So, here we are again on another Cycling Sunday ChitChat... well it launches on Sunday but I am making my post later in the week as soon as I have some time and something to write about.

I first want to say a recurring topic in the cycling community is a great idea to get the community more alive again so shoutout to @nanixxx for this idea, it's great and gives me a purpose to write weekly about my biggest real life hobby, according to my wife I tend to go all-in on things I like and it's true... when I really like something I want to learn as much about it as I can, always try my best and overexaggerate on distance sometimes 😅.

Now I've grown older I have learned to recognize this is myself so I sometimes need to say to myself 'this is probably not the best idea although it's fun'. Apparently it's in my genes because my daughter is just like me. 😄

When I'm starting to write this blog post I am in our rented holiday house, it's 7:28am and the family is still asleep so it's a great time for making a post!

Catched a cold!

In the past two weeks I could feel a cold slowly getting it's grip on me and I had to skip my cycling trainings to make sure I would not use the energy my body needed to fight this cold on my bike, and while it's not easy for me for the reason mentioned above, I decided to skip cycling and not once but three days in total, I feel like a slacker but it needed to be done.

I wanted to have the best chance I would be able to go out riding my bike when we're away on our little holiday, we are staying in Drenthe in a forested area so much better for mountain biking than the area where I live and I have found two large MTB Tracks in this area I am going to ride.

Today it's been nine days since my last ride, but the next days will probably take it's toll on my body but it's a price I'm prepared to pay as I'm not getting this chance any time soon again.

So, later today after breakfast I'm going on my first ride here to the MTB Track Ruinen, it's only 6km from our rental house and the track is 19km in total. I don't know how tough it's going to be but the distance is relatively small on this first day with only 32km but about 60% will be off-road, it's something I wouldn't do while I'm at home without the weather conditions have to be really bad since usually my minimum distance is 40 - 45km.

The next three days I will be riding every day and I have never done that before, I always let me body rest for two to three days before going out again but I don't have this luxury here since we're only staying here for three full days.

Wednesday will be the toughest day to MTB Track Diever, it's at 15km from our house and it's 22km long.
The tracks here are much bigger than I am used to at home, the biggest track back home is 4km and the rest of the distance is mainly asphalt roads.
Wednesday will be a total of 52km with just under 50% off-road.

Of course, Wednesday is also the last day of the year so I will be in bed a lot later than normal because of celebrating new year.
One of the reasons for our holiday is to hopefully escape the madness of fireworks until 4 to 5 am before I can sleep without a lot of noise, here - out in the woods in a less populated area I hope it's quiet after 1 am.

Thursday is our last full day here and my last planned ride is 44km exploring the National Parc Dwingelderveld, I'm not sure if this road is asphalt or gravel so I will have to see!

Time for breakfast now and prepare to head out - I need some pictures to make this post look nice and a couple of answers on the questions nanixxx asked in the Sunday Chitchat Post so the finishing touch will be made later today or tomorrow morning. 🙂

The day after

About 24 hours later I can say that was one of the best rides I had so far, the woods here looks amazing and the soil is different from where I live, when it gets wet, the soil in my area transforms in to mud and mud tends to get everywhere, here it's sand and it doesn't stick as much and don't fly in big chunks so even after 19km of off-road I wasn't that dirty, it did rain a bit last days but not much so that also helps.

I already included some pictures between the text on my post for you to enjoy, the track was much longer than what I am used to in my area.
My two 'own' tracks are 4 and 1km long, much more technical but tracks like these, longer and more playful - with connecting broader sand roads in between to connect one part of single track to the other like the picture below.

Some parts were easy and it was just speeding through the forest while others had a lot of consecutive curbed bends. (I don't know whether that's the proper English word for it actually but I mean those are tighter corners that are elevated with raised edges so you can take the corners at higher speed)

The second part was a little more bumpy with a lot of roots and potholes and because I'm riding on a hard tail (so only front suspension) it's working hard to absorb those shocks.

Some parts of the forest were really dense and even a bit dark, kinda scary with knowing there's a pack of wolves living somewhere in this area but hopefully they're scared for me as well.

A little problem I never had before was squealing brakes; my bike is inside the rental house so it's stored nice and warm. At home it's in a unheated shed, but now when I get outside (with 1 degrees above freezing) everything gets wet and my brake pads made A LOT of noise, maybe it scares of wolves I don't know 😅 hopefully when my bike is back home and I did a thorough clean they are silent again.

OK, my post is already more than 1000 words so let's get going with the Sunday Chit Chat questions and not bore you too much with my cycling brain output here on Hive. 😄

What moment on the bike this week made you smile without even realizing it?

Realize as in I didn't realize is was smiling? Well inside my head I was smiling for the entire 19km off-road part for sure and those beautiful stops I had in between, eating and drinking a little bit and making a picture before continuing, this is what I like about mountain biking, it has all the good things about road biking (I'm a bit slower on roads) but there's so much more in to it by going off-road and enjoying nature, it's also a complete body workout instead of legs only!

If you could repeat just one climb or route from this week, which would it be and why?

Well that's easy since I had only one! 😄 But really it DID cross my mind to just repeat this one, I have three rides planned for this three consecutive days - 131km in total of which 42km are off-road and 44km is unknown to be whether if it's off-road or asphalted smooth roads.

My HEAD wants it all, but my head is still 26 years old... my body is almost 20 years older unfortunately... 🤣

So, because this MTB Track is only 6km from my location, and the other is 15, I considered redoing this one but I want to see the other one as well.

I can feel I had a good ride yesterday, my muscles are not sore but I can feel they're there for sure, my Fitbit recovery score is still above 50 and Fitbit is telling me I should go for another ride today to keep up with my training level.

HOWEVER, it's the last day of the year today - celebrating New Year so it's going to be a REALLY LONG day so now I think I will do the 44km easy ride through the forest today, it's asphalt or gravel at an easy heart rate of no more than 120, spend the rest of the day with the family, take a nap before dinner and hopefully.... I really hope so.... I will feel good enough to do the toughest ride of the three tomorrow, 52km with 22 off-road.
The weekend I will use to rest, clean my bike and not ride again so my body can recover from my abusive 20 years younger mind. 😆

What small trick, habit, or discovery has helped you enjoy your rides more lately?

This is actually something I told @nanixxx on her latest post, the trick is to have enough fuel for your ride so eat a good meal two hours before the ride, I always eat three sandwiches with something sweet on it, you're going to need sugars to store in your muscles so your body can consume this as fuel.

When the ride gets longer than 90 minutes, you HAVE to load up on more carbs on the bike so when you know it's going to be a longer ride, start with this from the beginning. Drink a isotonic sports drinks to replenish electrolytes and carbs and eat something every 45 minutes.
Eating on the bike is NOT easy, my heart rate always spikes while eating, leaving me out of breath so it's something you have to practice.

OK that's it for today, thanks for stopping by if you made it this far, nanixxx probably has so I like to tell her thank you for the little present sent to my wallet!

I'm enjoying making these weekly cycling posts so keep it up, and I don't need more presents, the present is the Chit Chat! 😉