Summary of 2019 Season: Incidents and Accidents

I think that the title "Incidents and Accidents" best summaries my 2019 racing season.

2019 was to be my last year in the M40 category. That means I'm the oldest one and so I'm supposed to also be the slowest. I actually didn't think much about that and was still aiming for podium finishes.

During the winter training, while doing intervals on my Monark indoor bike, I was hitting higher watts than ever before. At 49 I was stronger than ever before. I was really looking forward to the racing season.

But then things happened...:

• Andalucia Bike Race: Concussion on stage 2. Kicked in the head by mountain goat on stage 4
• Billingeracet: 20cm long nail straight through the tire
• Beskidy Trophy: Overheating defective brakes
• Swedish XCM Champs: Crashed into by other cyclist causing bad fall
• Merida Marathon: Three punctures

There were also good racing results:

• Even with malfunctioning brakes I managed a podium finish on the first stage of Beskidy Trophy.
• No podium results in the Swedish Marathon Cup (Långloppscupen) but in a couple of the races (Långa Lugnet and Bockstensturen) I had my best results ever since I started participating in that cup almost 10 years ago.
• Third place in the Danish race Outdoor Sydfyn
• Victory in the Thai race Chiang Mai Epic

Other than racing results... I managed to bicycle a lot again in 2019. All of my bicycle commuting obviously plays a big part here. 40 km, every work day, year round adds up.

Now I'm looking forward to the 2020 season... Which kicks off with Andalucia Bike Race in just three weeks!

Isstjerneløbet - First Race of the Year

Bike: Trek Top Fuel 9.9 (2019) Continental Race King 2.2" BlackChili ProTection @ 1.5 bar

Result: 4th place overall (officially, but in actual fact 5th)

Continental Race King

I've been racing on Schwalbe tires for many years now. On different combinations of Rocket Ron (no longer manufactured), Racing Ralph, Racing Ray and Thunder Burt. Last year my main racing tire was Schwalbe Racing Ray. I think I've never had as many punctures during races in any year as last year. So this year I'm giving Continental a chance. Specifically Continental Race King 2.2" BlackChili ProTection. I've purchased 4 of these tires, put them on the scales, and they all weigh in at between 590 and 610 grams. My main purpose it getting better puncture protection. However looking at the tire it looks quite easy-rolling which suits my purposes

Today's race was the first time I used the tires during competition.

Fun Race usually done in the Snow

In the "old days" (beginning of the '10s) I partook Isstjerneløbet every winter. Then the Danish Vega Winter Cup decided to put one of their races on the same day and I chose to race that instead. The last time I entered into Isstjerneløbet was back in 2016. Back then, when we still had real winters, the race was often in the snow. This time there was no snow and 6 degrees C.

I have done well in this race before. The trails suit me as they are fast and have plenty of road sections. The race has a surprising amount of climbs as well.

Good Average Watts but Poor Peak Power

I've been doing a lot of loooong intervals over the winter. Same thing with my training camp in Chiang Mai; Looong climbs. My FTP is doing very nicely, which I can't say for my sprinting. But this is all according to plan so no worries.

This showed itself very clearly in today's race. I got behind in the start as people sprinted away but made my way up gradually. There was a group of us, 6 riders in all, that pretty much together throughout the race. On a few of the shorter climbs, when one or two of the guys in the group sprinted hard, I got left behind. But I managed to get back in the group again by grinding away on the easy road sections. It's quite a funny and weird feeling actually knowing that even though you have poor peak power you're confident in catching any group as long as there's a long enough straight.

As we came up to the sprint there were still four of us and with my poor sprinting skills I finished last in that group. Still, very happy with the results.

What about the Race King tires? Well, no punctures... so that's good. Grip was..., well, normal I guess.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3024727173/overview

Chiang Mai Winter Training Camp 2019/2020

Summary

Days biking:                     16

Climbing days (up the mountain): 6

Distance covered:                1188 km (74 km per day)

Total ascent:                    13524 m (845 m per day)

Time biked (movement time):      63 hours (almost 4 hours per day)

Sick days:                       1

Strava KOMs:                     8

Races:                           1

Crashes:                         0

Arrival

My pal Johnny Hård was kind enough to pick me up at the airport really early. We he headed home to his place in Chiang Mai where I assembled my Trek Top Fuel.

The next day we were racing together, as a team, in the Chiangmai MTB Epic 2019. It's a three stage race with all the stages in one today. Basically the first stage is a road stage, the second stage single track, and the third stage is a hill climb.

We then went out and tested the race course and I made sure my bike was still working after being transported by plane.

Chiang Mai MTB Epic

We won the race!! Race story here

Benchmarking

I have a "Benchmark hill" outside of Chiang Mai that I ride each year. It's a 8.6km long climb with 893 meters of vertical ascent.

Strava link to segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/11422742?filter=overall

I beat my personal best up Benchmark hill from two years ago and set a really quick time. Last year I was unable to come close to that time. This year however... I set a new personal record!

300W average power for the 55 minutes that the climb took.

2019/2020: 55m14s
2018/2019: 57m14s
2017/2018: 55m16s

2016/2017: 1:01:18

Top of Benchmark Hill

I have a cold!

Yeah, I caught a cold after a few days in Chiang Mai. It passed quicker than any cold that I've ever had though: I day off the bike and two low intensity bike ride days is all it took!

The most beautiful ride of the year - Stairway to Heaven

South west of Chiang Mai there's this loop in the mountains that's called Stairway to Heaven. I had never ridden it before but my friend Tim recommended it. The "loop" up in the mountains is 40km outside of Chiang Mai. I decided to ride there and back on my bike. It's not too bad, really. As always, listening to my audio book.

It was really worth it though. The trails are amazing. Wonderful singletrack, small mountain villages and technical downhill. And, also, escaping baby elephants :)

https://www.strava.com/activities/2969553177

All the Sala Cake I can eat

My favorite place in Chiang Mai, outside of the jungle, is Sala cafe. This is where I go for all my after ride cakes.

First place in Last Race of the Year - Chiang Mai MTB Epic 2019

Today was the Chiang Mai MTB Epic. A three stage race, all in one day.

Stage 1: Flat on roads
Stage 2: In the jungle
Stage 3: Hill climb

The setup was that you had to race in teams of two so I teamed up with Johnny Hård, a Swedish ex-pat. All the teams started time-trial style with 20 second intervals

Stage 1, being mostly on roads, is where we won the race. There's this Strava section on flat asphalt that I'm particularly happy with:

We ended up winning the race. Good stuff!

Here are the results. We are team B-02 (we actually were the fastest team, all categories)

Here's a video that Johnny shot of stage 1 (that's my ass you see)

Start of the race was early in the morning: 07:00 AM

Start/finish area of all the three stages

The race had the max number of allowed teams entered

Stage 2: Te

Last climb of stage 3

At the top of stage 3

At the end of stage 3

From left to right: Johnny, Miko, Jonathan and I

My Trek Top Fuel 9.9 performed excellently, as always

Winter Training 2019/2020

The first part of part of this Winter's training period is coming to an end.

I started out by eating a lot and enjoying chocolate and life in general and managed to reach a maximum weight of 78.9kg on the 11th of November

My big weakness is my homemade granola:

And chocolate:

Then I took charge of my eating habits and by December 18th I was down to 74.2

October was my "resting" month... With not all that much recovery actually. I really like to train :)

I didn't have any real cold but one there was one week I was feeling a bit under the weather and so that week passed without any high intensive training. I also skipped the race I was supposed to do that weekend.

By November I was hitting my exercise bike seriously. The bulk of my training consisted of intervals on my Monark exercise bike mixed with races in the weekends.

My training sessions from October 1st and to present date (December 19th):

Sessions  Type        Normal Power    Best Power
12        9 x 9 min   310W - 325W     332W
4         12 x 9 min  310W - 320W     324W

1         3 x 20 min  330W            330W

2         4 x 8 min   350W            362W

7 (+1)    Race

9 x 9 min is my staple session and my favorite. It gives me a very good Training Stress Score while still letting me recover quickly. I actually, for the first time, managed to do back-to-back sessions with only 48 hours of rest in between.  I only aborted two attempts at 9 x 9 (just doing 6 repetitions instead of 9)

Doing 12 repetitions of 9 min interval is a new one for me and this Autumn was the first time I tried it. It's really tough and you had better be well rested before you do it.

I'll do more of these shorter intervals the next half of winter training season (compared to 9x9)

With the very restricted type of LONG intervals that I do it's absolutely vital that I get out and do a more varied form of high intensity training, which is what the races give me. Without the races I'd be doing more shorter intervals.

So what happens now? I'm going to Chiang Mai to do my yearly training camp in the mountains there. I think that this will be my sixth year in a row that I make this trip with my mountain bike. I'm really looking forward to it!

This is what the weather is like there right now: