Slow tempo

May 29th, 2023

Why so slow? Why can’t you step on it? Don’t you care about speed and tempo and pace and per-hour average?

I was annoyed and was sure I was right so to feel this way. There was a group of bicyclists riding along the bike path outside of my work and they were taking their sweet time riding slowly and deliberately and looking around and talking with each other. They didn’t bother me, or anybody else — and yet I didn’t like it. They were on good (i.e. expensive) bikes and in seemingly good shape and they were just coasting at a slow pace as I watched them for a minute or so.

That was so much unlike me on a bike…

With me — it is all about the speed and pace. Keeping the average speed for each trip at a particular level, and once that level is steady — working on getting to a better number — either shaving a minute of time of my trip in comprising to previous trips on that route or getting a kilometer per hour better on an average trip for that distance. Recording all my trips and analyzing the data afterward — split times per 5/10 kilometers, averages for pace and cadence, and heartbeat. And then — looking for ways to improve it all with each trip.

That might be a wrong approach from me, and it only just dawned on me that even though I have fun getting better week after week, month after month — I will miss observing things along the way if I keep it up…