Cycling Chit Chat, March 1 2026

Hey everyone, we did it - we survived the most horrible months of the year! 😅
Now it's March and soon everything will be better, at least for the part of the world where I live in as far as the weather goes, let's not get political in my cycling posts... 😇

I've just read @friendlymoose's post about his new bike, it's so pretty so now I am officially jealous lol. After 30k on a bike you've definitely deserved a pro level bike, awesome! So I wish him a lot of fun and 30k more safe miles without tire punctures. 🙂

This time, I don't have a real lot to share but probably once I start writing I will get to a thousand words without any problems again so let's just start, last week we had a prelude of Spring with 17 to 20 degrees Celcius which unfortunately was on a Wednesday and I had to work, but the next day wasn't bad as well with sun and 16 degrees so I got on my bike just like any other Thursday and went all-out on the biggest MTB Trail in my area, it's a 22km trail consisting of a red and a blue loop which can be combined, I did the red loop twice just for the fun of it and training through the winter is now paying off, I was able to keep going but at the last kilometers of the red loop there are a lot of rollers in which you have to stand on your pedals and basically absorb the up and down motion with your legs so the bike goes up and down but your body stays level... I could feel I wasn't able to do it as well as on my first run after 30km off-road 😅

Excited about the great weather and my overall fitness, I gave it my all and I will definitely needed to take things easy the next days but the result was real, look at all those shattered Personal Records. 😁

Mother Nature left a little, well... it was actually kinda big present on the trail that wasn't here three weeks ago, a tree fell over in the last storm and for now the loggers active in the area decided to let it be.
The picture doesn't do a good job because it looks very flat but from where I took the picture the trail goes down about 1.5 meter and back up on the other side of the tree, and it's pretty low so your head needs to be very close to your handlebars or you WILL feel why you are wearing a helmet... well... let's not ruin my helmet. 🙂

The camera make the trail flat on every picture, this is another log that's being eroded so every time I am here, the log stands out taller, making the run down harder. I guess in the spring the maintenance crew will start being active again and maybe smooth this out a little, or not.

They do have other parts on the trail that needs some love, a little jump that has a big hole on the lip of the jump that's now really awful to take for example.

The trail leads all the way along the water, going up and down around trees and roots further in the distance, it's a challengin part which takes some effort and skill to get through fast, an all body workout!

For a country without mountains or hills it's still pretty, just in a different way!
I started taking pictures with my phone, most though parts on the trail gets alternated with easy smoother parts so I just stopped to get my breath and take a couple of pictures for all the two or three readers out here. 🤣

The first time in summer gear this year so I had to take a picture, still in long sleeves though. My bike needed a thorough cleaning after this ride.

And because of the good weather, it was the first time as well I could wear my summer cycling shoes again with my new summer socks, I like the back 🤣 it says 'Catch Me' on the left, and 'If You Can' on the right LOL.

I even made some pictures in action, stopping and taking the time for this is much easier when your balls aren't freezing off 😇

Well... that's it for this post, I'll start making a good breakfast for my ride for today which will first be a 23km slower paced ride together with my daughter and then I'll go on my own 40km ride, which will be a little bit faster but a zone 2 ride since last Thursday was really really though for my body 😅 so let's not overdo things 😇

As usual, I will save this draft and wait for the next prompt to get launched tomorrow so I will finish this later, bye bye for now!

Sooo... when I casually checked for new posts on my phone yesterday evening, it was a good thing I was sitting on the couch because else I might have fallen from surprise, the cycling post already launched!
I already made a post on Sunday, not cycling related and a hive whale once told me it's better to not post too much in fast succession so I just waited for today anyway to finish this post...

The prompts for this week...

We’d also love you to share a motivational cycling phrase and a personal story about speed… speed can be fast or slow. The choice is yours.

Speed... I like speed! But being on an MTB I just have to accept most road bikers WILL overtake me, nothing I can do about it since with the same power a road bike is about 4km/h faster than my MTB, that's pretty crazy!
So when I started cycling and didn't know what I was doing I was just going full speed every ride, now I know that's not the best thing or you could just say it's actually pretty stupid... 😅
Now, I will just be fast on the trails where these nasty road bikers with their shiny awesome bianchi bikes can't ride... 😇

Imagine you’re at a cycling event or race—what’s most important to you: crossing the line first, being among the first, or…? Finish the thought with a bit of rambling.

Well, first of all - never say never but I will most probably and very close to certainty not ever be joining a cycling event, because of the simple fact that I don't like other people and surely not when there are MASSES of people. So IF there's an event in my area I could see myself cycling that same route the day before or the day after...

Finishing first on big events is cool but I think this will need to be in brackets like the your gender and around the same age as you are or something like that, but I am always careful not to make myself crazy with looking at others people's performance compared to myself because this can really ruin the fun fast so I only compare myself with myself. 😃

Well... 1200 words and I didn't had anything to tell this week! My wife will be jealous if she knows how much I can talk on here, like many couples wives talk too much and husbands not enough... 🤣

Until next week!