Schwinn

September 2024 saw the end of the holiday theme starting with a few days in Prague and ending with a weird week in Corralejo. Weird? Well the last time we were there it was as residents moving back to the UK full time and this time we were back as bloody tourists staying once more at Bahiazul.

The complex contains the ‘main’ Bahiazul operated villas but also others we’ve used before: Villas Veaco and KATIS Villas. The upside of booking with Bahiazul is two-fold:

  • Breakfast in their restaurant is included so that sets you up nicely for the day; and
  • You have access to the gym which is relatively good, though not as good as our Pain Cave.

As far as I was concerned, I could simply run or walk but my knees and post-crash issues make that uncomfortable to say the least, plus I wanted to ride a bike anyway.  This meant hiring a mountain bike from Easy Riders which was a painless experience and recommended.  As I knew I’d be heading out on the roads past the dunes, I needed to wear a bike helmet and didn’t fancy hiring one, so I bought an alpinestars Vector Pro Atom helmet and some needlessly flash Galibier Campionissimo Luxury gloves. Both were excellent.

The hire bike – a Trek Marlin 7 – had two issues for me:

  1. The gearing was great for climbs and no doubt spot-on for off-road riding, but on the road I was unable to pedal quicker than 31km/h due to the low gearing (104rpm cadence).  My fault for choosing an MTB but the road surfaces can be a tad iffy out there.
  2. The seat post kept descending due to my weight and the bumps, so I was needing to stop to heave it back up again because I didn’t have the necessary Allen key.

Lesson learned and next time I may hire a road bike or choose one with a larger front sprocket.

Anyway, here are September’s stats:

September 2024 Stats

September 2024 Stats

Activities: 41 Distance: 406.47 km Time: 31:12:40 Calories:  20,118

Turning to my weight, at the end of August I weighed 85.4kg and at the end of August I weighed 87.1kg, which is up 1.7kg.  Too many good breakfasts and restaurant dinners!

Yes, I know that sounds a wee bit melodramatic, but this is a very challenging 100 mile/163 kilometre ride with six highly categorised climbs.

FulGaz say:

“The Death Ride, also known as the Tour of the California Alps, is the toughest ride on FulGaz. It covers 163 kilometres and 3992 metres of ascent, with six epic climbs over Monitor Pass, Ebbetts Pass, and Carson Pass.

“You’ll experience breathtaking views, thrilling descents, and steep gradients that will push you to your limits. This is not a ride for the faint-hearted. You’ll need to complete as much of the full ride as you can in one single go, with no pausing or saving for later. The clock doesn’t stop, just like in real life. But don’t worry, you can take as many breaks as you need for food, water, or rest. Just keep FulGaz running and enjoy the ride.”

“Enjoy”? What sort of maniacs are they?

So the Challenge was taking place during February 2024.  That coincided with the second half of the FulGaz Grand Tour  (I had finished 12th out of 160 participants) and then a long weekend in Tenerife and La Gomera riding motorbikes with the Bike Shed and Canary Ride.

Which only really left last weekend. The plan was to ride it on the Saturday but some family coming up and iffy weather forecasts meant a leisurely 8.5km walk around Virginia Water instead. But Sunday was free…

I decided to eat some breakfast and then wander out to the Pain Cave. Our WiFi was acting up despite all the repeaters dotted around the house – probably due to the weather and the vast number of devices all trying to connect at the same time – so I ended up having to play music from my iPad rather than the Apple TV and HomePods in there.  That was the same iPad I was running the FulGaz app on, so it was plugged in to the Schwinn to ensure it didn’t suddenly die on me.

A quick Torq Energy Gel – without artificial sweeteners, but more expensive than my usual Science in Sports ones – which was to be the first of many, a few minutes warming up on the Schwinn trying to get my Garmin fēnix 7S and the the 800IC linked up to the iPad/FulGaz, and then I was away.

Fuelling with the gels every 20 minutes and getting through a couple of litres of water and a few espressos and I eventually finished in time for an early dinner with the departing visitors. I’d done it in 6 hours, 31 minutes and 40 seconds, even quicker than the original actual ride time and an hour ahead of my target time:

 

One thought that kept coming to the fore during the ride was that unlike doing it in real life, you can’t coast down the descents because if you stop pedalling the ride stops too!

At the time of writing, I’m currently 5th of all the finishers and the fastest in the 60-69 year old category.  And I have some significant chafing despite my Giro “Baboon Pants”

So now the only question is “what’s next?”

September started out in Dubai for a week and a bit in a five star, all-inclusive resort which thankfully had a gym but was using Technogym kit and software, sadly.  Once we were home, it was back in the pain cave on the Schwinn and the Bowflex treadmill before I headed off for a day trip to Raleigh, North Carolina.  Yes, what should have been a little over week there in a hearing turned out to be arrive, work, workout, get told about potential settlement, rush to the airport, redeye back to London!

Once back in the pain cave – and I’m really not sure if the iOS/watchOS software updates had anything to do with it – FulGaz started started having issues connecting to the Schwinn which was very frustrating.  It even happened again this morning, until I physically turned off the Bowflex treadmill which seems to somehow steal focus even though it’s not connected to the Schwinn (obviously).

Oh and I have finally upgraded by old Apple Watch Series 4 to a shiny new Apple Watch Ultra 2 which I’m keen to get properly set up and  calibrated properly: that JRNY treadmill run had the treadmill showing one distance, the fēnix showing a slightly shorter distance, and the Ultra 2 showing a significantly longer distance.  I will have to compare an outdoor walk next week when we’re back in Corralejo.

Mrs RHM has also upgraded to an Apple Watch Series 9.

Here are the results which are down from August’s:

September 2023 Stats

September 2023 Stats

Activities: 36 Distance: 370.63 kmTime: 17:49:39 Calories: 16,260

Turning to my weight, at the end of August I was 84.1kg, and at the end of September I weighed 84.3kg, up 0.2kg, but then there was Dubai and Raleigh…

August started out in Fuerteventura for a few days before we headed back to the UK.  It ended with us flying out to Dubai for a week and a bit in a five star, all-inclusive resort which thankfully had a gym but was using Technogym kit and software, sadly.

Here are the results which are up from July’s:

August 2023 Statistics

August 2023 Statistics

Activities: 39 Distance: 476.41 kmTime: 22:39:33 Calories: 20,176

Turning to my weight, at the end of July I was 83.9kg, and at the end of August I weighed 84.1kg, up 0.2kg, but then there was Dubai…

I forgot to do much more than mention that I was getting a Schwinn 800IC/IC8 as I started out last summer using a cheapo Amazon special exercise bike along with Apple Fitness+.

I looked at what Apple recommended/were using for their Fitness+ workouts and they were Schwinn bikes.  In the UK they’re supplied by – amongst others, I’m sure – Fitness Superstore and they had an offer on the Schwinn 800IC (formerly the IC8): already listed at half list price, they had an additional 10% off for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I pressed the button on one for delivery in early September 2022.

With the Schwinn’s arrival came physiotherapy, pain consultations and then experiments with Apple Fitness+, the first year’s free subscription to Bowflex’s JRNY app, and a trial of FulGaz.  The latter two are different from Fitness+ in that Apple are offering different duration classes only whereas the other two offer virtual rides using video of the actual routes.

In FulGaz’s case, they are adaptive workouts: speeding up or slowing down the videos to suit your pace/power which the app reads from the Schwinn.  They’re also linked to my Garmin fēnix 7S for my heart rate.

The other benefit of using FulGaz is that after each ride, it emails you a FIT file which you can import into Garmin Connect giving you the full details of the ride.  JRNY does not do this, sadly, but you can manually add further detail to Garmin Connect if you record a ride on JRNY and your Garmin fēnix 7S.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Schwinn, which has now done 2,800km…  I simply use an old iPad Air 2 to run FulGaz of JRNY and then after a workout, plug it back into the Schwinn’s USB port to charge it again.

Schwinn 800IC

Schwinn 800IC

Schwinn 800IC with a Tablet

Well February started out with us being out in Corralejo doing road riding. In the second week, we flew back to the UK and after a day’s break due to work commitments it was back into the pain cave and onto the Schwinn for more challenges on FulGaz until the last weeks of February when we had to pack everything up for our impending move down to Surrey.

Normal service was only resumed in mid-March, just before another trip back out to Fuerteventura.

February 2023 Stats

Activities: 26 Distance: 432.90 km Time: 18:52:47 Calories: 16,061

As for weight, it’s down 2.4kg from 87.5kg to 85.1kg at the end of February.

Well most of December 2022 was spent on the Schwinn doing FulGaz challenges but we flew out to Fuerteventura at oh-dark-hundred hours yesterday and today I finished off the year with a real-life 15km road ride on the MTB. So here’s December’s stats showing the 650km overall distance:

December 2022 Stats

December 2022 Stats

That means that 2022’s stats overall are:

Activities: 306; Distance: 2,960.23 km; Time: 194:39:42; Calories: 122,924.

As for my weight, well it’s too late to measure like for like today because I’ve had coffee, freshly-squeezed orange juice and croissants out in the garden this morning, but yesterday’s weight was 88.3kg.  That’s down by 9.6kg (21.2lbs or 1½ stone) from New Year’s Day 2022 when my weight was 97.9kg. That’ll do, pig!

Well thanks to that utter shitshow that is Brexit, we had to fly back to the UK mid-November so as not to outstay our welcome in the EU.

This meant that there was a switch from the longer real-world rides I was doing on a relatively heavy mountain bike back to indoor cycling on the Schwinn, so it was back to using FulGaz again.  I’ve mentioned I decided – very rashly – to do their “LEJOG Challenge“, so the mileage (and time in our gym) has risen a tad…

This month’s total therefore is up to 554.59km.

My weight at the start of the month was 91kg and at the end it had surpassed my first goal and stood at 88.9kg.  This is down from 98.2kg as recently as mid-August (1 stone 4lbs weight loss).

If you’ve been checking in on this blog with my monthly workout stats and/or following my latest individual workout activities over here, then you’ll know that while I’m in the UK, I tend to just use our Schwinn 800IC static bike and I’m pretty much settling for FulGaz as my preferred workout program, given its “adaptive” video rides.

I’ve received an update from FulGaz today about the “LEJOG Challenge“: Land’s End to John O’Groats over 500km and 20 stages, most being over an hour and some like Hardknott Pass being a little bit ‘bumpy’ too…

Still, what could possibly go wrong?