Use the Five, Pedalwan.
I could feel the power in my body as I breathed in the warm Spring air and pulled lightly on the handlebars; strength flowed from my lungs and shoulders into my chest, through my hips and down to my legs which churned over with alarming ease. With every change of gradient, I either stood on the pedals to maintain the rhythm or shifted into a bigger gear to gain speed, depending on whether the slope increased or decreased.
This was Gibralter in Santa Barbara County, California; the climb had put me to shame some fifteen months before, causing me to suffer much more than I was prepared to do but on this occasion she repaid my training with nothing but total grace. The Man with the Hammer was clearly on a mission on some far away slope, leaving only his wife, La Volupté to watch over me. It was one of the best rides I’ve had on a bike, feeling The V flow through me so elegantly despite the difficulty of the climb.
The question came up after the ride as to how quickly I had completed the climb, but since I rode the climb using only a V Meter and nothing that tracked any trackable sort of data, there was no tangible evidence to indicate how quickly I’d ridden to the summit. Yet, the sensations I felt during the climb were all I needed to know; the experience was mine alone to experience, a secret held in confidence between rider, road, and mountain.
Riding without data is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker putting away his targeting computer and using The Force instead to aim his proton torpedoes at the Death Star exhaust port. Data and Strava are useful and enjoyable tools by which to quantify our efforts, but we should never allow them to obscure the beauty of our labors.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
Thanks to @blackpooltower for this inspired idea.
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@frank
seems you have been training properly for the upcoming Hour. Any updates on links for live streaming? In that sense:
Hora est, ViVat Festum Prophetae and may the Vorth be VVit you
But now it didn't happen, its not on Strava.
Seven years now riding with no data. I did recently add a small piece to my wrist to make sure we start and finish on time though.
TID
@universo
Going techy, are we? Your knob is on the left side though, that's interesting!
@Vbikes: The advantage of riding in the dark is that you cannot read the display so you cannot rely on any data.
Not about the bike, but I've spent our downtime on holiday introducing my 4 and a half year old to Star Wars. It's been emotional. His reaction to 'Luke, I am your father...' was sensational: 'He's not, is he? Is he, Daddy? It's not true is it?'.
Also, I've discovered lego Star Wars - fucking brilliant!
@RobSandy
We have LEGO Day Cogals at our house being that that is all we are about that day. Twelve years ago we began having our annual LEGO Day -- starting with the Millennium Falcon.
Two years ago we recovered all the pieces of that original LEGO Day Falcon { pieces were robbed and disassembled } and rebuilt it on the 10 year anniversary. My kids were crawling through a pile of LEGOs to find small stuff -- like the holographic game board. We took it to another level by substituting from our junk yard of parts.
Rule #74 is brilliant, worthy of being ingested, metabolized, and integrated. Like @universo, I only ride w/a watch stuck on my stem (need a reminder to drink every 10). The freedom and joy of the sans-data-state is a powerful motivator. Would be hard put to go back.
@universo
Chapeau to you for spelling LEGO the way god intended (i.e. not Lego or - shudder - Legos). The equivalent of Rule #89 for awesome toy names.