Hey fellow Cycling enthusiast! I have to admit this is the second week in a row I have not made a cycling post at all 😯 and it wasn't even that I was not in the mood or I didn't have time, I've just been lazy... 😅

However... It's perfect timing because usually at this time I'm playing my Splinterlands battles but since the game is in maintenance mode I can't. 😄

First of all, it's really cool the activity in the Cycling community is getting higher and higher and indeed like Friendlymoose said, it would be nice if the #Strava2Hive users would at least type in a little bit about their ride to make it a bit more entertaining.

Sunday Chit Chat

Well then, let's do things differently now I start from scratch... Let's START with the #SundayChitChat prompt and what a good questions we have this week! 😇

Share with us how you like to prepare for a (long) ride, do you have certain rituals or items you always take with you?

Now that for half of my rides, every Sunday I'm cycling together with my daughter and since she got on the MTB Trails, there's only one direction we're going to for the last three or four weeks so there's not much preparation to be made there, I've been there so many times this year already I can almost ride the 10 kilometers with my eyes closed... well... let's not try that. 😌

On my Thursday rides, I usually start the evening before my ride or else the early morning on Thursday with checking the weather and most importantly the wind direction.
Windfinder.com is a nice site to visualize the wind direction and speed, but I've been a boy scout (I really was lol) when I was a kid so wind directions is good enough for me, so I just use AccuWeather for this, the per hour forecast is great to start planning at what time I will depart, sometimes the early mornings are really cold, or rainy and I have to wait a couple of hours before I leave the house.

On the other side in the summer I want to be back home before the blistering sun scorches my skin and make me the 102nd dalmatian so it all depends on the time of the year really.

When I know what the wind direction will be, I can plot a route or pick one I've made before on Garmin Connect. In hindsight I'm glad I spent more money and went for the A brand instead of going for the cheaper Chinese models, the route building site is awesome and it never loses connection with my phone or satellites.

When I either built a new route or chose one I rode before I sent it to my cycling computer.
About one and a half hour before I plan to leave home I eat three whole wheat sandwiches with something sweet to load up some extra carbs and half an hour before the ride I'm getting dressed, fill my water bottles with water and Isotonic drink, I'll put two currant buns in my back pocket and I'll get on my bike after checking my chain and tires. (and my crank lately because really, three times is enough to lose my crank in like six months or so...)

I don't have any rituals, I'm just very practical. There are some items I always carry with me on my rides like my debit card to pay for any unforeseen things like repairs or a train ride, you'll never know... and basic tools, a spare inner tube and a tire repair kit plus when I'm on a road ride, my front and tail lights.

And how does your cycling closet look like if you have a special place for your cycling gear.

There was a reason why I thought about this question, because I had just rearranged my closet myself 😂

I've made two extra small shelves to put smaller things on them so I can easily find everything I need, on the inside of the door I keep notes of what I was wearing at certain temperatures because the hardest thing about cycling is really this:

WHAT TO WEAR TODAY!?

Maybe this is different when you're in a country with eternal sun but it's quite different in every season here in North Western Europe.
Although I'm not even cycling for a full year, I'm already completely addicted and have quite a lot of gear which is mostly caused by the fact I wanted to be able to cycle through the winter in every situation, so this means three pairs of gloves, summer and winter shoes, bib shorts and thermal water repellent bibs, four base layer shirts, some short and long sleeved shirts, two jackets and a rain jacket 🤑 OMG I don't even want to think about what it all costs. 😅

I don't have a lot of pictures to show for this post, this one is nice though, the entrance to the MTB Trail is on the right side getting in to the forest, about 200 meters inwards, I crashed. 😅

To make it easier for myself when performing small maintenance and cleaning jobs, I've bought a maintenance stand which I really like, with everything I was doing I was always trying to stop the bike from falling or the pedals couldn't turn because something was in their way, not anymore!

This week my total activity was just under 100 kilometer, I think it's a great idea to make a Strava2Hive list, not with calories like the service does already because who counts those? Besides a well trained cyclists burns less calories because their bodies are more efficient in delivering energy anyway.

Time on the bike, or total distance is better I think.

No more poor quality pictures

Or no pictures at all even,look what I've bought! 😍

source

I've looked at cool action camera's before, even the drones like the DJI Neo 2 but I found them way too expensive when I was the only one using it.

But now my daughter is catching the cycling virus, she expressed the desire to want to start becoming a content creator and why not start with documenting her experience as a beginner cyclist with mountain biking, not a lot of girls, or even women do this so I think she would stand out between all those middle aged men in lycra (MAMIL) just like myself. 😆

We bought some extra's with it like a chest mount and a handlebar mount so we are able to film in different ways, these 360 camera's are really great, it's not delivered just yet and we definitely will have a LOT to learn but it's cool I think. 😊

Strava is awesome for women!

I have never realized this before because obviously I am not a women, but now my daughter is cycling I'm seeing two very different Strava reports and I never knew there are different lists for everything for men and women, which is great!

With only 7 weeks of cycling, she's 8th on women of all times on a part of the MTB Trail

And she has THIRTEEN Local Legend titles on her name 😂 wow!
For comparison, I have three... 😅

Well, with over 1200 words already I will stop and play some Splinterlands battles before it's time to watch TV with the family, stay safe out there and I'm looking forward to read your posts!