First outside ride of the year!!!!

Oh yeah! Last week we have snow, sleet and rain. Today, it's 72F outside. Winds at 5mph. Welcome to Chicagoland. That's it. Time to get outside at last since I've been stuck on the trainer since Spirit of Racine (July '05).

Anyone who trains indoors constantly wonders what will happen when you finally get outside. My training this winter/spring has been very low volume and consistently inconsistent. But, I did manage to get in a few 4-6 weeks blocks of decent quality.

So, how does that translate to the road? Well, today's goal - just ride around and make sure that all the equipment works (race wheels, shifting, etc....) - was met with flying colors. It was a short ride full of hills and sprints and lots of coasting. The results? I moved my Mean Max Normalized Curve!!! The solid yellow line represents my new MMNP curve. The dashed line is my old indoor one.

The surprising part is that this wasn't a gut wrenching, all out ride. In fact, this was almost an easy ride. Well, we'll see what the rest of the season has in store.