mosscap

Hi friends! I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads with my cycling journey right now, and I'd really love to get some feedback from some of y'all.

For background, I started getting into longer distance cycling events last year as a way to stay healthy and fit, especially since my partner and I have an 18 month toddler. Cycling is both a mental health and physical fitness outlet for me.

I'm riding a Surly LHT with 700x32 Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, so I'm almost always at the back of the pack. I am not part of a team, so I'm never able to draft behind people either.

Last year I completed 2 Gran Fondos, one of which was the Whistler Sea to Sky Fondo. Yesterday was my first ride of the year and despite spending all winter with TrainerRoad 3 times a week, my time was actually slower than it was a year before and I missed the cutoff time.

Granted, I had an exhausting week leading up to their ride, I got slightly drunk 2 nights before the ride which resulted in bad sleep, and then a toddler-induced bad nights sleep the night before the ride.

Needless to say, that was pretty discouraging, especially since my plan has been to try and go for even longer rides this year (a 157km ride on July 1 and a 200km in September). My partner wants me to back down from leaning into these fondo style rides (and the longer ones too obvi), and in my disappointment from this weekend I'm inclined to go along with that.

But here are my questions:

• How much should I read into my results this weekend? Could it just be chalked up to a hard week and a bad nights sleep?

• If I had a really hard day going for 120km on June 9, should I pull back on trying to go for 157km on July 1 and 200km in September?

• If anyone is a toddler-parent who works full time and engages in long-distance cycling, I'd love to hear how you make that work

A common frustration in my part of the world is that transit does not run very often, and there are only 2 spots for bikes on the front of buses. There have been many times when I've had to wait an extra hour just to see if the next bus happens to have a spot for my bike.

Every time this happens, I promise myself that I'm going to someday spend the money to buy a folding bike (which can be taken on the bus if it's folded).

In my head, riding a folding bike is a joyous experience, partly because of Dr Sharon riding a Brompton in Ted Lasso, but I'm curious what it's actually like.

My dream folding bikes are any model of Brompton, a RadExpand 5, or a Tern Link D7i.

Maybe both Biz AND Babcock are insufferable pricks...