My placebo is broken

[Nebulous]

Two days ago I did 37 miles. My legs felt quite heavy and it was quite hard work.First time out for over a week.

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on my bike -details on the what have you fettled today thread, but one of the bearings on the BB was sticking and I replaced the cups and all cables. Today I did the same route, expecting a noticeable difference. For a while in the middle I was ahead on my time, but ended up almost exactly the same as two days ago. I had a slightly worse ride today for traffic lights, but there really wasn't anything in it. So grinding my axle into gray paste clearly doesn't make much difference to my speed.

 

[Steve H]

Don't get disheartened Nebulous. There could have been all sorts of other things conspiring against you on this second run. If the weather round you is anything like it is here in Yorkshire at the moment then the wind could have made a massive difference. Also if you pushed quite hard a couple of days ago, then your legs may be not quite back to top form.

Keep at it and and I bet you easy knock of chunk of time off when the weather is right, your legs are fresh and the BB is clean!!

 

[Nebulous]

Oh I'm not disheartened. I just expected to get a bit of a lift from my new bits and it didn't happen. I'm used to doing two good runs Saturday / Sunday, so the mileage shouldn't have been a problem.

 

[Nebulous]

I think I could get a second job as a metronome. I've just done the same route again two days later, and there's only about 24 seconds between all 3 of the rides. Temperature about 5 degrees today, which is about 5 degrees warmer than the last two tries. It maybe that is just where my fitness is at at this point. In the last few months I've been concentrating on hills more as these have been a bit of a weakness - but my speed on the flat may have suffered a bit as a result.

 

[Red Light]

Your problem is you are making objective measurements. If you hadn't done that you would be convinced that the fettling had made you go faster ;-)

 

[Nebulous]

You may well be right. So a fancy carbon bike wouldn't make me go faster - I would only think it did?

Never one to give up I went and did it again today. Temperature around 2 degrees, a bit of a headwind on the way out and heavy going, but on the way back the legs hit a groove and I landed up knocking 2 and a half minutes off my recent times. I've had enough of that for the moment though, I don't think I've done the same loop 4 consecutive rides before. I'll leave it alone for a bit.