July totals are a bit down, just 211.59km in total last month, but there are a couple of reasons honestly!

Firstly July was firmly the first month of the year when the off road days in the saddle overtook the thin tyre adventures. Now days on the MTB vs on the road are always lower in mileage so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! If we break that 211.59km total down 57.14km was off road spread over 5 separate rides, there was only one excursion on the road bike of 81.01km and the remaining 73.44km where clocked up on Zwift as the British Summer reverted to its usual wet and windy trope.

I’ve covered the main reason for the sudden surge in fat tyre action in my last post so I won’t re-hash that particular subject here, but I am planning to write a bit of a fleet update post when I get some time to bring the very out of date page on the website that covers the bikes more into line with how things stand now in the garage.

What I did do last month when the weather turned monsoon like was jump on Zwift, and this time with a specific goal in mind. I live in a pretty flat bit of the UK, they don’t call it the plains of Cheshire for nothing. Yes there are climbs but nothing really substantial in vertical ascent in my immediate riding area and this is a bit of a problem at the moment. ‘Why’s that?’ I hear practically nobody ask…… well in a moment of weakness I’ve agreed to go on the first overseas riding excursion I’ve ever been on at the start of October with a couple of folks from work who also like to don Lycra on their days off. It’s not a long trip, just a weekend in the Spanish riding hotspot of Mallorca. Unfortunately for me both my riding compatriots have been there before and are very keen for me to appreciate all the riding joys the area has to offer, but particularly the climbs like the infamous Sa Calobra with its 26 hairpin bends and 12% in places gradient.

Clearly I need to start practicing grinding up some serious climbs, and that’s where Zwift comes in. So I set my Zwift settings to 100% realism to fully appreciate the pain and ground my way up the Zwift versions of Alp d’Huez, Col du Tourmalet and Mon Ventoux, all told almost 4000 meters of vertical pain. With the trainer difficulty set to 100% rather than my more usual 50% setting I very quickly ran out of virtual gears on each ride, the Col du Tourmalet ride with its short 20% plus sections was particularly gruesome and the post ride cramps in my quads the next day coming downstairs for breakfast brought tears to my eyes. I’ve got the next 2 months to prepare as best I can for my little Spanish sojourn, so I think practising some extended climbing on Zwift is going to be an important part of my training over the next few weeks – lets see what August brings!