11 days in,149 to go.

A bit scary that it is only 149 days until June 10, 2016. There is a lot of things to be done prior to then.

I am feeling really good about the cycling at the moment, having achieved a few of the things that have been worrying me. I have strung together a number of longer rides on consecutive days as well as having gotten out there for a reasonably fast 120km ride with the good Audax guys. COB Monday I was up above 530km for the year including 300km in the previous four days. There was riding on all four of those four days and even though some of the rides were a bit shorter, the climbing has been intense on all of those days.

I am feeling much stronger on the bike and happy that I am making some progress with that. Big ride planned for the final weekend in January, with either a mixed terrain 200km with a huge amount of climbing in remote parts of the state or a road 400km ride. Not certain which one yet but will do one or the other. I prefer to do the 200 as a much better training ride for the Tour Divide but not keen to head out there on my own without proper navigation and limited mobile coverage.

The commuting has been good and starting to realise just how good the hills I climb every single day are for gaining strength. Pretty happy with that. I am certainly learning to descend a bit better as well. It is all about cornering properly and getting the right line. I am never going to be a great descender.

Rest day today and legs feel good. I am hoping to feel good on the bike again tomorrow. It is going to be hot here tomorrow with strong winds and probably one of those days that I would normally avoided the commute on as winds coming over the saddle and down the highway can get a bit scary but keeping up the miles is pretty important at this stage.

I have done no route recon or research. That will niggle in the back of my mind until I do something. The bits I still need to sort for the bicycle are also going to nag away at me until I do something. I need a GPS unit. Very disappointed to have blown up two etrex Units. I am hoping it is as simple me having flicked an incorrect switch on the regulator unit so I can fix it easy. That would be a bummer as well as it means I have blown a stack of money on GPS units that I am ruining through my own stupidity. I need to check this out before investing again.

My Spot tracker is registered I should figure out how to use that functionality properly, then I would probably feel better about riding out into the hills on my own.

The more cycling I do, the more I am really attracted to investing every last penny I have in a good set of carbon rims with a 1x setup. Absolute light weight wheels. A guy riding on my Bruny ride on Sunday had that on a brand new 27.5 and really talked it up. I know the Rohloff is a big part of the weight and inefficiency on my bike. I can't take inefficiencies with me this time. The question is how I come up with the cash? I could even go really old school and use batteries for everything and ditch the SON generator up front.

Enjoying it, that is important. Need a lot more riding. Rest will happen when it is important.