thought I wasn't generating the same level of power and it came back, so I moved the seat down half a notch [2/8] and that seems to be a happy middle ground.
• Sleep - huge difference if I've had 8 hours in my power.
• Beer - a 20/30% difference in power [downward] if I've had a couple beers within the last few hours.
• Carbs - if I'm doing a longer ride and want to maintain power [at say 80% + of FTP] I need to keep carb-ed.  Spaghetti is like a miracle drug.
• Q - how far your feet sit apart on the pedals.  I haven't thought too much about it, but apparently it's a thing that matters.  I don't know how I go about figuring that out.  I could use some better pedals on my setup.
• Seat - I took my first "coffee break" today where Zwift lets you just sort of roll along at 0 watts.  It was at about an hour and thirty-five minutes.  And it wasn't tired legs, it was a tired ass. Popping off to refresh my glass of water made a huge difference.  Makes sense.  I tend to ride for 60-90 minutes outside before I take a break.
• There is a LOT of drafting in Zwift.  I can't count the number of times someone has sat in my wake for a long time. Not my jam, but in a group ride it always kicks in.  Apparently three people ahead of you is maximum draft?  Mostly you know you're drafting by your character sitting up [unless it's the Tron bike, which I don't have].
• Zone 2 is 55-70% of FTP or 60-70% MHR.  That's useful...I aim for 60% for Zone 2 or 160 at the moment, and that's 67% and seems light.  70% is closer to 170 and 70% MHR is...  I recently updated my MHR to 175 using a new formula that's more accurate than 220-age [all my charts looked like I was giving myself an infarction] .. 123.  I averaged  today, so probably means I was pushing zone 3 from the looks of it [power bears that out, looks like I averaged 193 watts].

If I climb three Mount Everests I can have the Tron bike which is a good all around bike [I'm currently on a Scott Addict and Canyon Aeroad 2024.  I don't think I'll get there until end of year.  But it's fun to see the graphic for the challenge.

And finally, I learned that there all sorts of support sites for Zwift.

• https://zwifterbikes.web.app/ - tells you the best bike for your route.  It's funny, because if you look at the image below you can see that certain bike/rim configurations result in a difference of one second.  I think you should pretty much ride what you like within reason [riding a time trial bike up a mountain might be a lot of work, and you wouldn't really do it in real life].
• https://whatsonzwift.com/ - lets you explore all the routes/workouts
• https://zwiftinsider.com/routes/ - keeps a list of routes and when certain worlds are available.
• https://intervals.icu/ - a supplementary training site you can connect to although I do not.
• https://zwiftpower.com/ - tracks a lot of extra data about your racing. I decided I didn't want to know that much yet because I'm not generally racing, but an awful lot of Zwifters use it.
• https://alpeduzwift.com/ - the Alpe du Zwift calculator which tells you how long, based on power, it thinks it will take you to climb if you're at the P50 point.  
• One goal for many folks is to make it up Alpe du Zwift in an hour.  The calculator will tell you how far off you'll be [I think my P50 is about 79 minutes]
• Another goal for very few folks is to Everest, meaning to climb the equivalent of Everest [29000 feet] in one "sitting".  Alpe du Zwift is about 3400 feet, so you have to go up [and down, where you can coast and rest and find food]  8.5 times?  Yeah, pretty much exactly. Lots of videos out there if you want to watch people try it [they condense; you don't have to sit through a full ride]

 

Training Plan

I think this is the best cycling training plan I've seen so far.  It fits with Zwift workouts + routes for relaxed rides.  I've been pedaling for three months, so it's about time I started to add some structure  Note that for all of these, you can slowly build/increase the # x ## structure  Most of these have a good Zwift workout associated with them.. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFMQqX2c_eg&t=5s

01:13 🚴‍♂️ Day 1: Activation Ride - Monday

- Day 1: 1-hour activation ride with 3x 15-sec neuromuscular sprints.

- Emphasis on staying in gear during sprints without shifting.

- Easy spinning for the remainder of the hour.

- light warm up, sprint for 15 seconds, recovery 1-3 minutes, x3, cool down

02:52 🚴‍♂️ Day 2: Threshold Training - basically an hour, 3x15 is 75 minutes - Tuesday

- Day 2: 1.5-hour session featuring 3x 10-minute threshold sets.  [can move to 3x15 later]

- Explanation of threshold intensity (95-105% of FTP or Zone 4).

- Importance of warm-up, recovery, and cooldown during the session.

- warm up, 95 rpm, watch heart rate [see that 95-105 FTP], 10 minute rest between each, flat or climb

04:03 🚴‍♂️ Day 3: Full Recovery - Wednesday [my group rides on Wednesdays]

- Day 3: 1.5-hour recovery ride (Zone 1) following the intense threshold session.

- Recommended intensity between 0-4 out of 10, focusing on complete recovery.

- Emphasis on taking it very easy for effective recovery.

- Zone 1? Really...I don't think I can do a zone 1, although maybe 160 power is right there at the moment.  Do a Zwift relaxing route ride

04:43 🚴‍♂️ Day 4: Rest Day - Thursday [should swap Wed/Thu for my schedule]

- Day 4: Complete rest day, emphasizing relaxation and recovery.

- Suggested activities include stretching, massage, and light chores.

- No cycling or intense physical activity on this day.

05:27 🚴‍♂️ Day 5: Anaerobic Training - Friday

- Day 5: 1.5-hour session with anaerobic intervals (5x 2 minutes or 8-10x 1 minute). - vo2 [also see Threshold, Sweetspot, Fartlek]

- Intensity recommendations for the 2-minute and 1-minute intervals. [hard]

- Advice on pacing and adjusting intensity for beginners.

- May need to look this up on Zwift, yeah, look for Anaerobic/VO2 Max

- warm up, then 3 minute rests [50%] with 2 minutes at 120% x 5, 2 minute rests [50%] with 1 minute 121-150%, warm down 5 minutes

07:46 🚴‍♂️ Day 6: Endurance Ride - Saturday

- Day 6: 3-hour endurance ride or 1-hour recovery if fatigued.

- Flexibility in making it a hard or easy ride based on individual feel.

- Guidance to control intensity during group rides for better recovery.

- A long Zone 2 Zwift [or better, outdoors]

08:55 🚴‍♂️ Day 7: Recovery or Endurance [easy if you're doing the hard day on day 1 again]

- Day 7: Option for a 1-hour recovery ride or continuation of the 3-hour endurance ride.

- Flexibility based on individual preferences and weekly engagements.

- Reiteration of the importance of easy days and being mindful of recovery.

- Probably a long Zone 2 Zwift

Zwift: the Second Month

 Officially, the second month was January 2, 2025.  After a month I liked the Zwift.  After two, it's still one of the best purchases I've ever made for exercise equipment, and I am EXHAUSTED.  Although yesterday after a very long night of sleep because my wife vacated the room feeling ill, I was in peak form.

1. My FTP is 242.  I think I could actually get it higher - I've done some really good hill climbs that don't count toward increasing it, but at my age I try really hard not to hurt myself.  Dropping some weight would help, but that takes a while.
2. I love the group rides with TCBC on Wednesdays, even banded so they pull me along.
3. Per above, losing weight would increase my watts/kg.  I think I'll eventually be down 20% if trends hold true, which means my 2.4 watts/kg should climb to roughly 2.8?  I'll believe that when I see it.
4. I do overdo it a bit...that's me.  Nothing that will hurt me, but 14 days - even if some of them are minimal - without a rest day is a little sus.
5. I attached an ANT+ sensor for my heart rate.  That's a big bit of metrics.  Interesting to see it stay high if I'm worn out and stay at a mediocre 132 for hours if I'm feeling chuffed.  My resting is around 48 which is a nice number for me.
6. Attach the ANT sensor to read the Garmin watch heartbeat LAST, otherwise your bluetooth devices will try to use it and the electronic gears won't work.
7. So much laundry when I'm riding this much.  Shorts. Socks. Jersey. Gloves. A towel beyond the showering [x2 usually, but weekends I ride before I shower].  Hard to keep things moving if a family member ignores their load of laundry.
8. I like the challenges.  Currently, Tour de Zwift and I should have all three rides done each of the first two weeks.  I'm not huge on kit, but it's fun to earn something and it's fun to have an imaginary challenge.  Next week however, is the climbing week. I can severely downgear and go slow, but that's not my jam.  So 8000 or more feet of climb might be a rough set of rides.

This is my Everest challenge progress.  I could be doing better at climb - I think I average about 800' per week.  Yeah, that looks about right.  The challenge is to get the "Tron" bike, which has lighted tires you can change the color on. I see tons of people with them.  There are tricks to use momentum to get more ascent, but I'm doing it the old fashioned way.  I have NOT yet attempt Alp d'Zwift which is the big climb that mimics Alp d'Huez.  About 3400' feet over 7.6 miles at 8.5% climb.  Ugh.  I see people doing it at 180-220 watts all the way up, but that's not usually my habit for climb.

My totals after two months.  Level 30-60 is the "bucket" where about 40% of the riders live, so I'm sneaking into the midpoint of users after 2 months with a day of riding per month.

Train

My friend Kyle sent me this...I think it's worth sharing. By Quentin Smirhes

Visualizations

Via TLDR; this is a very cool set of visualizations.  I particularly like the state abortion complexity viz and Chinese name viz.

https://flowingdata.com/2024/12/30/best-data-visualization-projects-of-2024