Sunday's ride- short, slow, but significant (Kevin's first semi-real ride) : Almost-Daily Diary : http://www.chainreactionblogs.com/diary

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Sunday's ride- short, slow, but significant (Kevin's first semi-real ride)

It's been a very long time since Kevin's (younger Kevin, not ex-pilot) been on a Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, much less a longer Sunday ride. His recovery from his knee procedure, where they painfully injected platelets into his problematic right knee, has been far longer than anticipated. I don't even remember how many months ago the procedure was; recovery was supposed to be just 6 weeks and I'm guessing it's more than twice that, so far.

The problem is that, even exclusively riding an ebike to try and limit strain to that knee, well, he just doesn't know his own strength. After weeks and weeks without improvement, I finally convinced him, maybe two weeks ago, to install his power-measuring pedals from his regular road bike to his ebike, so he could monitor what he was doing and make sure to limit his own applied power. He resisted, but finally did it, and... yeah, he discovered he was pushing way too hard at times, even though he was on an ebike. He'd frequently get short bursts up towards 400 watts, and that's just too much. I suggested limited power to a max of just 150, and... it's been working! Fewer complaints of knee pain on his rides to and from work (about 9 miles each way; he lives in Foster City and the bike shop's in Redwood City).

So this past Sunday was his first ride with me in quite some time. We didn't dare overdo things, so it was pretty mild, about 40 miles, a non-enhanced (no extra climbs) loop down to Los Altos, stopping at Peet's for coffee, and then back via Foothill and Sand Hil.

It's admittedly a bit odd, riding my regular bike while Kevin's on his ebike, and, setting the pace, I have to cut it back quite a bit so he keeps within his power range. At the end of the day it provided an interesting data point; my average power was 150 watts (about 25 watts below normal for this sort of ride); his was exactly 100. The important thing was that Kevin's knee felt fine after. A major victory, especially with France just three months away.

Post date: 2025-04-14 22:54:04
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Post modified date: 2025-04-14 22:54:04
Post modified date GMT: 2025-04-15 05:54:04