Falling into place

Things are falling into place. I'm hurriedly preparing for Cycle Oregon which is in 3 weeks. I ship my bike out next Friday, so that needs to be in order and my legs need to mostly be in order in...1 week. lol.

So 3 weeks ago I bought a new saddle and have been trying to get used to it. My first 60 mile ride on it didn't go great. It was bearable, but at the end I felt like I had bruises on my bones. Then two days later I rode and still had major bruises. Today I felt much better and mostly forgot about saddle pain which is awesome! That means I didn't have any pain. Albeit I was climbing at times so I probably only spent about 70% of the 2 hr ride in my saddle, but I'll take that. Saddle, check.

New cassette! Kevin and all his preparedness convinced me to get a new cassette. So I bought a SRAM PG-1070 11-28. Compared to my 12-26 it felt really good, especially on these hills. Luckily my shifting and chain seemed OK with the new cassette. I didn't have time to make adjustments to the derailleurs but it felt just fine. I'll check chain length later. Cassette, shifting at 90%.

I still need to play with my seat height and cleat position. My right knee was hurting, so I moved the cleat back a few millimeters and that helped a lot. No pain now, but my knee doesn't always click back into the kneecap. I'm thinking that my seat a smidge too high or too low. Seat height, cleats, at 70% complete.
Shoulders are alright but towards the end of my 25 miler today I was starting to feel pain in the middle of shoulders. I had to consciously lift myself up and that helped, so I'm not sure if that was due to poor form or being too crunched on my bike. Stretch, reach, 50%.

I think one more good long ride and a few more short ones will definitely help me get my adjustments close to good enough. I was contemplating bike fit, but I think I'll be alright without it. The hills here have made me stronger and mentally ready for what lies ahead.

Strava. I finally joined Strava. After about 2 years riding without a computer I think I was ready to see how I have been doing. Mostly I wanted to understand how certain hills feel and compare them to the grade. This way I will also be mentally prepared for the climbs on Cycle Oregon. Note: 4% grades are fine. 6% is slow but doable. 8% not fun and slower. >10% sucks balls.

Now the question remains, how will I train after my bike gets shipped off? I'll have a whole two weeks without my baby. So two plans. Plan A: Finish building that beater bike and use that for training. Plan B: Lots of Yoga. I'm gonna try for plan A but really it might not happen cause this bike is bare bones. The plus to doing lots of yoga means that I will be more prepared for yoga teacher training which starts the weekend after my ride. But really I would like to have my beater bike up and running so I can use that to get to yoga class which is gonna be 4 miles away.

I love bikes.